Many gun-rights advocates are celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling against Washington DC’s current ban on personal firearms for self-defense. Unfortunately, the court has opened the door for more restrictions on self-defense and ruled against the people who would arm themselves against a tyrannical government… which was THE reason for the Second Amendment. In a ruling that a thoughtful, educated 12-year-old could have made correctly in a few sentences, nine post-retirement-aged authorities in black robes spent 157 pages of print to explain away our Constitutional right and cultural responsibility to be armed against an over-reaching government.
It is stupidity to have such important positions occupied by people in their declining years. We always talk about grandma or grandpa with pride and reverence when they “were still sharp” in their 80s. We know it isn’t all that common. We sure as heck shouldn’t invest the security of a governmental system in a group of rest-home residents who MAY have their wits about them, but very definitely HAVE spent most of their lives as omnipotent robed rulers perched high above those whose lives hung in the balance on their every word. Even if old man time hasn’t corrupted their wits, absolute power is sure to have.
From USA Today:
Justices, like everyone else, are living longer. That makes life tenure a far weightier proposition than when the framers included it in the Constitution. The average age of today’s justices is 70. The justices who have left the court in the past 35 years served an average of 25 years before retiring. By contrast, the justices who departed in the early years of the republic served an average of eight years.
…
Rehnquist also made it clear that he is still canny enough to see the debate over life tenure coming — and to add his own views. “It is not a perfect system — vacancies do not occur on regular schedules,” he wrote. “But for over 200 years it has served our democracy well.” …
The Rehnquist quote isn’t the only place in this article where people who certainly should know better refer to the US Constitutional Republic as a “democracy”. Abuse of the minority by vote of the majority is a well-known problem with democracies, yet not only law school professors, but the chief justice of the supreme court don’t seem to know it… or care.
And now these dim-bulbs have re-read the Second Amendment to say government can limit the people’s access to weapons of defense against tyrannical government.
Perhaps I misunderestimate their wit here. They could deliberately be part of a plan to enslave the populace.
It doesn’t take tremendous maturity to understand the restrictions of common law on governmental ability to limit the peoples’ access to arms. There is no room within the legal limits of the Constitution of the US for disarming the populace. Just to be darn sure nobody got confused, the people of the independent states insisted the Second Amendment spell it out before they would ratify the Constitution. Anyone with average comprehension and a clear head can get this straight.
But the Supreme Court didn’t. Law professors don’t. Teachers of all age groups don’t. Government spokesmen don’t. (Is there a pattern here?) Only people who read the Constitution for themselves and think for themselves do.
The result of this decision will be more attempts by government to restrict firearm ownership. That will inevitably lead to disarmament or rebellion. Government does not limit itself. Freedom is a government that fears the people. Slavery is people who fear their government. The Supreme Court came to a fork in the road and chose the wrong path (though they threw some rose petals down to dress it up).
This particular group of senile senior citizens has struck a major blow against either the liberty of the people of the USA or the continuity of its governmental system.