Saturday, June 28, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.With its (admitted) numerous gray areas, this opinion would seem to pave the way for more lawsuits about the Second Amendment in the future.
One interesting point for further lawsuits in this area is whether the Second Amendment is incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to the individual states as well as the federal government. The court doesn't rule on incorporation directly, but the role of incorporation is mentioned in a footnote about the nineteenth-century ruling of U.S. v. Cruickshank, which ruled that the Second Amendment was not incorporated into the Fourteenth:
With respect to Cruikshank’s continuing validity on incorporation,So the court does mention precedent denying incorporation to the Second Amendment. However, Scalia may imply an avenue for incorporation in this observation near the beginning of the opinion:
a question not presented by this case, we note that Cruikshank also
said that the First Amendment did not apply against the States and did
not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by
our later cases. Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252,
265 (1886) and Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed
that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.
The unamended Constitution and the Bill of RightsThese First and Fourth Amendment provisions have been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment (reversing Cruickshank's denial of incorporation to the First Amendment). Could the "right of the people" be used as a vehicle for claiming incorporation?
use the phrase “right of the people” two other times, in the
First Amendment’s Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in
the Fourth Amendment’s Search-and-Seizure Clause.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
UPDATE: An Obama spokesman denies that the Illinois senator supports the "Fairness Doctrine":
"Sen. Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters," press secretary Michael Ortiz said in an e-mail to B&C late Wednesday.
"He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible," Ortiz added. "That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets."
H/T Hot Air, which is skeptical, considering some of Obama's other rhetorical moves over the campaign. I'll leave you with their exit question: "Anyone see President Obama vetoing a Democrat bill to revive Fairness?" Good wiggle possibility: not supporting is not necessarily vetoing...
Barack Obama will focus his resources largely in 14 states George W. Bush won in 2004, his chief field operative said Tuesday, hoping to score upsets in places such as Virginia, Indiana and Georgia.Setting up local Democratic legislators in a strong position for the 2010 elections could pave the way for House redistricting very favorable to the Democrats in these states for the next decade.
But winning the White House won’t be his only goal, deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand told Politico: In an unusual move, Obama’s campaign will also devote some resources to states it’s unlikely to win, with the goal of influencing specific local contests in places such as Texas and Wyoming.
“Texas is a great example where we might not be able to win the state, but we want to pay a lot of attention to it,” Hildebrand said. “It’s one of the most important redistricting opportunities in the country.”
Texas Democrats are five seats away in each chamber from control of the state Legislature, which will redraw congressional districts after the 2010 census.