A Dissenting View on Heller
From comments cited by Billy Beck:
***
Martin: "Allow me a least one day of optimism, however!"
Not one second, sir.
The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced that there is nothing good in it. What I see here is the Supreme Court acting as a focus-group for legislators and administrators: the Court is telling them how to tweak the program.
***
Exactly.
I started to slog through the majority opinion today, and will be working on my take hopefully for Independence Day publication.
What I have seen so far, when properly used by the OpFor, is Supreme Court authority for a complete abolition of "...weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns..." (Heller at p. 52).
More skepticism here.
So what can an average law-abiding RKBA activist do now?
Buy more AKs, ARs, FALs, Garands, and any other semi-automatic battle rifle or carbine, along with many mags and much ammo. Ditto with precision long-range rifles and associated equipment (e.g., riflescopes, bipods, and spotting scopes, along with reloading equipment and lots of components).
Keep doing so, as often as you can.
Then practice with that equipment regularly, under practical conditions, as discussed here and here.
Help others to learn those skills, whether by teaching yourself or hiring folks to do so.
For "lawful purposes", of course, such as home/farm/ranch defense, citizen-based homeland security, target competition, and personal protection.
Of course, such firearms are already "in common use at the time" (p. 55), aren't they?
Tempus fugit.
posted by Concerned American | 2:57 AM
4 Comments:
I assure you Scalia's opinion was very carefully crafted - but not to provide a roadmap for policy-makers, but instead to win the all important 5th vote. This one clearly could have gone the other way.
Take solace in the fact that FINALLY the 2A has been held by the Supreme Court to be an INDIVIDUAL right - given the make up of this court we were damned lucky to get that - it is a really bid deal that we now have legal precedent to go undo a LOT of the damage the anti-gunners have been able to do in many of the larger cities.
Remember also that the decision was based on the facts before the court - This was NOT an attack in the NFA of 1934 or GCA of 1968, but a very narrow attack on the DC law banning handguns for private ownership and gun lock and disassembly requirements for long guns. The Supreme Court totally repudiated those prohibitions as an unconstitutional infringement on the individual right to possess firearms for any lawful use - including self-defense.
Though I grant you it may be a smaller lever than desired, it IS at long last a legal lever - now watch as the walls start to fall. We are on the offensive now.
I agree that it is a win - and a win in the face of very heavy odds.
I agree that we are better off with it than without.
But I stand on my snapshot comment to a colleague after a very quick skim on Thursday:
There is as much danger in Heller as there is opportunity.
The point fo my upcoming essay is to point out those danger areas and suggest possible remedies.
I'm selling my classic '67 big-block fastback Mustang. One of the things that's going to come out of that sale is a DSA FAL.
"Of the kind in common use..."
While Scalia used the words "individual right" and "inherent right" of self-defense, he excluded millions of Americans from the Second Amendment - felons (most of whom committed nonviolent, victimless, mala prohibita "crimes"), persons with certain misdemeanor convictions per the Lautenberg Amendment, etc. These Americans are part of "the people" in the First and Fourth Amendments; how are they inexplicably not among "the people" referred to in the Second Amendment?
Why does a woman with a tax or marijuana conviction years ago not have an "inherent right" to defend herself against a wannabe robber, rapist or murderer? G.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and thousands of other politicians and LEOs have past histories of felony drug use; they simply avoided apprehension at the time. I don't see anyone holding that against them now.
Scalia's "individual right" is really nothing more than a mere privilege subject to arbitrary restriction, even revocation, by the government. Under what bizarre rationale do people have to obtain licenses, undergo registration and background checks before they're "allowed" to possess firearms, and then only certain government-approved ones? Some individual right. Did I miss Scalia's comments in Heller where he explained why the words "unalienable" in the Declaration of Independence and "shall not be infringed" in the Second Amendment don't mean what they say?
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