Second Amendment: Ninth Circuit to Hear Gun Case
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed this week to review en banc (by the full court) a panel ruling from earlier this year which held that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. The idea of such incorporation has long been a question regarding the Second Amendment, though no one would seriously question that the First Amendment, for example, applies to state and local governments. And the First Amendment contains the far more specific provision of “Congress shall make no law…” (emphasis added). The Second is far broader: “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.” Still, we were rather surprised to see even a panel of the Ninth Circuit find that the Second Amendment means what it says.
Furthermore, Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain’s ruling in favor of gun rights is at odds with rulings by other Courts of Appeal — including a ruling penned by Sonia Sotomayor on the Second Circuit. The U.S. Supreme Court deliberately left the issue for another day in its Heller ruling last year, because the District of Columbia is not a state. Expect that silence to be broken in the not-too-distant future.
Tags: Gun Control, News, Politics, Second Amendment, Sotomayor
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 