Posted on 07/19/2008 3:38:29 AM PDT by rellimpank
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For decades the Second Amendment might as well have been called the Second-Class Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court spent the late 20th century expansively interpreting the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth amendments, not to mention unenumerated rights ranging from travel to sexual privacy. But not until last month did the court hold that the Second Amendment means what it says: that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
What took so long? I put the question to Alan Gura, the 37-year-old wunderkind lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in District of Columbia v. Heller.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
-ping-
God Bless him!
It is interesting, after I cancelled, after many years, my WSJ subscription last year I am always directed to the Resubscribe site when trying to go directly to the OJ freebie. Whereas I jusr google the WSJ article title and can read the whole article.
I knew Alan back in the day. Nice guy, very unassuming.
The 2A saved the 2A, just the way it was intended. I believe that if Kennedy hadn’t sided with the majority, one of the dissenting justices would have joined instead. I don’t think anyone wanted to test whether or not the Constitutional default button embodied in the 2A was operational.
This an an absolutely crucial point if one ever finds themselves debating the 2A and/or Heller. By avoiding the point, the dissenting justices implicitly agreed that the 2A enumerates an individual right. Their dissent merely addressed the degree of gov't control necessary to achieve, in their opinion, other public/safety policy objectives.
Gura was brilliant during oral arguments. My only gripe with him was that he threw machine guns under the bus when John Roberts invited him to include them in his argument.
Gura should not have been surprised at the 5-4 ruling. The Marxist 4 have no interest in the Constitution. Their only concern is the advancement of the leftist agenda. I was very happy with the SC decision. But in a strange sort of way, perhaps a loss for our constitutional rights would have been better. Maybe it would have jump started the 2nd American revolution...an absolute necessity, sooner or later, if the nation is to survive as anything but a Marxist state.
Thanks for the ping!
The 2d Amendment gives you the freedom to shoot your gun off at anyone who wants to shoot you for shooting your mouth off.
That is why they are Amendment 1 and Amendment 2. Without them, there is no incentive for the government to honor your other rights and leave you alone.
Free Speech and Guns are POLITICAL rights. They are not about Home Protection, or Shooting Ducks and Deer, although those are certainly OK things. If it's a government that is trying to shoot you for shooting your mouth off, you and your armed neighbors can form a militia of armed people to shoot the government.
Sorry if that's too harsh for many modern people. But that is what the constitution is trying to say, in a very nice way. And that is what our lawmakers and judges would rather undergo root canal than admit in public.
BUMP to your plain talking.
Unfortunately, I agree with your thought. I pray it will be bloodless.
Shocked that government would ‘let us’ protect ourselves. They are in the business of taking from us — at lowest cost (our property, income, etc).
That's why the Second Amendment should have been worded:
A well armed citizenry being necessary to the security of a free society, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
btt
Still not good enough. All free persons have the right to keep and bear arms, free of any burdensome rules or restrictions. CIVILIAN DISARMAMENT SHALL CONSTITUTE TREASON.
I think that Mr. Madison (and those who shared his views on the matter) would simply have said, "The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", were it not for the need to appease the landed gentry, and the other would-be aristocrats, who might have seen an armed citizenry as a threat to their wealth and power. Adding that unfortunate dependent clause about the "militia" was, IMO, designed to assuage the fears of the slaveholders and the mercantile class.
I don't think that's the issue. I think it more likely that Madison et al. would have feared that, without such language, the RKBA might be interpreted as only applying to a small subset of weapons, excluding some that would be necessary for effective military use.
It is left deliberately vague to give us more power, but at the same time to clearly discourage a single armed citizen from offing a government official who may tick him off. At the same, same time. a single American citizen is allowed to take armed action against armed individuals who threaten him, his life, or his family's safety, who may of course be working for the government, for instance, policemen who raid the wrong house (A purely hypothetical case) .
I cringed when I heard that, but I understand what he did. A lot of times appeals judges set traps for overreaching on arguments. On the same point, Gura's client was Heller, and he had to do what was best for Heller first or he's violating his fidiciary duty. Bob Levy also wanted a narrow ruling, strictly on the gun ban itself.
I thought he did a good job. I thought Dellinger did a good job arguing the case for the bad guys. The only one I thought did a real poor job was Solicitor General's office and Clement. Everyone was ripping him apart.
I don't think that's the issue. I think it more likely that Madison et al. would have feared that, without such language, the RKBA might be interpreted as only applying to a small subset of weapons, excluding some that would be necessary for effective military use.
You may be right, but don't forget one thing: it wasn't Lefty radicals like Hussein who first started placing "common sense" restrictions on the right to keep and bear. No, the first anti-gunners were "law and order" City Fathers (i.e the rich and famous), local police agencies and "right-wing" judges - all representing the interests of the wealthy- who feared what Old West desperados, Sacco and Vanzetti-type Anarchists and (later still) the Bolsheviks and Prohibition-era gangsters would do if they had ready access to firearms. I think that the Masters of the Plantation and the Captains of Commerce and Industry would have been much less apprehensive about militarily effective arms in the hands of an organized Militia than they would have been about a coach gun or a pocket pistol in the hands of a slave or an angry underling.
What do you mean "right-wing" judges? The terms have shifted meaning over the years. When power was dominated by private monied interests, authoritarians favored letting them keep their money while those seeking to tear down the existing power structure sought redistribution. Since redistributionists have gained power, now they want to bolster the government power structure and reinforce their positions.
In neither case would I expect the founders have been too pleased with authoritarian attempts at disarmament.
The first gun laws were intensely racist in nature. They were designed primarily to keep firearms out of the hands of newly freed Negroes.
You have that right.
You cannot defend a right when your argument defends limits on that right.
The gun haters are taking things like the machine gun laws and running with it. They see it as the right to bear arms side once again compromising.
The Heller case should have been argued on the fact that any gun control law infringes on the right to bear arms.
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