In the end, I don't really know how I would rule on this one. I think the Amendment is relatively clear in that it states that the federal government cannot prevent the citizens from owning weapons, and I would extend that to "weapons of the non-automatic variety." It seems a ...
03-24-2008, 07:55 PM
| #141 | ||||
| Leges sine Moribus Vanae  Liberal University City, Philly and Buffalo 
| In the end, I don't really know how I would rule on this one. I think the Amendment is relatively clear in that it states that the federal government cannot prevent the citizens from owning weapons, and I would extend that to "weapons of the non-automatic variety." It seems a stretch to think that the Framers would have considered "arms" to apply to weapons which could kill hundreds of thousands of people with an explosion of radiation, or one man mow down an entire advancing army. I don't think the law applies to the individual states and municipalities, which should be free to regulate gun ownership in any way their democratically-elected government sees fit. | ||||
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03-24-2008, 07:56 PM
| #142 | ||||
| Member Republican
| Originally Posted by Thorgrim 
Rights are inherent. That doesn't mean that they are recognized by criminals, be they robbers or soldiers. Rights are inherent because freedom is a natural state. In his natural state, man is free (before the constructs of taboo/law originated). In a sense, freedom does not exist in a positive sense because it is an absence of something... regulation. How can you properly define an absence? You would have to enumerate the whole of everything that can be done to violate/force you in order to enumerate your rights. | ||||
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03-24-2008, 08:04 PM
| #143 | ||||
| Member Republican
| Originally Posted by A_C_E
The amendment guaranteed the right to own militia weapons, those weapons used in the conduct of warfare. This means that the right refers ESPECIALLY to the most destructive and effective weapons that exist. SCOTUS previously ruled that sawed off shotguns are NOT protected because they have no legitimate MILITARY use. i.e. weapons with military use are protected. | ||||
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03-24-2008, 08:06 PM
| #144 | ||||
| Leges sine Moribus Vanae Liberal University City, Philly and Buffalo
| Originally Posted by RockPusher So would you support the right of an individual to own his own nuclear warhead?
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03-24-2008, 08:17 PM
| #145 | ||||
| Give me liberty or give me death!  libertarian Lake Stevens, WA
| Originally Posted by A_C_E I wish folks like you would try shooting an automatic weapon before you say that sort of thing, but your fathers already made it illegal for you to see the absurdity of what you just said firsthand :sad2:
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03-24-2008, 08:45 PM
| #146 | ||||
| Banned  Progressive Philadelphia, PA
| how can someone's inherent right be violated? | ||||
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03-24-2008, 08:47 PM
| #147 | ||||
| Banned Progressive Philadelphia, PA
| Originally Posted by thewise1 I have, it's called a handgun...anyone who has shot a 9mm beretta and wants to say "that's not automatic" is just using industry terms, not definition words
as said before, a trained person with a handgun can kill 6 people in 2-3 seconds, just like an AK47 | ||||
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03-24-2008, 08:57 PM
| #148 | ||||
| Ignore list is for pussies.  Realist
| Originally Posted by RockPusher SCOTUS ruled the way it did because the Miller died before trial and nobody showed up to argue his side. We'll never know what would have happened if a lawyer defended his side.
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03-24-2008, 09:03 PM
| #149 | ||||
| Leges sine Moribus Vanae Liberal University City, Philly and Buffalo
| Originally Posted by thewise1 I shot numerous automatic weapons at FBI headquarters in DC. It's awesome.
Remember that I'm not some pansy who's scared of guns. Both my parents worked in federal law enforcement, so I had guns in my house from the day I was born, and was shooting them at age 12. My parents thought it best that I learned how their guns worked, and were comfortable around them, rather than keeping me in the dark, which can most often lead to "accidents." Last edited by A_C_E; 03-24-2008 at 09:25 PM. | ||||
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03-24-2008, 09:48 PM
| #150 | ||||
| America Fuck Yea Election Moderator  Republican In Name Only
| Originally Posted by Thorgrim what is your definition of an automatic?
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03-24-2008, 09:51 PM
| #151 | ||||
| America Fuck Yea Election Moderator Republican In Name Only
| Originally Posted by Thorgrim I just left class after a discussion about natural rights
by taking away their ability to defend their rights. | ||||
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03-24-2008, 10:43 PM
| #152 | ||||
| Noob libertarian Philadelphia
| Originally Posted by Donkey® We all know what the lower federal court opinions say. The fact is though, their determinations are wrong and illogical. These lower court "state / collective right" opinions claim that the states enjoy an immunity that for nearly 200 years, SCOTUS has ruled DOES NOT EXIST!
