Supreme Court to hear Chicago gun cases

The Supreme Court announced this morning it will hear a challenge to Chicago’s gun restrictions that will determine if local handgun bans are legal.

Last year, the high court ruled the 2nd Amendment gave individuals the right to possess firearms and struck down Washington, D.C.’s gun bans.

Left open was the question of whether states and local governments are required to do the same.

By agreeing to take up the case McDonald vs. City of Chicago, the high court potentially could set in motion a nationwide re-establishment of the right to bear arms. This case challenge several Chicago gun laws, including the city’s ban on handguns.

In the high courts decision in June of last year, it ruled 5-4 for the first time that the 2nd Amendment establishes the right to own a handgun for personal self-defense, not only as part of a state militia.

The over arching issue is did in fact the Civil War Amendments(the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendment), bind the Bill of Rights onto the States Constitutions. One thing that was to be insured, freed slaves could own guns.

Each of these amendments became the basis of future Supreme Court cases, the 14th has generated more cases that reached the court than all the rest of the amendments.

UPDATE Fox News has more here:

The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.

The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.

The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.

MSNBC Crops Out The Truth

MAn with gun, near Obama rally. RAcist with gun near Obama. Which screams more of a threat? To MSNBC, and NBC more-so, the whole cheer leading for the Obaam pile of you know what, is laughable.

But here it went to new heights of the state run media just outright lying in order to scream ‘RACISM’. Follow me, I will show you what happened –

Here is the gun, and the man, in question at the Arizona Obama rally. Well actually he was outside, and yes it’s perfectly legal in Arizona to ‘open carry’ firearms.

See anything about the picture? Yes, it’s not a white guy, it’s obviously a black guy, with the gun slung over his shoulder and one on his hip. The guy is obviously ‘dressed’ for a reason. That reason would be to illustrate the 2nd Amendment is alive and well.

One thing that is not so easy to spot, the gun, and AR-15 or a clone thereof, is probably semi-automatic, because these are the only rifles of this sort that are generally available to the citizen of the USA. OK, so full auto is legal, but the cost and availability is so high as to be ‘not available’.

But — MSNBC, not content to simply say, “Golly, gee, guns are scary!” decided that there must be something racist going on. After showing close-cropped video footage of a protester with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, MSNBC host Contessa Brewer went on to say:

“Yes, there are Second Amendment rights, for sure, but also there are questions of whether this has a racial overtone. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency, and you have white people showing up with guns strapped to their waist.”

The only problem with MSNBC’s narrative of simmering racial tension and extremism is that the man with the rifle was, in fact, black.

For NBC and MSNBC, this photo sure wouldn’t fit the ‘racism’ line of their report, now would it? So what to do to make the facts of the story fit their desired narrative? Simple, just crop out the black guy, leave the gun, like this:

Problem solved right? Not so fast, listen to the report, ‘white people showing up with guns’. The report was dripping with NBC’s racism, but the facts weren’t. NBC outright lied about the clear facts.

Then, the only problem is the anger isn’t about Obama, it’s about his policies. No one wants government run health care for dummies that the Obama administration is offering, so it must be racism right?

Maybe we should bring out the President’s racist pastor Rev Wright to preach racism to the public. And maybe Obama can explain why he sat in the obviously racist church for over 20 years, listening to this clap trap racist preacher? How did that beer summit go, Mr President? I doubt if anyone was fooled, your racism was shining bright with your friend Gates and the concocted story about the incident, wasn’t it. Ashamed of it, or ashamed of getting nailed for it.

And yes, even the secret service was not bothered by the ‘racist white guy with a gun’, they saw it for what it was — Standing up for your gun rights.

Florida: Stand Your Ground

In Florida the News is buzzing with ‘changes’ to Florida’s stand your ground law. There are no changes, just an Appellate Court ruling which clarifies a point. Can an attacked citizen fire on a ‘retreating attacker’? An Appellate court said yes. The state run media says this ‘expands’ the law, when in fact it clarifies the law.

An appellate court says Florida’s “stand-your-ground” law allows the use of deadly force for self-protection even if an attacker or intruder is in retreat. “The statute makes no exception from immunity when the victim is in retreat,” the panel wrote in an unsigned, unanimous opinion.

Basically the court found that armed citizens have no way of knowing if a step back by the attacker is a good thing, or just preparing with better footing for another attack, or find cover for a better shot.  It really is hard to know, when you are under a life and death attack what is going through the attackers mind, isn’t it.

A three-judge panel of the Florida First District Court of Appeal issued that explanation for its release last month of a man who had spent two years in jail awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge. The man, Jimmy Hair, 28, was charged with fatally shooting Charles Harper, 26. Mr. Harper had forced his way into a car in which Mr. Hair was a passenger and then fought with him.

The unanimous opinion may conflict with a 2nd District Court of Appeal decision in 2007. It denied “stand-your-ground” immunity to a Valrico resident because he shot a man who had retreated from his garage after an argument.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill McCollum said no decision had yet been made on seeking a rehearing or appealing to the Florida Supreme Court.

Most firearms trainers will tell you, you have to decide as circumstances warrant. The law is a guide, not the absolute. Regardless, the requirement that it be self defense still stands, and in most cases, you will be forced to prove that in court.

Stimulus Bill Finally Kicks In

Glock 2009 sales rise 36% over 2008:

With the 2009 fiscal year in the books, handgun manufacturer GLOCK, Inc. has announced a 36% increase in pistol sales over 2008 sales. Coming off of five consecutive years of sustained growth, the company that focuses exclusively on semi-automatic handguns for Commercial, Law Enforcement and Federal/Military sales is preparing for another strong year in FY 2010.

At least some industries are doing well.

Freedom, Liberty

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”… — Declaration of Independence

A college student shooting that will never make the national media.

It was lucky just to get this local coverage, because the good guy shot and won. Two armed invaders crash a party. Their conversation suggests the plan was to kill everyone after robbing them, but a student draws, drives one off and mortally wounds the other, who was preparing to rape a female student.

That really doesn’t fit the desired liberal narrative….

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. You have a God given RIGHT to self defense, and no government can deprive you of that.

Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals: States Must Respect Individual Right To Keep And Bear Arms

Ruling just came down … Last year in the landmark DC vs. Heller decision the Supreme Court ruled that the 2nd amendment represents an individual enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Meaning that each and every citizen in the United States has that right and cannot be denied it.

But still at question was whether or not a given sovereign state could infringe upon that right. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appears to have settled that matter, ruling that the 2nd amendment is incorporated in the 14th amendment thus requiring the states to respect it as an individual right.

Here is a link to the decision.