I believe Kozinzki actually fled the Ceausescu regime in Romania, so perhaps he values his liberties a bit more than does the average citizen. In any event, Judge Kozinski explained that history could have been vastly different had American slaves or European Jews been able to arm themselves and fight back against the governments that oppressed them.
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for re-election and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees,” he wrote in his dissent. “However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”
Kozinski also made special note of the interpretive inconsistency of the judges on the Reinhardt panel given their usual proclivity to find individual rights when the Constitution uses the words “people” or “person.” “Had they brought the same generous approach to the Second Amendment that they routinely bring to the First, Fourth and selected portions of the Fifth, they would have had no trouble finding an individual right to bear arms,” he wrote.
You know Judge Reinhardt (the moron who cited Bellesiles' already-discredited book in his ruling, then later deleted that little "oops") must hate Kozinski's guts.
Kozinski's dissent alone serves to show how the 9th Circuit is trying to re-write the meaning of the 2nd Amendment.
Thanks for the comments on Kozinzki.
Kozinski's dissent alone serves to show how the 9th Circuit is trying to re-write the meaning of the 2nd Amendment.
Be that as it may, Kozinski's opinion is still a dissent. It would have no more value than if that dissent mandated backpack nukes for pre-schoolers.
Moral victories taste good, but we'll still starve.
Kozinski did great in his dissent on US v. Emerson, but I like Kleinfeld's dissent even better.
It is, IMHO, the most articulate and exhaustive defense of the 2nd admendment that I've ever read:
L