I truly think that it is amazing that the "militia / collective right" or "state's right" has survived for the 60 plus years it has been kicked around the Circuits. The "states right" model of the right to arms is completely without substantiation in our governmental philosophy or legal history. Even more compelling (but never mentioned) is the logical fallacy that the theory could exist and be correct and actionable to only defeat an individual citizen's 2nd Amendment rights claims but be completely invisible and inoperative in what is its claimed action and claimed ambit of influence. US v Tot was the genesis of the "state's right" interpretation in the federal courts and the decision's famous cited passage was a legal nullity when it was written in 1942 and has only been further shoved away from reason, relevance or action in the ensuing 65 years. "It is abundantly clear that [the 2nd Amendment], unlike those providing for protection of free speech and freedom of religion, was not adopted with individual rights in mind, but as a protection for the States in the maintenance of their militia organizations against possible encroachments by the federal power. "Here's what mystifies me . . . If the 2nd Amendment's sole action is to render impotent federal interference with a state's militia then why doesn't the judicial record show a single instance of a state claiming the 2nd to defeat federal demands of preemption and supremacy over a state's militia powers? Sad to say, (for your side Donkey) the record is a barren wasteland for such proofs. Nearly two centuries of decisions holding federal preemption over state militia powers as constitutional were settled without any mention of the 2nd Amendment, any inspection of the 2nd Amendment for illumination on state or federal militia powers, or, most importantly, without any appeal to the 2nd by any state for this supposed relief, protection or immunity from ACTUAL, "encroachments by the federal power." It seems obvious to me that anyone supporting the validity of these lower federal court decisions all leaning on Tot v US (as you do) should be able to demonstrate the breadth of authority the states retain over their militia under existing SCOTUS jurisprudence and the means, express or implied, by which that state power has been preserved by claiming this 2nd Amendment protection. It seems incredible to me that these rickety decisions have stood for 66 years on the baseless claim that the 2nd Amendment is, "a protection for the States in the maintenance of their militia organizations against possible encroachments by the federal power" without anyone ever inspecting that body of jurisprudence which relates to actual control of the militia~!!!! So Donkey or whoever . . . My position is the entire "militia, / collective / state's right" lower federal court 2nd Amendment precedents will go down in flames. But hey, I'll listen to you try to "save" it . . . Demonstrate how Tot and the cases built upon it honors and adheres to and is in agreement with the following SCOTUS militia law cases: Houston v. Moore, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) (1820) Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) (1827) Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1917) Perpich v. Dep't of Defense, 496 U.S. 334 (1990) I won't hold my breath. PS: I know they are not 2nd Amendment cases . . . THAT'S MY POINT! If Tot's "state's right" interpretation was legally sound they would be 2nd Amendment cases and would have been decided much differently, with the federal government being rebuffed in its attempt to interfere with state militia powers. | ||||
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03-24-2008, 10:49 PM
| #153 | ||||
| Banned Progressive Philadelphia, PA
| you still think ginsburg is going to join the majority in some conservative opinion... actually what do you think the opinion is going to be? I can't see this working out for the NRA/libertarian crowd...I'm sure you saw the oral arguments in Heller, it's pretty clear they are talking about heavy restrictions, which goes against 99% of what libertarians say about "gun rights" | ||||
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03-24-2008, 10:53 PM
| #154 | ||||
| Junkie libertarian
| Originally Posted by Pocono Pete
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03-24-2008, 11:02 PM
| #155 | ||||
| Banned Progressive Philadelphia, PA
| Circuit Judge, dissenting. As has been noted by Fifth Circuit Judge Robert M. Parker in United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 272 (2001) (“The fact that the 84 pages of dicta contained in [the majority opinion] are interesting, scholarly, and well written does not change the fact that they are dicta and amount to at best an advisory treatise on this long-running debate.”) (Parker, J., concurring), exhaustive opinions on the origin, purpose and scope of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution have proven to be irresistible to the federal judiciary. See, e.g., Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052, 1060-87 (9th Cir.2003) (as amended); Emerson, 270 F.3d at 218-72. The result has often been page after page of “dueling dicta”-each side of the