Friday, June 27, 2008

Justice Scalia's Opinion


If you are interested, here is a link to Justice Scalia's opinion in yesterday's landmark Supreme Court ruling. It is a long opinion, some 63 pages if I'm not mistaken, but a perusal of the first ten or twelve pages is well worth it. Two quick thoughts:

1. Individual liberty was upheld yesterday against an encroaching, elitist government. Leftist do-gooders would love to take guns away from individuals because they do not trust individuals to be responsible for themselves, they want those individuals to be dependent upon government for, in this case, self-protection. In the leftist mindset only the government is responsible enough to own and use firearms and only the government should decide when and where and against whom they should be used. But this was definitely not the mindset of the founders and framers of our constitution. Check this quotation out, for example, taken from "Journal Notes of the Virginia Ratification Convention Proceedings (June 27, 1788)":

[In Amendments Proposed by the Virginia Convention]:That the people have a right to keep and bear arms: that a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.

2. Isn't it frightening that this decision was a 5-4 verdict? Think about that. Four supreme court justices ruled in favor of overturning the second amendment to the Constitution and nearly succeeded. We almost lost one of the basic rights guaranteed us by the Constitution. Wow. Liberty is under attack.

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