Comments on: SCOTUS Says You Do Have an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:32:11 +0000

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.

By: fostert

fostert — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:50:45 +0000

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.

By: Good News! Court Rules Second Amendment Protects Individual Right to Bear Arms : Stop The ACLU

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:30:13 +0000

[...] Jimmi at the Sundries Shack: 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. [...]

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:48:38 +0000

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.

By: EricH

EricH — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:18:46 +0000

“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….