A brief filed on behalf of Pink Pistols and Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty presents a LGBT perspective on the Second Amendment. The main arguments are: 1. LGBT people have a heightened need for handguns for self-defense, because of the frequency of hate crimes, the majority of which involve attacks in the home. 2. The militia-only interpretation of the Second Amendment would exclude LGBT people from the exercise of a constitutional right, since courts are extremely deferential to legislative/executive decisions on military issues, including discrimination against LGBT people in the military. Unlike with the other briefs that I've blogged on, there is no counterpart brief in support to the DC handgun ban to which I can link. No LGBT organization participated in an amicus brief on DC's side (although, of course, some of DC's other amici are "gay-friendly," just as many of Heller's other amici are).
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- Military Brief in DC v. Heller:
- District Attorneys, the ABA, and precedent in DC v. Heller
- Errors Brief in DC v. Heller:...
- The English Roots of the Right Arms. DC v. Heller brief:
- LGBT brief in DC v. Heller:
- Congressional Brief in DC v. Heller:...
- Claremont Institute Empirical Brief in DC v. Heller:
- NRA brief in DC v. Heller:
- Respondent's Brief in DC v. Heller:
Some of the other amicus briefs pointed out that the militia by statute includes only women who are actually in the National Guard. Men are in the statutory militia simply by being between the specified ages, but women have to take the affirmative step of enlisting.
Being well over the age of statutory inclusion in the militia, I sympathize with the exclusion argument. I hope I did not age out of being one the "people" several birthdays ago. (My teenagers don't think I ever was one, but that's a different issue.)
There are a lot of hate crimes against homosexuals that are vandalism against homes. Now, strictly speaking, you can't use a gun to stop a thug spray-painting "queer" on your house, but cringing in fear in your home because you aren't sure whether someone is going to stop at property damage is not a situation anyone should have to suffer.
I thnk what happens is the gay invites someone over after meeting in a bar (maybe for more drinks or pot) and the person isn't gay and doesn't realize the inviter is, and when the invitee finds out, he tries to kill the gay. I've read a few stories like this in the news. Some people think if a gay hits on them it means something about their own sexuality and they want to kill.
I can't be the only person that laughed out loud from reading this. I was going to write a substantive response, but where do you begin?
. . .
I was dissapointed to see that the NRA beleives the second amendment should have no effect on felon-in-posession laws. Professor, do you believe there could be valid as-applied challenges to the felon-in-posession statute?
The idea that someone who is of poor health or disabled (and thus unqualified for service) cannot own a gun is perverse. It is frequently these individuals who most need to equalizing defense potential of a firearm.
You're not. The best part is that Truth Seeker's fingers revolted and sabotaged his effort to type "I think."
And the fallacy is so blatant most of us didn't (so it seems) even notice it. It's a good example of how the more outrageously false a statement or argument is, the more believable it is.
Everybody has the natural right of self-defense, and the use of guns is certainly basic to that that right, so I agree completely with your statement. And it is good that some people who don't generally line up on the right/conservative side of the spectrum can agree with this basic proposition.
The next step, however, is to determine what restrictions--time, place, manner, etc.--would pass constitutional muster, but still leave the individual right intact. I can't imagine a right that is completely unfettered, but my mind is open to instruction on the question.
No, neither party raises the naive collective-rights misinterpretation. Both parties admit that the Second Amendment is an individual right, and the Question as formulated by the Justices presume that the Second Amendment protects and individual right. Heller argues that 2A protects private keeping and bearing, whereas DC argues that it only protects the right of individuals affiliated with a state-regulated militia.
Vermont and Alaska are pretty close to unfettered. No permits are required to carry concealed or openly. There are restrictions are where to carry (courthouses, jails, and a few other obvious places--and some unobvious ones for Alaska), but it is still pretty unfettered.
No. The question presented does not assume that there is an individual right:
Also, from the Petitioner's argument: Br. of Pet'r, at 8. This sentence doesn't say that the right belongs to the individual. The ownership of guns could be controlled by the organizer of the militia, the state.
I seem to recall that former Vermont Governor Howard Dean got an "A" rating from the NRA.
If there were no individual right protected by the Second Amendment, then the phrase "the Second Amendment rights of individuals" would fail to refer.
This case isn't an appeal in a civil case over money damages. Alan Gura should not be willing to accept a scrutiny tier other than strict scrutiny in oral argument. Further, I think it's rather naive to suggest that the justices aren't going to do what they're going to do whether Gura indicates a willingness to accept less or not.
Oh, well, the last murder of a gay I read about was a few months ago a gay brought a guy home to smoke pot and the picked up guy was so mad the gay hit on him that he killed him. He was only intersted in the pot. I only know what I read in the papers.
Next time I won't write "I thnk.." I'll write, "The last murder..."
Imagine my surprise when I looked on wikipedia and saw that Brandon was actually a woman who considered herself to be of male gender. Rather than simply pointing this out, they continually refer to Brandon as male ("boyfriend", "him", "he", etc) even though her lack of biological maleness was the motive for the crime and the reason that the crime is mentioned in the brief.
I point this out because it is incredibly confusing, not out of personal animus towards lesbians or transgendered people.
Also, I was under the impression that most crimes are committed against heterosexuals like myself. Isn't it kind of disingenuous to restrict your comparisons to the extremely narrow category of "hate crimes?" Won't this necessarily skew and invalidate all comparisons you make?
Given that the rape and triple homicide were one of the most major tests of hate crime law and some other legal issues, that the subject was covered by not only a conventional documentary but a fairly well-known film, and is even being taught in some legal settings, I'd hope that most new legal interns, clerks, or Supreme Court justices would be able to figure it out or at least notice it enough to research the matter.
Finally, the sexuality of rapists is not always limited to their targets; this behavior can be observed in prisons.
Perhaps. I expect the writers hope to balance their argument from the perspective that any wide category issues will obviously not focus heavily on a 5% portion of the populace, and that the statistical odds of such an event occurring are not usually considered important by the SCOTUS.
You'd actually be surprised, sometimes. While there are (too many) irritatingly flamboyant gay men running around, there are also folk who it's surprisingly difficult to tell their sexuality.
Even there, you can usually tell if they're trying to hit on you, but not every reason to be invited to someone's house is for sex.
And, of course, if there weren't a lot of clueless people going around, it'd be impossible to come up with a good explanation for the success of the Democratic party or most modern TV programming.
[i]That said[/i], I can't validate this data. I can find reports claiming more hate crimes occur in or near residential properties than anywhere else, but I can neither find the initial FBI report, nor find any breakdown of [i]who's[/i] residential properties are involved, nor find a breakdown by type of 'hate crime'.
I'll amend that scenario- I knew three gay men, all murdered in their apartments, because they picked the wrong guy up, took him home, then the guys, in each case, robbed and killed them.
the three frequently picked up strangers for anonymous sex.
in a large urban area, this is not unheard of. also, some people just want to get in that position so they can beat and abuse a gay person- also not particularly rare.
Maybe it's not a good idea to do that, eh?
That's the story his defense lawyer tries to sell to a gullible jury in the hopes they'll let his client get away with murder.