A 5-4 vote on the Second Amendment is no victory-it is downright scary..
How can any justice rule against the 2nd. Amendment? It floors me. Unfortunately, we don’t have the numbers to stop Elena Kagan, barring an unexpected development.
Does anyone know where to find the dissents? I’d like to see what passes for logic on the left these days.
ping
Thomas hit the bullseye. Scalia, Alito and Roberts were close but no cigar.
Aldebaran is the Greek Omma Boos, Latin Oculus Tauri, and the early English Bull's Eye. "Bull's-eye" is what we call "the centre of a target, which usually carries the highest score", and "a precise or highly effective achievement"Aldebaran
The great "red giant", war-like Aldebaran is one of the four "Guardians of Heaven" - sentinels watching over other stars. It formed one of the four royal stars of Persia as "Watcher of the East".
These were also called archangel stars; this star Aldebaran was Michael - Military Commander of the Heavenly Host. The others were; Gabriel (Fomalhaut) Watcher of the South; Raphael (Regulus) Watcher of the North; Uriel (Antares) Watcher of the West. At one time they marked the two Equinoxes and two Solstices. Aldebaran marked the zero Aries point in 3044 BC, Antares marked zero Libra 3052 BC, Fomalhaut marked zero Capricorn, 2582 BC, Regulus marked zero Cancer 2345 BC. [The angel associations come from Eric Morse, The Living Stars, p.35. Allen's explanation of these four stars on p.256 of Star Names]
These four stars have been characterized as Horses, reflected both in the famed Four Horsemen of Apocalypse (Revelations 6) and Chariot Horses in the Book of Zechariah - [Dr Eric Morse, The Living Stars, p.56.]
The name Aldebaran is the traditional Arabic (الدبران al-dabarān (ad-dabarān)) name which literally translates as "the follower". The name probably refers to the way this bright star follows the Pleiades star cluster in its nightly journey across the sky.[3]Wiki
Compare Aldebaran.
OK, here goes my try at it. The Court didn't argue this on 2nd Amendment grounds, and here is why...
When the Second Amendment was written, it absolutely did not apply to the states. The Bill of Rights was a guarantee that the federal government and only the federal government would not oppress the citizens' rights. To illustrate, the First bars establishment of an official religion. However, up through the 1820s, some states had established religions. Barron v. Baltimore upheld the restriction on the BoR to the fed. gov't in 1833.
This was not Alito's argument in the case. He looked at the 14th Amendment, which absolutely applies to the states. (The 14th has a sordid history toward ratification that makes anything Obama has done look like a child's game.) The 14th is the giant tunnel in the Constitution that brings prohibitions on the federal government to the states. This didn't happen till something like 1925, though, in Gitlow v. New York.
The 14th gives you due process rights. Actually, it gave former slaves due process rights, as it was intended. The Supreme Court has used this to give you "abortion rights" as well as now gun rights. Alito and Thomas were a bit crafty about it, though. They spoke in the decision about the due process rights of former slaves to own guns. If a former slave could own guns, how would it be fair to restrict you?
I read parts of the argument and I was dubious at first, but I think the reasonings of Alito and Thomas (his is a bit different) are interesting. Apparently Scalia had some disagreements, but I haven't read those.
From my perspective, being able to defend yourself is a matter of Natural Law, a God-given right. Any law which denies self-defense is itself illegal. I'm a strong believer in state and local rights, though. If a community wants to ban guns, should they be able to do so? Not by Natural Law, but I'm uncomfortable with federal involvement.
I'm a very staunch supporter of gun ownership with very few restrictions, but personal feelings should have nothing to do with the law. I need to read this case in more depth because the arguments are not simple, and the decision is very lengthy.
Good, but scary...
Subtle point - elections very much matter in this day and age...