The Chicago Gun Case - Petitioners Filing
Earlier this week, Alan Gura and associates filed the Petitioners “On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Seventh Circuit.” I downloaded the Petitioners .pdf document yesterday and started looking through it for a little light reading.
The document contains a ‘Summary of Argument‘ which I have summarized even further here. Disclaimer: this summary in no way intends to profess anything other than a citizen’s interpretation of the contents of the summary.
Section 1 states that the Court has never directly addressed the question of the Fourteenth Amendment’s incorporation of the Second Amendment. It claims confusion is the result of inaction and the Court now has the opportunity to set straight the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment in the context of gun owners civil rights.
Section 2 speaks to the Fourteenth Amendment’s ‘Privileges or Immunities‘ clause which forbids the States from abridging civil rights including, unambiguously, the right to keep and bear arms.
Section 3 brings up The SlaughterHouse Cases of 1873. SlaughterHouse transformed the Framers’ broad protection of individual liberty, commonly understood, into a clause securing only the most obscure rights.
Section 4 speaks about The Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that no person be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Accordingly, most of the rights secured in the first eight amendments have been deemed incorporated as against the States.
The States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment during reconstruction. The amendment sought to restore civil rights that some of the states had stripped away from blacks and abolitionists after the Civil War, including the right to keep and bear arms.
Now is the time for SCOTUS to restore those civil rights to the citizens of Chicago and, indeed, to all Americans.
Also, here’s another chance to weigh in on Sonia Sotomayor:
Kini said,
November 22, 2009 @ 22:18:20 PST
I would rather have her resign from the SCOTUS
Damsel said,
November 23, 2009 @ 12:25:32 PST
Ramen!