The AirPiano is an innovative musical interface which allows playing and controlling software instruments simply by moving hands in the air.
Above the AirPiano is a virtual matrix of keys and faders, each assigned with MIDI messages and ready to be triggered. The length of a triggered note is equivalent to the time a hand is placed on the corresponding virtual key. This is also confirmed by LED feedback.
WASHINGTON — It was not last year’s spectacularly divided Supreme Court. The term that ended Thursday lacked last term’s gory display of 5-to-4 decisions, with only 11 cases out of 67 decided this time by one-vote margins.Read the rest here.
Neither was it the Roberts court, at least not yet. Although Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was in the majority in 90 percent of the decisions, more than any other member of the court, the more liberal justices won their share of the high-profile cases. The rulings granting the Guantánamo detainees access to federal court and rejecting capital punishment for those who rape children were issued over the dissent of the chief justice.
Nor was it a court in repose in the third year under Chief Justice Roberts. There was, in fact, less unanimity: just under 30 percent of the cases were decided without dissent, compared with just over 40 percent in the term before, and just over half in 2005-6. Over all, the court decided the fewest cases since the 1953-54 term.
In the case for which history may ultimately remember the term — the decision interpreting the Second Amendment to protect the right to own a gun for private use — the court’s conservative bloc won a stunning, if narrow, victory. As in the Guantánamo decision, the crucial vote in the Second Amendment case was cast by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
So if the Roberts court in its third term — one that left a complicated and, to some extent, blurred imprint — were to be summed up in a sound bite, it would be this: It was, once again, Justice Kennedy’s court.
The New York City law which most obviously violates the right to arms is the complete ban on air guns. The venerable Daisy Red Ryder BB gun is contraband. Heller and the Supreme Court's previous major Second Amendment precedent, United States v. Miller (1939) forbid the prohibition of arms "typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes."Read the article here.
Air guns are ubiquitous almost everywhere except New York City, and are used almost exclusively for law-abiding purposes. Pursuant to Heller, regulation of air guns might be fine, but prohibition of all air guns is not.
...
New York City bans magazines (ammunition clips) which hold more than 17 rounds. Whether the ban is consistent with Heller is debatable. Clearly inconsistent is the ban on any magazine which protrudes below the grip of the gun. The most common handgun in the United States is the Colt 1911 pistol, and the variants made by many other companies. The pistol's magazine holds 7 rounds. Some after-market magazine companies make slightly larger ones, which hold 8 or 9 rounds. These magazines extend a half-inch or less below the grip.
...
Regarding gun carrying, Heller might, arguably, mean that New York City would have to follow a similar policy to Connecticut (and 39 other states): issue permits to carry a concealed handgun for lawful defense if the applicant is over 21, and passes a fingerprint-based background check and a safety class.
At the least, Heller indicates that gun carry licensing may not be "enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner." This is a problem for New York State's carry licensing law, as Suzanne Novak detailed in a 1998 article in the Fordham Urban Law Journal. New York state law sets essentially no standards to guide local officials in deciding whether to issue carry permits.
The problem is acute in New York City. Celebrities, the ultra-wealthy, and the politically influential get carry permits. But many of the people who need them the most — such as stalking victims, or crime witnesses who have been threatened by the criminal's friends — often do not. Even if New York City is not required to go as far as Connecticut, the City does need much less favoritism and much more objectivity in its administration of carry permits.
In the years since Morton Grove passed the first handgun ban in the nation in 1981, Evanston, Oak Park, Winnetka and Wilmette also outlawed handguns. Because of the high court's ruling that Washington, D.C., cannot ban people from owning guns, all five suburban bans could now be declared unconstitutional.
Though Chicago officials Thursday vowed to fight any challenges to its 1982 handgun ban, suburban officials said it was too soon to say whether the ruling applied to them. Some felt that overturning their bans wouldn't be a big deal. Still others were outraged, such as Oak Park Village President David Pope, who said the ruling would threaten safety in his near west suburb, which banned gun ownership in 1984.
"The ruling puts [Justice Antonin] Scalia and the four other conservative justices squarely on the side of the gang-bangers who terrorize far too many of urban American neighborhoods today," he said.
