For Now....

9th Circuit Court Upholds
Second Amendment
4-21-9

SECOND AMENDMENT UPHELD BY NINTH CIRCUIT AS AGAINST A DEGENERATE AND TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT

 

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0715763p.pdf

 

NORDYKE v. KING

 

FOR PUBLICATION

 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

 

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California

 

Martin J. Jenkins, District Judge, Presiding

 

Argued and Submitted

 

January 15, 2009-San Francisco, California

 

Filed April 20, 2009

 

 

GOULD, Circuit Judge, concurring:

 

I concur in Judge O'Scannlain's opinion but write to elaborate my view of the policies underlying the selective incorporation decision. First, as Judge O'Scannlain has aptly explained, the rights secured by the Second Amendment are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition," and"necessary to the Anglo-American regime of ordered liberty."

 

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. We recently saw in the case of the terrorist attack on Mumbai that terrorists may enter a country covertly by ocean routes, landing in small craft and then assembling to wreak havoc. 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. 

Third, while the Second Amendment thus stands as a protection against both external threat and internal tyranny, the recognition of the individual's right in the Second Amendment, and its incorporation by the Due Process Clause against the states, is not inconsistent with the reasonable regulation of weaponry.