Another Perspective on the SC Ruling

[XDConvert9mm]

On Guns, Antonin Scalia is Right For Once, and Keith Olbermann Isn't
Jackson Williams Sun Jun 29, 8:15 PM ET

Keith Olbermann declared Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia the "Worst Person in the World" on the Thursday, June 26 edition of MSNBC's "Countdown." What got him up in arms was the Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment.

I'm tempted to give Olbermann a pass on this since he made a midlife career change at the age of 40, from sports to news and analysis. Plus, I'm no fan of Nino Scalia. Yet Keith's reasoning on this issue is so beyond specious that it merits comment.

Here he is explaining what the 27 words of the amendment "really" mean:
"Despite years of fog created by the NRA and right-wing organizations, {this} isn't very complicated: for the purposes of forming a state militia, you're entitled to keep and bear arms. Obviously, those would have to be {the kind of arms} in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was passed; the musket, the wheel-lock, the flint lock, the 13th century Chinese hand canon. Stuff like that."

That makes no sense. After all, the First Amendment applies to forms of communication the Founders never dreamed of, from TV to the internet. And as a civil libertarian, I believe deeply that the Fourth Amendment, dealing with warrants for search and seizure, must absolutely encompass modern inventions like wiretaps and heat-seeking infrared devices that law enforcement can aim into your home from the outside. They certainly didn't exist "when the Bill of Rights was passed."

The logic of a "living Constitution" can't apply to some amendments, such as the First and the Fourth, yet not to the ones I don't care for or find problematic. Such an approach courts disaster by encouraging others to use the same means in purging the parts of the document they don't care for.

It sounds like Keith stands foursquare with George W. Bush when it comes to constitutional analysis.

I, on the other hand, stand foursquare with famed liberal constitutional scholars Laurence Tribe of Harvard and Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas, two among many -- Barack Obama included -- who have acknowledged that the Second Amendment applies to individuals. The ancient meaning of the opening clause ("A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State) refers to the closing clause (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.)
As for gun control, I'm a huge supporter and I oppose carrying concealed weapons. There are simply too many guns on our urban streets. I believe in waiting periods, banning assault weapons and cop-killer bullets, closing the gun show loophole, etc.

But even free speech isn't absolute, so I don't think the right to own firearms is somehow incompatible with rules and regulations designed to protect society. Indeed, civility demands a regulatory structure to function smoothly and safely. Scalia seems to agree, writing the following in the opinion:

"It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.....The court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." (Emphasis added.)

If we don't like the Second Amendment, then we should agitate to get rid of it in the methods the Founders prescribed. But we might want to think twice.

Former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis is widely cited for the following quote: "You know, I do not believe in individuals owning firearms. Only the police and military."

I don't know if the line is accurate or apocryphal, but think of it: Only the police and military? That's bone-chilling in its implications for a country already at risk of losing constitutional liberties, from warrants to habeas corpus.

And I don't even own a firearm.

On Guns, Antonin Scalia is Right For Once, and Keith Olbermann Isn't - Yahoo! News

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at some of the reactions coming out of the Heller case by those opposed to guns. It seems to me that there has been an awakening among those that value their civil liberties afforded to them by the Constitution that tossing one out might be a bad precedent to set for the rest of our rights. Thoughts?

[Frenchy]

A fairly even-handed presentation.

[Northern-Lights]

I believe that is the very first time I've ever read something from an Anti-Gun person who gave it some thought and admitted the "chilling" implications of an unarmed society.

Maybe there is hope for him?

[AZXD]

The decision does seem to have woken a few people up to the "loose one, loose them all" possibility.

[bigun]

What I get the biggest kick over is the "well they only had Muskets then and could never have dreamed of the firepower that modern weapons posess" What they fail to recognise is that the musket was military state of the art in its day and the pinacle of battlefield tech. So by their own argument they prove their argument false. The people could own modern military weapons then,to include cannon, No bayonet lug restrictions, but now we dont trust our people enough to allow neutered copies of the same Sate of the art weapons that our military carry. Its comparing apples to apples not apples to oranges.