U.S. Supreme Court
Scalia Likely Author of Gun Opinion, Blog Says
Posted Jun 24, 2008, 06:47 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
In a post titled “Wild Opinion Speculation,” SCOTUSblog says it appears “exceptionally likely” that Justice Antonin Scalia will write the opinion in the Second Amendment gun case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
That’s good news for those who support the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, the blog says. At issue in District of Columbia v. Heller is whether a District of Columbia handgun ban violates the amendment.
When the court heard oral arguments in the case in March, justices considered the meaning of the amendment, which reads: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Scalia offered his interpretation of the wording: “Since we need a militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
SCOTUSblog says Heller is the only opinion remaining from the March sitting, and Scalia is the only justice who has not written a majority opinion from the sitting.
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Posted by Dr. Ruger - 2 months, 1 week, 4 days, 20 hours, 30 minutes ago
Justice Stevens’ dissent is severely flawed and it is scary to think that one more dissenter would have effectively repealed the second amendment. Stevens’ premise is that the 2nd states that the ‘right’ extends to only bone fide miltia members to store the weapons of war within their homes to to engage in armed conflict on behalf of the state/federal government in defense of what those governments dictate. The absurdity of a ‘right not to be infringed’ declared in the Constitution to apply to service in a bone fide military organization is hard to comprehend. Why would the Framers need to guarantee the right of someone in a combat miltia the ‘right’ to be in a combat militia fighting? Does that then mean that you have a right to be in a militia if you so want that cannot be infringed? First let’s ask who was the militia? At the time it was ordinary, able citizens who voluntarily formed defensive units. They provided their own weapons. Yet Stevens equates them to State National Guards under the direction of the governor. Would this then mean that Guardsmen can ‘keep’ their weapons of war at their homes? Would this then include mortars, TOWs, Bradleys & M60-A2’s? Or, if it truly only applies to militias, then folks in the Michigan and other militias should have the right to keep & bear all manner of offensive & defensive weapons including Stingers, Tomahawks & MRVs. If only Guardsmen have the ‘right not to be infringed’ to store war weaponry at their homes and to fight in active combat for their country, what about the NAVY, ARMY, AF & Marines? What would these guardsman be allowed to fight for......perhaps only things that Justice Stevens sanctioned......perhaps a women’s right to choose (abortion on demand)? The militias could shoot abortion protesters. Maybe the ‘rights’ of the enemy combatants to go before a US judge? How about forced school busing? Or better yet, enforce the elimination of ‘hate speech’ and the implementation of the ‘fairness doctrine’. But Stevens does not have to worry about being patently ridiculous, he’s a Supreme Court Justice appointed for life so he can be as dumb as a box of hammers and we can’t do anything about it.