The RKBA is about to be reviewed in California, by the 9th Circuit!

[Jim March]

Three generations of lies and over 130 years of racism are all starting to come unglued at once.

First news: Activist David Codrea managed to pry a position paper loose from California Attorney General Lockyer. To nobody's surprise, he didn't take the "individual rights" view of Ashcroft and the 5th Circuit in Emerson.

You can see Lockyers position memo and David's initial response here:
http://keepandbeararms.com/information/Item.asp?ID=3505 (note: I provided research help to David prior to publication )

I did my own "quick and dirty" response here:
http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/lockyeroncrack.html

Since then, something else has happened in the lawsuit filed by the Nordyke family against Alameda County, over their de-facto ban on gun shows via a county ordinance against guns on all county property. The Nordyke's attorney filed a motion asking the 9th Circuit to agree that there's an individual right to arms that Alameda County is violating, which was outlined in US vs. Emerson at the 5th Circuit. Attorney Don Kilmer also asked that the 9th take "judicial notice" of the 5th Circuit's stance and the Ashcroft RKBA memo.

The other side opposed that, saying that 9th Circuit precedent in Hickman and US Supreme Court precedent in Cruickshank is clear - in essence, Alameda County's logic and precedents was identical what Lockyer's position memo said.

A 3-judge panel of the 9th didn't quite give Kilmer everything he wanted, but they DID agree to take up to 7,000 words of argument from each side and REVISIT THEIR HOLDING IN HICKMAN that US vs. Miller denied that there was an individual right.

You can see the two-page order from the 9th Circuit attached to this message. Doesn't look like much, but it's an earthquake in the making. It's an Adobe Acrobat Reader file, download the free reader at www.adobe.com as needed.

So I took my work in that memo to Randy Rossi linked above, and "seriously cleaned it up" to something that could be turned into an Amicus brief in support of Kilmer's position with the help of a lawyer. According to Kilmer, there probably aren't going to be Amicus briefs ("Friend of the court" memos by interested parties who are neither plaintiff or defendant) but if there are, he'll let me know so I can find a lawyer to tweak this first draft:

http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/amicusdraft.pdf - also an Acrobat file.

It's about 4,200 words, and focuses in hard on the Cruikshank precedent. Folks, no school history text today will tell you that Cruikshank is in the running for the title of "most racist US Supreme Court decision EVER" because it's also the key support for the idea that the Feds cannot regulate state-law RKBA violations. In this draft amicus brief, I show that not only was the Cruikshank case racist as hell, it has supported gross racism in state gun control all the way to the present day, and since it was crafted with racist intent and is still having a racist effect, it should be junked completely under the Arlington Heights and Hunter precedents .

I didn't talk much about Hickman because it's not necessary - the 5th Circuit already did something revolutionary when they read US vs. Miller *correctly* as supporting an individual right. When the 9th revisits Hickman, any lies they tell will be obvious in contrast to Emerson and I predict right here and how that the Hickman precedent is about to go down in crashing flames.

Lies can only take you so far .

 

[Libertarian]

It took 70 years for the Soviet Union to fall from its own weight of lies and bad management. I hope that the same fate awaits the PRK and they can soon rejoin the rest of the USA.

 

[Thumper]

When will you know if you can submit your Amicus, Jim?

 

[Jim March]

Dunno. There's a limit to what I can talk about relating to that, because I'm not 100% sure what Don Kilmer wants to keep close to the vest.

I think I missed mentioning that Don is the most experienced "gun show ban fighter" in California. He's the reason there are shows today in Santa Clara county, he kicked that county's butts years ago.

There was a minor loss in the Nordyke case a while back, when the Fed courts asked the California Supreme Court "is there a support for the RKBA in California's Constitution" and to nobody's surprise, they said "no". But the FEDERAL law issues that were the stronger part of Don's case are still very much "in play" and were strengthened by the 5th Circuit's decision in Emerson .

 

[Thumper]

Good luck, Jim, and thanks.

 

[USP45]

Wow Great Job

But this begs the question... with the 9th Circuit's history of being soundly reversed by SCOTUS, exactly what would be a favorable outcome here

~USP

 

[rock_jock]

Jim,

What keeps the AG from continuing his policy even if the dike breaks? If I recall, several Ca. universities did exactly that after Prop 209 passed.

I appreciate your courage in this fight, but I think that the Kali tyrants will find another way to suppress RKBA. It is a threat to their power of intimidation, and I think they will act like a caged lion in the end. Ya think Bush would have the guts to call their bluff if need be?

 

[tyme]

Why would they take judicial notice of a decision in another circuit? If they do, that's great, but why not throw in the 1982 Senate Judiciary Committee report on the RKBA as well?

 

[benewton]

Just for a point of information:

Who reads the cases to the justices of the 9th?

And, please, don't tell me a PRK resident law clerk!

 

[TexasVet]

Maybe good will come eventually, but I don't see the 9th reversing itself on the RKBA. They have held already that THEY see it as a group, not an individual right.

 

[Jim March]

To really understand what's at stake here, READ the Hickman decision:

http://www.rkba.org/judicial/hickman-block

Then read Miller:

http://laws.findlaw.com/us/307/174.html

If the situation isn't clear at THAT point, read Professor Denning's analysis of the sort fo lie first seen in the 1940's, and repeated by Hickman:

http://www.guncite.com/journals/dencite.html

The 5th Circuit put a halt to the lies being told about Miller. If the 9th tries to keep the lies going, it'll be too obvious.

The ONLY thing the Judges in the 9th care about more than killing off gun rights is preserving their image.

 

[Blackhawk]

Excellent, Jim!

There's a good news pony in the box!

 

[Sam Adams]

Jim,

Thanks for all of your great work on behalf of the RKBA. The Hickman case "analysis" (I hate to call it that) really burned me up. I guess that Denning was right....

Reading the opinions one senses not only the exasperation rising from the pages of the judges' opinions, but also the nervousness, bordering on hysteria, which results from someone audaciously questioning collective judicial assumptions about the Second Amendment. Judges' unwillingness to reexamine the judicial conventional wisdom in light of recent scholarship and repeated use of slippery slope arguments are symptoms of an underlying distrust of a provision of the Constitution that they think is just plain bad public policy.

I hope that the present case forces the tyrants masquerading as judges on the Ninth Circuit to withdraw their collective (and collectivist) heads from their present location deep within their collective lowest orifice.