SCOTUS Says You Do Have an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms
By Jimmie on Jun 26, 2008 in Guns Guns Guns, The Good Old US of A
Wave your handguns in the air! Shoot ‘em like you just don’t care!
Well, finally, after two of the most brainless decisions I have ever seen come out of the Supreme Court, they finally got one right. Today, the SCOTUS decided that the Second Amendment isn’t going to be raed in the most pedantic way possible but that it means what most of us thought it meant when we first read it back in elementary school.
Yes, Americans, you do have the right to bear arms and no, you don’t have to be part of a state militia to have that right. The vote went 5-4 (decision in pdf form here) and I’m not sure right now where Justice Kennedy came down on it. At least we know he wasn’t hiking across America trying to gather the evolving public opinion on the matter.
Having my Second Amendment reaffirmed very nearly makes up for having my First Amendment rights gutted by a previous court during this administration or losing my right to own private property without the government taking it and givine it to a private businessman (remember Kelo, anyone?) by this court.
UPDATE: Justice Kennedy, I’ve found, was in the majority. Cue Andrew McCarthy:
There’s got to be a better metric of how much say we have over our own lives than what side of the bed a justice happens to get up on that day, no?
Apparently not. I would have thought the whole “judges use the law and not whatever bug flies up their robes on any given day to decide cases” thing would have managed to stick by now but I suppose that the power a judge gets from having his whim become law of the land wins out over stuff like democracy and the will of the people and stuff like that.
Stumble it!
“Will of the people”? Actually, justices aren’t supposed to pay attention to that–that’s why they’re appointed instead of elected. At least, not the people who are alive today; the will of the people as expressed in the Constitution, and Congressional legislation, sure, but not “what the people want right now.”
Arguably, the other decisions you mention, like granting habeas corpus to POWs, are the result of justices trying to follow the will of the people; there are lots of very vocal people who don’t know what the law says….
EricH | Jun 26, 2008 | Reply
When I say “will of the people”, I mean that the justices keep the primacy of the Democratic process in mind. In that sense, they should pay attention to what the people wanted when they passed the law (as opposed to doing what Justice Kennedy did yesterday, which was to suppose what the people wanted today), like you said.
I did phrase that inartfully. I should have said “the Democratic Process”, which I think would have been more accurate.
The rough analogy I prefer is that the SCOTUS are linesmen in a soccer game and not referees. They don’t exist to call the fouls but to rule when the game has gone outside the field of play.
Jimmie | Jun 26, 2008 | Reply
Not that this ruling affects me at all here in Colorado, but the majority opinion seems pretty reasonable. Colorado guarantees me the right to carry an unconcealed weapon pretty much anywhere I want (courts being the exception). And that guarantee is in the Colorado Constitution, not in its laws. I can walk down the streets of Boulder with my AK-47 and the cops will just wave to me. Either that, or they’ll ask if they can check it out. It should surprise nobody that we have more guns than people in Colorado.
fostert | Jun 26, 2008 | Reply
It seems incredibly common-sense to me also. The minority decision reads like, well, they were trying to stick the square peg of what they really wanted to do into the round hole of the English language and reasonable thinking.
The summary I read brought up an interesting thing to ponder, though. As soon as I’ve some more writing time, I’ll do a post on it. I’d like your take on it, too.
Jimmie | Jun 26, 2008 | Reply