Lawsuit filed over Atlanta airport barring guns

[kg4kww]

ATLANTA - The nation's busiest airport dueled with gun rights advocates Tuesday over whether a new Georgia state law allows visitors to carry firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

City officials in charge of the airport declared it a "gun free zone" when the new law took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation.

"My message is simple, 'Leave your firearms at home'," airport general manager Ben DeCosta told reporters at a news conference.

Atlanta officials said anyone carrying a gun at the airport could be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor.

The new state law allows people with a concealed weapons permit to carry guns into restaurants, state parks and on public transportation.

John Monroe, an attorney for the gun rights backers who filed the lawsuit, argued the Atlanta airport qualifies as public transportation. There are also restaurants in the terminal, which Monroe said should be accessible to gun-toting visitors under the new law.

Rep. Tim Bearden, a Republican from Villa Rica and a former police officer, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Bearden sponsored the state law.

full story (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25479434/)

[ac4r]

ATLANTA - The nation's busiest airport dueled with gun rights advocates Tuesday over whether a new Georgia state law allows visitors to carry firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

City officials in charge of the airport declared it a "gun free zone" when the new law took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation.

"My message is simple, 'Leave your firearms at home'," airport general manager Ben DeCosta told reporters at a news conference.

Atlanta officials said anyone carrying a gun at the airport could be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor.

The new state law allows people with a concealed weapons permit to carry guns into restaurants, state parks and on public transportation.

John Monroe, an attorney for the gun rights backers who filed the lawsuit, argued the Atlanta airport qualifies as public transportation. There are also restaurants in the terminal, which Monroe said should be accessible to gun-toting visitors under the new law.

Rep. Tim Bearden, a Republican from Villa Rica and a former police officer, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Bearden sponsored the state law.

full story (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25479434/)

Look at who runs the government in Atlanta. This is not a surprise.

[W3MIV]

Federal law and regulations governing air travel will trump state laws. The state is likely to argue in a suit that, since federal law prohibits carrying a gun on a commercial flight, there is no reason why anyone should bring a gun into the terminal. Since Heller was not applied via the Fourteenth to the states, I believe Georgia will prevail.

[ac4r]

Federal law and regulations governing air travel will trump state laws. The state is likely to argue in a suit that, since federal law prohibits carrying a gun on a commercial flight, there is no reason why anyone should bring a gun into the terminal. Since Heller was not applied via the Fourteenth to the states, I believe Georgia will prevail.


It is not Georgia who declared the gun free zone it is the clowns in the Atlanta city government.

[kg4kww]

2nd amendment rules

[KC4RAN]

The law in question isn't proposing allowing firearms onto flights. It's saying that since you're outside the security checkpoint, your CCW permit should be valid.

Has nothing to do with anything past the checkpoints.

[W3MIV]

It is not Georgia who declared the gun free zone it is the clowns in the Atlanta city government.

Same thing in effect.

[W3MIV]

The law in question isn't proposing allowing firearms onto flights. It's saying that since you're outside the security checkpoint, your CCW permit should be valid.

Has nothing to do with anything past the checkpoints.


I understand that is the case. I also foresee a strong argument by local authorities to assert a compelling public interest in keeping all weapons out of the terminal as a reinforcement for the TSA barriers. Don't think the suit to enforce the carry provisions will prevail.

[N4VGB]

It is not Georgia who declared the gun free zone it is the clowns in the Atlanta city government.

The Heller decision leaves lower levels of government latitude to specify where a CCW holder may carry. Airports are one of the places that most states issuing CCWs specify as off limits for carrying. It has always been within the rights of county and city governments to add places as off limits to carry firearms, even owners of business are allowed to specify no carrying of firearms on their property.

My former employer specified no firearms allowed on any of their properties, but also that no searches of vehicles in any employee parking lots would take place. ;);)

[W3MIV]

The Heller decision leaves lower levels of government latitude to specify where a CCW holder may carry. Airports are one of the places that most states issuing CCWs specify as off limits for carrying. It has always been within the rights of county and city governments to add places as off limits to carry firearms, even owners of business are allowed to specify no carrying of firearms on their property.

My former employer specified no firearms allowed on any of their properties, but also that no searches of vehicles in any employee parking lots would take place. ;);)


One thing that many posters don't seem to understand is that Heller is a federal decision that was applied only to federal jurisdiction. The District of Columbia is a federal enclave, and rulings pertaining to DC law are not rulings pertaining to state laws. Nowhere in the opinion is there any linkage through the Fourteenth Amendment applying the ruling to the states. That application is yet to be made, and another suit will have to be filed and carried up through the appellate process before the individual right asserted in Heller is made to apply to the many states.

