Posted by
BLOGASSAULT on Thursday, July 03, 2008 6:50:11 PM
Here are some great articles on the recent Supreme Court decision on the 2nd Amendment.
The best article is actually the
opinion of the court itself. Justice Scalia slams the disenting Justice Stevens and Justice Breyers for all their idiocy in no uncertain terms.
JUSTICE STEVENS points to a study by amici supposedly showing that the phrase “bear arms” was most frequently used in the military context. See post, at 12–13, n. 9; Linguists’ Brief 24. Of course, as we have said, the fact that the phrase was commonly used in a particular context does not show that it is limited to that context, and, in any event, we have given many sources where the phrase was used in nonmilitary contexts. Moreover, the study’s collection appears to include (who knows how many times) the idiomatic phrase “bear arms against,” which is irrelevant. The amici also dismiss examples such as “ ‘bear arms . . . for the purpose of killing game’ ” because those uses are “expressly qualified.” Linguists’ Brief 24. (JUSTICE STEVENS uses the same excuse for dismissing the state constitutional provisions analogous to the Second Amendment that identify private-use purposes for which the individual right can be asserted. See post, at 12.)
Here is another except.
Finally, JUSTICE STEVENS suggests that “keep and bear Arms” was some sort of term of art, presumably akin to “hue and cry” or “cease and desist.” (This suggestion usefully evades the problem that there is no evidence whatsoever to support a military reading of “keep arms.”)JUSTICE STEVENS believes that the unitary meaning of “keep and bear Arms” is established by the Second Amendment’s calling it a “right” (singular) rather than “rights” (plural). See post, at 16. There is nothing to this. State constitutions of the founding period routinely grouped multiple (related) guarantees under a singular “right,” and the First Amendment protects the “right [singular] of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
This line about says it all:
Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.
We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Here-Here!!!