http://www.nraila.org/…

The National Rifle Association applauds the Supreme Court’s decision, announced today, to hear the landmark Second Amendment case of McDonald v. Chicago. The case will address the application of the Second Amendment to the states through either the Due Process clause or the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case has major implications for the legality of restrictive gun laws not only in Chicago, but also in other cities across the United States. The decision to hear the case, which will be argued later this year or early next year, gives Second Amendment advocates across America hope that this fundamental freedom will not be infringed by unreasonable state and local laws.

“The Second Amendment applies to every citizen, not just to those living in federal enclaves like Washington D.C. In the historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed what most Americans have known all along — that the Second Amendment protects an individual right and that it applies to all Americans. The government should respect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens throughout our country, regardless of where they live, and NRA is determined to make sure that happens,” said Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president.

In the June ruling that the Supreme Court will now review, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments. That opinion left in place the current ban on the possession of handguns in Chicago.

This is rather big and could have huge impacts on gun owners and supporters of self defense throughout the United States.

Just like the health insurance “fine” proposed in the current mandatory health insurance bill in Congress is particularly unfortunate due to the difficulty in refusing to obey (it seems to me that ‘tax dodgers’ have little sympathy with the public) so too will laws prohibiting guns be difficult to combat through civil disobedience should the SCOTUS rule with the Seventh Circuit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090725/ap_on_re_us/us_camping_for_freedom

By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer Adam Geller, Ap National Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago

LANCASTER, N.H. – He fled the “People’s Republic of Massachusetts” to escape tyranny. Now he strides the campground in a plaid kilt and mirror shades, an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle across his torso, an immense Scottish sword sheathed between his shoulders.

Out here, though, the only signs of danger are the ones warning drivers to watch out for moose. Could it be he senses a threat we’re not seeing?

“Not expecting,” says the swordsman, who calls himself Doobie, grinning broadly. “Just ready.”

There’s no escaping the long arm of big government — even here at the far edge of a state whose license plate decrees that without freedom from oppressive authority you might as well choose death. But for Doobie and 500 others, this tent colony on this particular weekend is about as close to Libertarian Nirvana as they’re likely to get.

They’ve come for the Porcupine Freedom Festival, four days of beer, burgers and bonfires. But more importantly, they are here to carve out an enclave of less government and more liberty to do as they wish.

They are here to show a lost nation the way back to its political roots.

It hasn’t been an easy message to sell these past few years. Their group, the Free State Project, has struggled to attract followers. But now, with Americans thinking anew about the reach and role of government, Free Staters see at least the hint of an opening.

So this weekend, they drink to the future. Between swigs of a custom brew called Overregulated Ale, they ridicule the Federal Reserve, applaud the defeat of a bill that would have required the wearing of seat belts, bemoan higher taxes and restrictions on gun rights.

“We said bad things are going to happen and they happen,” Jason Sorens, a political science professor, preaching to the crowd clustered around picnic tables. “We say, we told you so.”
Read More…

http://www.eagletribune.com/…

Keni Garcia told police he intended to use the 30,000 bullets they found in his car and home for target practice.

That is hard to believe, the prosecutor at Garcia’s arraignment said, because if he were to fire a gun for eight hours a day, it would take weeks for him to use all of it.

Garcia, who allegedly bought thousands of rounds of ammunition and had 10,000 bullets in his car when he was stopped by police Thursday, was ordered held on $500,000 cash bail yesterday.

Attorney Socrates de la Cruz of Lawrence, who represented Garcia, 32, of 12 Freeman St., at his arraignment in Haverhill District Court, said he will appeal the high bail in Superior Court.

Garcia is charged with three counts of possession of a high-capacity firearm, illegal possession of ammunition and illegal storage of a firearm. His case was continued until June 12.

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Holland asked Judge Patricia Dowling to impose $750,000 cash bail.

“He has no reason to stay here,” Holland said.

The judge ordered Garcia to surrender his passport, and said that if he makes bail he is not to leave Massachusetts.

Garcia is a native of the Dominican Republic who was expected to become a U.S. citizen yesterday, but then he was arrested, authorities said.

Police arrested Garcia after he had left Interstate 495 at Exit 49 Thursday. They said they found 10,000 rounds of ammunition in his car. His two young daughters also were in the car, police said.

Holland said at Garcia’s arraignment that a “joint effort” by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and state police found that Garcia had previously bought 20,000 rounds of ammunition in New Hampshire.

