State Lawmaker Wants Concealed Carry Laws Suspended During State Of Emergency

I hear you but you need to be patient. The prohibition on denying the right to vote because of race didn’t happen until 1870 and Women did not get the right to vote until 1920.
Second Amendment jurisprudence really began with DC v. Heller in 2007 establishing a fundamental right to bear arms at the federal level and was extended to the states in McDonald v. Chicago in 2009. Both cases established the right to possess firearms in your home for self defense. These cases overturned the prior holding in the 1873 Slaughter House cases that said 2A was not incorporated in to the 14th Amendment.

I’d invite everyone to read at least the first 6 pages of McDonald v Chicago to get an idea how application of the Bill of Rights to the states has progressed.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1521.pdf

1 Like

Thank you. I have read a large part of the decision in the case… but I thank you for the document.

I do find a problem with those who we entrust with the robes of justice.

  • Four years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, this Court held in the SlaughterHouse Cases, that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects only those rights “which owe their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws,” *

Considering the court found the Fourteenth Amendment protected rights that were guaranteed by the Constitution, that would include the Second Amendment, yet they still found a means to circumvent that for a period of time. Unless they were attempting to say pre-existing inalienable rights such as the right to keep and bear arms was not included because it did exist prior to our nation, which would still be an extreme agonizing stretch to excuse states from being held accountable to our guaranteed rights.

I recall what Judge Bork said about a Harvard law professor…, though I do not remember the exact reference, I think it was The Tempting of America, or Slouching Towards Gomorrah.
“A well-known Harvard law professor,” Mr. Bork wrote, “turned to me with some exasperation and said, ‘Your notion that the Constitution is in some sense law must rest upon an obscure philosophic principle with which I am unfamiliar.’”

When the professors who teach law to students, and those students become lawyers, from whose ranks we select Judges, teach that the Constitution is not law, or should not be considered in their judicial rulings, we may have more difficulty ahead.

You might find it of interest or you might not.

The Decline of the American Republic - John Flynn.

1 Like

I don’t think judges or attorneys in the US believe that the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land. I cannot speak for law school professors.
In Heller, the court looked to due process, not the privileges or immunities clause, and whether a right is a “fundamental right” which would require it to be incorporated into the 14th and made applicable to the states.
Heller and McDonald both held narrowly that the right to bear arms applied to the possession of firearms in the home. It could be said that the right to possess in your home would meet the requirement to allow a civilian militia to protect itself from a tyrannical government.
But, the decisions went further to include possession of firearms for self defense. Of course self defense could mean in the home or outside. That is the question that still has to be answered.

Understand that I believe 2A is all encompassing, but I want to put out differing views of what the “right to bear arms” means in constitutional terms. Until the Supreme Court says what it means, it is up in the air.