Select Page

Court ScalesThank goodness, albeit another split decision, the court came through with a good decision. In DC v Heller, the court ruled in favor of gun ownership. We discussed this case back when arguments wrapped up in April. For those of you that are sure to argue that my position yesterday was that the court should have stayed away from the state’s right to legislate on the death penalty, one must understand that there are significant differences here.

One (death penalty) has to do with the meting out of punishment, which is certainly addressed in the 8th amendment.  For that reason, the court certainly has a role in ensuring that the 8th Amendment is not abrogated.  In Kennedy v Louisiana, however, the case does not appear to me to offend the 8th Amendment.

In DC v Heller, the 2nd Amendment is directly attacked by the DC law.

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.

Infringed this right has been by DC, which is not a state and therefore enjoys existence in a special class, but nonetheless should not have be allowed to remove the right to bear arms from its citizens.

Of course, the court has essentially set the same process and issue in motion in both cases, that is, finding against the legislated laws which it believes (wrongly and rightly in my opinion) are unconstitutional.  The impact will be substantial review and representing of new cases in the future which may create a bigger mess as the court’s makeup will certainly change before too long… the question is in which direction will it sway?

Great conversation at Sister Toldjah, BitsBlog, McGehee, SCOTUSBlog, Michelle Malkin, TownHall, Stop the ACLU, and Hot AIr.

    Log in