9th Circuit incorporates 2nd amendment

[Jerk]

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/04/20/0715763.pdf


We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear
arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”
Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators
and lawmakers living during the first one hundred
years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature
of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium
of liberty.” Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their
independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a
recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later.
The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our
birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental,
that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception
of ordered liberty that we have inherited.17 We are
therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and
applies it against the states and local governments.Wait...9th circus did this? WTF?

[Frozen Sooner]

Heh. Well, on the one hand, yeah. On the other, the 9th is the circuit most likely to hold to a broad reading of the 14th, so it makes sense.

[Okla-homey]

"Gun control" is more about "control" than "guns." Therefore, folks who favor minimizing government's control over our personal lives should be generally in favor of gun rights.

[Half a Hundred]

Heh. Well, on the one hand, yeah. On the other, the 9th is the circuit most likely to hold to a broad reading of the 14th, so it makes sense.

"Liberal" and "conservative" in the courts can read very different than they do in the general populace, with the Fourteenth being the key sticking point between the two viewpoints. That being said, even this is not a hard rule, as Scalia and Thomas ruling with the majority on Arizona v. Gant just showed (textualism beating out a general disdain for the Fourteenth and its implicatons).

Hate on lawyers and judges all you want, but at least they take an appropriately complicated view of how society should be run.