Garcia told police he only intended to use the bullets for target practice at a rifle range, Holland said, disputing Garcia’s explanation. His common law wife, Elizabeth Reynoso, consented to a search and police found another 20,000 rounds, Holland said. They also found one .38-caliber and two 9 mm handguns, and $25,000 in cash, Holland said.

The prosecutor said all of the bullets seized from Garcia were for .38-caliber, 9 mm and .22-caliber firearms. Such ammunition is “like gold in the Dominican Republic,” he said.

Holland said Reynoso told police he had “a shipping type of business” and that the $25,000 in cash must have come from Garcia cashing a business check.

“Where is the crime?” de la Cruz asked. The lawyer said Garcia had lived in New Hampshire for three years before recently moving to Haverhill.

“He bought the guns legally,” de la Cruz said. “He never hid the fact that he had them.”

Furthermore, de la Cruz said that when Garcia moved to Haverhill, he had a 60-day grace period to obtain a Massachusetts firearms card.

“There is no crime committed,” he argued, saying there was no evidence that Garcia was shipping guns or ammunition to the Dominican Republic.

30K? Really? I’m not much of gun person but I do own a few. I’ve just recently ordered 500 rounds of 9mm. It fits in one ammo can with room to spare… in the boxes. You could fit probably three thousand rounds of .22LR in a .30 cal ammo can. To a person who shoots often 30K rounds is not that many. And look at the calibers. 9mm, .38, .22? Those are cheaper, smaller calibers often used for practice shooting.

And don’t forget there is still a run on guns and ammo due to the Obama administrations strong language regarding guns and ammo. I ordered the 9mm ammo mentioned above in February and just received it last week . Obviously there are a lot of people buying ammo and I doubt its all new customers and small amounts.

This guy should move back to NH.

As many of y’all heard the MHD crew was arrested yesterday morning while traveling through Jones County, MS. Currently on our Southern Style route, we met some good folks in New Orleans the night before and were heading to Meridian, MS for breakfast with other fans of freedom then to Nashville, TN, where we were to pick up Allison Gibbs from the airport then head to a meetup there held in conjunction with Liberty on the Rocks and the TN Center for Policy Research. But that didn’t exactly pan out…

UPDATE: Listen to the Motorhome Diaries crew discuss this on Free Talk Live.

Read More…

http://www.cnn.com/…

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Washington D.C.’s sweeping ban on handguns is unconstitutional.
The justices voted 5-4 against the ban with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority.

At issue in District of Columbia v. Heller was whether the city’s ban violated the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” by preventing individuals — as opposed to state militias — from having guns in their homes.

District of Columbia officials argued they had the responsibility to impose “reasonable” weapons restrictions to reduce violent crime, but several Washingtonians challenged the 32-year-old law. Some said they had been constant victims of crimes and needed guns for protection.

There were 143 gun-related murders in Washington last year, compared with 135 in 1976, when the handgun ban was enacted.

The judgment is not yet on the SCOTUS’s website.

It’s another 5-4 ruling. I don’t like these splits. The ruling doesn’t have the power as it would otherwise. In the short term the legal result is the same but in the long run I think it gives more room to question it in the future.

As you can see in the graph below the handgun ban made no apparent or calculable difference in the number of homicides in DC:

Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign just said on CNN that “we disagree with the courts interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Given the history, at least going back to the 1939 ruling, we feel it refers to a ‘well-regulated Militia.’” So he admits that the meaning was different.

Now he just said if you just look at the debates from the amendment’s time that you’d see his interpretation was correct.

Really?

• “[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
  –James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46
• “That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms … ”
  – Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
  –Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette
• “No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
  – Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution
• “The right of the people to keep and bear … arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country …”
  – James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
• ” … to disarm the people – that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”
  – George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380
• ” … but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights …”
  – Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29
• “The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.”
  – Zacharia Johnson, delegate to Virginia Ratifying Convention

Just a few. Obviously it was a topic of discussion at the time. If the Congress had the ability to raise an army and control militias why then would they have to put in the 2nd Amendment less they felt the Congress couldn’t be trusted?

Over at Yahoo we find a quotes from the justices:

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by “the historical narrative” both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

What part of “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” does he not understand? “The people” and “shall not be infringed” seem pretty clear to me. The amendment would be pointless unless it was for the people. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 16 of the US Constitution says of the powers of Congress: To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States, respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

So, again, why the 2nd Amendment? They can arm them but not disarm them?