Boston Globe-SJC will review gun lock ruling-Law at odds with US high court

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/06/19/sjc_will_review_mass_gun_lock_law/

SJC will review gun lock ruling
Law at odds with US high court
By David Abel
Globe Staff / June 19, 2009
The state’s highest court plans to review the constitutionality of a recently challenged state law that requires gun owners to lock their weapons, making it the first test in Massachusetts of a landmark US Supreme Court ruling that Americans have the constitutional right to own guns and stow them as they see fit.

The SJC decided to review the law less than a year after a Lowell District Court judge dismissed firearms charges against a Billerica man whose handicapped son was accused of shooting a BB gun at a neighbor and who then showed police officers where his father kept other unlocked weapons.

The Lowell judge cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in dismissing the case against Richard Runyan of Billerica, who in April 2008 was charged with improperly storing a semiautomatic hunting rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, and a drawer full of ammunition...

...In a brief to the Supreme Judicial Court filed this month, prosecutors in the Middlesex district attorney’s office argue that the Second Amendment applies only to Congress and the federal government. They argue that the Constitution allows states to make their own laws regulating gun ownership and that the Massachusetts Constitution has greater authority in this case....

Looks like an argument over incorporation, folks

[AtheistCrusader]

1. This makes #4 that I'm aware of.

Going to happen, and going to happen soon, apparently.

Nordyke vs. King, 9th Circuit, in favor of incorporation.
Maloney vs. Cuomo, 2nd Circuit, against incorporation.
NRA vs. Chicago, 7th Circuit, against incorporation.

[Hoopla Phil]

2. Incorporation is inevitable. What I wonder about is scrutiny level.

I'm hoping for "strict scrutiny".

[RC]

3. Incorporation? Can someone elaborate for us ignorant hicks?

Incorporation is a business decision.

[pipoman]

4. Incorporation in this sense means

that the SCOTUS defines the 2nd Amendment to apply to the States and not just a restriction on the Federal government...incorporates the 2nd into the 14th Amendment. Incorporation would go a long way toward limiting the ability of states to regulate firearms, specifically Cali, Illinois, and other states whose laws obviously infringe on the 2nd Amendment.

[benEzra]

5. Incorporation is what prevents states from censoring speech and press,

having state churches with mandatory membership, banning abortion, or allowing authorities to search homes without search warrants. It is the application of the Bill of Rights to the states, via the 14th Amendment.

Massachusetts is going to argue that portions of the Bill of Rights don't restrict it, just the Federal government, which is what states used to argue about the First and Fourth Amendments until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

[Euromutt]

6. Massachusetts among them

Back in the day that certain books were "suppressed" under MA's obscenity laws, only forty or fifty years ago at this juncture.