Indeed.
There is a right to self defense. And there is a right to privacy as well. Both have the same constitutional basis. Shame some people only recognize one of them.
What do you mean by a “right” to self-defense??
Do you honestly mean that the state cannot legislate in a way that precludes one from engaging in “self-defense?”
And what do you mean by a “right to privacy”? Explain please the parameters of this supposed right?
Without getting too deep (my apologies to GD), I think Villa is saying that certain rights are Constitutional in nature in that they stem from certain enumerated rights. The right to privacy being the touchstone, possibly extendable to the right to self defense.
As it stands, the Second Amendment affords individual citizens the right to poses some form of firearm. These firearms, I believe, are not limited to purely hunting or target shooting purposes. It has not been the case that the Second Amendment has been interpreted to mean that a citizen’s possession of a weapon is so that they will have one at the ready in case of conscription; the weapon is for personal use.
Therefore, by extension, the Second Amendment, which provides a fundamental right to possess the ostensibly ultimate tool of self defense, implies that there is a right to use that tool.
This doesn’t mean that the state could not limit such a right – even severely. However I think (i.e., just an opinion) that a state that somehow managed to place an *absolute *bar on the defense of self defense would face a significant constitutional challenge.
Well, constitutionally, there may or may not be a right to “self-defense.” For someone in her position, speaking off the cuff, that’s a good answer.
Remember that the 2nd Amendment was written to guarantee collective defense, [del]when the Indians came back for their stolen land[/del].
Just because you’d like there to be one (wouldn’t we all?) doesn’t mean she should be an activist judge & confect one from whole cloth on the spot.
It wasn’t immanent? English & its homophones!
Cite?
Yes. Eugene Volokh has written a lot on this.
My bottom line view is that the Bill of Rights lists certain specific rights, providing a list of things it was feared the State would be likely to do. And those are based on broader rights, unenumberated, hence the Ninth Amendment. The Second prevents the State from removing one particular means to self defense, a vital one at the time. Other amendments, such as the First, protect specific elements of privacy.
The broader, unenumerated rights protected by the Ninth obviously are not absolute in the same way. They are, for want of a better word, more amorphous. It was recognized that there are certain areas of ones private life the individual had a right to live free from State interference. In particular, the Framers recognized that a particular danger existed of the State interfering with an individuals privacy to the extent of compelling them to undertake a particular form of religious worship, or limiting particular forms of expression. Hence the clear prohibition on such actions. Similarly the right to the privacy of the home - the clear and present danger to that was in the forcible stationing of troops within the home, or the random search by authorities. Hence those protections were made specific.
WAITAMINNIT, NOW. The judiciary’s job is to interpret the laws and the Constitution (which have definite texts). If you want them to take account of some “natural rights” or “higher law” above the Constitution . . . are you sure you want to go there?! Every justice would have a different take on the content of that “higher law.” And you’re worried about “judicial activism” now!
Does it rhyme with “cracktivist”?
To that question I’d answer:
“Were such a thing to come to pass I would certainly vote to grant cert to a case on this issue brought to the Supreme Court. I’d be very interested in hearing the legal arguments on such a case.”
Do I get your vote? 
Not exactly. The right to self defense is something Scalia et al. “discovered” in the Second Amendment, lack of textual evidence notwithstanding, in the recent Becker ruling. The right to privacy is based on the 14th Amendment and many years of rulings establishing substantive due process.
Hmm, Subterfuge, has not come back to respond in his own thread. Pity.
And it is all moot, even though she is vastly underqualified, incredibly racist, obnoxiously Latina, extrememly not male, somehow or other she will be a Supreme Court Justice.
I keed, I keed.
I’d base it on the Ninth. And allege, as many others have, that a right to self defense was recognized before the constitution.
I don’t think it comes from the Second Amendment, I think the Second Amendment reflects the existance of a right to self defense (and such a right is pretty closely linked into the concept of a right to privacy). All part of viewing the Bill of Rights as a whole, for me.
I had come back, but one realizes that it’s a tedious exercise in futility when you have to wade through exchanges like this:
Why is it that people often ask for cites, when a cite is not required? Is it a tactic used to get another poster to jump through a hoop? Or is it actual ignorance?
Surely a right of self defense is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty”, no? It has been recognized by the English common law for centuries and was surely considered fundamental at the founding of our nation. I can’t imagine anyone on this board feeling that someone should go to prison when they acted in a truly life or death situation. We may quibble about whether or not a particular situation rose to a level that was grave enough to require an action of self-defense, but surely we all agree on the concept?
For that reason I can’t imagine that self-defense wouldn’t be considered a fundamental right described in the ninth amendment and alluded to the Declaration of Indepedence.
It may be ignorance, but actual it is. I’ve never heard of “self defense” being mentioned by the founders alongside life, liberty and all that. A quick google search turns up nothing. So I also ask for a cite.
If one wants to consider asking someone to provide at least some shred of evidence to support their claim, then yes it could be considered as a “a tactic used to get another poster to jump through a hoop.”
Although I suspect the request for a cite was unneeded, as Voyager and Diogenes the Cynic pointed out, the proclamation of our allegedly inalienable rights are nothing more than fightin’ words directed at England; as articulated in the Declaration of Independence which is not the law of the land … Essentially you are advocating that Supreme Court judges should disregard the basic tenets of our common law legal system.
I would think that the right to self-defense complements the right to life. You can’t possibly have a right to life if you are required to voluntarily give it up should an aggressor approach you.
It would be like saying you have a freedom of speech, but you have to shut your damn mouth if anyone at all tells you to.
Well Sotomeyer doesn’t seem to believe in right to life for fetuses. Perhaps these two viewpoints are related?
Good argument (not snarking).