debate offering law review articles and obscure historical texts to support an outcome it deems proper. Today the majority adds another fifty-plus pages to the pile. FN1 Its superfluity is even more pronounced, however, because the meaning of the Second Amendment in the District of Columbia (District) is purely academic. Why? As Judge Walton declared in Seegars v. Ashcroft, 297 F.Supp.2d 201, 239 (D.D.C.2004), aff'd in part, rev'd in part sub nom. **172 *402 Seegars v. Gonzales, 396 F.3d 1248, reh'g en banc denied, 413 F.3d 1 (2005), “the District of Columbia is not a state within the meaning of the Second Amendment and therefore the Second Amendment's reach does not extend to it.” For the following reasons, I respectfully dissent. FN1. In declaring the District's challenged firearms ordinances unconstitutional, the majority takes over 45 pages, Maj. Op. at 377-401, explaining that the Second Amendment establishes an unrestricted individual right to keep and bear arms, see id. at 395. Its analysis can be summarized as follows: The Second Amendment's guarantee clause-“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”-endows “the people” with a right analogous to the individual rights guaranteed in the First and Fourth Amendments. Id. at 380-82 (citing United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 108 L.Ed.2d 222 (1990)). That right is unrestricted by the prefatory clause-“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”-which simply enunciates the Amendment's “civic purpose,” Maj. Op. at 395, and modifies only the word “Arms” in the operative clause, id. at 390-91 (citing United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939)). I. As our court has recognized, the United States Supreme Court's guidance on the Second Amendment is “notoriously scant.” Fraternal Order of Police v. United States, 173 F.3d 898, 906 (D.C.Cir.1999) ( FOP ). While scant it may be, it is, at least to me, unmistakable in one respect. And in that one respect, it dooms appellant Heller's challenge.FN2 FN2. The other five appellants lack standing, see Seegars v. Gonzalez, 396 F.3d 1248 (D.C.Cir.2005), and Heller has standing to challenge only D.C.Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4), under which he applied for, and was denied, a pistol permit. The only difference between the standing of the appellants in this case and that of the Seegars appellants relates to Heller's permit denial. That is, none of the appellants here, including Heller, faces imminent injury from D.C.Code § 7-2507.02, which requires that any registered firearm be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device, or section 22-4504, which prohibits carrying an unregistered pistol. They “allege no prior threats against them [based on those provisions] or any characteristics indicating an especially high probability of enforcement [of those provisions] against them.” Seegars, 396 F.3d at 1255. Although the appellants lack an administrative remedy with respect to the trigger lock provision, we have already decided “its absence is not enough to render [their] claim[s] justiciable if the imminence of the threatened injury is inadequate.” Id. at 1256. In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939), the only twentieth-century United States Supreme Court decision that analyzes the scope of the Second Amendment, the Government appealed the district court's quashing of an indictment that charged Miller (and one other) with a violation of section 11 of the National Firearms Act, Pub.L. No. 474, 48 Stat. 1236, 26 U.S.C. §§ 1132 et seq. (1934), by transporting in interstate commerce an unregistered, short-barreled shotgun. Miller, 307 U.S. at 175 & n. 1, 59 S.Ct. 816. The district court had quashed the indictment because it concluded that section 11 of the National Firearms Act violated the Second Amendment. Id. at 177, 59 S.Ct. 816. The High Court disagreed, declaring: In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Id. at 178, 59 S.Ct. 816 (emphases added). Then, quoting Article I, § 8 of the Constitution,FN3 the Court succinctly-but unambiguously-set down its understanding of the Second Amendment: “With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of **173 *403 the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” Id. (emphases added). By these words, it emphatically declared that the entire Second Amendment-both its “declaration” and its “guarantee”-“must be interpreted and applied” together. Id.FN4 Construing its two clauses together so that, as Miller declares, the right of the people FN5 TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMs relates to **174 *404 THOSE MILITIA WHOSE continued vitality is required to safeguard the individual States, I believe that, under Miller, the District is inescapably excluded from the Second Amendment because it is not a State. FN6 However the Second Amendment right has been subsequently labeled by others-whether collective, individual or a modified version of either- Miller 's label is the only one that matters. FN7 And until and unless the Supreme Court revisits Miller, its reading of the Second Amendment is the one we are obliged to follow. See Welch v. Tex. Dep't of Highways & Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468, 478-79, 107 S.Ct. 2941, 97 L.Ed.2d 389 (1987) (“The rule of law depends in large part on adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis.”); United States v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273, 286 (3d Cir.1996) (“As one of the inferior federal courts subject to the Supreme Court's precedents, we have neither the license nor the inclination to engage in such freewheeling presumptuousness.” (responding to argument that Miller is “wrong in its superficial (and one-sided) analysis of the Second Amendment” (internal quotation omitted))).FN8 FN3. