I read it while I was in the doctor’s office this morning. While I can at least understand and respect Steven’s dissent, Breyers, Ginsberg, and Sotomayor’s dissent reads like a webpage from Handgun Control Incorporated.
Good. We agree.
Now if you’ll just also agree that we shouldn’t look beyond the words in the document for any other reasons, such as penumbras or emanations, we’ll be fine.
No, because I was describing a textualist viewpoint, which I personally feel is intellectually flawed.
But if a textualist does not look for intent in case law, nor penumbrae, nor any of that malarky, how, pray, does he determine the spirit of the ruling to stay within it?
I will read the opinion tonight. Can I hope for too much and get a “strict scrutiny” in there from Alito?
I heard earlier on HLN, and searching on-line I was able to find this:
Training courses and ballistic tests doesn’t sound too unreasonable, but I’m split on insurance.
But the reason those states have some of the most onerous restrictions on firearms is because the population of those states support onerous restrictions on firearms, and vote for representatives who will enact them. So it’s still fair to say that the people of Massachusetts have different attitudes on gun ownership than people in Wyoming.
I’m surprised it was this close, but the ruling was obviously expected.
Of course, this also means that the right to privacy is an incorporated right, so that’s good for abortion rights.
No kidding. I’ve liked reading other opinions by Stevens; I hate seeing him go out like this. Scalia pretty well gutted him.
I don’t think it does incorporate the right to privacy.
But incorporating the Second Amendment, based on the importance of the right to (lethal) self defense is very good for abortion rights.
Politically, guns are a lot like abortion: neither are ever going away, so campaigning against them just loses you votes as you try to change the course of a river with a thimble. Even if one is the sort of anti-rights person who dislikes guns, abortion, or both, it just doesn’t make any sense for you to say so when running for office.
I don’t agree. Campaigning against abortion is very successful in raising funds, and probably essential in much of the country for winning a GOP primary. Campaigning successfully against abortion would be a very damaging thing politically, because it would remove a key wedge issue that motivates the GOP base.
I think the distinction is that the GOP base will often cool off a candidate who is not sufficiently pure on anti-abortion. There’s little evidence I have seen that the Democrat base will similarly turns its back on a candidate who does not wish to restrict gun rights. Indeed, such a Democrat candidate is likely to lose the votes of significant numbers of otherwise loyal voters, especially in rural areas which can be the critical swing votes in Senate elections (such as Pennsylvania).
I’ve been saying for years that the Dems would go a long way in simply dropping the anti-gun stuff. There’s a lot to mine politically in being libertarian down the line on social issues, and anti-gun laws have become all but completely unfeasible now anyway.
Likewise, I think the Republicans can help themselves a lot by dumping the Bible thumpers and the gay-bashing.
Either party would have a lot better chance at getting people to switch over and/or at least listen to economic policy ideas if they became true and consistent social libertarians.
My congresscritter is a Dem, and a strong Second Amendment advocate. Some of his campaign brochures highlight his position against gun control. He got tons of outside money in his first election, and is likely to get more this time around. I’ll be voting for him again, as I did last time.
Statistics seem to indicate crime went down in D.C. post-Heller but I hasten to add that this began happening immediately around the time of the decision so apart from post hoc propter etc. problems, I wouldn’t even guess at causation until I knew just how many permits have been issued and when. I gather that (as many speculate here about the nature of Chicago’s and New York’s probable ‘compliance’ with McDonald), W.D.C. officials were predictably foot-dragging and obstructive in the permitting process – but I can’t find any hard numbers for when permits started actually making it through the pipeline, or how many. Anyone know?
Obviously if we ever eventually get to a point where Chicago acknowledges that reasonable regulation corresponds to some non-trivial number of citizens being allowed to own legal handguns, the couple-of-years-down-the-road violent crime numbers will be verrrryy interesting, given that Chicago currently seems to be a freaking shooting gallery. I know what John Lott would predict.
I answered my own question – D.C. has issued about 800 permits.
Which also answers the “What will Daley do” – one thing he’ll do is rant irrelevently about “assault weapons,” as if that’s what the Chicago ordinance targeted.
Would you care to quote that portion of the opinion that you believe supports this claim?
And didn’t you claim, several years ago, that the Second Amendment does not confer individual rights?
I am flabbergasted by the dissenting opinion. What if it can be shown that certain type of political speech or publications can be shown to cause violence? Could we do an “interest-balancing” test and say that the 1st amendment should not be incorporated?
I can’t wrap my mind around a legal philosophy that says that abortion and sodomy are protected fundamental rights, but something that is actually written in the text and has hundreds of years of quotes and support, is meaningless.
Note: Not to say that abortion and sodomy should NOT be protected, but for the sake of this argument, how can a judge find such a right in the constitution while ignoring a clear one like the 2nd amendment?
Yuo might be right, but then you may get nothing but reasonable debate and discussion during elections… who wants THAT?
But that’s not what he said. He was discussing the different levels of gun ownership. Taking states where the state makes it difficult for you to obtain a firearm and using that as an example of different attitudes when the state has ensured the proper attitude through legislation is nonsense. That’s like saying that Chicago residents overwhelmingly are against handgun ownership (the basis of this case, I note) based upon the fact that nobody in Chicago legally owns one. There are loads of people that would avail themselves of their rights if it weren’t so difficult as to be in some cases an exercise in futility.
The other part that is overlooked is that politicians come as a package deal. You can’t a la carte elect a politician. The states in question are overwhelmingly Democratic states, and Democrats support gun control measures at all levels. So, by picking the politician that most closely agrees with your views, you get views that you don’t agree with as well. For example, gun owners like myself voted for Obama because he most closely agreed with our views, in spite of the fact that gun control was part of his campaign platform.
Such is the dilemma for the voter who votes his conscience in spite of the fact that the politician regularly takes aim at his particular pet cause. You don’t think that a noteworthy portion of the Massachusetts electorate wouldn’t love to see their gun control laws loosened up a little bit and brought in line with most of the rest of the country? I can guarantee it.
But it’s totally irrelevant because what we’re talking about here is a constitutional right, not some law that is normally left up to state or local governments. Substitute the right to keep and bear arms with any other right (freedom of speech, right to an attorney, etc.) and most agree the opinion of the majority is meaningless. Constitutional rights are what they are and that’s that! And, finally, we have some rulings that confirm that includes the Second Amendment.
Seeing that most states also have the right to keep and bear arms in their state constitutions, it’s ridiculous that it took this long to affirm such a right.