A great day for individual freedom
Thursday was a great day for all of us in the United States of America.
In its ruling on the case District of Columbia v. Heller, our Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution means what it plainly says: the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.
The Supreme Court of the United States
In its decision (available here, along with the dissenting opinions), the Court rejected decades of mendacious propaganda from anti-gun activists, including those who infest the city government in the District of Columbia, where this case originated.
Opponents of gun rights-- whether they believe that the people should be disarmed completely, or simply left without the means to resist government oppression-- have long maintained that the Second Amendment gives Americans only a collective right to belong to a government-controlled militia, and that other purposes of gun ownership, such as self-defense and hunting, have no Constitutional protection.
These absurd lies have been refuted repeatedly over the years, but they were conclusively shredded by the clear and comprehensive analysis of the Court's opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia.
Scalia even went to the trouble of refuting the dissenting opinions put forth by Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer.
The amendment is simple:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Our would-be oppressors in DC and elsewhere have asserted that the first half of the amendment, in mentioning the militia, has the effect of constraining the second half. But of course if the framers wished to say that, they had only to say "...the right of the Militia to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
They did not mean that, and they did not say that.
The militia is referenced to define a political purpose for the amendment: ensuring that effective militias may be raised from among the people when they are needed to defend our country or its individual states. In constitutional amendments, like anywhere else, giving one reason for a decision doesn't imply the rejection of all other possible reasons.
Based on his analysis of contemporary documents, Justice Scalia shows that this is how the framers intended the Amendment to be read. Dividing the Amendment into a "prefatory clause" and an "operative clause," Scalia states the obvious truth:
...A prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause.
In discussing the "operative clause," the heart of the Amendment, Scalia goes right for the knockout punch: everywhere else in the Bill of Rights that rights of "the people" are described, they are clearly and unambiguously defined as individual rights.
Scalia goes on from there to demolish all the other significant arguments of the gun grabbers, and his decision is well worth reading, especially for those who don't understand that the intent of the Amendment is no longer up for discussion in this country. This is not the kind of decision that could rationally be reversed later; the evidence and analysis Scalia presents is irrefutable.
The original case addressed only the right of an individual to possess and carry a firearm within the home for purposes of self-defense. Our Federal appeals courts, including the Supreme Court, have a tradition of addressing only the issues raised in the cases they consider. Accordingly, the Supreme Court dealt only with this specific right.
But the Second Amendment is broader in nature; it protects freedoms that are much more politically significant. Scalia predicts that these other freedoms may become the subject of future rulings by the Court:
But since this case represents this Court's first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field...
I hope that the Court is given the opportunity to examine the other purposes of the Second Amendment, and the sooner, the better.
Peter N. Glaskowsky is a computer architect in Silicon Valley and a technology analyst for the Envisioneering Group. He has designed chip- and board-level products in the defense and computer industries, managed design teams, and served as editor in chief of the industry newsletter "Microprocessor Report." He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
If you use a gun to defend yourself--a very rare situation for most people--there's a good chance the police will investigate you for possible criminal charges. (As it is, in most cases a gun does the owner no gun because the crime is already occurring by the time the owner realizes that he needs his gun. A dog, for instance, is a much better deterrent and/or protective force against home invasion than a gun).
Also, this court ruling does not offer new or expanded rights for current or future gun owners. You can own a gun...and that's about it. What can you do with your gun in normal, non-violent social situations? How does it enrich or empower your life? Given the attack on our 4th Amendment rights with the FISA compromise, I'd say that the federal government has given us the short stick this week. The government can pretty much snoop in on our personal communications whenever it wants to...but we can have guns. Great. Our privacy is invaded and there's an excellent chance that federal agents will abuse their surveillance power for personal gain or mere curiosity, but at least I can have a gun to protect myself. Against someone...somewhere...someday. If I'm actually carrying the gun.
Great tradeoff.
Peter, you need to take some law courses. Your distortion of gun-control policy, your uncritical acclaim for Scalia's statement --"the evidence and analysis Scalia presents is irrefutable"--and your failure to address or even mention the dissenting opinion of four SC justices tells me that your head is stuck in a very dark place indeed.
I am disgusted that Cnet posted your shrill and unbalanced piece on its Web site. What a SCOTUS opinion on gun control has to do with technology is beyond me, btw. If I ever read any more of your writings, it will be with a VERY large chunk of salt.
Neither the world, nor basic human-nature, have changed, or change, those facts. You might as well say the days of needing "Freedom of Religion", or "Freedom of speech", have been rendered obsolete by the mere passage of time, and the evolution of American-society, over time, ...which is equally ridiculous.
The Second amendment was a failsafe, designed to protect the fundamental-nature of liberty...
...BECAUSE OF, devastating-tyrannies, inevitably, arising (both small-scale, and large)...
...The RIGHT of THE PEOPLE [individual citizens] shall not be infringed (to allow their basic human-right to self-defense, and their [The Peoples] ability to resist unconscionable violations of liberty).
THAT, is what those that actually WROTE "the Bill of Rights" [our Founding Fathers] actually said regarding this portion [the Second Amendment] of the Bill of basic human-rights (within the U.S. Constitution).
And, NO AMOUNT of, Anti-Gun, rhetoric... is going to change that.
I didn't agree with all of those first five, but I didn't see anything worth deleting in there. Perhaps some CNET moderator decided the discussion was getting out of hand.
You're right that most people won't ever have to use a weapon but it is their right to defend themselves and their family if it comes to that. I know I'd want DEADLY force available to insure that the perp is DEAD and will NEVER be a threat again. There is a difference between someone breaking into your property and shootign them in the back versus their clear attack on your family be it with a weapon or not. That's why we have courts and a jury system, and an appeals process so that Justice can be determined and meeted out.
And YES, if I were on a jury and the facts supported that the police got the wrong house either on purpose or by accident, I FULLY SUPPORT the right of the homeowner to blow them away, especially since you have not time to simply ask for proper ID while a gun is being thrust in your face. ( wait ! ok everybody, please put your ID on the table so I can review it, then, if I think it's legitimate you can go back to ransacking my home) I would never vote for the government in such cases unless it was shown "BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT" that the homeowner had no reasonable expectation of privacy and/or that the police were there on a valid warrant. Can you say "RUBY RIDGE" ? Remember the government LOST that case. WACO ? I would also fully support those people who are served with a no knock warrant, where the police simply break down your door and enter. Why? Beacuse It's totallty unconstitutional and the Clinton and Bush administrations as well as most of CRONY congress has shirked their sworn duty to uphold the constitution.
And mentioning the age of the constitution is ignorant. The fact that it has served us so well for so long is proof that the framers knew EXACTLY what they were doing. It's unfortunate, but typically predictable that it took 200 years to socially engineer the sheeple (LIKE YOU) into believing a LIE so that people like YOU are perfectly willing to give up their rights for some fantasy the government cooked up to convince you to give them up. Like Charleton Heston said: "FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS".
- by gvandeusen July 20, 2008 2:56 AM PDT
- I guess when the Supreme Court has spoken, it's spoken, but not so quick on an individiual's right to bear arms as a "slam dunk" issue. If you'd like to actually learn something about the issue, check out Bruce Carlson's excellent blog "My History Can Beat Up Your Politics." For example, did you stop to think that even the definition of words has changed since the second amendment was written? He's looked into that type of thing, and more. I'm somewhat liberal, but even my conservative friends like the site.
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