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution provides:The Congress shall have Power ...To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cls. 15-16. FN4. Nine of our sister circuits have noted that the declaratory clause modifies the guarantee clause. See Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1066 (“The amendment protects the people's right to maintain an effective state militia, and does not establish an individual right to own or possess firearms for personal or other use.”); Gillespie v. City of Indianapolis, 185 F.3d 693, 711 (7th Cir.1999) (“Because Gillespie has no reasonable prospect of being able to demonstrate ... a nexus between the firearms disability imposed by the statute and the operation of state militias, [the district court judge] was right to dismiss his Second Amendment claim.”); United States v. Wright, 117 F.3d 1265, 1273 (11th Cir.1997) (“[T]he Miller Court understood the Second Amendment to protect only the possession or use of weapons that is reasonably related to a militia actively maintained and trained by the states.”); United States v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273, 286 (3d Cir.1996) (“[T]he Miller Court assigned no special importance to the character of the weapon itself, but instead demanded a reasonable relationship between its ‘possession or use’ and militia-related activity.”(quoting Miller, 307 U.S. at 178, 59 S.Ct. 816)); Love v. Pepersack, 47 F.3d 120, 124 (4th Cir.1995) (“The courts have consistently held that the Second Amendment only confers a collective right of keeping and bearing arms which must bear a ‘reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.’ ” (quoting Miller, 307 U.S. at 178, 59 S.Ct. 816)); United States v. Hale, 978 F.2d 1016, 1020 (8th Cir.1992) (“Whether the ‘right to bear arms' for militia purposes is ‘individual’ or ‘collective’ in nature is irrelevant where, as here, the individual's possession of arms is not related to the preservation or efficiency of a militia.”); United States v. Oakes, 564 F.2d 384, 387 (10th Cir.1977) (“The purpose of the second amendment as stated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Miller ... was to preserve the effectiveness and assure the continuation of the state militia. The Court stated that the amendment must be interpreted and applied with that purpose in view.”); United States v. Warin, 530 F.2d 103, 106 (6th Cir.1976) (“[T]he Second Amendment right ‘to keep and bear Arms' applies only to the right of the State to maintain a militia and not to the individual's right to bear arms ....” (internal quotation omitted)); Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916, 923 (1st Cir.1942) ( “[T]here is no evidence that the appellant was or ever had been a member of any military organization or that his use of the weapon under the circumstances disclosed was in preparation for a military career.”). In Cases, the First Circuit considered, inter alia, a Puerto Rican criminal defendant's Second Amendment challenge to the Federal Firearms Act. Significantly, the court qualified its Second Amendment analysis as follows:The applicability of the restriction imposed by the Second Amendment upon the power of Congress to legislate for Puerto Rico, or for that matter any territory, raises questions of no little complexity. However, we do not feel called upon to consider them because we take the view that the Federal Firearms Act does not unconstitutionally infringe the appellant's right, if any one in a territory has any right at all, to keep and bear arms. Cases, 131 F.2d at 920. FN5. I have not overlooked the language in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 108 L.Ed.2d 222 (1990), to the effect that “the people” as used in various of the first Ten Amendments refers to “a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.” But just as the Tenth Amendment ties the rights reserved thereunder to “the people” of the individual “States,” thereby excluding “the people” of the District, cf. Lee v. Flintkote Co., 593 F.2d 1275, 1278 n. 14 (D.C.Cir.1979) (“[T]he District, unlike the states, has no reserved power to be guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment.”), the Second Amendment similarly limits “the people” to those of the States, cf. Adams v. Clinton, 90 F.Supp.2d 35, 45 (D.D.C.2000) (“Although standing alone the phrase ‘people of the several States' [in Article I, § 2, cl.1] could be read as meaning all the people of the ‘United States' and not simply those who are citizens of individual states, [Article 1's] subsequent and repeated references to ‘state[s]’ ... make clear that the former was not intended.”); see also Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 265, 110 S.Ct. 1056 (citing U.S. Const. Art. I, § 2, cl. 1). FN6. Nor do the Militia Clauses (U.S. Const.Art. I, § 8, cls.15, 16) conflict with the view that the “Militia” of the Second Amendment means those of the States. As used in the Militia Clauses, “Militia” is plural. Indeed, Article I, section 8, clause 16 states that the Congress shall have the power “[t]o provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them.” (emphasis added). Article II, section 2 also indicates the Militia Clauses refer to “the Militia of the several States.” U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2, cl. 1 (emphasis added); cf. Oxford English Dictionary 768 (2d ed. 1989) (“Militia” “4. spec. a. Orig., the distinctive name of a branch of the British military service, forming, together with the volunteers, what are known as ‘the auxiliary forces' as distinguished from the regular army .... (Construed either as sing. or plural.)”). FN7. Our court has previously “assume[d]” the Miller “test” to mean that the guarantee must be read in light of the declaration. See FOP, 173 F.3d at 906. FN8. One nineteenth-century Supreme Court precedent, United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 23 L.Ed. 588 (1875), is included in almost every discussion of the Second Amendment. Miller, however, does not cite Cruikshank, and for good reason. In that case, several criminal defendants challenged their convictions under the Enforcement Act of 1870 making it unlawful to threaten or intimidate “ ‘any citizen, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States.’ ” Id. at 548 (quoting 16 Stat. 141). In setting aside their convictions, the Supreme Court declared:[The right to bear arms for any lawful purpose] is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. Id. at 553. This language does not conflict with Miller-as I read Miller-because it does not define the right but simply recognizes that the right, whatever its content, cannot be infringed by the federal government. More interesting is the nineteenth-century case Miller does cite, Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S.Ct. 580, 29 L.Ed. 615 (1886). There, the Court upheld state legislation against a Second Amendment challenge, relying on Cruikshank 's holding that the Second Amendment constrains the national government only. The Court then included the following language:[T]he states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government. Id. at 584. *405 **175 II. The Supreme Court has long held that “State” as used in the Constitution refers to one of the States of the Union. Chief Justice John Marshall, in rejecting the argument that the District constitutes a “State” under Article III, section 2 of the Constitution and, derivatively, the Judiciary Act of 1789, explained: [i]t has been urged that Columbia is a distinct political society; and is therefore “a state” according to the definitions of writers on general law. This is true. But as the act of congress obviously uses the word “state” in reference to that term as used in the constitution, it becomes necessary to inquire whether Columbia is a state in the sense of that instrument. The result of that examination is a conviction that the members of the American confederacy only are the states contemplated in the constitution.... [T]he word state is used in the constitution as designating a member of the union, and excludes from the term the signification attached to it by writers on the law of nations. Hepburn & Dundas v. Ellzey, 2 Cranch 445, 6 U.S. 445, 452-53, 2 L.Ed. 332 (1805) (emphasis added); see also De Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 269, 10 S.Ct. 295, 33 L.Ed. 642 (1890). In fact, the Constitution uses “State” or “States” 119 times apart from the Second Amendment and in 116 of the 119, the term unambiguously refers to the States of the Union.FN9 U.S. Const., passim. Accepted statutory construction directs that we give “State” the same meaning throughout the Constitution. Cf. Sorenson v. Sec'y of the Treasury, 475 U.S. 851, 860, 106 S.Ct. 1600, 89 L.Ed.2d 855 (1986) (“The normal rule of statutory construction assumes that identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning.” (internal quotations omitted)).FN10 FN9. In three instances the Constitution refers to a “foreign State,” see U.S. Const. Art. I, § 9, cl. 8; id. Art. III, § 2, cl. 1; id. amend. XI. “State” with a plainly different meaning also appears in reference to the President's “State of the Union.” Id. Art. II, § 3, cl. 1. The Constitution refers to “a” State five times. See id. Art. III, § 2, cls. 1, 2; id. amend. XXIII, § 1, cl. 2. A descriptive adjective precedes “State” two times. See id. Art. IV, § 3, cl. 1 (“no new State”); id. amend. XXIII, § 1, cl. 2 (“the least populous State”). FN10. The legislative history of the Second Amendment also supports the interpretation of “State” as one of the States of the Union. In the First Congress, James Madison proposed language that a well-regulated militia was “the best security of a free country.” David Yassky, The Second Amendment: Structure, History, and