Scary comments from Justices Stevens and Breyer on Second Amendment
June 26, 2008
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history. The truly scary thing is that while four liberal justices essentially voted to make the Second Amendment unconstitutional, sane people have to rely on whatever swing-vote Justice Kennedy is thinking on any given day. Next up: Pelosi ready to outlaw free speech!
In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, “In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.”
In a concluding paragraph to the his 64-page opinion, Scalia said the justices in the majority “are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country” and believe the Constitution “leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.”
The law adopted by Washington’s city council in 1976 bars residents from owning handguns unless they had one before the law took effect. Shotguns and rifles may be kept in homes, if they are registered, kept unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks.
Opponents of the law have said it prevents residents from defending themselves. The Washington government says no one would be prosecuted for a gun law violation in cases of self-defense.
The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.
Forty-four state constitutions contain some form of gun rights, which are not affected by the court’s consideration of Washington’s restrictions.
Tags: supreme court, kennedy, california politics, stevens, breyyer, gun ban, scalia, second amendment, DC
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