Boring, Policy-Related Post- Read At Own Risk


Oh, happy day! On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear the appeal of the DC Circuit's decision to overturn the District's gun ban as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

I say that with caution, however, as the Supreme Court also could do something disastrous with this opportunity.

In March, I wrote a lengthy post about this issue and applauded the DC Circuit's decision. Later, unmarked by me, the entire DC Circuit left the decision intact, whereupon the plaintiffs and the District appealed it to the Supreme Court.

Already, the morons are coming out of the woodwork (I'm trying to be a little more generous to people I disagree with these days, but 'morons' is as nice as I can find it in me to be), claiming that finding the Second an Individual right will entitle people to own tanks and nuclear weapons (read the comments at the bottom), and that such a finding on the Amendment would be a radical departure from decades of jurisprudence.

Let's just settle that first issue: The Amendment says "keep and bear arms". Historically, that would mean a weapon one individual soldier would be expected to carry in military service, or in other words, a weapon one person could reasonably employ on his (or her) own. One person can't carry a tank, or operate all its functions by themselves. One person can't use a nuclear weapon in any defensive operation that would not involve vaporizing himself and his entire city around him. So please, people, take your medication and stay off the Internet?

Damn, there I go again, impinging the mental capabilities of those who disagree with me. I promise to pray for forgiveness later.

Then there are the specious arguments made by those who proclaim to be 'straight shooters'. In the GunGuys article cited above, we have this gem:

"Lost in the legal arguments, as GunGuys has pointed out on numerous occasions, is the reality that even a ban on handguns does not restrict the right of a person to own other firearms. A resident in D.C. can own shotguns and rifles, for instance." (Text shrunk to denote quotation, and idiocy of argument)

Just to take that over to First Amendment territory, if a law were passed that forbade me to speak my mind on political subjects on the Internet, that law would abridge my freedom of speech under the First Amendment. The fact that, under that law, I'd still retain my right to print a letter in the local newspaper is immaterial!

To point out another example of the sheer stupidity of that argument, if a law allowed me to be boiled in oil for running a stop sign, that law would violate the Constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishments, regardless of whether the law in question still forbade the government from staking me in the desert to die of dehydration.

Granted, GunGuys ("where everyone's a straight shooter") takes the collectivist Second Amendment viewpoint, but that still shouldn't stop them from seeing the vapidity of the argument they're making. If a person has a right to a firearm, then they have a right to a firearm, and simply arbitrarily banning one certain type of firearm but leaving others legal wouldn't make such laws any less unconstitutional. Although I will note that, in their cursory acknowledgement that DC residents can own long guns, they disingenuously fail to state that those long guns must be disabled and locked up. ARRGGG, I so loathe hypocrites!

Despite my disagreements with President Bush over several issues these last couple of years, if his picks, Alito and Roberts, manage to pull this one out, I'll count both of my votes for him absolutely well-placed.

Oh, yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving. I'll post about that once I get home from Charlotte on Sunday.