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We do not just talk about liberty Did you know DC v Heller was a Libertarian plot?
The case that became D.C. v. Heller was the brainchild of three lawyers at a pair of libertarian organizations, the Cato Institute and the Institute for Justice. All were busy with other matters, so they hired Mr. Gura. “Alan was willing to work for subsistence wages,” Cato’s Robert Levy tells me, “in return for which he got a commitment from me that if the case went anywhere, it would be his baby. It turned out that that commitment was very important.”
My hat is off to James Taranto for getting the story right. Perhaps one of these days my New York schedule (and that of one of our journalist readers) will fall out in such a way that we can toast our natural born right to carry a BFG.
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– and I take it, “BFG” stands for, “big gun”? ;))
While we could have done much worse than what we got in Heller (5-4 remember?), the battle is far from over. While we rightly recon Heller a victory (and thanks to Gura, Levy, Volokh, Hardy, Holbrook, Cramer, et al) their is much yet to be done, and we are many victories short of securing the right to keep and bear arms. If anything, the bien pensants will redouble their efforts to render the 2nd Amendment a meaningless nullity – witness the “new” DC gun laws which supposedly “comply” the the Supreme Court decision.
I haven’t seen anything about the “new” DC gun law. What does it say?
Here (Link)is a summary of the new DC gun law.
Highlights are that up until the moment you use your gun for self defence it must be disassembled, unloaded and locked up. To complete the registration you must hand over your gun to the authorities for testing. Automatics and semi-automatics are still banned.
So bascially, you can keep parts for a gun in your house as long as you register with the authorities.
Well, they’re still proposed rules, anyway; still time to fix the flaws. And you’re right; the flaws are many.
Yes, the DC government is taking the piss majorly with its new gun laws. You would almost think they are bad losers. I think they may need to get their asses spanked in court again before too long.
RKV,
Couple of points. I was actually happy to see the preposterous lengths DC went to to flip the SCOTUS a bird. SCOTUS don’t like that, NO judge likes that kind of defiance and it will not help DC’s inevitable next appearance one bit.
They other thing is that while the decision is a 5-4 regarding DC’s gun laws, the entire court, 9-0 genuflected to the individual right meaning of the amendment. That is not a small point.
Also, both sides genuflected to originalism. Neither one of these two unanimous components to the decision(s) should be undervalued. I am particularly pleased that the ‘living document’ constitution sabotage campaign was afraid to raise its traitorous head above the parapet.
Laird, the ‘new’ DC gun law is a middle digit pointed straight at the SCOTUS. No pretense and no subtlety.
Well Midwesterner, I couldn’t think of a better image to characterize the DC government’s response. It is my sincere hope that SCOTUS delivers their heads to them on a platter. They have earned the maximum sanction allowable given their non-compliance with the plain text of Heller. Reminds me of the civil rights struggles of the 50’s and 60’s – gun-control now and gun-control forever! Ike took care of that by sending in the 101st Airborne. Personally, I could easily see a special master being appointed and prosecution of Fenty et al for contempt of court at the least and prosecution under Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law at the other end of the scale.
Or perhaps the next case will get to the Court of Appeals, DC gets a very sound spanking and SCOTUS will refuse to grant. I actually think that is the most likely course. DC gets maximum consequences and SC doesn’t have to commit to more details. I think SC are done with DC and the next SC case will be on incorporation.
Also, that will give the court an opportunity to see what happens to public safety in DC before getting precise on how much regulation they will permit. All justices on this court to varying degrees subscribe to Lincoln’s statement to the effect that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. I think that after seeing that, contrary to their fears, DC does not turn into a shooting arcade of innocent victims, some of the missing votes that Gura expected on the court will materialize.