June 27, 2008

Somewhat Sanguine on 2nd Amendment

The WSJ Ed Page channels blog brother JohnGalt today. The lead editorial on Heller highlights that the decision was 5-4, and the editorial pummels the (il)logic of the minority.

Which makes it all the more troubling that no less than four Justices were willing to explain this right away. These are the same four liberal Justices who routinely invoke the "right to privacy" – which is nowhere in the text of the Constitution – as a justification for asserting various social rights. Yet in his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens argues that a right to bear arms that is plainly in the text adheres to an individual only if he is sanctioned by government.

Yeah, President Obama may appoint three justices, and it is unlikely he'll extend his candidate search to the NRA legal team.

But.

But as a guy who has lost a lot of 5-4 decisions of late, I invite my friends to enjoy a few days of celebration. A 5-4 decision is still a decision, it is still precedent. Overturning it will require the composition of the court changing and a new case getting Certiorari. The current rate of Second Amendment cases is one every 217 years.

The Democrats have seen electoral success with pro-gun (and silently anti-gun) candidates. Most are glad that Heller takes the issue off the table this season and I don't know that many Democrats will want to bring it back.

I'd have loved a 7-2 (like Dred Scott v Sandford) that eviscerated gun laws. But it looks to these untrained legal eyes that we got a good precedent that asserted an individual right to bear arms. Don't cancel your NRA membership or vote Democratic or anything stupid, kids -- but don't search for the dark cloud.

Gun Rights Posted by jk at June 27, 2008 10:51 AM

Anyone who thinks an individual right to lawful gun ownership isn't important in this, the "modern" age need look only as far as current events in Rhodesia (or as black liberation theologists call it: Zimbabwe) where only agents of the government have guns and use such to visit terrible evil upon the citizenry.

Bald-faced fraud and corruption find safe haven from even a free press when those whose interest is most threatened - the citizens of a tyrannized land - have not the means to self defense. The only reason why American pollyanists can make meaningless proclamations such as "it can't happen here" is that for the past 217 years and now, for the foreseeable future, the willing and able citizens of this land are not disarmed.

Posted by: johngalt at June 27, 2008 6:04 PM | What do you think? [1]