by Demophilus
I for one applaud the Supreme Court's ruling striking down the DC gun ban. There are other places you can go for careful analysis of questions concerning constitutional law, but this little nugget from the article I linked to caught my eye. John Paul Stevens, in his dissent, wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
Isn't that precisely the point of the Bill of Rights -- to "limit the tools available to elected officials" when it comes to their regulating various aspects of our lives? Notice no one is saying there can't be reasonable regulations on the use and possession of firearms (why does Stevens use the term "weapons"?). It seems remarkable to me that a Supreme Court justice is bent out of shape because the Constitution was construed as placing any limits on the political power of the state.
Another interesting aspect of this is that the right to own a firearm was discussed very much in terms of "lawful self defense," which is to say the defense of one's home, property, and family. We might reformulate this by calling the decision one that affirmed that you can keep a firearm in your home, and keep it there in such a way that its use for self-defense is meaningful and plausible (i.e. not dismantled, locked away, etc.). Its curious that left-leaning judges on the Court will argue for "privacy," including that you can do just about anything you want in the privacy of your home, but then stop short of saying that includes law-abiding citizens keeping a firearm for self-defense in their bedroom (I thought the government was supposed to stay out of our bedrooms, anyways?). Its also quite a spectacle to see Stevens suddenly become a strict constructionist, probing the original intent of the Framers when it comes to the second amendment.
At the very least, there should be a penumbra that we can find a right to own a firearm under, no?
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