I read Scalia's opinion. The opinion is 64 pages long and took me about 75 minutes, but I was not hurrying. Honestly, each page is more like a half-page with the margins and spacing, so it's more like 32 pages. If you skip the footnotes, which I largely did, then it's even shorter. It's quite accessible to any layman like myself in my humble opinion.
I didn't read any of the dissents but assuming that Scalia's characterizations of them are accurate, I agree with him that Stevens and other dissenters are entirely wrong in some cases.
Some of what's below many of us already know, but I think some of it is noteworthy and worth repeating in some cases.
The big highlights in my opinion are:
1. There is no doubt that the second amendment provides for the individual right to keep and bear arms (including guns) for self-defense with no connection to the militia service.
2. Any law that prohibits gun ownership is unconstitutional.
3. Any law that requires that you effectively render a gun useless to keep it is unconstitutional. This ban includes requirements that the gun is disassembled or has a trigger lock on it.
4. It is debatable that in our modern society where we have a standing national army, large police forces and a severe problem with gun violence that the second amendment is outmoded. However, this debate cannot render the second amendment extinct. That would require of course another amendment to the constitution.
5. While the second amendment does guarantee the right to keep and bear arms, that does not imply unlimited rights. As we all know, there are real and sensible restrictions on gun ownership.
Some other interesting bits and pieces:
1. The second amendment is grounded in similar English law that predates the constitution by around one hundred years that also established the right to keep and bear arms for English Protestants under the rule of the Stuart Kings.
2. Before ratification of the Bill of Rights, some states in the Union had similar laws in their constitutions that codified the right to keep and bear arms.
3. The authors of the constitution were well aware of the fact that nobles and elites in Europe had in the past used their ability to disarm everyday people to solidify their hold on power.
4. When the second amendment says free State, it means a free group of people unified by a similar identity.
What did I learn? Well, the decision was a close 5-4, and one more liberal like Stevens on the court would have tipped the scale the other way. Such an outcome would not, of course, rendered the second amendment extinct, but it would have certainly changed gun laws in this country and almost certainly opened the way to make them more restrictive. However, since Heller, nearly all current gun control laws challenged in court have been found to be constitutional. Heller in no way casts doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of guns by felons or the mentally ill or laws prohibiting carrying firearms in sensitive places like schools, or regulations limiting the sales of commercial arms.
While Heller was an important ruling, I don't think it upset the status quo much. America went two-hundred years without challenging the meaning of the second amendment. The overwhelming consensus of Americans is I'm sure that it means what it says; the right of individuals to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Clark Nelly, an attorney for Dick Heller, said in effect that taking that right seriously, even if you may not agree with it personally, is good medicine for the body politic. I have to agree.
I didn't read any of the dissents but assuming that Scalia's characterizations of them are accurate, I agree with him that Stevens and other dissenters are entirely wrong in some cases.
Some of what's below many of us already know, but I think some of it is noteworthy and worth repeating in some cases.
The big highlights in my opinion are:
1. There is no doubt that the second amendment provides for the individual right to keep and bear arms (including guns) for self-defense with no connection to the militia service.
2. Any law that prohibits gun ownership is unconstitutional.
3. Any law that requires that you effectively render a gun useless to keep it is unconstitutional. This ban includes requirements that the gun is disassembled or has a trigger lock on it.
4. It is debatable that in our modern society where we have a standing national army, large police forces and a severe problem with gun violence that the second amendment is outmoded. However, this debate cannot render the second amendment extinct. That would require of course another amendment to the constitution.
5. While the second amendment does guarantee the right to keep and bear arms, that does not imply unlimited rights. As we all know, there are real and sensible restrictions on gun ownership.
Some other interesting bits and pieces:
1. The second amendment is grounded in similar English law that predates the constitution by around one hundred years that also established the right to keep and bear arms for English Protestants under the rule of the Stuart Kings.
2. Before ratification of the Bill of Rights, some states in the Union had similar laws in their constitutions that codified the right to keep and bear arms.
3. The authors of the constitution were well aware of the fact that nobles and elites in Europe had in the past used their ability to disarm everyday people to solidify their hold on power.
4. When the second amendment says free State, it means a free group of people unified by a similar identity.
What did I learn? Well, the decision was a close 5-4, and one more liberal like Stevens on the court would have tipped the scale the other way. Such an outcome would not, of course, rendered the second amendment extinct, but it would have certainly changed gun laws in this country and almost certainly opened the way to make them more restrictive. However, since Heller, nearly all current gun control laws challenged in court have been found to be constitutional. Heller in no way casts doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of guns by felons or the mentally ill or laws prohibiting carrying firearms in sensitive places like schools, or regulations limiting the sales of commercial arms.
While Heller was an important ruling, I don't think it upset the status quo much. America went two-hundred years without challenging the meaning of the second amendment. The overwhelming consensus of Americans is I'm sure that it means what it says; the right of individuals to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Clark Nelly, an attorney for Dick Heller, said in effect that taking that right seriously, even if you may not agree with it personally, is good medicine for the body politic. I have to agree.
