Probably less to this than meets the eye. It’s nice to see the court adopt a ‘constitution means what it says it does’ approach to something as politically unpopular with the elite as private gun ownership. No doubt that we’re in for a long struggle working through endless attempts by officials in places like D.C. and Chicago to continue to keep guns firmly in the hands of only the criminal classes instead of the law abiding.
More from CNN here. Only a government with the historical corruption and ineptitude of Washington D.C. could conclude that rendering it’s citizens defenseless makes them safer.
As noted in the Times, there’s this troubling bit in Justice Scalia’s opinion:
“The ruling does not mean, for instance, that laws against carrying concealed weapons are to be swept aside. Furthermore, Justice Scalia wrote, ‘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.’"
It’s the “conditions and qualifications on commercial sale” bit that’s a concern.
Keep in mind that Senator Obama wants to ban gun shops within 5 miles of schools and parks, effectively banning the sale of firearms.
David Bernstein has more here – granted, this is an older article, and the Senator has since
Senator Obama’s got a pretty firm anti civil right stance on guns. I suspect that you won’t see the Senator unambiguously endorse a right to self defense anytime soon. And given the chance to add more Ginsberg / Souter / Breyer types to the court, a lot of currently unreasonable things will start to look reasonable to some unreasonable Justices.
Some constitutional rights aren’t as important as others.
Update: First reaction from the Washington Post’s Colbert King: call his fellow citizens thugs. Not just the crooks, the people being victimized and in need of protection that D.C. can’t provide.
Update II: Gavin Newsom doesn’t get it either. Not that that’s a surprise:
“In San Francisco, which has some of the toughest handgun regulations in the U.S., Mayor Gavin Newsom said the ruling ‘just flies in the face of reality. You just wish the Supreme Court could spend a week in public housing and then come out with this decision. It's very easy and comfortable to stand there with security guards and metal detectors and make these decisions.’”
Actually, it may very well be easier to support gun control when you’re surrounded by security guards and metal detectors. It’s the single mom stuck in the projects that doesn’t have all of the fancy security at her beck and call that needs protection.
|