SCOTUS Solidifies Gun Rights

Great, well done.
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So it’s settled law, it’s pro-Bill of Rights, and there’s no reason I can think of why liberals would have a problem with it, except that some of us are weirdly or culturally committed to an unrealistic agenda of “nonviolence,” even if that’s inflicted on individual for whom the threat of violence is real, i.e. ordinary people who take the responsibility of defending themselves when they’re at risk.
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Fortunately, the originalists on the Court did a bit of activist, interpretive reading of the Bill, and determined that the Second Amendment has wider, modern applications beyond that necessarily envisioned by the Founders:

the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense

Let’s celebrate this pro-individual rights ruling, even as we not the silly hypocrisy of the faux-originalists on the Court who managed to find their way to an expansive view of the Bill of Rights, as it should be.

Amen!!

What was the minority opinion, Alex? Do you have links to what was said yet?

I think that all constitutional measures should apply to states and local governments. It is a good decision. If anything needs modification, it needs to be done at the federal level.
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This means also that those decisions that are unfavorable to conservatives are also fair game.

A primary question hasn’t been answered: What, exactly, is “a well-regulated militia”? I don’t think the decision answers that.

There were two dissents written, one by Justice Stevens and the other by Justice Breyer, who was joined by Ginsburg and Sotomayor.

I have only seen the PDF of the opinion, but Scotwiki has a link: http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago#Decision

Per Stuart’s point above, it’s worth noting that Stevens takes on originalism in his dissent. An excerpt:

JUSTICE SCALIA’s method invites not only bad history, but also bad constitutional law. As I have already explained, in evaluating a claimed liberty interest (or any constitu­tional claim for that matter), it makes perfect sense to give history significant weight: JUSTICE SCALIA’s position is closer to my own than he apparently feels comfortable acknowledging. But it makes little sense to give history dispositive weight in every case. And it makes especially little sense to answer questions like whether the right to bear arms is fundamental” by focusing only on the past, given that both the practical significance and the public understandings of such a right often change as society
changes. What if the evidence had shown that, whereas at one time firearm possession contributed substantially to personal liberty and safety, nowadays it contributes noth­ing, or even tends to undermine them? Would it still have been reasonable to constitutionalize the right?

The concern runs still deeper. Not only can historical views be less than completely clear or informative, but they can also be wrong. Some notions that many Ameri­cans deeply believed to be true, at one time, turned out not to be true. Some practices that many Americans believed to be consistent with the Constitution’s guarantees of liberty and equality, at one time, turned out to be incon­sistent with them. The fact that we have a written Con­stitution does not consign this Nation to a static legal existence.

It’s worth noting that ‘bear arms’ meant something quite different in the age of flintlocks than it does in the days of Predator drones.
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To think that one can simply apply ‘originalist’ thinking to any question is absurd. The originalists also knew that the primary military force would be State militia’s only called into national service during times of crisis.

Justice Thomas’ written opinion:
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The end.

SCOTUS also ruled that college Christian groups can’t bar gays and still get funds.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11033294

This is what I think when regards the changes that need to be addressed at the federal level.
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Those words exist in the second Amendment, and for ‘strict constructionists’ to pretend they are not there shows how meaningless that concept really is.

There really is no such thing as an ‘originalist’. They were about 230 years too late…

JUSTICE SCALIA’s position is closer to my own than he apparently feels comfortable acknowledging.
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The rightists’ claim that an “activist Court” must be overcome by electing Republicans has always been disingenuous and false.
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The truth is that conservatives on the Court use originalism as a means to an end when they see fit, and interpret the constitution in view of expansive rulings when they see fit.
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They’re all activists up there. Liberals are usually the only ones who can acknowledge that reality.

This means also that those decisions that are unfavorable to conservatives are also fair game.
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You’d think that would be the case. Notice the phrasing:

“We have previously held that most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights apply with full force to both the Federal Government and the States.”

Italics mine.
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What do we think will happen if a case pitting the new Arizona immigration law against the search and seizure provision of the Fourth Amendment? Gay marriage and the establishment and/or equal protection clauses?
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By the right-wingers’ own definition, the SCOTUS has been activist and has not followed a ‘strict’ interpretation of the Constitution in its judgments.

Time magazine asserts: “Stevens takes on originalism in his dissent.”

