|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
The Second Amendment: Down A New Barrel
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Issue
|
| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Nov 26, 2007 03:16pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Analysis |
| Media | TV News - Columbia Broadcasting System CBS News |
| News Date | Monday, November 26, 2007 09:15:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Activists on both sides of the steaming debate over guns ought to be able to agree, at the very least, on two things. The first is that the language of the Second Amendment is, grammatically speaking, incomprehensible. The second is that the time has come for clarity from the Supreme Court about whether the "right to bear arms" is an individual or collective one.
The second conclusion the justices will be able to glean from their homework is that the easy way out of this eternal thicket of law and politics also may make the most sense. Instead of trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, instead of continuing to look at what Cornell calls the "individual/collective rights dichotomy model," the justices instead should chart a course that does to the Second Amendment what we long ago did to the First Amendment; identify a strong individual right but allow for that right to be trumped from time to time by certain kinds of regulations.
In other words, for the same reason the court continues to outlaw threatening speech - "I have a bomb!" - it would continue to outlaw certain kinds of gun ownership or possession even as it finally explicitly recognizes someone's right to own and possess a gun. One of Justice Anthony Kennedy's law clerks, Orrin Kerr, recently predicted this precise scenario. After declaring that there is an individual right under the Second Amendment, "Kennedy will endorse a relatively deferential standard of review that will end up allowing a great deal of gun regulation," wrote Kerr. |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
