A 2nd. Amendment Topic

I keep hearing in the news that a great many people are actively purchasing handguns and ammunition because of the upcoming B. O. presidency. It is reported that this activity has been ongoing sense it was observed he would win the nomination. People are afraid of what he and his cohorts will do in connection with the peoples right to keep and bear arms, to have weapons in useful readiness in their homes for self protection without having to be either disassembled or crippled in their usefulness by a trigger lock. Then there is the fear of taxes, so severe, placed on weapons and ammunition that the average person will not be able to afford them.

Forgive my apparent misunderstanding but I thought this had all been settled by the Supreme court decision of June 26, 2008. Are we as a people still in jeopardy of losing our 2nd. Amendments rights? Can we as a people be so laid back and unresponsive that we allow the government to come in through the backdoor and infringe upon our rights under the 2nd. Amendment through excessive taxation? I thought this was a settled issue.

I have included the June 26, 2008 Supreme Court Decision below.

The 2nd. Amendment
District of Columbia v. Heller
From Wikipedia,

Supreme Court of the United States Argued March 18, 2008 Decided June 26, 2008

Full case name: District of Columbia, et al. v. Dick Anthony Heller Docket no.: 07-290 Citations: 554 U.S. ___; 128 S. Ct. 2783; 171 L. Ed. 2d 637; 2008 U.S. LEXIS 5268; 76 U.S.L.W. 4631; 21 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 497 Prior history: Provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 infringe an individual's right to bear arms as protected by the Second Amendment. District Court for the District of Columbia reversed. Procedural history: Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Argument: Oral argument
Holding The Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. Court membership Chief Justice: John G. Roberts Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito Case opinions Majority by: Scalia Joined by: Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito Dissent by: Stevens Joined by: Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer Dissent by: Breyer Joined by: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg

Laws applied U.S. Const. amend. II; D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504, 7-2507.02 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (2008) is a legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for private use. It was the first Supreme Court case in United States history to directly address whether the right to keep and bear arms is a right of individuals or a collective right that applies only to state-regulated militias.

On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007).[1] The Court of Appeals had struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, and determined that handguns are "Arms" that may not be banned by the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), also striking down the portion of the law that requires all firearms including rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock."

Decision

On June 26, 2008, by a 5 to 4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the federal appeals court ruling, striking down the D.C. gun law. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, stated, "In sum, we hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense ... We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals."[30] This ruling upholds the first federal appeals court ruling ever to void a law on Second Amendment grounds.[31]

The Court based its reasoning on the grounds:

that the operative clause of the Second Amendment—"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"—is controlling and refers to a pre-existing right of individuals to possess and carry personal weapons for self-defense and intrinsically for defense against tyranny, based on the bare meaning of the words, the usage of "the people" elsewhere in the Constitution, and historical materials on the clause's original public meaning;

that the prefatory clause, which announces a purpose of a "well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State", comports with the meaning of the operative clause and refers to a well-trained citizen militia, which "comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense", as being necessary to the security of a free polity;

that historical materials support this interpretation, including "analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions" at the time, the drafting history of the Second Amendment, and interpretation of the Second Amendment "by scholars, courts, and legislators" through the late nineteenth century; and

that none of the Supreme Court's precedents forecloses the Court's interpretation, specifically United States v. Cruikshank (1875), Presser v. Illinois (1886), nor United States v. Miller (1939).

However, "[l]ike most rights, the Second Amendment is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." The Court's opinion, although refraining from an exhaustive analysis of the full scope of the right, "should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

Therefore, the District of Columbia's handgun ban is unconstitutional, as it "amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of 'arms' that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense". Similarly, the requirement that any firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock is unconstitutional, as it "makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense".
The opinion of the court, delivered by Justice Scalia, was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Issues addressed by the majority

The core holding in D.C. v. Heller is that the Second Amendment is an individual right intimately tied to the natural right of self-defense.

The Scalia majority invokes much historical material to support its finding that the right to keep and bear arms belongs to individuals; however, rhetorical impact is provided by the Court's linguistic assertion that the "people" to whom the Second Amendment right is accorded are the same "people" who enjoy First and Fourth Amendment protection.

With that finding as anchor, the Court ruled a total ban on operative handguns in the home is unconstitutional, as the ban runs afoul of both the self-defense purpose of the Second Amendment—a purpose not previously articulated by the Court—and the "in common use at the time" prong of the Miller decision: since handguns are in common use, their ownership is protected.