Gutless coward tyrants refuse to hear Silveira

Will anything short of revolution save our freedom?

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/7387552.htm

        Posted on Mon, Dec. 01, 2003            
Supreme Court sidesteps politically charged California gun rights case

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court disappointed gun rights groups today, 
refusing to consider whether the Constitution guarantees people a personal 
right to own a gun.

The court has never said if the right to ``keep and bear arms'' applies to 
individuals.

Although the Bush administration has endorsed individual gun-ownership 
rights, it did not encourage the justices to resolve the issue in this case 
involving a challenge of California laws banning high-powered weapons.

Many other groups wanted the court to take the politically charged case, 
including the National Rife Association, the Pink Pistols, a group of gay 
and lesbian gun owners; the Second Amendment Sisters; Doctors for Sensible 
Gun Laws; and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

``Citizens need the Second Amendment for protection of their families, 
homes and businesses,'' lawyer Gary Gorski of Fair Oaks, Calif., wrote in 
the appeal filed on behalf of his rugby teammates and friends.

The challengers included a police SWAT officer, a Purple Heart recipient, a 
former Marine sniper, a parole officer, a stockbroker and others with 
varied political views.

Timothy Rieger, California's deputy attorney general, said the case 
involved regulations on ``rapid-fire rifles and pistols that have been used 
on California's school grounds to kill children.'' Even if the challengers 
won, there are virtually identical national assault weapons restrictions 
passed by Congress, he told the court.

The Second Amendment says, ``A well regulated militia being necessary to 
the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms 
shall not be infringed.''

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the amendment's 
intent was to protect gun rights of militias, not individuals. A more 
conservative appeals court in New Orleans has ruled that individuals have a 
constitutional right to guns.

Justices refused without comment to review the 9th Circuit decision.

One 9th Circuit judge, Alex Kozinski, said the panel was off-base and its 
``labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight has 
all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on 
it -- and is just as likely to succeed.'' He and some other judges had 
wanted to reverse the decision.

The decision was written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who said the Supreme 
Court's guidance on the meaning of the right to bear arms was ``not 
entirely illuminating.''

The high court's last major gun case was in 1939, when justices upheld a 
federal law prohibiting the interstate transport of sawed-off shotguns.

Daniel Schmutter of Paramus, N.J., representing Jews for the Preservation 
of Firearms Ownership, had told the justices in a filing that they should 
decide ``once and for all'' what protections gun owners have.

The case is Silveira v. Lockyer, 03-51.


-- 
Yours In Liberty,  Melissa  - Colorado, U.S.A.

"Guns Defend Life & Liberty" license plate frame  
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AMMO FOR SALE OR TRADE 
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Would like to make friends in the west Denver area with similar interests & 
values. -> Shaolin-based Martial arts, Writing, Rock music, Sci-Fi, Chess, 
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