Translation: Lawless, leftist political activist John Paul Stevens substitutes his own anti-American lawlessness/fundamentalist leftist political preferences for the United States Constitution (as enacted by the people of the United States) and the rule of law. Expect the same degree of utter lawlessness from the military-hating militant Elena Kagan. The end.

He’s a man of few words.

grape_crush:
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You’re most likely right –they’re probably fine with “Congress shall make no law” allowing Utah and Alabama to sponsor their own state religions in spite of the First.

This is exactly what I mean. States rights are limited with respect to the constitution.
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We’ve got 100 years of policy where states rights was used as a means to violate the constitution, and most of the time I hear states rights advocates speak, it’s about the supposed ability to ignore all or part of one Amendment or another.
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Even those so called ‘constructionists’ are interpreting the Constitution. They can’t claim otherwise because unless they can channel our founding fathers, it is impossible to interpret everything in the manner they intended.
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Look at the issue of separation of church and state. Anyone who has any knowledge of US history knows that that phrase was born out of concern over the excesses of the Church of England.
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Now we have a state – Texas – where the school board is attempting to erase that knowledge by legislating the injection of propaganda into their curriculum.
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It seems the approach is that if you can get everyone to believe a something otherwise, the real intent of our founding fathers can be ignored completely, of even denied.
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The only thing good about it is that there is always the actual documents to refer to.

“military-hating militant”
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Who said irony is dead?

I’m not sure the 2nd Amendment really means anything compared to its original presentation.
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Is it saying that a local government or state gets to manage a little army in case indians, Europeans, or a newly minted American king shows up?
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Does it have anything to do with arms in gun form particularly or is it discussing the local organization of a military force?
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If it’s only saying “You have the right to fight tyranny”… well, duh, thank you for that…
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The friction is created by the gun nuts who think that the private ownership of guns, the more powerful the better, was the main intent of the Founding Fathers. Yeah, they thought of guns the way we think of cars today. It was a piece of equipment needed for daily life. It is entirely unclear whether Thomas Jefferson would have applauded Joe Bob Farmer owing a fully automatic M16 any more than we’d want a 17 year old burnout owning a formula1 race car and driving it to their high school.
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Fine. Take away the blanket gun bans. But don’t let the NRA turn gun licensing into an internet-ready Pay Pal transaction.

“Liberals are usually the only ones who can acknowledge that reality.”

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That is pure bull-crap and you know it zechman. The ONLY reason you support gun rights is because you know as well as I do that failure to support individual gun rights is a losing position by Democrats / Liberals which only attracts 20% support from the ultra-liberals in this country.
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That coupled with the fact that the socialist wing of the Democrat Party is fearful of all individuals who have guns to protect themselves and defend our liberties [with force if necessary] against a tyrannical government hellbent on taking away our liberties and freedom.
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Two people on the left who support individual gun ownership, and the NRA, Harry Reid and Stuart Zechman.

Two people on the left who support individual gun ownership, and the NRA, Harry Reid and Stuart Zechman.
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…and Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas, Glenn Greenwald, etc, etc…

The ONLY reason you support gun rights is because you know as well as I do that failure to support individual gun rights is a losing position by Democrats / Liberals which only attracts 20% support from the ultra-liberals in this country.
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No, actually I think that a properly (self-defense) expansive view of the Second Amendment advances the causes of feminism, gay rights and individual rights.
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Seriously, it’s not political. Not at all.
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You have no idea what people on the left think, not one clue.

…and, likely, fewer thoughts.

Anybody know if Ginsburg’s working today? Or were these opinions already in the can?

As usual with the Republican Corporatists on the Judicial bench and in Congress, they are totally FOR State’s Rights, until a state or city passes a law they disagree with (abortion, LGBT rights, gun control) and then they TOTALLY believe in the supremacy of the Federal government….

They are all a bunch of flaming hypocrites!

textee = Alanis Morissette?

If we define “judicial activism” as “legislating from the bench” — overturning the will of the people as embodied by their elected representatives in Congress — then the record holder is the Rehnquist Court, which overruled Congress more than the Warren Court ever did.
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The Rehnquist Court is also the one that decided to intervene in a presidential election, despite its lack of a Constitutional role (unlike the one ascribed for Congress) and despite the conservative members’ own past opinions which insisted the Court should never intervene in state election matters.
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The Roberts Court seems to be trying to compete with the conservative activism of the Rehnquist one, though. Deciding that multinational corporations have the same rights as human citizens is about as activist as you can get.

