As outlined in Petitioners’ brief, the Second Amendment is a limit on the national government alone and does not constrain the District of Columbia’s legislative authority. See Br. of Petitioners at 35-40. For analogous reasons, the Second Amendment does not serve as a limit on the States and their political subdivisions. Although the Court need not address this issue in this case—which does not involve a challenge to a law passed by a State or one of its political subdivisions—it is well established that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States.
Legal Community Against Violence
January 11, 2008
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND MAYOR ADRIAN M. FENTY,
Petitioners,
v.
DICK ANTHONY HELLER,
Respondent.
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE MAJOR AMERICAN CITIES, THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS, AND LEGAL COMMUNITY AGAINST VIOLENCE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS
[Sometimes you have to just shake your head in disbelief. D.C. is under the control of the Federal Government! Congress can override any law or act of the D.C. politicians. How did these guys get through high school let alone law school without discovering that the District of Columbia is not a state or one of its political subdivisions? Maybe they are living in the alternate reality where D.C. of those 57 states that Obama said he has visited.
What is for certain is that anti-gun people have very little concern for facts. As near as I can determine they are lying, live in an alternate reality and/or are suffering from Peterson Syndrome.—Joe]
Alger’s hobbyhorse time again.
And — sorry — but the guys is just flat-out wrong. First: The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. Says so, right there on the side of the box.
Second: limits on Congress’s power (Congress: sole legislative body in the Federal Government — yaknow?) are delimited by the phrase “Congress shall make no law…” (Sound familiar?)
Third: The Second Amendment does NOT observe the protocol of the “Congress shall make no law…” but…
Fourth: does contain the legally-specific term “shall,” which is an absolute and imperative — as has been “well established” in law. Read properly, the Second Amendment not only enjoins the Federal Government from infringing on the R2KBA, it also so enjoins state and local governments — AND PRIVATE ACTORS.
In sum, this turkey couldn’t BE more wrong.
And: precedent be damned. Precedent cannot trump the actual text of the Constitution. That’s the way these things work.
M
Just wondering, as former resident of DeeCee. It seemed that those who made up the city’s governance were ALWAYS comparing themselves to a State Government, and is it possible that somewhere along the line, they actually got a court of proper jurisdiction, but improper legal perspective, to agree with them?
I was in high school in those halcyon days of the Fifties and early Sixties, and in Civics classes, we examined the governance of the city, then referred to as “a sleepy little Southern city”. It seemed that a Congressional sub-committee actually had all the LEGAL authority to make law, and those who claimed to be the city’s rulers were actually just political hacks appointed to their positions by the Committee, serving at the pleasure of the Committee, and supposedly referring ALL their “rules” to the Committee for inspection.
So, it bears historical AND legal examination to see if the DC gun laws, promulgated under this specific system as they were, ever had the proper oversight of Congress. I’d bet that they didn’t, but were just swept into the books along with a flood tide of other rules. It would be interesting to go back in the books and see who ran Congress and the Sub-Committee at that point, and what their observations, if any, might have been on the gun laws. If a case can be made, historically, that proper Congressional oversight was never given to these laws, then I would think a strong case could be made for nullifying them.