WILMETTE, Ill. -- Wilmette has suspended enforcement of its 19-year-old ordinance banning handgun possession in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that appears to invalidate such bans.
In a 5-4 decision, the court struck down Washington, D.C.'s ban on handguns, a prohibition similar to those used in several major cities, including Chicago, and a handful of suburbs including Wilmette, Evanston, Winnetka and Oak Park.
"The Law Department and the Police Department have suspended enforcement of the ordinance pending further review by the Village Board," Wilmette village attorney Tim Frenzer said Thursday. "Based on the decision today, at a minimum it calls into serious question the continued viability of the ordinance."
Frenzer said questions remain about how directly the court's decision will impact local gun laws in Wilmette and other parts of the country. Washington is not a state, and each state has its own legal language governing the right to bear arms.
"That aside, the opinion will require further review and discussion by the Village Board, but it's prudent at this point to suspend enforcement of it," Frenzer said.
The village of Morton Grove, Ill., just north of Chicago, has one of the oldest handgun bans in the nation on its books. It's also the target of one of the five lawsuits filed by the National Rifle Association.
Village Manager Joe Wade says Morton Grove isn't going to wait for a court battle. It's going to act.
"The village of Morton Grove has every intention to comply with [the Supreme Court ruling]," Wade says. "We're going to propose an ordinance that would eliminate the possession-of-handgun ban within the village."
Both Morton Grove and Wilmette were among the cities sued on Friday by the NRA. Their decisions are sensible. While the issue of Second Amendment incorporation is still unresolved, Richard Daley's government in Chicago can spend its own funds to fight the issue all the way to the Supreme Court. If Daley wins, the suburbs can re-institute their bans. If Daley loses (an outcome that seems more likely than not if the Supreme Court takes the case), then Wilmette and Morton Grove have saved themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorneys fees, since they would have to pay their own lawyers, and have to pay the plaintiffs' lawyers for bringing a successful civil rights claim.
Morton Grove was the site of perhaps the worst legal defeat for the Second Amendment in American history. The lawsuit against the ban lost 2-1 in the Seventh Circuit, and then 4-3 in the Illinois Supreme Court (notwithstanding specific legislative history from the 1966 Illinois constitutional convention that the right to arms provision would prevent handgun bans). The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in the federal case. Attorneys Stephen Halbrook and Don Kates were closely involved in the Morton Grove litigation.
“We don’t happen to believe that it’s good public policy in public housing sites where guns and violence is the highest in our city and, for that matter, respectively, in cities across America, to say ‘Hey, come on in; let’s everybody get guns,’ ” said Mr. Newsom, a Democrat.
In an interesting turn in a city known for its embrace of gay rights, the chief plaintiff in the suit against the city is a gay man living in a public housing development, owned by the federal government, who wants to have a gun to protect himself from potential hate crimes.
...
“The Supreme Court has now said unequivocally that this is an individual right of the American people, and that if it’s an individual right, people have to have access to it,” [the NRA's] Mr. LaPierre said. “It can’t be walled off by the political class. It would be the equivalent of saying you can have a right to free speech, but you can’t have a right to free speech in public housing.”
...
A city of about 725,000, San Francisco has 12,000 residents living in public housing, all of whom are required to sign a lease that forbids a broad variety of weapons, including pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, automatic rifles, BB guns, as well as nunchucks, brass knuckles and stun guns. This blanket ban was begun in 2006, and the penalty for violation of the lease is eviction.
In the case filed on Friday, an anonymous gay man said that stipulation had deprived him of “any effective means of self-defense.”
"We are currently going over statutes at the local, state and federal level," NRA chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox said. "I am certain there will be challenges to all sorts of statutes as we move forward."
California, considered to have the most restrictive gun laws in the country, is a particularly attractive target for lawsuits by the gun lobby. Cox said the NRA was considering action against another San Francisco law that requires gun owners to store their guns in locked containers or use trigger locks.
Other California laws that gun rights groups plan to scrutinize include the state's ban on assault weapons, the permitting process for carrying a concealed weapon in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and restrictions in Los Angeles on gun retailers, Michel said.
Some lawsuits were prepared in advance of the Supreme Court ruling. "The decision today was not entirely unanticipated," he said.