[N4VGB]

One thing that many posters don't seem to understand is that Heller is a federal decision that was applied only to federal jurisdiction.


Albert, I've completed 2 readings of the Heller decision and find absolutely nothing that should bring about any changes anywhere except in D.C.?

But then I've been proven wrong many times.

[KC4RAN]

So now it's going to take 50 lawsuits, brought up through the various circuits, to get this decision applied to the 50 states... just so the courts can again reiterate that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right and not a collective right?

Are we going to have to do that for the other 9 amendments in the Bill of Rights?

Sometimes the courts don't think any farther ahead than their shoelaces, I swear.

[ac4r]

So now it's going to take 50 lawsuits, brought up through the various circuits, to get this decision applied to the 50 states... just so the courts can again reiterate that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right and not a collective right?

Are we going to have to do that for the other 9 amendments in the Bill of Rights?

Sometimes the courts don't think any farther ahead than their shoelaces, I swear.


They have to keep their trial lawyer buddys in business !

[K0RGR]

I don't know, Scalia is probably writing his opinion in "Common Sense vs. Georgia Gunnuts" right now. You have an inalienable, God-given right to carry a street sweeper into Atlanta Hartsfield airport to protect yourself against known terrorists who are believed to be plotting attacks at that facility all the time.

[KC4RAN]

I don't know, Scalia is probably writing his opinion in "Common Sense vs. Georgia Gunnuts" right now. You have an inalienable, God-given right to carry a street sweeper into Atlanta Hartsfield airport to protect yourself against known terrorists who are believed to be plotting attacks at that facility all the time.

And maybe you and Breyer can co-author a new book too...

"Dying with Dignity; How to make peace with your maker while waiting for the police to show up."

If you're relying on the police to protect you, send me the address that I should send the flowers to.

[w2amr]

I don't know, Scalia is probably writing his opinion in "Common Sense vs. Georgia Gunnuts" right now. You have an inalienable, God-given right to carry a street sweeper into Atlanta Hartsfield airport to protect yourself against known terrorists who are believed to be plotting attacks at that facility all the time.
Guns in the airport? Call Tom Ridge, yellow alert Mr. Sulu. :eek:

[W3MIV]

So now it's going to take 50 lawsuits, brought up through the various circuits, to get this decision applied to the 50 states...


No, it will take a single lawsuit to test its application to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. It is my understanding that such a suit is now being planned against a similar handgun ban in Chicago.

Most people do not realize that the Bill of Rights was passed to limit the actions of the Federal government. It was never intended to be applied to the states, and that arguably is why the Fourteenth Amendment was passed and ratified after the Civil War. The "incorporation clause" commands that "no state shall abridge the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law." Over a long evolution, this clause (actually, I quoted both the incorporation clause and the due process clause) was held to apply the fundamental rights of the Constitution to the states as well as to the federal government.

That evolution was very gradual, and I believe it was begun by Cardozo and promoted strongly by Black. Under Warren, it was made explicit, but it has never been applied to the Second Amendment -- remember, we have not had a true test of the Second Amendment until now. In order to be operative at the state level, the application of the incorporation clause must be specifically stated by a challenge of a state law, not a federal law. Though the citizens of DC have a form of "home rule," the District is still a federal enclave -- not a state. As such, the laws of the District do not affect the laws of the states.

[AE6IP]

Fans of Heller seem not, for the most part, to have read the majority opinion, which states, in part:

"[l]ike most rights, the Second Amendment is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

and

"Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

"forbidding carrying in sensitive places" sure sounds like "no guns in an airport" is a fine rule.

[ac4r]

No dog in the hunt. I have not been on a commercial plane since the 80's and never will again. No hassle flying , NO TSA BS, private aircraft.

[n2ize]

All guns should be pounded into ploughshares.

[N4VGB]

All guns should be pounded into ploughshares.

Naw, that comes later after a few billion are dead. ;)

[kb3laz]

Naw, that comes later after a few billion are dead. ;)

Hey, that works for me, population control.:eek:

[W3MIV]

All guns should be pounded into ploughshares.

Modern farming standards have grown beyond the plow. No-till is the wave of the future. It is a very demanding technical feat to pound a handgun into a drill.

[kg4kww]

If people want to pack heat, than so be it.

[N2RJ]

If people want to pack heat, than so be it.

Yes, even the terrorists that board airplanes trying to kill us.

[ai3v]

All guns should be pounded into ploughshares.

Those who pound their guns into ploughshares, will plow for those who do not.

Rege