Changing the 2nd Amendment

Seattle Post Intelligencer ^ | May 9, 2002 | Seattle Post Intelligencer Editorial Board

[ethical]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/69642_guned.shtml

Changing the 2nd Amendment

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

It is disturbing, though not surprising, that the federal government has decided after numerous decades of settled thinking on the Second Amendment to reinterpret its position.

The marked shift, formalized in a pair of footnotes to legal briefs submitted Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court, occurs because of the deeply held beliefs of the man who is now leading the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Last summer, in a letter to the National Rifle Association, Ashcroft foreshadowed the change in official thinking. "Let me state unequivocally my view that the text and the original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protects the right of individuals to keep and bear firearms," he wrote.

The department's departure is profound from philosophical and practical standpoints.

Until now, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike, the Justice Department has been in virtual lockstep with the high court's position on the Second Amendment, as last stated in the 1939 decision, United States v. Miller. In that case the court said the amendment protects only those gun ownership rights that have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well regulated militia."

While legal scholarship on the exceedingly volatile amendment has seesawed between the two disparate views, the courts have been generally unified in their thinking -- adhering to the Miller decision in more than 100 federal and state appellate cases -- until last fall.

Then, in the prosecution of a Texan for violating a 1994 federal gun law, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals departed from precedent to maintain that the amendment protects the individual right to bear arms. It did say those rights could be subject to "limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions."

It should be noted that the department, while announcing its change of heart on the basic thrust of the amendment, does not disagree that gun ownership can be curtailed to some extent. And the department would prefer that the high court not involve itself in the Texas case or its companion on appeal, the case of a man convicted of owning two machine guns in violation of the ban against them.

We disagree. Though couched in a footnote, the pointed challenge to decades of unified thinking by the judiciary -- the perspective that ultimately counts -- has been made.

The time is ripe, as is said in legal parlance, for the high court to weigh in again on the Second Amendment and, it can be hoped, reaffirm the position that the Constitution guarantees only a collective right to guns through state and federal militias, not an individual's absolute right. Otherwise, the door will open wide to weakening the responsible gun laws that protect us all.

[Shooter 2.5]

I said join a gun group.

Where is the other organization filled with 80 million members who can challenge any gun group on how they run things? Are you in any gun group or are you whining again about how things are without doing something about it? There are people just like you whining about what this group did or didn't do while sitting on your lazy @ss.

I'm going to repeat myself for the fifth or sixth time on this board.

GET OFF YOUR FAT LAZY @SS AND JOIN A GUN GROUP.

[Twodees]

Seems to me that you're the one sitting and whining that everyone won't buy the same con you've bought. We've had this discussion before.

[groanup]

What the 2A really means.

[Shooter 2.5]

No, what's happening here is that you're using any excuse not to join any of the gun groups. Can't get off the couch to attend a rally? Can't afford a lousy donation once in a while?

What's a matter? You can whine on FR but you can't send a letter to the Editor? Come on. Print your letter right here that you're going to send to your newspaper. Put up or shut up. We're waiting.

[dbwz]

Otherwise, the door will open wide to weakening the responsible gun laws that protect us all.

Do they mean those responsible gun laws that protect me when I'm walking alone at night? Or when I'm traveling alone on a deserted stretch of highway? Or when I'm under threat from a PO'd ex-boyfriend?

[Redcloak]

This is slightly off on a tangent, but I noticed that this editorial and the NYTimes story on these cases both correctly quoted Miller rather than simply regurgitating HCI's "synopsis" of the ruling. In the past, most writers have used HCI's description of Miller almost word for word. Granted, both this editorial and the NYT story are using the passage out of Miller that most closely approximates Sarah's creative reading. (And it "closely approximates" the ruling in the same manner that the orbit of Mars closely approximates that of the Earth!) But it is interesting that some authors are actually bothering to read Miller.

[irishtenor]

decades of unified thinking by the judiciary -- the perspective that ultimately counts --

1800 to 1865, the Judiciary approved of slavery. Held it as legal. Doesn't mean it is right.

[irishtenor]

I stopped delivery a LONG time ago. Can't stand that rag.

[irishtenor]

They must also walk around wearing a shirt that states "I do not have a weapon". Signs in front of the house would be manditory.

[Havoc]

What part of this is so hard to understand?

No part of it is hard to understand. The people of the time when that was written kept and bore arms in their homes. Had it not been for that, the Revolution would have been a small riot that ended in greater British oversight and presence in the colonies - not an American nation. Those people kept and bore arms in defense and for action as needed as well as for hunting. Liberal argumentation on the matter dominates in ignorance of the truth.

[hypoglossalnervepalsy]

2200mph with rotation? Geez, I've never got above 2800 feet per second, even with hand loading. I want to meet your gunsmith.

[William Terrell]

The "Seattle Post Intelligencer Editorial Board" shares one IQ, and that IQ is at least one SD below the mean. I doubt if one of them (the one that knows how to write is presumably the one that knows how to read) has read the Miller decision or looked up the definition of "militia" known at the time of the BOR.

[keithtoo]

True. 2200mph is 3226 fps, which is considerably higher than the muzzle velocity of an M-16 or M-14, being about 2600-2800 fps.

I always remember that the claimed top speed of a Blackbird was/is 2200mph and is always referred to as 'as fast as a bullet'.

Innocent mistake.

[Eastbound]

"Otherwise, the door will open wide to weakening the responsible gun laws that protect us all."

What an idjit. Gun laws don't protect lives. Guns protect lives.

[Eastbound]

Superb letter, Abundy. Thanks for writing it and posting it here.

[Plutarch]

Hey, watch your language. There are ladies present.

[Abundy]

Thanks...if only letters to the editors of these rags would do some good...

[inquest]

It's a great letter, but I have only one technical observation. I gather you've sent it along already, but just in case you haven't, there's this one sentence I want to point out: "The statement that the Supreme Court has only opined on what the Second Amendment means is also incorrect." I think, from the context, that you meant to say, "The statement that the Supreme Court has only once opined on what the Second Amendment means is also incorrect."

[Abundy]

Good catch...that's what happens when you write in a hurry. Oh well, it's not like any of those idiots will actually read the law review article anyway - or gasp, print the letter.

[inquest]

That letter, unfortunately, is way too intelligent to be considered fit to print, at least in larger newspapers. Do you also write to smaller, more local papers? Sometimes you might be able to get a little more mileage out of them.