4/16/2013

Second Amendment Still a Mystery to SCOTUS
Staying out of a raging national debate over guns, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to weigh in on whether gun owners have a constitutional right to carry handguns outside the home.

The court decided not to hear a challenge to a New York state law that requires those who want to carry a concealed handgun to show they have a special reason before they can get a license. The gun owners challenging the law said that the right to bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not limited to the right to keep a handgun at home.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose office defended the law, described the court’s refusal to intervene as “a victory for families across New York who are rightly concerned about the scourge of gun violence that all too often plagues our communities.”

In recent years, the Supreme Court has expanded gun rights, first by finding in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to bear arms and then ruling two years later in McDonald v. City of Chicago, that the earlier ruling applied to the states.

The court’s decision not to hear the New York case does not mean it could not take up the same legal question at a later date. “There are a few more cases bubbling up,” said Adam Winkler, an expert on the Second Amendment at the UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles. “There is a possibility the Supreme Court will be confronted with this issue soon,” he added.

One potential case concerns an Illinois ban on concealed weapons. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in December that the law was unconstitutional.

Gun control is currently in the public eye following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, four months ago and President Barack Obama’s decision to push for legislation to curb gun violence. The Senate begins debate on Monday on gun control legislation that would expand background checks for gun buyers.

Alan Gura, the Alexandria, Virginia-based lawyer who represents the gun owners, could not be reached for comment.

The case, Kachalsky v. Cacace, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-845, is a small victory for common sense gun safety. The SAFE ACT  does not violate the Constitution.

Boo Hoo!
A manufacturer of military-style rifles says it is leaving Connecticut and is encouraging other companies to do the same after last week’s signing of sweeping gun legislation.

PTR Industries of Bristol said the bill approved by the General Assembly was “fraught with ambiguous definitions, insufficient considerations for the trade, conflicting mandates and disastrous consequences for the fundamental rights of the people of Connecticut.”

In a statement, the company said it hopes to pick a site by summer and move by the end of the year.

Gov. Dannel Malloy on Thursday signed what advocacy groups call the strongest and most comprehensive gun legislation in the nation

These people are nothing but a bunch of babies. They do not get their way, they pick up their toys and go home. Fifty people work at the plant.

When Will People Learn?
Evangelical pastor Rick Warren said that his son, who killed himself last week after a prolonged battle with mental illness, bought an unregistered gun over the Internet.

“Someone on the internet sold Matthew an unregistered gun,” Warren said Thursday on Twitter. “I pray he seeks God’s forgiveness. I forgive him.”

The youngest son of the popular pastor and author, 27-year-old Matthew Warren committed suicide last Friday. Warren’s Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., announced his death the next day.

“In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided,” Warren wrote in a letter to church members. “Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.”

The Orange County sheriff’s department has struggled to determine where the gun came from, The Associated Press reported. It is practically impossible to trace, sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said.

“We can’t tell if it’s registered or not because the serial number is scratched off,” Amormino said. “At one point in time, it may have been, but it’s going to be impossible to find out.”

Background checks are required on all gun purchases in California, and defacing or altering a gun’s serial number is a federal crime.The Orange County sheriff’s department was called to Matthew Warren’s home in Mission Viejo last Friday afternoon. They found him dead of an apparent suicide by gunshot, estimated to have been fired seven hours earlier.

The church called the pastor’s son “an incredibly kind, gentle and compassionate young man whose sweet spirit was encouragement and comfort to many” in a statement. “Unfortunately, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal thoughts.”

Rick Warren delivered an invocation at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, and is the bestselling author of “The Purpose Driven Life.” He has tweeted regularly about his son’s death.

Suicides accounted for 19,392 of the more than 31,000 gun-related deaths in 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This is what background checks will stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two “Wise Men” Speak
“I am to use any procedural means necessary to ensure that Congress does not pass any law infringing on the Second Amendment.” – Ted Cruz 3/26

“We the undersign,intend to oppose any legislation that would infringe on the Americam people right to bear arms , or on their ability to exercise this right  without being subjected to  gove. surveillance.” -Rand Paul 3/22

How can these men sleep at night?