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ChuangTzu said:

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Enlil said:
The early common law cases of which you speak were cases in federal court...they weren't constitutionally based and wouldn't, in any way, require that a state recognize self-defense if they chose not to.  As of yet, no fundamental right to self-defense has been identified by the Supreme Court.

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Where'd you go to law school, son? 

The common law tradition of a core right to self defense goes back to before there was a federal court system or even a United States.  Core rights need not be recognized by a state to remain rights.  The second amendment was written to ensure that people retained the right to self defense even against the state in exactly the situation in which the state stops recognizing the right of the people to self defense.

Heller and McDonald are both recent SCOTUS cases which clearly speak to a core right to self defense of which the second amendment codifies one component (the means of applying this right).  McDonald was a case against the city of Chicago.  The SC in ruling against Chicago affirmed that the second amendment, but also the right to self defense, cannot be infringed by any state/city/municipality.  The dicta provide a lot of background on the history of the right:

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Our decision in Heller points unmistakably to the an-swer. Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day,[15] and in Heller, we held that individual self-defense is “the central component” of the Second Amendment right. 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 26); see also id., at ___ (slip op., at56) (stating that the “inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right”).  Explain-ing that “the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute” in the home, ibid., we found that this right applies to handguns because they are “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” id., at ___ (slip op., at 57) (someinternal quotation marks omitted); see also id., at ___ (slip op., at 56) (noting that handguns are “overwhelmingly chosen by American society for [the] lawful purpose” ofself-defense); id., at ___ (slip op., at 57) (“[T]he American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessen-tial self-defense weapon”). Thus, we concluded, citizens must be permitted “to use [handguns] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 58).

Heller makes it clear that this right is “deeply rooted inthis Nation’s history and tradition.” Glucksberg, supra, at 721 (internal quotation marks omitted). Heller explored the right’s origins, noting that the 1689 English Bill of Rights explicitly protected a right to keep arms for self-defense, 554 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 19–20), and that by 1765, Blackstone was able to assert that the right to keep and bear arms was “one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen,” id., at ___ (slip op., at 20).
Blackstone’s assessment was shared by the Americancolonists. As we noted in Heller, King George III’s attemptto disarm the colonists in the 1760’s and 1770’s “provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms.”16 Id., at ___ (slip op., at 21); see also L. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights 137–143(1999) (hereinafter Levy).

The right to keep and bear arms was considered no less fundamental by those who drafted and ratified the Bill of Rights.

[15]Citing Jewish, Greek, and Roman law, Blackstone wrote that if a person killed an attacker, “the slayer is in no kind of fault whatsoever, not even in the minutest degree; and is therefore to be totally acquitted and discharged, with commendation rather than blame.” 4 W. Black-stone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 182 (reprint 1992).

[16]For example, an article in the Boston Evening Post stated: “For it is certainly beyond human art and sophistry, to prove the British sub-jects, to whom the privilege of possessing arms is expressly recognized by the Bill of Rights, and, who live in a province where the law requires them to be equip’d with arms, &c. are guilty of an illegal act, in calling upon one another to be provided with them, as the law directs.” Boston Evening Post, Feb. 6, 1769, in Boston Under Military Rule 1768–1769, p. 61 (1936) (emphasis deleted).

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We therefore hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amend-ment right recognized in Heller.

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McDonald v. Chicago [bolding mine]

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Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First andFourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right.

The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed
. . . .”

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By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects. See Malcolm 122–134. Blackstone, whose works, we have said, “constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation,” Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 715 (1999), cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen. See 1 Blackstone 136, 139–140 (1765). His description of it cannot possibly be thought to tie it to militia or military service. It was, he said, “the natural right of resistance and selfpreservation,” id., at 139, and “the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence,” id., at 140; see also 3 id., at 2–4 (1768). Other contemporary authorities concurred. See G. Sharp, Tracts, Concerning the Ancient and Only True Legal Means of National Defence, by a Free Militia 17–18, 27 (3d ed. 1782); 2 J. de Lolme, The Rise and Progress of the English Constitution 886– 887 (1784) (A. Stephens ed. 1838); W. Blizard, Desultory Reflections on Police 59–60 (1785). Thus, the right secured in 1689 as a result of the Stuarts’ abuses was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence.

