SAF sues Missouri on behalf of Canadian citizen

[gejohnston]

who is a permanent resident in the US and legal resident of that state. Missouri requires US citizenship to have a CCW. Since "green card" holders may legally buy a gun, there is no reason why that state should not be able to have a CCW. Enumerated rights apply to anyone who is on US soil including the territories regardless of nationality or immigration status. To me, it is a 14A issue.

http://saf.org/viewpr-new.asp?id=409

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Canadian citizen who is a legal resident of Missouri, challenging that state’s statutory prohibition on the carrying of concealed firearms by non-citizens.

The case seeks to overturn the state’s non-citizen concealed carry ban on constitutional grounds, specifically the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The plaintiff is Edward F. Plastino, a Canadian citizen and Status Indian, based on his partial Chippewa heritage. He has lived primarily in this country since 1995, and in Missouri since 2006. SAF and Plastino are represented by attorneys Matthew Singer of St. Louis and David Sigale of Glen Ellyn, Ill.

“This is a case similar to our successful lawsuits against the City of Omaha and Washington State, and our current action in New Mexico, challenging local gun laws that discriminate against legal resident aliens,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “Mister Plastino can legally carry a firearm openly in Missouri, but he cannot legally conceal a firearm for personal protection. That simply does not make sense.”

[Clames]

1. Good, being a legal resident alien shouldn't be a bar...

...to getting a CCW permit. My father is also a permanent resident alien and had just completed the training and application process for his conceal permit.

[Eleanors38]

2. Yep. Another case where legislators and others think rights begin with "citizenship." Wrong...

Civil rights cannot be denied persons who are legal residents of this country; i.e. citizenship is not a requirement.

States, IMO, can restrict the carrying of arms to either concealed or open, but not restrict both. They can, of course, recognize both concealed and open carry.

Now, the Fourteenth Amendment says that states cannot abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, so one could argue that since Plastino is not a citizen, he enjoys no protections. But this is has not been the case when other legal residents of the U.S. exercise their rights. In Fletcher v. Haas, the ruling was based on the Second, with some mention of the equal protection clause (the court believed that establishing a standard of application in this area would be burdensome).

http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/showthread.php?101531-Permanent-resident-aliens-have-second-amendment-rights-too

"the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that Permanent resident aliens are included amongst ‘the people’ as the term is used in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution."

(snip)

"The court spent quite a bit of time on their analysis of the term ‘the people’. Specifically addressing the historical trend of non-citizens petitioning the government for redress of grievances, they noted that “[o]ther rights guaranteed by the Constitution to ‘the people’ were freely exercised by non-citizens at the time of the founding.” They went on to point out that the only instance in which the term ‘the people’ was considered by the high court to be synonymous with ‘citizens’ was in the infamous and shameful slavery case of Dred Scott v. Sanford."[7. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 404 (1856)]
_____________
IMO, the Massachusetts court made the liberal and proper interpretation of constitutional context when it came to non-citizens exercising rights over 200 years ago. Interestingly, the Fourteenth was not cited. Perhaps because it wasn't necessary?