The Second Amendment

So as it happens, the urge to offer travel commentary in Germany didn't strike me all that often, and this blog might have been forgotten after its first post. I'm sure that anyone who may have ever found their way here through my facebook profile or whatever has certainly given up on this blog by now. And yet, as I re-read my first post, I've decided that it's simply too clever not to merit some follow-up. So, now that I am back in the United States, I am going to try this again. Perhaps I'll manage to regain a bit of an audience. Failing that, someone has to provide those archaeologists with their material!

This being the second post on this blog, it seems fitting to offer a few thoughts about the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. I notice that the Supreme Court has recently interpreted this amendment to mean that individuals have the right to keep loaded and assembled handguns in their homes, striking down a Washington D.C. law prohibiting this. The responses of persons quoted in the yahoo article to which I have linked are rather predictable. The White House is fairly measured in its praise of the decision, but the idiot beloved child of God who brought the suit and the NRA are overjoyed. Senator Feinstein (D-CA) believes the ruling will make the American people less safe.

I am entirely in agreement with this sentiment of Sen. Feinstein. I think that keeping loaded and assembled weapons in one's home is just asking for trouble, especially if there are children who reside there. If it were up to me, people would take martial arts instead of buying handguns. That would probably make us both safer and healthier. That said, I think the majority opinion in this case is correct. I'm no lawyer, of course, but the arguments based on the "well-regulated militia" clause have always seemed a bit of a stretch to me. I wish it were not the case, but it seems to me that it is. I felt the same way a couple years ago when the more liberal justices ruled that eminent domain could be invoked by a municipality to take a property for private use. I really hate that decision (my family's livelihood comes mostly from real estate), and I cared enough about it to actually read the text of the majority opinion. And though I think the world would be much better if eminent domain could only exercised for public use, I couldn't argue with the logic.

I point all this out because whenever the Supreme Court (or any court, really) hands down a controversial decision, the spokespersons for the organizations for and against the matter at hand almost always go on about how good or bad idea whatever has been prohibited or allowed is, but they almost never say anything about the constitutional merits of the case. It seems that outside of legal circles, most people are unable to make a distinction between what is right and what is constitutional, and this probably makes our discourse much less productive than it might otherwise be.

I am not advocating any sort of strict constructionism, by the way. I favor a very liberal interpretation of the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment, for example. Unfortunately though, the document that I believe guarantees Americans equal treatment and basic civil liberties also seems to guarantee the freedom of handgun ownership and gives governments more latitude than I would like in the exercise of eminent domain. It should be amended on both counts, but in the meantime, we need to work on our ability to distinguish a constitutionally sound opinion and a good or wise law.