He said gun advocates hope the lawsuits will lead to a broader ruling that the right to have a firearm at home for self-defense is not limited to places falling under federal jurisdiction, such as Washington, D.C. The high court did not decide that question, because the law affected only the District of Columbia.
Gun control supporters said they would vigorously fight the challenges.
...
As the NRA prepared to sue San Francisco, its leaders also were looking closely at a law in New York City that restricts the carrying of guns outside the home, Cox said.
"The only people who have permits to keep a firearm for self-defense outside the home are the mayor's rich buddies from Wall Street, his celebrity friends and his political cronies," Cox said.
He said the litigation would show that the right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment "is a right as sacred and special as the 1st Amendment, the 4th Amendment and any other amendment."
HOUSTON -- Scott Dawson, a civil engineering graduate from the University of Houston, decided after three years of driving around Houston without air conditioning in his car was long enough. So instead of spending $1,200 to fix the air conditioning on a car he planned on getting rid of soon, he bolted a home window A/C unit to the roof and wired it to the car.Hey, I didn't say it was a sleek, aerodynamic solution, did I? :)
Repeal the 2nd AmendmentRead the rest of the editorial here. Interestingly, the majority of the (seemingly hundreds) of comments appear to support the individual-rights view affirmed by the high Court. At least, that's my sense of the ones I read.
No, we don’t suppose that’s going to happen any time soon. But it should.
The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is evidence that, while the founding fathers were brilliant men, they could have used an editor.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
If the founders had limited themselves to the final 14 words, the amendment would have been an unambiguous declaration of the right to possess firearms. But they didn’t and it isn’t. The amendment was intended to protect the authority of the states to organize militias. The inartful wording has left the amendment open to public debate for more than 200 years. But in its last major decision on gun rights, in 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that that was the correct interpretation.
On Tuesday, five members of the court edited the 2nd Amendment. In essence, they said: Scratch the preamble, only 14 words count. (Click here to read the full decision)
In doing so, they have curtailed the power of the legislatures and the city councils to protect their citizens.
ABC News' Teddy Davis and Alexa Ainsworth Report: With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.'s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.Allow me to translate for the non-politicians: "I was for the D.C. gun ban before I was against it. (But I'm really still for it -- it's a 'common sense law', after all -- only please don't tell the bitter rubes. Because that would be truly 'inartful'.)"
"That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.
The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007.
In a story entitled, "Court to Hear Gun Case," the Chicago Tribune's James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins wrote ". . . the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he '...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.'" [emphasis added]
Scientists have developed a technique for retrieving fingerprints from bullet casings and bomb fragments after they have been fired or detonated. The new method, which relies on subtle corrosion of metal surfaces is already being applied for the first time anywhere in the world by two British police forces.
The patterns of corrosion remain even after the surface has been cleaned, heated to 600C or even painted over. This means that traces of fingerprints stay on the metal long after the residue from a person's finger has gone.Of course, all the bad guys would have to do to thwart this technique would be to use gloves before ever handling the cartridges from a new box of ammo and loading it into the magazine. For every technique, there is a counter.
"All other conventional techniques that the police anywhere in the world would use require some kind of either physical or chemical interaction with the fingerprint residue. So for example if you are using powder the powder sticks to the tackiness in the sweat," said Dr John Bond of the University of Leicester and the Scientific Support Unit of Northamptonshire Police. Instead, the technique he has developed relies on permanent physical changes to the metal.
...
To visualise the patterns, Bond's technique involves passing 2500 volts through the metal and sprinkling a fine conducting powder on it. While the electric field is applied, the powder sticks to the corroded areas.
"If the corrosion's there, it will stay there unless you abrasively clean the metal. The only way to get rid of it is to actually take the surface layer of the metal off," he said. "Some metals corrode very well and some not at all. One metal that works very well is brass and gun cartridge cases happen to be made of brass."
In a newly filed lawsuit in federal court in Chicago, two gun rights organizations and four individuals asked that the Second Amendment be extended to block strict gun laws at the state and local level. “The Second Amendment right,” the complaint contended, “is incorporated as against the states and their political subdivisions pursuant to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The case, McDonald, et al., v. City of Chicago, et al. (District docket 08-3645), was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago to challenge a city ordinance that bars registration of handguns with only a few exceptions, and that limits registration of other guns. The case was assigned to Senior District Judge Milton I. Shadur.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Armed neighbors are now patrolling the Central Avenue business district in response to a shooting and three armed robberies at nearby businesses.I suspect the patrol would be a lot smaller if the patrol members didn't have the right to be armed for self-protection.
