Even when upholding gun regulations, American courts rarely, if ever, reference these counterbalancing constitutional values. Instead, regulation is presented in sterile, technocratic terms—at best permissible, but never a constitutionally inspired imperative. How can courts do otherwise when they lack a narrative that locates these values at the heart of the constitutional debate over guns?
Constitutional narratives drawn from the contemporary world are, admittedly, a bit novel in today’s legal arena. This is, in part, the result of a decades-long effort by right-leaning gun advocates, lawyers, and scholars to frame arguments that rely on anything but the Constitution’s text and the original values recognized at the time of the founding as not constitutionally valid. Their interpretive methodologies—aptly named “textualism” and “originalism”—deny constitutional imprimatur to rights and interests that cannot be identified in the Constitution’s plain text or found in narratives premised on the writings of long-dead men... Constitutional narratives that account for the world they engender and the way they balance competing rights offer an answer to his admonition, infusing constitutional debates with practical lessons drawn from reality.
Such narratives are not merely politically expedient. They have long been an integral component of our constitutional culture, shaping popular understanding of our Constitution and, in turn, judicial decisions that reflect this understanding. By connecting the Constitution to those whose lives it governs and the values that motivate them, constitutional narratives are a distinctively democratic form of argument.
Gun-control advocates must reclaim the Constitution from the pro-gun lobby. The March for Our Lives brief is a step toward building a constitutional architecture that makes room for these sidelined constitutional values, one that properly integrates law with reality. It recognizes the pain of those whose lives have been upended by the elevation of founding-era mythology above present-day tragedy. And by putting the gun violence permeating America’s streets and schools directly in front of the Supreme Court as it confronts a high-profile case, the brief ensures that this narrative will be heard.
Hurl.
founding-era mythology
Like that mythological Constitution and Bill of Rights...
See, it’s the narrative that’s important and that’s why
they continue to control it.
is all the narrative we need, ignore at your peril....
is all the narrative we need, ignore at your peril....
At the same time there is no constitutional case for restricting abortion. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say of Abortion, “shall not be infringed.”
WAY TO GO YOU COMMIE BASTERDS!
Too easy to pick apart their argument
They are 8th graders in law school?
Look. The 6A is quite clear. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed...”
Note the word “all” there. Well, no said the Supreme Court back in 1970. You only have the right for a jury trial if the sentence for your crime is six months or more. Otherwise, no jury trial for you!
So there is no doubt in my mind that the Supreme Court can twist the 2A as well. And here’s the really scary part. That weasel Roberts will probably be the deciding vote.
To the woodshed with them. Or better still put them on a ship never to make port in our nation again.
Leave the collective to the Borg!
The collective died with the Soviets!
This was written by two Yale Law Students. What else would we expect?
Hey Joshuas
Here’s an idea that you haven’t heard at your young naïve look at me Ages
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people
What’s your constitutional case for that wizards? Are you going to confiscate people?
Oh What!
Did the liberal dictatorship find a “Right to Life” in the Constitution?
The Constitution does not govern lives.
The Consitution governs government.
The Constitution does not govern lives.
The Consitution governs government.
This screed, one cannot call it a well reasoned argument, is long on emotion and none existent on constitutional basics.
It totally ignores the very constitutional bases for the 2nd Amendment and appeals solely on emotions. Guns are bad so only the government should have guns(Stalin, Hitler or Mao never enters their thoughts)
But even their leftist ideology blinds them to their rants that cops are “evil racists thugs” that need to be disarmed.
So who can be trusted with weaponry? Nobody because evidently the leftist have created a prefect world where there is no crime.
Even God created Eden with a serpent but not leftists, apparently...
It’s The Atlantic
What did you expect???