[RKV]

"Justice Scalia’s landmark ruling merits our attention for its method as well as its result. Behold: a constitutional opinion that actually dwells on the Constitution itself! Most constitutional opinions do not do this."

"The majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, for example, never even quoted the constitutional clause that the Court used to reach its sweeping result. In countless cases involving application of the Bill of Rights against the states, the operative Fourteenth Amendment text has received little or no mention."

Regarding Stevens dissent, Amar takes the former Harvard Law grad to the woodshed. "His was largely a precedent-based claim about the sheer number of lower court judges on his side, and as such his claim fell flat. ... the Heller Stevens wrapped himself in the robes of precedent and argued that even if precedent has strayed from the original meaning, precedent should be followed. ... In Justice Stevens’s opinion, then, we see a remarkable failure to offer a coherent analysis of one of the most obvious, important, and recurring questions of constitutional law: what to do when case law contradicts the Constitution.”

Amar further extends the debate on incorporation of the 2nd via the 14th Amendment, reminding readers of the relationship between the Freedmans Act’s specific protection of 2nd Amendment (and other) rights of the newly freed slaves as essential to understanding the 14th Amendment.

And here it is, laid out on a platter "After Heller, it is hard to conceive how Cruikshank can still stand" [nota bene: YEAH!]

Breyer's "deference to legislatures" gets pilloried, as Amar shows how Breyer's own partial birth abortion rulings don't follow this line.

Unfortunately he ends by sucking up to Obama calling him something demonstrably untrue - "a gifted constitutional lawyer"

[RKV]

FYI

[Ancesthntr]

On the last day of the Term, the Court — for the first time ever, by a single vote, over vigorous dissents, and against the weight of circuit precedent — wielded the Second Amendment to strike down a federal gun control measure ...

It is already wrong - it was a District of Columbia law at issue, not federal law. The fact that it was a law indirectly authorized by Congress (because Congress granted DC the ability to govern itself) does not excuse the inaccuracy. Not a great start for the "esteemed" HLR.

[Tarpon]

My favorite part -—

“The majority opinion in Roe v. Wade for example, never even quoted the Constitutional clause that the Court used to reach it’s sweeping opinion”

I wonder why that is?

So we have a right that isn’t there, and it is not to be fiddled with at all, and a right that is there and it can be trampled at will. I wonder why that is?

[griswold3]

Unfortunately he ends by sucking up to Obama calling him something demonstrably untrue - “a gifted constitutional lawyer”

Did he find briefs to qualify that remark?

[IrishCatholic]

bookmark for later.

[Stentor]

Article I of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Right to Bear Arms

Section 21. The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

I could swear they asked me a boatload of questions when I went for my permit in Philly.

[sig226]

Good article.

I'm still waiting for someone in government to acknowledge that this sentence exists:

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

It's in Article VI, and it obviates the need for the 14th Amendment and incorporation