[Dan from Michigan]

I'm glad he didn't say the Miller provided for a "collective" right. I like what I see here. I'm cautiously optimistic.

[mvpel]

You're absolutely right - it appears he has at least the beginnings of the kind of nuanced understanding of Miller that could lead to positive results for gun owners.

[pelosi_is_a_dope]

The anti-Christian movement that liberals seem so anxious to strengthen, leaves them with a canundrum: How can they subscribe to the founding principle of these United States, namely: "that all men are . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . ."? Of course they can't, because they do not recognize a Creator. But, without a Creator, there can be no Creator-endowed unalienable Rights, so liberals must intrinsically reject the Declaration of Independence, and this country's most important founding principle.

Conservatives see the liberal movement as a direct attack on our freedom and our country's future, for it is indeed just that.

Thomas Jefferson states the conservatives' case: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."

[185JHP]

Every top-tier law school in the U.S. has published the "individual right position."

[indianrightwinger]

Seems like Judge Roberts is passing my litmus tests (sorry, I have some):

1) First Amendment (Hate Speech Laws are Unconstitutional)

2) Second Amendment (It is an individual's ability to carry guns and other weapons)

3) Commerce Clause (Applicable only when there is true interstate *commercial* interest)

4) States' Rights (We are a Federal Republic for God's sake)
Abortion, Marriage, Public School Issues

Any thoughts? Others litmus tests?

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

We definately need another Supreme Court Justice that will uphold the Bill of Rights. I hope Judge Roberts is such a man.

[planekT]

ping for later.

[steve-b]

The fact that he correctly understands Miller, and rejected the anti-gun-rights distortion of the decision, is promising. Beyond that, he really can't go (as he correctly noted, this is an issue that is very ripe for the Court, given the discrepancy between the Fifth Circuit and the Ninth Circus).

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

This is an amendment where there's a real shortage of jurisprudence.

I can't believe an elected official had the gall to say that in public.

[jwalsh07]

States have powers, individuals have rights, in America that is. The "collective rights" theory of the RTKABA is just so much hs, it should be laughed at. Every other right acknowledged in the BOR's is an individual right except the RTKABA? LOL, only in commieville.

I can't speak for collectivist countries that hand out collectivist rights and wrongs at their collectives.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Let me take a stab at this:

FEINGOLD: The modern Supreme Court has only heard one case interpreting the Second Amendment. That case is U.S. v. Miller. It was heard back in 1939. And the court indicated that it saw the right to bear arms as a collective right.

Judge Beelzebubba: Senator, with due respect, most legal scholars do not agree that Miller regarded the right to keep and bear arms as a collective right. Miller held that an individual did not have the right to bear certain arms if they were of no military utility. For this ruling to have any meaning, we must accept that the court considered it obvious that an individual DOES have the right to keep and bear arms of military utility.

Thus, if one can conceive of a weapon that would have no utility to a soldier under any circumstance, that weapon might indeed be one that an individual does not have a right to keep and bear. The shortened shotgun defendant Miller was convicted of keeping and bearing was considered by the Court to be such a weapon, because there was no evidence in the record of such being issued used by military forces.

Because the laws banning private ownership of military-type rifles made since 1986 are subject to review by the Court, I will not be able to comment further on how Miller might be applied by one who subscribes to the principle of Stare Decisis, as I do.