The Gun is Mine

Well, it looks like the Supreme Court got one right yesterday. By a razor thin margin of 5 - 4 the court affirmed the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to the people, and that total gun bans are unconstitutional. Thank God.

Please ignore all the news stories you've read about how this finally settles the "ambiguity" inherent in the second amendment. There's nothing ambiguous about it. It states:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Some people believe that this means that guns are only allowed for the purposes of the State governments forming militias. This ignores the fact that 200 years ago the people and militias were interchangeable. "You have a gun? Good, get your ass down here. We're forming a militia. Yeah, just like last week".

Regardless, the text couldn't be clearer. The authors simply put their reason for the right before the right. It could have just as easily read "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, because we know we need militias". The only people that think that is ambiguous are people that don't like guns. They wish that it didn't guarantee a right of the people, and delude themselves into believing that while the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights all convey rights to individuals, the second applies to the state governments. Ok.

What should scare you and all your friends is that four justices on the court thought that they could change the constitution based on their political beliefs. Four unelected individuals were about to change one of your fundamental rights as an American because a) they could, and b) they didn't like that right. Make no mistake, this was a victory for freedom loving Americans. And I thought I'd sleep easier knowing that they ruled the correct way. But I'm scared about how close we came to losing our right to self-defense. And for those of you that hate guns, what if this had been about freedom of speech, or the right to a speedy trial? How would you feel if you had been one vote away from losing something like that?

I'm thankful for the way it turned out, but it illustrates how important the upcoming presidential election will be. If Gore had been president then Justices Alito and Roberts wouldn't be there, and I would no longer have the right to keep and bear arms. Today Obama said he supported the court's decision, but that makes little sense considering he opposed two of the judges that ruled for the second amendment, i.e. Alito and Roberts. Even if I had had no other reasons, I would have been happy to vote Bush over Gore or Kerry simply because of judicial appointments.

Our founding fathers never intended for the supreme court to have this kind of power. Few people realize that the court granted itself the authority to rule on the constitutionality of a law. Think carefully this fall when you cast your vote. When it comes to judicial appointments it's not about conservative versus liberal. It's about who will do the job of a judge, and who will legislate from the bench.