Overall, neighbors and police say the area is safe.
The Neighborhood Watch Alliance, started by Scott Yamanashi, includes nightly patrols from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Yamanashi says there are up to 20 members who wish to remain anonymous. Nearly all, he says, have conceal and carry permits and take their handguns with them during their patrols.
...
"If I take the law into my own hands then that would be vigilantism. But, under the Second Amendment I have the right to basically patrol my neighborhood and carry a firearm for my own protection," he said.
Yamanashi does not have a conceal-carry permit. He says even for members who do, their first action will be calling 911 if they see a problem.
Two gun clubs on city property - including one in the rafters of Union Station - will get the boot under Mayor David Miller's new rules aimed at curbing the number of handguns in the city, approved yesterday by city council.So Mayor Miller is anti-gun, and wants to ban all handguns. From his bio on the mayor's official website, we learn that he emigrated in 1967 from England. Maybe he's just homesick for his native England's anti-gun policies?
After a near daylong debate, council voted 31-9 for a policy that prevents new gun clubs and manufacturers from setting up in the city.
The two affected gun clubs - the Scarborough Rifle Club at the Don Montgomery Community Recreation Centre, and the CNRA Gun Club at Union Station - will be given the opportunity to relocate elsewhere on private property.
...
Mr. Miller, who has initiated a national campaign to persuade the federal government to completely ban handguns, said yesterday's decision was common sense, especially given the obvious security concerns at Union Station.
"You couldn't pick a worse place to have people wandering around with guns," Mr. Miller told reporters after the vote. "It's completely unacceptable from a public safety perspective."
He predicted that other gun clubs on private property in the city would eventually "wither away" as they close and new ones cannot be opened.
West Virginians with concealed weapons permits can now legally carry a hidden handgun in about 20 states.The West Virginia attorney general's website has information on the states that honor a West Virginia carry permit (search for "reciprocity"). The WV AG's website is www.wvago.gov
Last year, the Legislature gave the state attorney general's office the task of working out concealed weapons agreements with other states. Prior to the legislative action, only two other states - Virginia and Kentucky - recognized concealed weapons permits from West Virginia.
"My directive is to reach agreements with as many states as possible," said Tom Smith, managing deputy attorney general in charge of the push.
Smith said West Virginia has now made reciprocity agreements for concealed weapons with 14 states, meaning West Virginians with valid permits can carry hidden guns in those states and residents of those states with concealed weapons permits can legally carry a hidden handgun in West Virginia. Six other states recognize or appear to recognize West Virginia concealed weapons permits.
Prof. Ilya Somin provides a cautionary tale from the experience of the property rights movement here.Happy reading!
Prof. Jim Lindgren thinks Justice Breyer's dissent is "self-refuting" here.
Prof. Dale Carpenter's take ("we're all originalists now") here.
We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans. Slip op. at 7.
The amici also dismiss examples such as “ ‘bear arms . . . for the purpose of killing game’ ” because those uses are “expressly qualified.” Linguists’ Brief 24. (JUSTICE STEVENS uses the same excuse for dismissing the state constitutional provisions analogous to the Second Amendment that identify private-use purposes for which the individual right can be asserted. See post, at 12.) That analysis is faulty. A purposive qualifying phrase that contradicts the word or phrase it modifies is unknown this side of the looking glass (except, apparently, in some courses on Linguistics). If “bear arms” means, as we think, simply the carrying of arms, a modifier can limit the purpose of the carriage (“for the purpose of self defense” or “to make war against the King”). But if “bear arms” means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, the carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add “for the purpose of killing game.” The right “to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game” is worthy of the mad hatter. Thus, these purposive qualifying phrases positively establish that “to bear arms” is
not limited to military use. Slip op at 15-16. [footnotes omitted]
Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed . . . .” Slip op. at 19 [footnotes omitted]
This holding is not only consistent with, but positively suggests, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms (though only arms that “have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”). Had the Court believed that the Second Amendment protects only those serving in the militia, it would have been odd to examine the character of the weapon rather than simply note that the two crooks were not militiamen. JUSTICE STEVENS can say again and again that Miller did “not turn on the difference between muskets and sawed-off shotguns, it turned, rather, on the basic difference between the military and nonmilitary use and possession of guns,” post, at 42–43, but the words of the opinion prove otherwise. The most JUSTICE STEVENS can plausibly claim for Miller is that it declined to decide the nature of the Second Amendment right, despite the Solicitor General’s argument (made in the alternative) that the right was collective, see Brief for United States, O. T. 1938, No. 696, pp. 4–5. Miller stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons. Slip op. at 50
Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding. Slip op. at 8.
