Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw) Guest Blogger
I have discussed the Second Amendment and the difficulties I have in allowing citizens to own semi-automatic weapons and large capacity clips of ammunition in the past, but Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a recent Fox News interview, just took my concern over semi-automatic weapons and shot it down.. with a shoulder firing rocket!
“Referring to the recent shooting in Aurora, CO, host Chris Wallace asked the Supreme Court Justice about gun control, and whether the Second Amendment allows for any limitations to gun rights. Scalia admitted there could be, such as “frighting” (carrying a big ax just to scare people), but they would still have to be determined with an 18th-Century perspective in mind. According to his originalism, if a weapon can be hand-held, though, it probably still falls under the right to “bear arms”:
WALLACE: What about… a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute?
SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons — but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided.
WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?
SCALIA: Very carefully.” Think Progress
OK. I get it now. Under Justice Scalia’s originalist reading of the Constitution, he might not allow you to carry a big Axe around to frighten people, but a shoulder firing rocket launcher might be legal! At what point do we decide that public safety just might trump a radical reading of the Constitution? This is the same justice that opined in the District of Columbia v. Heller case that reasonable restrictions to the Second Amendment might be allowed by the Court. Heller
Maybe Justice Scalia needs to see the photos of the carnage a semi-automatic weapon or a shoulder fired rocket launcher can create. Under this thinking, RPG’s might be legal for all citizens to own and carry. Grenades can be hand-held and therefore under Justice Scalia’s warped sense of thinking, they too might be legal for citizens to carry. Do we draw the limit at briefcase nukes that can be carried in one’s hand?
Obviously the theory that Justice Scalia is promoting can be carried to extreme and hilarious lengths. The real scary part is that Justice Scalia doesn’t understand how hilarious and dangerous his concepts are in the real world. I am also confused why Scalia is allowed by Chief Justice Roberts to go on Fox News and opine about issues that just may end up in front of the Supreme Court. Isn’t this interview evidence that Justice Scalia has already made up his mind on the issue of other portable weapons?
What do you think of these comments by Justice Scalia and does his concept of originalism go too far? Since Justice Scalia thinks that these kind of weapons may be legal, is it too far-fetched to wonder if the current crop of right-wing Militia’s are free to purchase these kind of weapons, even if they hope to use them against the government?
Additional Reference: Prof. Geoffrey Stone, University of Chicago
Rafflaw: “The will to kill can be denied or made more difficult, even if the killer is deranged. If the Aurora shooter was unable to obtain the items and/or quantities of guns and ammo, at least it makes it more difficult for him to kill.
Shouldn’t mentally ill people have to be reviewed before they are allowed weapons of this type? The only chance we have of preventing these kind of massacres is to attempt to do something. Just claiming bad people will do bad things is not the answer.”
Raff,
You’re not reasoning clearly. The shootings in Colorado are not representative of anything but itself. Holmes had a will to kill and NOTHING was going to get in his way. Whoever he couldn’t kill with guns he was going to kill with improvised explosives. Simply because one man employs a particular item as a tool for mass murder it does not follow that others are planning or are liable to do the same.
To formulate a legislative strategy based on a unique event such as what happened in Colorado is nothing more than legislating from panic.
This is the same type of reasoning that brought us the Patriot Act.
“If anybody is incompetent it is Obama. He has no clue on how to govern. He has no business experience and that is why unemployment is still high and not coming down anytime soon.”
This begs the question that business experience is the primary requisite in the type of leadership skills statesmanship requires. Because business is a top down authoritarian type of management structure, the counter argument that business is not the proper experience set to drive the skills a statesman requires (which includes diplomacy and consensus building – antithetical skills to the top down management set) is not only valid, but more convincing over time. Business drives to a single metric – profit. Statesmanship drives to multiple metrics, some of them not related to profit at all. All in all, the Diplomatic Corps is probably a better training ground for political leaders than the business world.
