Going Straight to Heller

That’s “District of Columbia v. Heller.”

Folks, I know most of you don’t like guns… it’s statistical with my demographic, gotta accept that, but I’m gonna give you the big news. Just don’t kill the messenger. The Supremes have decided that yes, indeed, when those white guys (they were not yet old) got together to form our nation, they did mean that guns belong to everyone and no one can take them away. Well, you know, not everyone. If you saw a maniac about to commit mayhem with a gun, you could take it away. That was common sense, not worth mentioning.

But what I love about this case is that the interpretation of the Second Amendment has been a question of grammar for years, and now it has been decided, and explicated in a long, humorous brief by Justice Scalia, writing for the majority. He speaks of the Looking Glass, and the Mad Hatter. And makes other lovely linguistic points on his way to telling us what the Bill of Rights means when it says, “the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The “well-regulated militia” is just part of a prefatory clause, and you don’t have to own a uniform to entitle you to protect yourself with a handgun. There is even a Linguist’s Brief that was considered by the court.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve lain awake nights trying to clarify this, and now it is clear. I haven’t read much of the two dissenting briefs. (I wanted to bask in the writing of this modern-day Mark Twain.) But the dissenters do seem to be stretching and squirming, to satisfy the Brady Bunch.

You can find it all at:

http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/HellerOpinion.pdf

Justice Scalia gets an A for his paper.

But what is this going to mean to you? Well, nothing, actually. Nothing right away. All it says is that DC must issue a license to Heller for the piece he possesses. And it doesn’t have to be dissembled and trigger-locked. It can be ready to roll. It’s not clear that law-abiding DC residents will be able, any time soon, to avail themselves of this privilege, as there are no gun shops in the district, and it is not legal to ship guns in.

Justice Breyer, in a dissent that goes on and on about social costs and gun deaths, wonders about whether the framers intended to guarantee a right to possess a loaded gun near swimming pools, parks and playgrounds. (Of all the places, that’s where they’d want it. It’s a citizen’s right and obligation to protect his, and everybody else’s, children.) He worries about children picking up a loaded gun from their parents’ bedside table, as if the framers had no children or bedside tables of their own. Here’s the catch. The children knew how to use the guns. Safely. Responsibly. Ever hear the lyrics, “Kilt him a b’ar when he was only three”? That’s “Davey Crockett (King of the Wild Frontier.)” Speaking of Davey Crockett, this past December, a five-year-old descendant of his, named Tre Merritt, actually did shoot a bear.

There didn’t used to be such a fuss made. Hubby said, “Honey, I don’t like you being alone in the apartment all day when I’m gone. I got you a gun. Here’s how you use it. Keep it handy in case you need it.”

But we’re talking about how Heller affects you. Breyer’s dissent bemoans that the decision “threatens to throw into doubt the constitutionality of gun laws throughout the United States.” Well, Amen. Didn’t “Brown v. the Board of Education” throw into doubt all school segregation? Didn’t “Roe v. Wade” throw into doubt all anti-abortion laws? Didn’t “Lawrence v. Texas” throw into doubt all state sodomy laws? That’s the point. The Constitution is the law of the land, and legislators sometimes run amok violating it.

Here’s something important. Laws that limit the rights of the people should be given the closest of scrutiny. Laws that empower the people should be given wide berth. We never would have had a Constitution, or perhaps even the Union, were it not for the Bill of Rights.

So now Number Two is right up there with Number One. Scalia makes clear that just as there are limitations to free speech, so there are limitations to the individual right to keep and bear arms. And not wishing to throw a wet blanket on the decision for my few pistol-packing friends, he indicates those limitations are many, and the scope of this decision is narrow.

Well, gotta go. I’m gonna fire off a few rounds. I want to be ready in case any of you didn’t like this, and are coming my way.