We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Read in isolation, Miller’s phrase “part of ordinary military equipment” could mean that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Act’s restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. We think that Miller’s “ordinary military equipment” language must be read in tandem with what comes after: “[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes like self-defense. “In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same.” State v. Kessler, 289 Ore. 359, 368, 614 P. 2d 94, 98 (1980) (citing G. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution 6–15, 252–254 (1973)). Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment’s operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right, see Part III, infra. Slip op. at 52-53. [footnotes omitted]
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.” See 4 Blackstone 148–149 (1769); 3 B. Wilson, Works of the Honourable James Wilson 79 (1804); J. Dunlap, The New-York Justice 8 (1815); C. Humphreys, A Compendium of the Common Law in Force in Kentucky 482 (1822); 1 W. Russell, A Treatise on Crimes and Indictable Misdemeanors 271–272 (1831); H. Stephen, Summary of the Criminal Law 48 (1840); E. Lewis, An Abridgment of the Criminal Law of the United States 64 (1847); F. Wharton, A Treatise on the Criminal Law of the United States 726 (1852). See also State v. Langford, 10 N. C. 381, 383–384 (1824); O’Neill v. State, 16 Ala. 65, 67 (1849); English v. State, 35 Tex. 473, 476 (1871); State v. Lanier, 71 N. C. 288, 289 (1874).
It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right. Slip op. at 54-56.
It is no answer to say, as petitioners do, that it is permissible to ban the possession of handguns so long as the possession of other firearms (i.e., long guns) is allowed. It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon. There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: It is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upperbody strength to lift and aim a long gun; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police. Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.
We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. ... Slip op. at 57-58.
... Before this Court petitioners [D.C.] have stated that “if the handgun ban is struck down and respondent registers a handgun, he could obtain a license, assuming he is not otherwise disqualified,” by which they apparently mean if he is not a felon and is not insane. Brief for Petitioners 58. Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not “have a problem with . . . licensing” and that the District’s law is permissible so long as it is “not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 74–75. We therefore assume that petitioners’ issuance of a license will satisfy respondent’s prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.
... Nothing about those fire-safety laws undermines our analysis; they do not remotely burden the right of self defense as much as an absolute ban on handguns. Nor, correspondingly, does our analysis suggest the invalidity of laws regulating the storage of firearms to prevent accidents. Slip op. at 59-60.
JUSTICE BREYER moves on to make a broad jurisprudential point: He criticizes us for declining to establish a level of scrutiny for evaluating Second Amendment restrictions. He proposes, explicitly at least, none of the traditionally expressed levels (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, rational basis), but rather a judge-empowering “interestbalancing inquiry” that “asks whether the statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other important governmental interests.” Post, at 10. After an exhaustive discussion of the arguments for and against gun control, JUSTICE BREYER arrives at his interestbalanced answer: because handgun violence is a problem, because the law is limited to an urban area, and because there were somewhat similar restrictions in the founding period (a false proposition that we have already discussed), the interest-balancing inquiry results in the constitutionality of the handgun ban. QED.The Court's holding:
We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding “interest-balancing” approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad. We would not apply an “interest-balancing” approach to the prohibition of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie. See National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43 (1977) (per curiam). The First Amendment contains the freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified, which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely unpopular and wrong-headed views. The Second Amendment is no different. Like the First, it is the very product of an interest-balancing by the people—which JUSTICE BREYER would now conduct for them anew. And whatever else it leaves to future evaluation, it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home. Slip op. at 62-63.
In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.* * *We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 54–55, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.
We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm
in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.