“Seriously, it’s not political. Not at all.

You have no idea what people on the left think, not one clue.”
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SZ

I think you stepped off the curb of reality with this one. Every anti-gun anti 2nd amendment law, codicil or restriction has been proposed by the left. When they have spoken what they believe (itself a rarity) they have lost elections. Now to join the bandwagon and celebrate an affirmation of the 2nd amendment right and say it is not political and someone doesn’t know what people on the left think is – well disingenuous and silly.

rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. … are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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How this can limit states rights can only be explained by zero understanding of the Constitution or one too many hits of the hookah pipe.

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Separation of church & state? The purpose was not force people to join a mandatory state sponsored religion and not the elimination of religion.
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Now we have a state – Texas – where the school board is attempting to erase that knowledge by legislating the injection of propaganda into their curriculum.

This is not to be confused with the left sponsored nonsense that has been forced on the education system for the past 40 years which is usually spearheaded by the belief that America is inherently evil and must be crushed.

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The only thing good about it is that there is always the actual documents to refer to

This is comical. Especially when the left reads them they choose as is well documented by the gun rights and Church & state battles.

But unlike Sotomayor he has not had opinions overturned. Her record is perfect. Every decision of hers that has come to the SCOTUS has been reversed.

Every anti-gun anti 2nd amendment law, codicil or restriction has been proposed by the left.
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The Brady Bill was first introduced in 1987, and St. Ronnie even wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled, “Why I’m for the Brady Bill”…
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I guess by today’s whacked-out standards, Reagan was a leftie.

Even using your logic, it’s pretty difficult to scrutinize a justice’s record when he DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING.

I guess by today’s whacked-out standards, Reagan was a leftie.
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Reagan raised taxes seven of his eight years in office, exploded the rate of federal expenditure and increased the federal civilian workforce, called for the total abolition of nuclear weapons, cut-and-ran from Lebanon after 280+ Marines were killed by terrorists there, and negotiated with a Soviet dictator face-to-face without preconditions five times in two years.
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Before that, as governor, he vastly increased California’s welfare state, raised taxes, and even signed into law an abortion liberalization measure. Oh, and he was a divorced Hollywood actor who avoided foreign service during World War II and rarely attended church.
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By today’s standards, the right wing would consider him to be the Anti-Christ.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer… disagreed with the majority that it is a fundamental right, and said the court was restricting state and local efforts from designing gun control laws that fit their particular circumstances…
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“Given the empirical and local value-laden nature of the questions that lie at the heart of the issue, why, in a nation whose constitution foresees democratic decision-making, is it so fundamental a matter as to require taking that power from the people?”
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-from the AP link, bold mine.
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It seems to me that Breyer is arguing against Big Government, ie. this decision increases government size at the expense of the state; -should the Supreme Court make this decision which could otherwise be made by “state and local” governments?

We have previously held that most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights apply with full force to both the Federal Government and the States.

Yeah. Right. I’ll believe that statement when AZ’s anti-Mexican immigration law is overturned.

