[Posted October 12, 2009, at 11:40 p.m.] Although Pro-Gun New Hampshire is focused on NH state legislation, we take note of a landmark Second Amendment case coming before the US Supreme Court. While most of the Bill of Rights is legally considered to apply everywhere in the country -- "incorporated" to the states -- the Second Amendment legally applies only within Federal territory, and in some of the 50 states. A favorable Supreme Court ruling in the current case, concerning the Chicago handgun ban, should lock the Second Amendment's legal protections into all the states. The PGNH Board of Directors has sent the following letter to help, asking the NH Attorney General to join other Attorneys General in a legal brief to the US Supreme Court in support of the Second Amendment.
To add your voice to this request, leave a message for the NH Attorney General at 271-3658.
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PRO-GUN NEW HAMPSHIRE, INC.
26 S. Main Street, PMB 284
Concord, NH 03301-4809
October 9, 2009
Mr. Michael Delaney
Attorney General, State of New Hampshire
33 Capitol Street
Concord, NH 03301
Dear Mr. Delaney:
We are writing to ask you to join with other states' attorneys general and file an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, in support of the plaintiff's right to keep and bear arms, and of the incorporation of the US Constitution's Second Amendment to the states. The Second Amendment should be treated the same as the First and other constitutional amendments, which have been incorporated via the 14th to the states.
It is respectfully requested that the brief mention that the individual right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and the constitutions of forty-four States (including New Hampshire, thanks to the efforts in the early 1980's of the Honorable Howard C. "Crow" Dickinson, a long-serving state representative and now one of our organization's Advisors), and further, that the constitutional protections of that right limit action by the legislative and executive branches of government.
At issue is a 27-year-old Chicago law banning handguns, requiring the annual taxation
of firearms, and otherwise interfering with the right of law-abiding
individuals to keep guns at home for self-defense.
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second
Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. However, as that case concerned the actions of
the District of
Columbia
government, a federal entity, the high court was not called upon to decide
whether that guarantee bound state and local governments.
As concerned Americans, and as legislative advocates of Second Amendment rights within New Hampshire, we are calling upon you to support "the right of the people" in the Second Amendment and take the appropriate action to assure that this right is not lost.
We would appreciate a written response to this request, and thank you in advance.
FOR THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, by:
Sam Cohen
Executive Vice President and CEO