Opinions Of The NAACP On Our Rights

[Oscar Knight]

...Does The NAACP support an Individual Right to “Keep and Bear Arms”, under The Second Amendment ?

supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/07-290/07-290.mer.ami.pet.naacp.pdf

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND
ADRIAN M. FENTY, MAYOR OF THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA,
Petitioners,
v.
DICK ANTHONY HELLER,
Respondent

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE THE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE &
EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

I. A Radical Departure from The Court’s Second
Amendment Jurisprudence Is Not Warranted…. 4

A. The Second Amendment Does Not Protect an
Individual Right to “Keep and Bear Arms” for
Purely Private Purposes …………………………… 6

rkba.org/judicial/heller/07-290_PetitionerAmCuNAACPFund.pdf

[Deleted]

That is the attitude of those who think that they have to ask permission to control their own lives.

[Oscar Knight]

The Second Amendment : District of Columbia v. Heller

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held in a 5-4 decision that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to federal enclaves and protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. The decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment extends beyond federal enclaves to the states, which was addressed later by McDonald v. Chicago (2010). It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Heller v. District of Columbia. The Supreme Court struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, determined that handguns are "arms" for the purposes of the Second Amendment, found that the Regulations Act was an unconstitutional ban, and struck down the portion of the Regulations Act that requires all firearms including rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock." "Prior to this decision the Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 also restricted residents from owning handguns except for those registered prior to 1975."

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.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

A Breakdown of DC v. Heller

By a 5-4 majority, the Supreme Court sided with Heller, affirming the appeals court’s decision. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the court’s opinion and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., and justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Jr.

Dissenting were justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The court ruled that the District of Columbia must give Heller a license to possess a handgun inside his home. In the process, the court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms and that the district’s handgun ban and trigger lock requirement violated the Second Amendment.

civilliberty.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/DC-v-Heller-Gun-Control-Case.htm

[Oscar Knight]

..If One of these U.S.Supreme Court Justices had voted the other way, I would shutter to think what the aftermath might have been. It was a shameful disgrace to see this 5-4 vote.