As the folks over at SCOTUSblog wrote this morning, the Supreme Court may hear a Second Amendment case this term. More here. Right now, the parties are wrangling over what the phrasing of the issue before the Court ought to be. Gun advocates want the issue to be broad; they want to Court to consider whether DC may restrict gun ownership by law-abiding citizens. They argue that the totality of DC's gun scheme reflects a wide-ranging restriction on gun ownership. DC has a different take. It wants the issue narrowed to whether it may restrict a sub-class of guns: handguns.
There are two interpretations of the Second. One is the militia view. It says that gun ownership is protected only at the militia level because the Amendment opens with "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to keep the security of a free State...." The other view, the individual view, would hold that gun ownership is protected at the individual level because the Amendment concludes "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Chief Justice Roberts said that the militia v. individual debate is very much still alive, and the Court hasn't touched this issue in 70 years.
But, that said, no one really wants the Court to touch this issue. A great summary is found here. The NRA could lose its fundraising base. Anti-gun liberals would lose a rallying point. But this might all be a good thing. A very wise jurist once said that the best decision is one that no one is happy with. We'll see how this pans out. This is certainly one to keep a watch over.
Friday, October 5, 2007
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2 comments:
The Militia view makes more sense to me given the constitutional responsibility citizens have to overthrow the government (purely taken from one perspective here).
I mean, it does lay out the fact that the framers were not entirely certain where this whole experiment was headed, so the idea of putting a clause in there that requires citizens to perform a "redo" if things get out of hand.
That being said, the Militia standpoint seems to jive pretty well with that...
Sidenote, I am not advocating the violent overhaul of the government, before I start getting happy notes from people and organizations (namely government)! This is just something that is a (possibly debateable) distinct part of our constitution afterall...
I'm not sure there's a "redo" clause in the Constitution, but the Declaration of Independence does say that from time to time its best if the people split from their government and strike out on their own. I'm not sure what that has to do with the 2nd Amend. though.
I'm a militia oriented person myself. The Amendment starts out mentioning the militia, goes on to talk about the safety of the state (not the individual) and then says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. I think that whoever wrote that amendment was thinking about keep states safe.
So, yeah, let states have their own little militias to keep them from being invaded by Canada. Maybe. Also let the states make the gun laws they want. If Vermont wants to have the most gun-friendly laws in the nation (as they do), so be it. If California wants to make squirt guns illegal, more power to them. Just keep those militias going, and we should be good.
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