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[–] dchem [S] ago  (edited ago)

A lot of good information here. While panel is overweighted in favor of gun control crowd, the collegial nature of panel discussion means there is less grandstanding (or appeal to emotion) from the gun control people. Alan Gura also gives an excellent overview of impact of Heller (2008), the current state of gun control legal landscape, and laments about the fact that 2A is being handled as second class right among the fundamental rights in US.

Collegiality means also that they are polite to one another, and explains their legal opinion quite openly. About only exception is Deepak Gupta, whos just too partisan. There's also a bit of discussion about discretionary permitting (such as en banc ruling on Peruta), which is of interest to people living in the People's State of California.

There's a discussion about Heller decision opening up for interpretation of 2A on the basis of history, because Heller decision is rife with it, and in fact in Peruta case, en banc decision by 9th circuit (which upheld the local law enforcement authority the right to ration out concealed carry license), is based on a lot of historical argument, going back to 12th century English ordinance of Northhampton. Really fascinating stuff.

There's also a stern warning from Alan Gura about danger of bypassing findings of Heller decisions by the lower courts (who uses legal scrutiny to rule on rightness of Second Amendment, instead of arguing the validity of the case):

"Everybody should be concerned about that, if and when (probably more when) Heller is overruled, look out, I mean, people here (pointing at the audience) would probably identify themselves as progressives, and inherent in the concept of progress is this vision that you are inexorably moving forwards toward whatever utopian vision of your ultimate policy preference, right? So always progress, never step back... Well, that's great if you never lose another election. That's great if you never get a judge confirmed who might disagree with you constitutional vision. But once you take the brakes off of [inaudible] and everything is up for grabs the minute we can count to five, then I think people in this room really need to worry about some of their favorite constitutional decisions and whether those rights, which are not universally accepted in America are going to remain on the books either."