Elaine M, rafflaw
One year after the election in 2000, it was determined that Bush would have won anyway. There was no stealing of an election. That kind of rhetoric only shows how ignorant you are. I am completely aware of all of the left’s arguments in the re-count but there are so many ifs that would have to take place, you could win the lottery 200 times before the outcome you were looking for would have happened.
Mike Spindell
If anybody is incompetent it is Obama. He has no clue on how to govern. He has no business experience and that is why unemployment is still high and not coming down anytime soon. Chicago, his pride, has a terrible murder problem but has one of the toughest gun control laws in the country. Obama will be returning there in January and can advocate Emmanuel’s policies to see if they will work. Finally, He won’t release his college records because he knows exactly what check he put when it comes to ethnicity. If he will release his college transcripts then I will support Romney releasing his tax returns.
“He has no business experience and that is why unemployment is still high and not coming down anytime soon.”
Jim,
Business experience? Hmm…..Let’s see.
G.W. Bush…..3 failed businesses all serving as Saudi and CIA fronts.
Bill Clinton……No business experience.
G.H.W. Bush..Business experience limited to companies that were CIA fronts.
Ronald Reagan……No business experience.
Jimmy Carter…..Peanut Farmer.
Gerald Ford……No business experience.
Richard Nixon……No business experience
LBJ…….No business experience
JFK……No business experience
Dwight Eisenhower…….No business experience
Harry Truman……Haberdasher in Kansas City.
FDR……No business experience
Herbert Hoover……Mining Engineer
Calvin Coolidge…….No business experience
Warren G. Harding…….No business experience
Woodrow Wilson…….No business experience
William H. Taft……..No business experience
Theodore Roosevelt…….No business experience
William McKinley………No business
So of the 19 Presidents since 1900, 14 had no business experience. Of those 19, 12 were Republican/Conservatives. Of those 12, 9 had no business experience. Considering that “no business experience” includes the icons
Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower, it would seem that “business experience” ranks low in the priorities of Presidential experience. Now 3 of those 12 Republicans HAD business experience. Herbert Hoover then had the “Great Depression”. G.H.W. Bush lost office because of a bad recession, even after a “victorious” war. G.W. Bush led the economic collapse of 2008.
Seriously Jim, to be pontificating on something you obviously know little about given the actual history is fatuous. Oh Yeah, Mitt Romney’s business experience: buying companies, leveraging their debt, outsourcing jobs and sending them into bankruptcy. Just the “business experience” this country needs. Hint to you Jim: FOXNews, The WSJ, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, NR and all the rest you probably put too much faith in, given your lack of knowledge, are all full of sh**t.
Elaine,
You recall is correct!
Just a reminder: Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000. He had a little help in becoming president from the Supreme Court…as I recall.
Bob,
It isn’t hysteria when a Supreme Court Justice says it. If he is ok with shoulder fired missles then just about any automatic or semi-automatic weapon is fair game. The will to kill can be denied or made more difficult, even if the killer is deranged. If the Aurora shooter was unable to obtain the items and/or quantities of guns and ammo, at least it makes it more difficult for him to kill.
Shouldn’t mentally ill people have to be reviewed before they are allowed weapons of this type? The only chance we have of preventing these kind of massacres is to attempt to do something. Just claiming bad people will do bad things is not the answer.
HenMan
You said the American People voted twice for Bush. That argument means the same American people are stupid for voting for Obama.
“You said the American People voted twice for Bush. That argument means the same American people are stupid for voting for Obama.”
No Jim,
That argument means simply that there were enough people who voted for an
incompetent person, to be able to allow his party to steal two elections. Obama got elected because people were so disgusted with the policies of the Bush years and the traitorous conservatives that backed them, selling out our country.
In 1990, I was having a conversation with a DC lawyer about a litigation I was unwillingly involved in. He said, “For a mere $600 you can purchase an uzi on the street in DC any day of the week.” I asked, “Is the price lower on weekends?”
One of the meaning of “arms” is “weapons.” The word “weapons” does not exclude swords, hatchets, bayonets, etc.
