Justice Scalia talks gun control
UPDATE: The Hill newspaper has this:
Justice Antonin Scalia said there “are some limitations that can be imposed” on the purchase of guns but would not say whether a legislature could ban semi-automatic weapons or 100-round magazines. “We’ll see,” the Supreme Court justice said Sunday when asked in an interview on Fox News whether a legislature could restrict the purchase of those items in the wake of the movie massacre in Aurora, Colo. Scalia authored the high court’s 2008 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms and invalidated a D.C. ban on handguns. Scalia noted that as to more specific restrictions on gun purchases, his opinion said those will have to be decided “in future cases.” “Some undoubtedly are [permissible], because there were some that were acknowledged at the time” of the writing of the Constitution, he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “So yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed. What they are will depend on what the society understood were reasonable limitations at the time.” . . .
Labels: AntoninScalia, SecondAmendment, SupremeCourt
posted by John Lott at 9:04 PM
1 Comments:
Scalia is correct when he says that there were restrictions at the time, yet ignores the fact that unconstitutional laws did in fact exist, still do, and that's what his job is about.
If one was paying attention to what he had to say about the fourth amendment, the part where he said that wire tapping was not covered by the 4th, because the 4th says that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects". He did mention papers specifically, yet he ignores that 'papers' in the context of the time, were the primary means of long distance communications. Wires, and airwaves are now a primary means of communication and are covered by the 4th even if not actually mentioned.
Let us assume that Scalia is an 'textualist' and or an 'originalist'. What part of 'shall not be infringed' does he fail to comprehend? What ever happened to the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers that show what was on the minds of those who crafted the Bill of Rights?
To argue that 'modern weapons' are not protected by the 2nd, because they did not exist at the time, is pure hogwash. The Founding Fathers were highly sensitive to history, new technology, and what impact it had on history.
Like it or not, multi-shot firearms did exist at the time. So did pneumatic 'guns' as well. Humans went from stone cannon balls to iron, grape and canister shot. Kentucky long rifle anyone?
History showed the Founding Fathers (and us as well) that the path to tyranny usually starts by disarming the citizens, hence the 2nd Amendement. Are we to tolerate would be tyrants?
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