[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Washington, DC's ban on handguns. The court's decision, whatever it may be, will likely set the tone for the gun control debate for years to come.

California conservatives are depending on the popular vote to advance their agendas, says theSacramento Bee. Four ballot campaigns, including a constitutionalamendment to ban gay marriage, have gathered nearly $9 million to date.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Clinton and Obama campaigns are exchanging new barbs, now on accountability and ethics. What is that phrase about a house divided...?

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Image courtesy Associated Press

by Michael Kuykendall [courtesy of Blog for America]

Over the weekend US legal authorities forwarded an argument in a British case that the United States can legally abduct anyone in the world.

In a case in the United Kingdom this weekend the United States officially asserted its right to legally detain and abduct citizens of any nation. From the Times Online (h/t Mefi);

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

[...]

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

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[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

At the time of the adoption of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, the use of firearms in hunting was far more than a sport. In the West, it was the main source of meat. A rifle was as much a part of the frontiersman’s kit as an axe. State militias, not a standing army, served the nascent nation’s security (West Point was established later, in 1802). But states provided training, not firearms.

As such, it is ridiculous to read the Second Amendment as saying only militia’s have the ‘right to keep and bear arms.

The only reason to question this view is an obscure and confusing 1939 US Supreme Court seemed to suggest something different, that perhaps only when serving in a militia did Americans have the right to “keep and bear arms”.

This silly argument has been used as the bugaboo of groups like the N.R.A. for years – as follows: If the right to own a gun is only collective, limited to militias, then gun control laws could be passed that grab your gun. In fact, every gun control law passed is just a step in the direction of confiscation. So (to twist logic) every gun control law must be resisted to avoid confiscation. Oh, and send us a lot of money for that fight.

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the Bush administration and national business groups, challenging a CA law that bans the use of state funds to "deter" their employees from joining a union. LAT:

The union-backed measure was approved by the state Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2000. Since then, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been attacking the law in the federal courts. Its lawyers say the measure conflicts with the "level playing field" set by federal labor law. As the Chamber sees it, union officials and management deserve the same rights to try to persuade their workers to vote for or against a union.

The California law "is part of a concerted effort to spur union organizing by silencing anti-union employer speech," the Chamber's lawyers said in their appeal to the Supreme Court. They said the law's impact would fall most heavily in industries such as healthcare, where the state subsidizes care for elderly and low-income persons.

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by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

The District of Columbia, marred by gun murders, passed a local ordinance banning the private possession of handguns.

The NRA et. al. filed lawsuits saying the government did not have the right to do so because of the prohibition of the Second Amendment to the Federal Constitution which establishes the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Back in the 1930’s, the US Supreme Court opinioned that the “right to keep and bear arms” was a right held by State Militias and not individual citizens. For the last 80 years, guns zealots have argued that the Court’s interpretation was wrong – that the Founder’s intent was to protect the gun in each American’s home.

For better or worse, however, gun zealots don’t determine the Constitution’s meaning. The US Supreme Court does.