Conagher wrote:
For Immediate Release – January, 2008
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. . .
The United States Supreme Court said recently in the DC Gun Ban case that the Second Amendment secures the right to keep "carry" arms, but not concealed arms, citing to a line of cases upholding the constitutional right to open carry.[4] Notably, neighboring North Carolina’s Supreme Court has held that under that state’s constitution, no license may be required to openly carry handguns. See State v. Kerner, 107 S.E. 222 (1921).
OpenCarry.org strongly endorses Representative Dan Cooper’s effort to decriminalize open carry in South Carolina, and our South Carolina members will be actively working to ensure this effort’s success.
Heller most assuredly did not say the Second Amendment secures a right to "carry" arms! OpenCarry.org keeps saying this but it is not true. Heller was a "keeping" (owning) case, not a "bearing" (carrying) case. Although the history of carrying firearms was discussed at length in the opinion in terms of the history of the Second Amendment being an individual right, the opinion did not incorporate the "carrying" of firearms. Remember, the reference to carrying in the home was based upon a D.C. law that required a permit to carry, if a person had a handgun registered prior to 1976 and they wanted to carry it from one room to another room within their own home! (Yeah, that's the absurdity of the D.C. law.) Since Gura stupidly conceded in oral arguments that licensing was constitutional, the Court didn't have to over turn an absurd requirement to have a "carry" permit to carry your firearm from one room to another in your own home.
Chas.
Heller Opinion wrote:Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for
traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Pp. 2–53.
. . .
2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.
It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any
manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed
weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment
or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast
doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by
felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms
in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or
laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of
arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those
“in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition
of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
Pp. 54–56.
3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to
self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban
on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an
entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the
lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny
the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this
prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense
of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional
muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the
home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible
for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and
is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument
that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily
and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy
his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement.
Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment
rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and
must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56–64.
478 F. 3d 370, affirmed.