Convictions : guns

What?

Rosa Brooks — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:48:00 GMT

Adam, do you mean to tell me I still can't hunt in Rock Creek Park? And I can't go on homosexual romps there, either? What's the point of having a Constitution if it's not going to give me any rights? So, fine, if I run down a deer, I'm keeping my venison for myself. Scalia can't have any. Neither can you.

Guns & the 14th amendment

Doug Kmiec — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:03:00 GMT

Jack is right to point out that the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th amendment was indeed, as Senator Howard at the time explained, intended to incorporate Corfield's partial listing of natural rights as well as the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, as against the States declaring the body of these rights to be the true deposit of U.S. citizenship. Were the Slaughterhouse Cases and its misinterpretation of the privileges or immunities clause to be overturned, I concede that the people in the several states would no longer have an unfettered legislative ability under the 10th amendment "either to broadly protect individual rights of gun ownership or the opposite," at least insofar as "the opposite" -- that is, restriction would need to comport with the incorporated Second Amendment.

It is not clear to me however how the 14th amendment is relevant to the scope of Congress's authority over the District of Columbia, or the District's power which it has by delegation. As I mentioned in my earlier post, Congress is directly limited by the Second Amendment in terms of its regulation of the several states, but is it contended that there is a reverse incorporation of the 14th amendment privileges or immunities clause as against the Congress in its governance of the District of Columbia? If that is what is being contended, more than Senator Howard's Corfield and Bill of Rights reference in the legislative history would be needed to establish that fact and what it means -- at least for me. For now, as I see it, with or without the 14th amendment and the proper interpretation of the privileges or immunities clause, the District of Columbia may ban handguns or do something less.

As originally understood, the Second Amendment has nothing to say about the DC City Council's handgun ban

Doug Kmiec — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:58:00 GMT

What might the Supreme Court be writing regarding the DC handgun ban? If the oral argument is any guide, and hopefully it will not be, the Court is invalidating the DC handgun ban, when an originalist understanding would reach the exact opposite result....(read more)

Clinging to Guns and Religion—No Apology Needed

Doug Kmiec — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:46:00 GMT

As Melinda Henneberger notes, Sen. Obama is being accused of displaying a profound misunderstanding of so-called Midwestern or small-town values based on a recent comment. The senator explained how voters—angry and demoralized by their economic circumstance and the inability of politicians to improve rather than worsen their plight—"cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

With due respect to the good people in Melinda's hometown of Mount Carmel and with fond remembrance of my two decades in South Bend, Ind., I doubt anyone in those places is offended until Clinton and McCain ride into town and rile them up with falsehood and fear.

This is merely the inverse formulation of Obama's positive message to not fall prey to politicians of either party who seek support by dividing us. Instead of seeking peace, we have a president and his first cousin barely removed perpetuating an unnecessary war. Instead of addressing the poverty or immaturity or insufficient learning that can lead a young woman to terminate a pregnancy, partisans on both sides mystify us into thinking the next Supreme Court justice (so long as she is "our" nominee) will make it all better. Instead of working to limit crimes of violence by strengthening families, the polemicists of old politics construct the myth that when Madison penned "well-regulated militia," he meant ample home arsenal. Instead of honoring people of faith whose gospel motivates them to teach or ladle in soup kitchens or staff hospitals and nursing homes, candidates gratuitously stoke racial and religious hatred by constant replay of a minister's overheated rhetoric.

Now, having stirred up intense hate and suspicion toward each other, the message of Sen. McCain is: Cling to those hates, my friends. Woe be to anyone who would have the hopeful audacity to tell you to stop. Why, says Mrs. Clinton, you should have known all along that anyone who tells you, "Yes, you can" is a fraud. You know you can't. Insist on your right to see yourself as a victim. Don't vote your freedom—vote for me!

No, Sen. Obama, no apologies needed. When you call upon us to set aside divisions based on faith, you do not dishonor religion but rebuild its immunity from political manipulation. Like Pascal, you are reminding us that faith is "of another order which surpasses all the rest in depth and height."

It's a good reminder even if it did prompt Mrs. Clinton to reminisce about how her father taught her to shoot when she was a young girl in the Chicago suburbs. "Incoming!"