Petersburg Virginia bans guns from ALL public spaces

[Bergeron]

I was living in Virginia when the state flipped to Democrat control. The northern part of the state bordering DC, as well as certain urban areas, are very “blue”, while the remainder is a sea of lower population density “red”. Urban Virginia Democrats tend to look down on gun rights as something for lower, less refined, and racist people. By eliminating state pre-emotion, Democrat-controlled jurisdictions now feel themselves free to impose a great deal of gun control measures that would never be accepted on a state level.

[WobblyPossum]

Fingers crossed the upcoming Supreme Court case out of NY bitch slaps all of these infringements on our civil rights.

[mtnbkr]

How much of this is pushback against the open-carry asswipes?

The article says it was specifically in response to a shooting.

Also, virtually all of the open carry I've seen in VA (aside from big political rallies specific to the 2nd) have been handguns in belt holsters, more commonly in rural or semi-rural areas, but also seen in more urbanized regions. In any case, it has been relatively discrete.

It would be nice to play the blame game, but this comes squarely from our state democrat leadership and outside gun control monies. The state was relatively safe gun-control-wise until Gov Blackface won and the money started flowing into the state.

Chris

[msstate56]

I used to work for a city that tried this. No carry on any city owned property (sidewalks, parks, etc.). I told my shift in no uncertain terms that we would not be enforcing what was clearly an unconstitutional city ord. It was challenged by local attorneys and it just quietly went away.

[Kyle Reese]

Elections have consequences.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RoyGBiv]

So in the USA, you have the 2nd Amendment.
But if your city politicians say, "You are not allowed to bear arms!", then in public spaces you are not allowed.
But if your state law says, "City politicians, you can't take the 2nd Amendment away!", then they can't.

Is that correct?

Not exactly.....

What you describe is correct, but, only if the law passed by the City is Constitutionally lawful.
Resolving that through the court system can be a looooooong process. As BBI mentioned a few posts earlier.
Also... Court precedents differ in different parts of the US... It's a mess, really.

HOWEVER....
There is a case that the US Supreme Court will hear in their next session (currently scheduled for 3-November-21)that MAY re-establish / clarify that citizens (with some much less random restrictions) are entitled to bear arms in public, simply for protection against the possibility of crimes against them. NYSRPA is challenging the "proper cause" requirement for issuance of a carry permit in NY in NYSPRA vs Bruen.

[P30]

To infringe what the constitution or its amendments say shall not be infringed. That's not constitutionally lawful of course. Just from a logical and reasonable point of view, I mean. But unfortunately, sometimes hypocrisy and propaganda walk in and logic and reason don't count much.

Thank you very much for the answers, BBI and Roy!

The domestic politics and jurisdiction in my country show some very questionable examples, too. I don't want to whine about it here, that's not the topic. Wish you all the best coming from your Supreme Court!

[TGS]

To infringe what the constitution says shall not be infringed. That's not constitutionally lawful of course. Just from a logical and reasonable point of view. Unfortunately that's not all what counts, I know.

It gets complicated because the Supreme Court of the United States has determined in the past that rights are not absolute, and therefore subject to "reasonable restriction" (or "regulation", can't remember the exact wording).

Problem being we haven't had the courts determine what "reasonable" is in terms of the 2nd Amendment, which leaves what is "reasonable" up to legislators representing their constituents. That obviously results in a wide swing between what is reasonable depending on the constituents.

There also comes the issue that we have two sovereign governments in the US.....the federal government, and the government of a given state. Each government operates under their own constitution that usually are pretty close but may have some differences. The 14th Amendment (establishing civil rights) "incorporated" the US Constitutional Amendments onto states, meaning they're binding to the state government as well. However, the Supreme Court of the United States adopted a doctrine of "selective incorporation", and not absolute: the result being that only certain amendments (and only certain parts of those amendments) are incorporated. It wasn't even until 2010 that the Supreme Court affirmed that the 2nd Amendment is fully incorporated by the 14th Amendment. Until then, a state could argue they didn't actually have to follow the 2nd Amendment as the Constitution only required the government of the United States to follow the 2nd Amendment....not individual states.

It's very convoluted, and hopefully that helped. Also, I hope that my layman's understanding and explanation didn't make @joshs slam his face into a table.

[RoyGBiv]

Problem being we haven't had the courts determine what "reasonable" is in terms of the 2nd Amendment, which leaves what is "reasonable" up to legislators representing their constituents. That obviously results in a wide swing between what is reasonable depending on the constituents.

Just adding an additional layer of complexity.... State laws that are alleged to infringe on US laws can be litigated in State courts or US (Federal) courts... Anything not resolved to the satisfaction of both parties eventually makes it through US District Courts (94 of those) and onward to US Circuit courts (13 of those). Each Federal Circuit court may come up with a different ruling/view of the State law in question. For example, the US 9th circuit (western US and Hawaii) is known to be hostile to 2A. The 5th Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi) is known to be more 2A friendly. One of the motivators for the US Supreme Court to take up a case is discrepancies between rulings on similar issues in the Circuit courts.

[joshs]

It gets complicated because the Supreme Court of the United States has determined in the past that rights are not absolute, and therefore subject to "reasonable restriction" (or "regulation", can't remember the exact wording).

Problem being we haven't had the courts determine what "reasonable" is in terms of the 2nd Amendment, which leaves what is "reasonable" up to legislators representing their constituents. That obviously results in a wide swing between what is reasonable depending on the constituents.

There also comes the issue that we have two sovereign governments in the US.....the federal government, and the government of a given state. Each government operates under their own constitution that usually are pretty close but may have some differences. The 14th Amendment (establishing civil rights) "incorporated" the US Constitutional Amendments onto states, meaning they're binding to the state government as well. However, the Supreme Court of the United States adopted a doctrine of "selective incorporation", and not absolute: the result being that only certain amendments (and only certain parts of those amendments) are incorporated. It wasn't even until 2010 that the Supreme Court affirmed that the 2nd Amendment is fully incorporated by the 14th Amendment. Until then, a state could argue they didn't actually have to follow the 2nd Amendment as the Constitution only required the government of the United States to follow the 2nd Amendment....not individual states.

It's very convoluted, and hopefully that helped. Also, I hope that my layman's understanding and explanation didn't make @joshs slam his face into a table.

My face and surrounding tables are safe, for now . . .

While the text is quite clear, there a lot of questions that have not been answered with regards to the application of the Second Amendment to various restrictions on arms. We don't really know who "the people" are yet. We don't know what it means "bear arms" (although this one might be resolved soon). And, we don't know what "arms" are protected. We're still a long way off from having a stable body of law on the Second Amendment like we have for the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. As TGS points out, the Supreme Court didn't even recognize that the Second Amendment applied to the states until 2010.