Our determination that there is a consensus against the death penalty for child rape raises the question whether the Court’s own institutional position and its holding will have the effect of blocking further or later consensus in favor of the penalty from developing. The Court, it will be argued, by the act of addressing the constitutionality of the death penalty, intrudes upon the consensus-making process. By imposing a negative restraint, the argument runs, the Court makes it more difficult for consensus to change or emerge. The Court, according to the criticism, itself becomes enmeshed in the process, part judge and part the maker of that which it judges.It seems to me to be that, at the end of the day, those in the majority simply substituted their own preferences for that of elected state legislators. Determining whether or not justice is "better served by terminating the life of the perpetrator rather than confining him and preserving the possibility that he and the system will find ways to allow him to understand the enormity of his offense[]" is quintessentially a function of elected legislatures, not the judiciary. Indeed, determining what is an appropriate and proportionate punishment for a crime is typically one of a legislature's specifically enumerated functions.
These concerns overlook the meaning and full substance of the established proposition that the Eighth Amendment is defined by “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Trop, 356 U. S., at 101 (plurality opinion). Confirmed by repeated, consistent rulings of this Court, this principle requires that use of the death penalty be restrained. The rule of evolving standards of decency with specific marks on the way to full progress and mature judgment means that resort to the penalty must be reserved for the worst of crimes and limited in its instances of application. In most cases justice is not better served by terminating the life of the perpetrator rather than confining him and preserving the possibility that he and the system will find ways to allow him to understand the enormity of his offense. [emphasis added] Difficulties in administering the penalty to ensure against its arbitrary and capricious application require adherence to a rule reserving its use, at this stage of evolving standards and in cases of crimes against individuals, for crimes that take the life of the victim. Kennedy, J., Slip Op. at 36.
The Court today holds that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of raping a child. This is so, according to the Court, no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be. The Court provides two reasons for this sweeping conclusion: First, the Court claims to have identified “a national consensus” that the death penalty is never acceptable for the rape of a child; second, the Court concludes, based on its “independent judgment,” that imposing the death penalty for child rape is inconsistent with “ ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’ ” Ante, at 8, 15, 16 (citation omitted). Because neither of these justifications is sound, I respectfully dissent.So, as Justice Alito observes, dicta in the Court's own precedent in Coker, a 1977 case outlawing the death penalty for the crime of rape of an adult woman, has likely discouraged state legislatures from passing death penalty legislation for the exact crime at issue here (child rape). The majority then uses the fact that only six states have the death penalty for rape of a child as evidence of a "national consensus" against such punishment, even though that low number is likely due, at least in part, to the Court's own prior rulings.
I turn first to the Court’s claim that there is “a national consensus” that it is never acceptable to impose the death penalty for the rape of a child. The Eighth Amendment’s requirements, the Court writes, are “determined not by the standards that prevailed” when the Amendment was adopted but “by the norms that ‘currently prevail.’ ” Ante, at 8 (quoting Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, 311 (2002)). In assessing current norms, the Court relies primarily on the fact that only 6 of the 50 States now have statutes that permit the death penalty for this offense. But this statistic is a highly unreliable indicator of the views of state lawmakers and their constituents. As I will explain, dicta in this Court’s decision in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977), has stunted legislative consideration of the question whether the death penalty for the targeted offense of raping a young child is consistent with prevailing standards of decency. The Coker dicta gave state legislators and others good reason to fear that any law permitting the imposition of the death penalty for this crime would meet precisely the fate that has now befallen the Louisiana statute that is currently before us, and this threat strongly discouraged state legislators — regardless of their own values and those of their constituents — from supporting the enactment of such legislation. As the Court correctly concludes, the holding in Coker was that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for the rape of an “ ‘adult woman,’ ” and thus Coker does not control our decision here. See ante, at 17. But the reasoning of the Justices in the majority had broader implications.
...
