Scalia agrees with Kagan that Second Amendment rights are "not unlimited"
Matt Drudge highlighted a post by the website KaganWatch.com that stated that Elena Kagan wrote "the Second Amendment ... enjoys 'strong, but not unlimited protection' " -- apparently to suggest that Kagan was hostile to gun rights. In fact, in a decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban, the Supreme Court said that gun rights "are not unlimited."
From a post on KaganWatch.com, headlined "Kagan on Second Amendment: Like Freedom of Speech Enjoys 'Strong But Not Unlimited Protection,' " that Matt Drudge has highlighted:
While in the Clinton White House, Kagan took on gun (and tobacco) industries.
During her confirmation as solicitor general, Kagan said the Second Amendment, like freedom of speech, enjoys "strong but not unlimited protection."
In a questioner from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) about gun rights during her confirmation to be Solicitor General, Kagan had this to say:
"Once again, there is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to keep and bear arms and that this right, like others in the Constitution, provides strong although not unlimited protection against governmental regulation."
Supreme Court's conservative majority has itself said Second Amendment rights "are not unlimited"
The Supreme Court case striking down the DC handgun ban said that "the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited." The majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which was written by Scalia and joined by the Supreme Court's most conservative members, stated:
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.
[...]
Nothing in our opinion should 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.
Supreme Court has upheld gun restrictions. In his majority opinion, Scalia listed gun restrictions that the courts have long upheld as constitutional, including "prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons," prohibitions on "the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons' " such as an M-16 rifle, and "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."
That's the meat of the coconut...causing severe apoplexy in the far left.
This is true, but what wesley and right ON do around here most of the time is called circle-jerking.
You see the "meat of the coconut" as it were, is showing the hypocrisy of those that follow Drudge, by showing that even someone as championed and cherished as Scalia to agree with Kagan proves that the right should love her even more.
That isn't the case and the right knows this.
It is a sad but true fact
Agreeing with Kagan on the single issue of 2nd amendment rights does not cause a flow of love juices. But that issue...linked with her belief that the constitution does not provide a right for homosexuals to marry...produces a sight trickle.
Thanks.
You're just not all that bright, huh Weasel. She didn't say that DoMA was Constitutional, she said that she would defend the any act if there was a reasonable basis to do so. That's a far cry from saying that DoMA doesn't violate the Equal Protection Clause.
Answer from Kagan: There is no federal constitutional right to same sex marriage.
It's still right here.
And, in case there's anyone with any questions as to whether or not the Constitution is a living, changeable document or not--oh look--William Rehnquist says it is
time to purge scalia
The PROBLEM is that people are unfairly attacking Kagan. If they want to attack Kagan, they should ALSO attack Scalia, and they don't.
Because they're hypocrites whose attacks are based upon the political persuasion of who they're attacking, not upon consistent beliefs of their own.
The arguments she's made, and confidently asserted and supported as Solicitor General, weren't just a lawyer making a case. They are consistent with her oft-expressed views.
I regard this nomination as a major betrayal of Obama's constituency and the principles he espoused during his campaign. And all for the sake of courting approval from the right wing that won't be forthcoming. Maybe they will deign to allow a vote on the nomination, but they will fight it tooth and nail anyway.
There were other, better candidates, like Diane Wood.
"... I believe there's an aspect to Kagan's experience that sets her apart from others on the short list. Kagan has had practical strategic experience. Her most important work over the past two decades has been in contexts where she has had to move people to see things as she did. And through that experience, she has developed a sixth sense for the strategy of an argument. She matches that insight with a toughness that can get what she wants done. That doesn't mean triangulating. It doesn't mean 'compromise.' It means finding a way to move others to the answer you believe is right.
This is the single feature the liberal side of this conservative court lacks most. Even Justice Stevens was too quick to run off to a corner to write his universally brilliant dissents from insane majorities. Breyer too too often seems content in his law professor way to write an opinion that sounds good when read aloud to himself, but in light of the evolving jurisprudence of the Court, is tone deaf to the view of others. Too many of our progressive colleagues swing for the bleachers of history, rather than victories now. Too many are content with simply knowing that their liberal law professor friends are busy praising their opinions in constitutional law classes rather than fighting to find a way to split the ideologues on the right with their own principles and rhetoric.
Again, I'm not talking about triangulating. The point is not that we need someone who knows how best to compromise. The point instead is that we need a justice with the energy and strength to use the legal materials provided by the other side to advance the right answer."
It's very possible to be right and wrong at the same time. Right in your positions and wrong in your approach.
I will repeat what I said, a trier of fact in a court of law should leave his/her political ideology OUTSIDE. It is just as applicable to the S.Ct. as it is to an appellate court or a federal district court or any state level court. When the judicial system is tainted by ridiculous political ideology, there is no justice and there is no law.
This is what Scalia is acknowledging. I believe he should have taken the established reading of the Second Amendment, and not been so free with this right, and not have decoupled it from its subordinate clause. But neither of us think that gun rights are unlimited. Loaded weapons in bars? Unlawful for Starbucks to bar AKs from its premises? Not to me.
According to Scalia, the first half of the 2nd Amendment ("A well-regulated milita, being necessary to the security of a free state,") is just preamble to "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
None of the 12 amendments in the Bill of Rights has a preamble.
Scalia re-wrote the 2nd Amendment to rationalize the order he personally wanted to write.
This amendment really isn't even about an individual's right to bear arms. This is about State Militias having the right to bear arms. This amendment has been abused, misstated and wrongly used by the NRA was decades.
There are limits to amount of arms and types of arms an individual can owe and possess and it it time to start honoring what this amendment is truly about.