Sunday, June 29, 2008

"SCOTUS should have kept quiet on DC gun ban," whines SL Tribune

In an unsigned editorial, the Salt Lake Tribune claims the Supreme Court couldn't have found their conclusion based on a fair reading "of the plain language of the amendment" in the Heller v. DC gun ban case.

"The U.S. Supreme Court's holding Thursday that the Second Amendment enshrines in the Constitution an individual right to keep firearms in the home outside the context of a state militia was wrongly decided and turned decades of settled judicial precedent on its head. No fair reading of the plain language of the amendment or its history could have reached the conclusion the court announced."
...

"Justice Scalia, perhaps as the price of winning over the deciding vote, wrote that the newly minted individual right is not unlimited. "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose," he wrote. (Utah Legislature, please note.) Concealed carry can be prohibited, guns can be banned from schools and government buildings, and firearms sales can be regulated, Scalia opined. Unfortunately, Thursday's decision declares open season on all kinds of other gun laws, and the courts now will become the range officers on a firing line of lawsuits. It would have been better to leave Second Amendment precedent alone and let legislatures and city councils determine the best gun policies for their communities."

You can go here and read the whole editorial if you're interested. The comments are running about 57% in opposition to the editorial.