To “bear arms” means to “carry weapons”; all of the above are weapons commonly used at the time the Constitution was written.
So, would Scalia be okay with moviegoers carrying rifles with bayonets attached into crowded theaters?
Or into crowded shopping malls?
Or into churches and other places of worship?
And, if not why not?
How about swords and hatchets?
They don’t kill either. It’s the people using them who do the killing.
Scalia needs to be more consistent.
P.S. The word “abortion” does not appear in the Constitution, so how can Scalia oppose abortion, when the Framers never mentioned abortion in the Constitution?
Scalia follows the “original intent” only when it suits him.
Stun guns are weapons; is Scalia okay with every American carrying a stun gun everywhere?
True, stun guns were not available when the Framers wrote the Constitution, but then neither were AK- 47s or 9mm handguns, which Scalia refuses to deny American as their weapon of choice.
“Maybe Justice Scalia needs to see the photos of the carnage a semi-automatic weapon or a shoulder fired rocket launcher can create.”
Just how are “semi-automatic weapons” and “shoulder fired rockets” put in the same category?
Seriously Rafflaw, you might want to tone down the hysteria and perhaps do some research before committing pen to paper in lieu of sounding panic-stricken and confused.
Gun control or carry permits won’t stop mass murder
…
“Tighter restrictions on gun purchasing — for example, eliminating multiple gun sales and closing the gun-show loophole — may help reduce America’s gun violence problem generally, but mass murder is unlike most other forms of violent conflict.
Mass killers are determined, deliberate and dead-set on murder. They plan methodically to execute their victims, finding the means no matter what laws or other impediments the state attempts to place in their way. To them, the will to kill cannot be denied.”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/opinion/fox-mass-murder/index.html
Per the issue of rocket launchers, I live in New York and we New Yorkers cannot own rocket launchers and I have no problem with that.
Pamlico County has more black bears than any other county in NC. They are involved in a lot of traffic fatalities. The right to arm bears has been a slogun here for many years. We armed them when we were fighting the British. The Confederates armed them in the fight against the Yankees. U boat survivors who washed ashore were rounded up by the bears. Da Bears! If you want to get Scalia on a real rant, ask him about ScaliaCare.
Thanks for the link Elaine!
Bron-
Regarding your comment of July 29 at 3:12 PM:
The Swiss are sane. The American people elected George W. Bush President of the United States. TWICE!
rafflaw,
Stephen Colbert did a great segment on Scalia and his “originalist” viewpoint a couple of years ago:
The Word – Original Spin
A good Supreme Court justice is a Constitutional scholar first and a time traveling mind reader second.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/360495/september-29-2010/the-word—original-spin
“If they kill my dog, they’re going to be dead. And I don’t even have a dog” — Well, maybe they DID kill him, then. 🙁
Jim,
You don’t have any facts to back that claim. We know that it is legal to get them now and he bought thousands of rounds of ammo legally. If it restrictions were in place it would have been more difficult for him to have killed and wounded so many people. JIm, you stated that guns cannot kill without a human pulling the trigger, but we know weapons do fire sometimes when dropped or jostled. You didn’t ask how many people are killed by guns firing without a human pulling the trigger.
According to Justice Scalia”s suggestion, any weapon that can be carried on your person may be legal. Does that open the door for fully automatic weapons? Will the Marine Squad Automatic Weapon be available to the public under Scalia’s thinking?
There are more restrictions on owning a dog than buying the weapons and ammo used by the alleged Aurora shooter.
rafflaw
The Aurora killer if not able to get a high capacity clip would have used another method. A loaded gun left alone will not kill anybody. What percentage of deaths occur as a result of a loaded gun not being touched by anybody?
Jim,
The NRA talking point is not rooted in fact. If the Aurora shooter was not able to buy a high capacity clip legally, it would have been very difficult for him to get one illegally. What does the NRA think of rocket launchers?
By the way, a loaded gun can kill on its own without a human to pull the trigger.