Common Folk Using Common Sense

For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that individual Americans have the right to own guns for personal use, and struck down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital.

The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the country’s high court has addressed whether the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, rather than a right tied to service in a state militia.

In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Second Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

But we can learn a great deal not from the majority opinion but from the dissenters:

The majority’s conclusion is wrong for two independent reasons.

The first reason is that set forth by Justice Stevens – namely, that the Second Amendment protects
militia-related, not self-defense-related, interests. These two interests are sometimes intertwined. To assure 18thcentury citizens that they could keep arms for militia purposes would necessarily have allowed them to keep arms that they could have used for self-defense as well. But self-defense alone, detached from any militia-related objective, is not the Amendment’s concern.

The second independent reason is that the protection the Amendment provides is not absolute. The Amendment permits government to regulate the interests that it serves. Thus, irrespective of what those interests are – whether they do or do not include an independent interest in self-defense – the majority’s view cannot be correct unless it can show that the District’s regulation is unreasonable
or inappropriate in Second Amendment terms.

In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.

- JUSTICE BREYER

What is spectacular is that whenever there is a question or doubt about rights, Justice Breyer sides with the Government, not the Individual. He believes the Second Amendment protects militia-related, not individual self-defense-related, interests, even through the rest of the Bill Of Rights specifically concern individual rights.

He believes the Second Amendment permits government to regulate the interests that it serves, not any interest of an individual.

He believes that a house in crime-ridden urban areas is the worst place for a gun, even the innocent people living in such a place may beg to differ in opinion. He comes to this conclusion simply because, in his world, all guns are bad things, refusing to consider that a gun is simply a piece of metal and plastic machinery that can only be activated and put to use by a human user.

With this in mind it should come as no surprise that Justice Breyer was appointed by fellow Leftist Clinton. Breyer thinks that this country is great because of the Government which should be empowered with rights, while I think this country is great because of its rugged individuals who should be empowered with rights.

Supreme Court, gun, Second Amendment, Scalia, firearm, Breyer

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