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DC files in Parker
DC has reportedly filed for cert. in Parker.
UPDATE: they did indeed. Here's the petition. Basically sophisticated collective rights (with additional argument that 2nd A. was meant to protect states against the federal government, and DC is not a state but the seat of the federal government, and a handgun ban is reasonable regulation since it's only aimed at one type of gun which is nasty.
[Update: filing an amicus basically involves (1) find a suitable person or group on whose behalf it can be filed. Usually a group. I've never heard of an individual, though that may have been done somewhere and I just never heard of it. (2) Someone to write the brief. (3) Finding an area to write it on, which means coordinating with other amici. Courts *hate* it when you have a bunch of amici who just pick the 2-3-4 most obvious issues, which are probably already covered in the parties' briefs, and write on that. The court winds up reading the same point over and over. (4) Financing. Supreme Court briefs have to be printed. As in a printing press, and preferrably a printer who specializes in that. When last I briefed in the Supreme Court, the cost of a party brief was several thousand bucks. Amicus briefs can be a lot shorter, but prices have probably risen in the 15 years since I picked up that tab.]
Comments
They cited Kellerman and VPC studies.
They actually used the phrase "handguns cause accidents" and "handguns enable suicide".
That might bite them.
Posted by: thirdpower at September 4, 2007 03:09 PM
"Handguns and other dangerous weapons have long been
regulated in the Nation’s capital. As early as 1858, the City of
Washington made it unlawful “to carry or have concealed
about their person any dangerous weapon, such as '. . . [a] pistol,' and Congress itself so decreed in 1892."
other dangerous weapons....meaning anything that can be used to kill a person??? i want to know what comes before '...[a] pistol'
Posted by: bullbore at September 4, 2007 03:57 PM
Which is why DC police are armed with handguns (they cause accidents and enable suicide that is).
Posted by: RKV at September 4, 2007 03:58 PM
Parker had nothing to do with bearing, just keeping. In a case here in RI, the VPC filed a brief that completely misrepresented the issues before the court. We didn't let them get away with it and I expect neither will plaintiffs.
Posted by: Jim at September 4, 2007 05:05 PM
What is involved in being able to file an amicus brief?
Posted by: dwlawson at September 5, 2007 08:06 PM
Perhaps a small but not uninteresting point: my copy of the Bill of Rights, Amendment II refers to a "well-regulated" militia, but the DC's brief (at p. 11) changes that to a "state-regulated" militia. Now we all know there are folks out there who firmly believe that only a state/government can regulate and/or that a state/government regulates best, but the concepts of "well-regulated" and "state-regulated" are not necessarily synonymous.
To me, this little bit of symantic hocus-pocus puts a different spin on the argument. Inasmuch as the drafters of the Bill of Rights seemed fairly deft in their handling ot the English language, someone might want to do an "inclusio unius est exclusion alterius" type analysis. I imagine that the drafters knew what a "state" was, and they would have used that word if that were what they meant.
Posted by: Charles H. Cox III at September 7, 2007 10:52 PM
Perhaps a small but not uninteresting point: my copy of the Bill of Rights, Amendment II refers to a "well-regulated" militia, but the DC's brief (at p. 11) changes that to a "state-regulated" militia. Now we all know there are folks out there who firmly believe that only a state/government can regulate and/or that a state/government regulates best, but the concepts of "well-regulated" and "state-regulated" are not necessarily synonymous.
To me, this little bit of symantic hocus-pocus puts a different spin on the argument. Inasmuch as the drafters of the Bill of Rights seemed fairly deft in their handling ot the English language, someone might want to do an "inclusio unius est exclusio alterius" type analysis. I imagine that the drafters knew what a "state" was, and they would have used that word if that were what they meant.
Posted by: Charles H. Cox III at September 7, 2007 10:56 PM