Every anti-gun anti 2nd amendment law, codicil or restriction has been proposed by the left.
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There are some of us who have been saying for years now that this obsession with handgun bans on the Democratic left just doesn’t make any sense, either politically or in principle.
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We ran smack into an orthodoxy primarily built up at a time when liberals didn’t ever have to defend their supposed positions on individual rights, when being the mommy party concerned with Ralphie putting his eye out made sense to people, especially to those old Great Society folks whose best response to violent crime was “we should study it,” and whose best response to violence against women was to lament it with deep, deep sympathy.
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As many of us started to rethink and move away from a stance that seem at first blush to many liberals as innocuous as seat-belt and bicycle helmet laws, the committed statists, unthinking do-gooders and technocrats amongst the left joined up with those same in the center to make an issue out of it, aided by partisan Democrats.
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The result is a stupid, unproductive, largely cultural divide that’s been exploited by both national parties. The center gets to give that faction of the left terrified of roaming bands of vigilante popular rightists a meaningless sop, while at the same time enacting economic policy that finds common ground with the right. The same demagogic nonsense occurs from the GOP side of the aisle in response, whilst all along a consensus economic agenda that works to ordinary Americans’ disadvantage prevails. The fight over gun rights didn’t stop supposedly conservative Republicans from enacting Medicare Part D, for example.
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A faction of the left politically divorced from its principles on individual rights could be mollified with meaningless regulations to “do something about violence”, in other words, and another, far more important agenda could go on unopposed –the center could say “We gave you the Assault Weapons Ban, now don’t be unreasonable and demand everything under the sun!”
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In the meantime, those of us who could think clearly enough to wonder “Hey, if we’re against 4th and 1st Amendment abridgment in the name of ‘”keeping people safe,” why doesn’t the same principle apply to the 2nd?” were beginning to talk amongst ourselves online for the first time, and beginning to notice that we were coming to the same conclusions.
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That’s why the people that I mention –Dean, Kos, Greenwald– are not really from the old, do-gooder left, they represent an outsider view of the Democratic Party that considers its principles differently, with a different eye to what liberalism means.
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When you say that every Second Amendment abridgment has been proposed by the left, that is not literally true. Diane Feinstein, for example, and Bill Clinton both have been strong anti-Second Amendment activists, and both are from the DLC/New Democrat wing of the Democratic party –not liberals, but centrists.
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So when you say that I’m way out there on this, that’s only because the liberals you know, the liberals that can’t articulate a principled argument on the difference between the 2nd and 4th Amendments, the 1970′s era liberals that are derided by the center, and still mocked on rightist talk radio –those liberals– are still holding on to this out of tribalism and that old, identity-based divide between Red and Blue.
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That’s why I say to you and other Second Amendment supporters and Bill of Rights proponents that you should take another look at liberalism –unless you’re one of those conservatives who believes in gun rights, but not the individual right not to be searched and put under constant surveillance by the security state in the name of “anti-terrorism” policies. Then look to your own principles, and try to defend that obvious discrepancy, while we talk to other liberals about ours.

Ah, the right. All for state’s rights except when they are not. I guess I can carry a gun into church, school, bar, store at my own discretion. Draw stranger!

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
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I am looking for the words “household”, “home”, “citizen”, “man” or, “any and all forms of armaments”, “any and all forms of firearms” and can not find any.
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It is most specifically handguns which may easily be stolen for unlawful purposes by burglars (when the person is not at home or if the person keeps it outside of their bedroom and are asleep), people doing work in the home, visitors, friends and relatives in the home.
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Even the most extreme NRA type knows that this does not mean that when getting out of jail after serving 30 years on a murder charge that this criminal can go to the store and buy a new pistol.
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Concealable firearms are the primary weapons of murder in the US. Although a majority of gun crimes are done by people who purchased or stole such guns illegally, nearly 100% were originally purchased legally.
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Low on both ethics and money? Buy a trunk load of guns in Virginia and sell them in Jersey City to NYC gangs and, literally double your money and, without any means to know what becomes of these guns after their initial purchase, get away with it for many, many years to come.
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Laws forbidding convicted felons from buying guns and some kind of laws mandating that purchasers of large numbers of guns can show that they have either legally sold them to other law abiding mentally healthy people or still have possession of them is the only sane way.
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A flintlock, single shot musket is joke compared to what we have today. Our founding father’s didn’t have uzis on their hips. Washington and the others in combat had a saber and a single shot musket for combat.
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If a well regulated militia in modern terms could be called a well regulated State Police Department and/or well regulated National guard, then, perhaps it could be best read that each state place limitations on gun ownership to ensure that these guns do not cross state lines for unlawful purposes and are sold to and kept by people who are extraordinarily unlikely to do harm to the public.
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BTW: I have a law abiding uncle offered me last year to go to the shooting range with him five hundred miles from here with his licensed guns and, when I next make the trip do intend to take him up on the offer. I just don’t want people with less integrity than him selling these guns to drug dealers, pimps, drug addicts, thieves and so on. (Yes, that uncle is a Republican, but, even the conservatives of my family have a hard time going for the NRA since we know that not everybody in this world are as boring and lawful as we are.)

NewsBusters: TIME’s Scherer Gratuitously Blogs About ‘Ten People Killed by Guns’ in Light of Supreme Court Ruling
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2010/06/28/times-scherer-gratuitously-blogs-about-ten-people-killed-guns-light-su