You know, it seems to me that the New Orleans travesty might be the best possible scenario for a good test case for the 2nd amendment. I'm no lawyer and I don't know if anyone has thought much about this yet. Follow me for a minute here:
1. Armed citizens banded together in New Orleans to protect lives, homes and property when faced with a total breakdown of law and order. They managed to keep some sections of New Orleans safe. If that isn't a militia, I haven't seen one in this century.
2. This Federal District (5th US Circuit) is the one that decided Emerson. You can read the decision here. As far as I know, this little enclave of reason is the only place in the United States where the right to bear arms is considered an individual right.
Many of my commenters don't have any faith in the Courts, but my opinion of the Court system in the baliwicks in this state is not as jaded. Our Judges are elected and the ones I know are sportsmen. Hunters and fishermen. Every Judge that I personally know owns guns. Uses them. Most of us down here read Emerson as a "Well, duh!" moment. Of course RKBA is an individual right. The South is full of guns and the state judges are just like the rest of us.
The citizens of New Orleans formed unorganized militias in the wake of a natural disaster when organized government was unable to respond. If that doesn't make a hell of a test case, then the money I send to the NRA is wasted. I keep checking the NRA site, but I don't see anything. Those guys need to get on the ball.
About the local courts, I hear ya, however the Ruby Ridge killers walked becuse of "Sovereign Immunity"
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge
"Montana state authorities indicted Horiuchi for homicide, but the indictment was vacated by a federal court under the doctrine of Sovereign Immunity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Immunity
"Sovereign immunity or crown immunity is a type of immunity that, in common law jurisdictions traces its origins from early English law. Generally speaking it is the doctrine that the sovereign or government cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution. In many cases, the government has waived this immunity to allow for suits; in some cases, an individual, such as an attorney general, may technically appear as defendant on the government's behalf..."