> > >Further appeals to Congress and the states are no longer a sure bet. The > >soap box and the ballot box have been throughly tried, is it now time to > >get out the ammo box? > > You're forgetting the jury box.
Are you forgetting that the Fat Lady on the jury, at least in the 9th Circuit, already sang? That's how we got to where we are. Could other juries in other cases decide differently? Sure. But why wait any more than Congress or some States may wait? In two key cases last century the logic of the Supreme Court or lack of it was clearly revealed as they tried to somehow interpret away historical record and Founder intention to square the 2nd Amendment with statist needs. In Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942) the Supreme Court unbelievably held that U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) had not intended "to formulate a general rule" regarding which arms were protected by the Second Amendment and therefore many types of arms were not protected. In fact Miller held that it is the firearm itself, not the act of keeping and bearing the firearm, which must have a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Meaning if the weapon qualified any citizen could keep and near it. A plain reading of Miller meant only weapons with non-military application could be regulated by Congress and that could not be right because it challenged the 'right' of government to have a force monopoly. So the Court's reasoning was that the Founders could not have meant for the federal government to have any effective deterrent to its tyranny from the citizenry. Even after absorbing the opinion, I cannot fathom how convoluted a reading of the historical record those on bench needed in order to arrive at their conclusion. Pretzel logic indeed!
