Reading Room - District of Columbia v Heller and McDonald v City of Chicago may be correctly decided, or not. I'm really not sure. That's above my paygrade.
Either way, they are the current law of the land and as such they are a scaffold around which we must reconcile thousands of federal, state and local firearms laws. Any new policy initiatives must take those decisions of the Roberts' Court into account. For that reason alone, I want to understand them. I'm not a lawyer and don't know much about the US Constitution. Where is a newbie like me to turn? This diary presents a website mentioned by Adam B in one of his diaries. It is a treasure.
Come with me below the fold and I'll show you.
Sponsored by the Firearms Law and Policy Group
The Daily Kos Firearms Law and Policy group studies actions for reducing firearm deaths and injuries in a manner that is consistent with the current Supreme Court interpretation of the Second Amendment. If you would like to write about firearms law please send us a Kosmail.
To see our list of original and republished diaries, go to the Firearms Law and Policy diary list. Click on the ♥ or the word "Follow" next to our group name to add our posts to your stream, and use the link next to the heart to send a message to the group if you have a question or would like to join.
We have adopted Wee Mama's and akadjian's guidance on communicating. But most important, be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.
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The Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) is one of my bookmarked places for "wandering time" on the internet. That's the time when I'm waiting somewhere, and for whatever reason, I'm not not pursuing a specific goal at that moment. It's when I just have a chunk of time to relax and let my mind wander. And it's where I go for a lay person accessible digest of con law. Articles and panels hosted by The CAC help me understand the news, in particular decisions issued by the current Supreme Court.
The Constitution at a Crossroads: The Ideological Battle Over the Meaning of the Constitution is an attempt to map and describe the ideological battlegrounds on the Roberts Court.
The Constitutional Accountability Center has published eleven chapters so far. You can sign up with them to receive them by email as new chapters are published.
The Constitution at a Crossroads:
- Introduction
- 1: Will the Supreme Court Impose Strict Additional Limits on Congress’s Power to Tax and Spend for the General Welfare?
- 2: Regulating Commerce: Will the Supreme Court Strike Down the Affordable Care Act’s Minimum Coverage Provision and other Economic Regulation?
- 3: Enforcing Civil Rights: Will the Supreme Court Strike Down the Voting Rights Act and Other Landmark Civil Rights Legislation?
- 4: The First Amendment, Political Speech and the Future of Campaign Finance Laws
- 5: Brown v. Brown: Will the Supreme Court Interpret the Equal Protection Clause to Invalidate Measures Designed to Promote Equal Opportunity and Redress Our Nation's Long History of Racial Discrimination?
- 6: Protecting Commercial Speech and Personal Privacy in the Internet Age: Is the Court Lochnerizing the First Amendment?
- 7: Where Will the Second Amendment Revolution Lead?
- 8: The Meaning of Equal: Does the Constitution Prohibit Discrimination on the Basis of Gender and Sexual Orientation?
- 9: Will the Supreme Court Continue to Chip Away At, or Overrule, the Constitution's Protection of Reproductive Choice?
- 10: Federalism and Immigration: Will the Court Choose Federal Uniformity or States' Rights in Immigration Law?
[my bold]
This is from their website, a little about who they are and what they do.
Constitutional Accountability Center
About Us | Issues | Cases | ThinkTank | Media | TakeAction | Donate
Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) is a think tank, law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of our Constitution’s text and history. We work in our courts, through our government, and with legal scholars to preserve the rights and freedoms of all Americans and to protect our judiciary from politics and special interests. CAC launched on June 3, 2008. Follow the links to watch videos from the launch, read CAC's launch report, see media generated by the launch, and view polling that documents the power of our approach.
CAC builds on the record of success of our predecessor organization, Community Rights Counsel.
As a think tank, CAC produces original scholarship and distills and advances the work of other scholars. We draw inspiration and insight from great Supreme Court textualists such as Chief Justice John Marshall, Justice John Marshall Harlan, and Justice Hugo Black. We produce books, reports and commentary and share this work with officials, reporters, and opinion leaders.
As an action center, CAC promotes our conviction that the Constitution is, in its most vital respects, a progressive document, written by revolutionaries and amended by those who prevailed in the most tumultuous social upheavals our nation’s history – the Reconstruction Republicans after the Civil War, the Progressives and the Suffragettes in the early 20th Century, the Civil Rights and student movements in the 1950s and 1960s. Through Constitutional Progressives, a coalition of leaders, organizations and individuals, we seek to wrest the Constitution from tea partiers' control and restore our Nation's Charter as a document that unifies and inspires all Americans, rather than divides us across ideological lines.
As a law firm, CAC chooses the best cases to bring our ideas about the Constitution into court and secure victories in the U.S. Supreme Court, state supreme courts, and lower federal courts that move the law in a direction that comports with text and history. Our predecessor organization used arguments rooted in text and history to help win important Supreme Court victories.
Through scholarship, litigation, and advocacy, we seek lasting victories rooted in the text and history of our Constitution.
The Firearms Law and Policy group would like to begin compiling a reading list. Our first Glossary of Resources is over there -----> in our blogroll. That was put together eight months ago and it's time for an update. Which organizations have helped you become informed about gun rights and gun control? Are there articles, books, websites, organizations, specific cases, diaries, or even comments that have helped you form your current opinions about gun law, gun policy, gun violence, gun culture?
Please join us in the comments and post items you would like us to include in our Firearms Law and Policy Reading Room.