For the past three decades, these interpretations have posed a very high hurdle for state legislatures considering the passage of new laws permitting the death penalty for the rape of a child. The enactment and implementation of any new state death penalty statute—and particularly a new type of statute such as one that specifically targets the rape of young children—imposes many costs. There is the burden of drafting an innovative law that must take into account this Court’s exceedingly complex Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. Securing passage of controversial
legislation may interfere in a variety of ways with the enactment of other bills on the legislative agenda. Once the statute is enacted, there is the burden of training
and coordinating the efforts of those who must implement the new law. Capital prosecutions are qualitatively more difficult than noncapital prosecutions and impose special emotional burdens on all involved. When a capital sentence is imposed under the new law, there is the burden of keeping the prisoner on death row and the lengthy and costly project of defending the constitutionality of the statute on appeal and in collateral proceedings. And if the law is eventually overturned, there is the burden of new proceedings on remand. Moreover, conscientious state lawmakers, whatever their personal views about the morality of imposing the death penalty for child rape, may defer to this Court’s dicta, either because they respect our
authority and expertise in interpreting the Constitution or merely because they do not relish the prospect of being held to have violated the Constitution and contravened prevailing “standards of decency.” Accordingly, the Coker dicta gave state legislators a strong incentive not to push for the enactment of new capital child-rape laws even though these legislators and their constituents may have
believed that the laws would be appropriate and desirable. Alito, J., dissenting, slip op. at 1-6.
A major theme of the Court’s opinion is that permitting the death penalty in child-rape cases is not in the best interests of the victims of these crimes and society at large. In this vein, the Court suggests that it is more painful for child-rape victims to testify when the prosecution is seeking the death penalty. Ante, at 32. The Court also argues that “a State that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim,” ante, at 35, and may discourage the reporting of child rape, ante, at 34–35. These policy arguments, whatever their merits, are simply not pertinent to the question whether the death penalty is “cruel and unusual” punishment. The Eighth Amendment protects the right of an accused. It does not authorize this Court to strike down federal or state criminal laws on the ground that they are not in the best interests of crime victims or the broader society. The Court’s policy arguments concern matters that legislators should—and presumably do—take into account in deciding whether to enact a capital child-rape statute, but these arguments are irrelevant to the question that is before us in this case. [emphasis added] Our cases have cautioned against using “ ‘the aegis of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause’ to cut off the normal democratic processes,” Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, 323 (2002) (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting), in turn quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 176 (1976), (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, JJ.), but the Court forgets that warning here.Whatever your position on the death penalty, it seems to me that the policy judgment of whether to impose it for a particular crime, or whether to abolish it altogether, is one that is best left to the democratic process and the elected branches, rather than the judiciary (in this case five unelected individuals). Constitutional provisions ought to be interpreted in light of their meaning, however broad or narrow, at the time of adoption, and not be subject to the policy whims of the judiciary. This is particularly true where the death penalty was historically an accepted punishment at the time the constitutional provision(s) relied upon to strike down the statute here was adopted. In matters of crime and punishment, the people, through their elected representatives and through public debate, ought to be able to decide.
...
In summary, the Court holds that the Eighth Amendment categorically rules out the death penalty in even the most extreme cases of child rape even though: (1) This
holding is not supported by the original meaning of the Eighth Amendment; (2) neither Coker nor any other prior precedent commands this result; (3) there are no reliable “objective indicia” of a “national consensus” in support of the Court’s position; (4) sustaining the constitutionality of the state law before us would not “extend” or “expand” the death penalty; (5) this Court has previously rejected the proposition that the Eighth Amendment is a one-way ratchet that prohibits legislatures from adopting new capital punishment statutes to meet new problems; (6) the worst child rapists exhibit the epitome of moral depravity; and (7) child rape inflicts grievous injury on victims and on society in general. Id. at 15-24.
She's a daddy's girl.Read the rest here.
But don't think this year's Miss Tennessee is a pushover.
Ellen Carrington, 21, who was crowned Miss Tennessee on Saturday night, has a concealed weapons permit.(photo: misstennessee.org)"I have a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber," Carrington told reporters on Sunday, "(with a) silver top and black body."
A Jackson native and senior at Union University, Carrington decided to get the permit because she was spending a lot of time traveling to and from Nashville at night. She said spending time at shooting ranges with her father, Pat, helped create an even deeper bond between the two.
Italian soldiers are facing the embarrassment of being beaten up daily by a 77-year-old Japanese grandmother.Ouch. Article here.
Martial arts expert Keiko Wakabayshi, nicknamed the "Samurai Granny", has been hired by the country's military to train recruits in hand-to-hand combat.
