Amendment 14th + 2nd Amendment = ....

[9mm]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

A`bridge´
v. t. 1. To make shorter; to shorten in duration; to lessen; to diminish; to curtail; as, to abridge labor; to abridge power or rights.

http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/abridge


Well ? what do we have here. Couldn't we start law suits against states like NY and other states who pass retarded gun laws?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I think that is the plan and such suits are in the works. It remains to be seen if they will come to fruition in a manner positive to the RBKA. Some think this will be a slam dunk under the magnificent work of Scalia. Some are not so sanguine.

[press1280]

This has already been decided in McDonald. The question is how the court interprets the 2A.

[Tom Servo]

9mm, you just jumped down a deep legal and historical rabbit hole

Modern interpretation breaks that section of the 14A into two parts:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States

This is called the "privileges or immunities" clause.

nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This is called the "due process" clause.

Now, the original intent of the 14A was to extend the protections of the Bill of Rights to everyone. You'd have the same rights in New Jersey that you do in Utah. Simple, right?

Nope. We had a bit of a war over the matter. The Union won, and the Confederacy lost. The secessionist states had to agree to ratify the 13th-15th Amendments to gain readmittance to the union. Lots of folks were resentful.

One of the tenets of the 14A directly conflicted with the Supreme Court's decision in Scott v. Sandford, and they were none too pleased. Several of those Justices were still on the bench during Reconstruction, and they set to gutting the 14A whenever possible.

The 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases decision is worth reading on the matter. The privileges or immunities clause was pretty much rendered moot, a pattern that continued through the Cruikshank decision.

The Cruikshank was a response to a bloody injustice, and the Court's decision was an equally repellent injustice. But it stuck. It wouldn't be until the late 1930's that Hugo Black started pushing the idea of incorporation. He argued that the privileges or immunities clause did just what it said, but the rest of the Court refused (and still refuses) to acknowledge that.

(This was one of Gura's pivotal arguments in McDonald, and I'm very disappointed that Scalia dismissed it so quickly in the orals.)

Having failed on the PorI front, the Court would later decide that the due process clause did allow for "incorporating" certain rights against the states. 1st Amendment rights were the first to be granted protection, and others would follow in the next couple of decades.

The problem with incorporation, however, is that it is a patchwork approach to a problem that already has a clear solution in sight. If we accept the PorI clause as written, the Bill of Rights is applied to the states. Easy, right?

With incorporation, we have to wait until someone's suitably aggrieved (and they have the money, clout, luck and time to get the matter before the court) on a specific right. Then there's a chance that right, and only that right, gets incorporated. That's what we got in McDonald. I felt it was half a win, but it was still a win when we sorely needed one.

[Kochman]

Due Process would mean they'd have to at least give money in NY or wherever for outlawing LCMs, right?
Anything that are outrighting banning regardless of "grandfather clause"?

[gc70]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

One of the tenets of the 14A directly conflicted with the Supreme Court's decision in Scott v. Sandford, and they were none too pleased. Several of those Justices were still on the bench during Reconstruction, and they set to gutting the 14A whenever possible.

The 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases decision is worth reading on the matter. The privileges or immunities clause was pretty much rendered moot, a pattern that continued through the Cruikshank decision.

The characterization of the Supreme Court in the Slaughterhouse Cases and Cruikshank may be a bit harsh; none of the Justices had participated in Scott v. Sandford.

The Supreme Court in the Slaughterhouse Cases consisted of 1 Buchanan appointee (Clifford), 5 Lincoln appointees (Swayne, Miller, Davis, Field and Chase) and 3 Grant appointees (Strong, Bradley and Hunt).

The Supreme Court in Cruikshank consisted of 1 Buchanan appointee, 4 Lincoln appointees and 4 Grant appointees (Chase having been replaced by Waite).

-----

PS: Tom, I thought as you did until I looked it up; what a surprise.

[Tom Servo]

Tom, I thought as you did until I looked it up; what a surprise.

Huh. I knew we'd gone from Taney to Chase, but I didn't know the composition of the Court itself had changed that much.

[gc70]

It astonished me that Lincoln appointed 5 Supreme Court Justices between 1862 and 1864.

[JimDandy]

You do realize a bunch of them resigned all at once, right?

Edit: I guess technically only one SUPREME court justice resigned. Along with a number of judges.

[csmsss]

It astonished me that Lincoln appointed 5 Supreme Court Justices between 1862 and 1864.

Imagine the carnage if that were to happen with the current regime. Just one more and we're in a world of hurt.