Great Gun News for gun and ammo owner’s in the North West!
On Monday, the US 9th Circuit Court came out with an important gun ruling in Nordyke v. King. The ruling, unless overturned, “incorporates” the 2nd Amendment to apply to all states within their Circuit (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington). Here are a few snippets from the decision:
“We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty.” … The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.”
“The salient policies underlying the protection of the right to bear arms are of inestimable importance. The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion.We should not be overconfident that oceans on our east and west coasts alone can preserve security… That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more professional forces arrived. Second, the right to bear arms is a protection against the possibility that even our own government could degenerate into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility should be guarded against with individual diligence.”
I’ve always thought that there were several steps which need to be accomplished in assuring our gun rights. The first was determining that the 2nd Amendment applies to an individual right, unrelated to militia service. This was successfully accomplished by last year’s Supreme Court DC v. Heller decision. The second was incorporation, meaning applying this limitation on government interference to the states. This has now been accomplished, at least for the time being, within the 9th Circuit by Nordyke. The third step will be to determine what level of scrutiny courts need to apply when looking at laws that restrict 2nd amendment rights. The best outcome would be “strict scrutiny”, with which the courts/legislatures would need a very compelling reason to limit the right. The Nordyke decision briefly touched on this:
“Fundamental rights usually receive strict scrutiny as a matter of substantive due process doctrine. See, e.g., Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 721. But
where the Due Process Clause incorporates one of the rights enumerated
in the Bill of Rights, the standard of review becomes that appropriate to
the specific right. For example, First Amendment rights, whether against
the states or the federal government, trigger the same standards of review.
We find no reason to treat the Second Amendment differently.”
And here’s the Cato Institute’s Robert Levy (who personally bankrolled Heller) discussing the Heller decision, and level of scrutiny:
The fourth, and final, step will be to apply the first three steps to the myriad of gun laws that already exist, or that will be written in the future. In the Nordyke case, the bad news is that the plaintiff lost. In other words, despite all of the above, the court still felt it was a “reasonable restriction” for a county to ban gun shows on their property. These are the type of legal limits that will be debated for the remainder of our country’s existence. But Heller and Nordyke have laid a great legal precedent for the good guys, thus assuring that the country’s existence will be quite a bit longer.
