Knightskye

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/busi...=1&oref=slogin

Awesome.

The Hack

Very interesting case, from a constitutional stanpoint. It would have been much more interesting if it had been somewhere other than DC. In that case, the Supreme Court would have needed to do an analysis of the 14th Amendment. As this was in DC, and not in one of the 50 states, there still is a question as to whether states can ban firearms without violating the Constitution. I don't think that question will be tested any time soon, though; not after the question in the DC case clarified the individual v. state right issue of the 2nd Amendment.

alanmt

I believe that this was the correct result, and am surprised at the closeness of the vote. Kennedy certainly is the man in the middle.

It does serve as an example of the constant tension between freedom and security.

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The Hack

I agree Alan. While I have not read the SC decision (yet) I did read the opinion of the Court of Appeals. I think it is pretty hard to argue against their logic in holding that the 2nd Amendment was intended to be an individual right and not a right retained by the various states. Still, I would have loved to have read a SC decision on this issue in which the Incorporation concept of the 14th Amendment was relevant.

aspiretowrite

Perfect timing considering the shooting in Kentucky - not the best time to be talking about Gun rights.

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lin

So you're saying if more people in Kentucky carried guns they wouldn't have been so easily killed, right?

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Non Serviam

Note aspiretowrite's location carefully, engage sarcasm detector circuits, and re-read.

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alanmt

I think its always a good time for people to realize that individual liberties do have societal costs when they are abused, otherwise people tend to forget about the meaning of the concept of liberty and its value and respond to tragedies like the Kentucky shootings with ill-advised initiatives to attempt to sanitize society and make it danger-free without realizing the cost of such regulation.

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seigfried007

Oo, wise Alan. You may call me grasshoppah

Fits right in the with the conceal carry issues we've been hearing about so much lately so well too.

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lin

Why?

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Straylight

As a CHL (Concealed Handgun License) holder and NRA member, I've been following this case for many moons now, and was glad to see it ended as it did. I read all 64 pages of Scalia's majority opinion, and as usual he delivered a very readable and complete opinion that should serve as fine precedent in the future.

Of course, I view this as a small victory -- both of our miserable presumptive nominees are liable to put liberal Judicial Activists on the Court for their next appointment(s), and when this crap reaches Chicago there will inevitably be a follow-up case about Incorporation, and if you get rid of just one of the real Justices in the Court and replace them with another Bader-Ginsburg, I can guarantee they'll find some imaginary Constitutional clause to render this decision useless.

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The Hack

That's exactly what I was saying when I pondered if the outcome would be the same if the case dealt with a state law instead of a DC law.

Straylight, the Court doesn't need law on their side when they have the penumbra. I actually have the same concerns as you about the future of the SCOTUS.

alanmt

I have the opposite concerns. Why does the pendulum have to swing so hard each way?

Probably because these are viewed as political appointments, which they shouldn't be.

What we need are more O'Connors and Kennedys.

I disapprove of Scalia's jurisprudence, generally. He views issues with a powerful lense, but one which is obviously tinted. His uses his powerful analytical abilities support the result he desires, rather than desiring the result that his powerful analytical abilities could reveal if uncolored. It is difficult to set aside a very subtle human bias, even for a Supreme Court Justice.

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Straylight

I'd be interested in some examples of the stated aspect of Nino's jurisprudence -- he's certainly a strict textualist/originalist, but I can't say he's ever, for example, magically discovered after 200 years that the Constitution provides women the right to have babies vaccuumed out of them if they change their minds post-coitus about having a kid.

Perhaps you merely dissapprove of the core principles of the Constitution?

While Scalia and Thomas are my favorite justices, I do give mad props to Kennedy as well. I might disagree with him, but he does seem to remain 100% honest to his interpretations of things.

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"Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice."
-Ayn Rand

"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it. "-Voltaire

alanmt

Clearly you don't know me very well.



or perhaps we disagree on the definition of "core principles"

edit: I do get a kick out of Thomas, sometimes. His dissent in Lawrence v. Texas made me chuckle.

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