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A New York article of April 1769 said that “it is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence.” A Journal of the Times: Mar. 17, New York Journal, Supp. 1, Apr. 13, 1769, in Boston Under Military Rule 79 (O. Dickerson ed. 1936); see also, e.g., Shippen, Boston Gazette, Jan. 30, 1769, in 1 The Writings of Samuel Adams 299 (H. Cushing ed. 1968). They understood the right to enable individuals to defend themselves.
As the most important early American edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries (by the law professor and former Antifederalist St. George Tucker) made clear in the notes to the description of the arms right, Americans understood the “right of self-preservation” as permitting a citizen to “repe[l] force by force” when “the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury.”


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Antislavery advocates routinely invoked the right to bear arms for self-defense. Joel Tiffany, for example, citing Blackstone’s description of the right, wrote that “the right to keep and bear arms, also implies the right to use them if necessary in self defence; without this right to use the guaranty would have hardly been worth the paper it consumed.” A Treatise on the Unconstitutionality of American Slavery 117–118 (1849); see also L. Spooner, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery 116 (1845) (right enables “personal defence”).

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As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate, the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right.

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We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.

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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.

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DC v. Heller [bolding again mine]

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Nullface said:
Do you still trust the mainstream media?

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Enlil said:
Lol...Dude...There was no fundamental right to free speech before incorporation, so how can you possibly argue that common law created a right to self-defense that was applicable to the states?  That argument fails...

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ChuangTzu said:

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Enlil said:
Lol...Dude...There was no fundamental right to free speech before incorporation, so how can you possibly argue that common law created a right to self-defense that was applicable to the states?  That argument fails...

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There absolutely was a fundamental right to free speech and it applied to the states and municipalities as much as any other governing body since the founding and before.  The right is fundamental and was not granted by any government.  The first ten amendments to the federal constitution merely list pre-existing rights and says that these are some of the fundamental common law rights that the federal government cannot infringe upon.  There was a good argument that including the Bill of Rights was unnecessary since no government should be allowed to infringe on any of these rights anyway.  Ultimately, this argument failed but the 9th amendment was thrown in to include non-enumerated rights in a catch-all in case the government tried to use the argument that any previously existing rights not listed were to no longer apply.  Not that they would actually ever stop applying--the intent was to make it as difficult as possible for the government to infringe a right, not to prevent them from "taking it away" (which they can't do).

Now, before the 14th amendment, it was not in the federal government's purview to enforce rights against the states.  With the passage of the 14th amendment, the federal government was given the authority to protect people from rights violations by smaller political units.  This doesn't mean that before McDonald, Chicago was not infringing on a fundamental right.  They were--there was simply no judicial action taken to prompt the federal judiciary to rule on the issue.  And as you know, they only decide cases which are presented to them and then only in the most limited scope possible to resolve the issues at hand.  Heller, McDonald, and subsequent cases will have a profound effect on local law for a while to come, but they really have no effect on the status of the right to self defense.  The effect of the rulings is to restrict the infringement on a right, not to create a new right.

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Enlil said:
and uninteresting to everyone else.

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Fuck 'em.

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ChuangTzu said:

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Enlil said:
and uninteresting to everyone else.

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Fuck 'em.

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George Zimmerman said:

Fucking Coons

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George Zimmerman said:

Fucking Coons

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Nullface said:

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George Zimmerman said:

Fucking Coons

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Citation needed.

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Nullface said:
He is saying Fucking Punks

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zappaisgod said:
You could be put to death for sodomy in what country?

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