Constitutional Change, 99 Mich. L.Rev. 588, 610 (2000) (citing Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress 12 (Helen E. Veit, Kenneth R. Bowling & Charlene Bangs Bickford eds., 1991) (Documentary Record)) (emphasis added). After the proposal was submitted to an eleven-member House of Representatives committee (including Madison), however, “country” was changed to “State.” Id. (citing Documentary Record, supra, at 30). As Judge Walton noted:Anti-Federalist Elbridge Gerry explained that changing the language to “necessary to the security of a free State” emphasized the primacy of the state militia over the federal standing army: “A well-regulated militia being the best security of a free state, admitted an idea that a standing army was a secondary one.” Seegars, 297 F.Supp.2d at 229 (internal quotation omitted) (citing Yassky, supra (quoting The Congressional Register, August 17, 1789)). Indeed, in light of the meaning of “State” as used throughout the Constitution, see supra p. 5, and the care the drafters are presumed to have taken in selecting specific language, see Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. 540, 570-71, 14 Pet. 540, 10 L.Ed. 579 (1840) (“Every word [in the Constitution] appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation, and its force and effect to have been fully understood.”), the change plainly suggests that the drafters intended to clarify that the right established in the Second Amendment was intended to protect the “free[dom]” of the “State[s]” of the Union rather than the “country.” *406 **176 Although “the Constitution is in effect ... in the District,” O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 541, 53 S.Ct. 740, 77 L.Ed. 1356 (1933), as it is in the States, “[a] citizen of the district of Columbia is not a citizen of a state within the meaning of the constitution.” Hepburn, 6 U.S. at 445 (emphasis in original). Accordingly, both the Supreme Court and this court have consistently held that several constitutional provisions explicitly referring to citizens of “States” do not apply to citizens of the District. See id. at 452-53; see also Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 498-99, 74 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954) (District not “State” under Fourteenth Amendment); Adams v. Clinton, 531 U.S. 941, 121 S.Ct. 336, 148 L.Ed.2d 270 (2000), aff'g 90 F.Supp.2d 35 (D.D.C.2000) (three-judge district court held that Constitution does not guarantee District citizens right to vote for members of Congress because District does not constitute “State” within Constitution's voting clauses FN11); LaShawn v. Barry, 87 F.3d 1389, 1394 n. 4 (D.C.Cir.1996) (“The District of Columbia is not a state. It is the seat of our national government .... Thus, [the Eleventh Amendment] has no application here.”); Lee v. Flintkote Co., 593 F.2d 1275, 1278 n. 14 (D.C.Cir. 1979) (“[T]he District, unlike the states, has no reserved power to be guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment.”). On the other hand, the Supreme Court and this court have held that the District can parallel a “State” within the meaning of some constitutional provisions. Loughran v. Loughran, 292 U.S. 216, 228, 54 S.Ct. 684, 78 L.Ed. 1219 (1934) (Full Faith and Credit Clause binds “courts of the District ... equally with courts of the states”); Milton S. Kronheim & Co. v. District of Columbia, 91 F.3d 193, 198-99 (D.C.Cir.1996) (while “D.C. is not a state,” Commerce Clause and Twenty-first Amendment apply to District). Ultimately, “[w]hether the District of Columbia constitutes a ‘State or Territory’ within the meaning of any particular statutory or constitutional provision depends upon the character and aim of the specific provision involved.” District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 419-20, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973) (emphasis added). FN11. U.S. Const. Art. I, §§ 2-4. The Second Amendment's “character and aim” does not require that we treat the District as a State. The Amendment was drafted in response to the perceived threat to the “free[dom]” of the “State[s]” posed by a national standing army controlled by the federal government. See, e.g., Emerson, 270 F.3d at 237-40, 259; Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1076. In Miller, the Supreme Court explained that “[t]he sentiment of the time [of the Amendment's drafting] strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia” composed of men who “were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves.” 307 U.S. at 179, 59 S.Ct. 816. Indeed, at the time of the Constitutional Convention, “there was a widespread fear that a national standing Army posed an intolerable threat to individual liberty and to the sovereignty of the separate States.” Perpich v. Dep't of Defense, 496 U.S. 334, 340, 110 S.Ct. 2418, 110 L.Ed.2d 312 (1990) (emphasis added). The Second Amendment, then, “aimed” to secure a military balance of power between the States on the one hand and the federal government on the other.FN12 Unlike the States, the District had-and **177 *407 has-no need to protect itself from the federal government because it is a federal entity created as the seat of t |