Miss Wakabayshi, who stands exactly 5ft tall, looks tiny compared to her charges who are mostly over 6ft.
But the pensioner is a trained master in an array of martial arts disciplines including jujitsu, jojitso, kenjitso, judo, kendo and karate.
She wipes the floor with soldiers of the Folgore brigade at their barracks in Livorno on a daily basis.
"The incident involving Shai Dromi raised awareness of the number of incidents of robberies that became life-threatening and of the distress of Israeli farmers who must deal with crime with almost no recourse," Gabai said after the legislation was approved. "The law attempts to restore deterrent capacity, to make the police's work easier and to reduce crime throughout the country."Look for someone to blame the NRA. :)
"Now, homeowners, ranchers and farmers will be certain that their home is their fortress," Aharonovich said.
But left-wing and Arab parties were less than enthusiastic. MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) described the bill as "a death penalty for property crime."
"Thieves and robbers should be punished, but we should not allow property owners to determine an immediate death sentence," said MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al), who mounted a fiery opposition to the bill from the Knesset speaker's podium.
Unlike earlier restrictions on criminal liability in cases of self-defense, under the new law a property owner does not have to face "a real danger to his own or another person's life, freedom, bodily welfare or property" to justify shooting. However, "the provision will not apply if the [property owner's] act was manifestly unreasonable under the circumstances in order to repel the intruder or enterer."
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Despite the Lone Star State's love affair with the gun, there's at least one firearms restriction that some Texans want lifted.While we can debate the tactical merits of open vs. concealed carry, open carry is a visible means of exercising your right to keep and bear arms, and as such makes a political statement. Basically, open carry is the more potent and useful version of wearing a "Don't Tread on Me" t-shirt. Hopefully, Texas gets its act together on this issue and removes the silly open carry prohibition.
Texas is just one of six states in which handguns can't be worn in plain view. The other 44 states, in the parlance of gun advocates, are known as "open-carry" states.
More than 3,500 people have signed an online petition asking Gov. Rick Perry and the Legislature to permit Texans to wear their handguns without concealing them.
Oops. I guess last week's seal wasn't the seal Obama knew. Change we can believe in. Yes we can.WASHINGTON -- The Obama campaign didn't see it coming-catching flak for creating a mock presidential, seal with the Obama "Yes we can" slogan in Latin last Friday. The campaign unveiled it at a meeting Obama had with Democratic governors in Chicago. On Monday, the Obama campaign announced that the seal was for one-time viewing only and was retired from duty. I know the use of the seal touched a political nerve and sparked a lively debate on my blog and over at other sites over whether it was proper, legal, arrogant, an example of Obama hubris, or presidential, whimsical and appropriate.
Thirty years after Florida passed their CCW law there are now almost four million citizens legally carrying handguns in 40 plus states.Read the rest of the article here.
My state of Indiana has allowed CCW for 70 years, and over 350,000 Hoosiers currently have CCW permits. Indiana has many urban areas such as Gary, as well as more rural areas. In some counties about 10 percent of residents own a carry license.
In my town almost 1 out of every 5 adults has a CCW. As a side note, it is exceptionally easy for a woman to obtain her CCW here. My wife has had hers for many years, and since she often works to midnight it is quite a aid to feeling safe at times.
...
We go about our business quietly and calmly, while occasionally defending ourselves against social predators.
Back a few years ago two escaped, very hardcore criminals from Mississippi were roaming loose around our county. They had already been in several running gun battles with the police and had vowed to not be taken alive.
Our then 13 year old was on an overnight trip to a church camp when the badguys were spotted fairly close by. A call went out to all the parents to come and pick the kids up just in case.
My wife and I holstered our legally carried handguns and went to pick her up. We stayed inside providing interior security with a few other also armed adults, and several fathers provided exterior security with long guns. We all stayed until all the kids were picked up.
When we got home our daughter hugged the me and the wife and told us that she was comforted (her word) by the knowledge that we both had our guns with us and could protect her if necessary. I cannot tell you how moving that was to my wife and I.
You see, the comfort is never in knowing that one can take a life with a gun, but the sure knowing that one can save a life with a gun. My life, my wife's, or maybe my daughter's. These are the people I am responsible for.
Posts
All Comments
