June 27, 2008
Guns and the Supreme Court
It was unsurprising, and in practical terms maybe not very important, that the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s blanket ban on handguns. In yet another 5-4 decision (the four conservatives plus Justice Kennedy against the four liberals), it ruled that the Second Amendment enshrines the right of individuals–as opposed to individuals serving as part of a militia–to keep and bear arms. It also affirmed that this right is qualified, and that all manner of (unspecified) restrictions on gun ownership and use are constitutional. There will have to be further litigation to test the limits, but in most of the country the ruling will make no difference. The DC law failed because it was an outright ban on handguns, including weapons kept in the home for self-defence, and (the majority said) upholding this law would have meant rendering the Second Amendment defunct.
This is how Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, summed it up:
We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns… But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.
Actually I have no objection to my neighbours in DC defending their homes with handguns. I’m all for making burglars anxious. But is this ruling as ruthlessly logical as it purports to be?
The Second Amendment has already been substantially hollowed out–and the Court says it has no problem with that, only with taking it to DC’s extreme of outright prohibition. For the sake of argument, then, let us suppose–as Scalia invites us to–that the Second Amendment is indeed outmoded, for the somewhat plausible reasons he mentions. Let us suppose, again for the sake of argument, that hollowing out the Second Amendment all the way to nothing would save hundreds of lives a year. And further suppose that public opinion in DC was solidly behind DC’s law. Even if all that were true, the majority says it would not be the Court’s job to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct–to do that, Congress and the states would have to climb the mountain of repealing it.
The baffling implication is that the Court can properly take the law all the way from “shall not be infringed” to the tight (and apparently constitutional) controls now exercised in many jurisdictions, but that the last small step to prohibition, however beneficial to the locality concerned, is beyond its competence and demands extraordinary if not impossible political exertions. What am I missing?
I think what you are missing is the red line. Politicians make laws and establish legal rights or constitutions; Courts interpret them. If democracy is to survive, neither should cross that boundary.
Posted by: J Passmore | June 27th, 2008 at 11:40 am | Report this commentThe Constitution set up a limited republic on the federal level, and a democracy on only the local level. The “Bill of Rights” is actually a “Bill of Restrictions” on federal power. Limited federal power is a concept that has become, alas, more honor’d in the breach than the observance. What you are missing is that the court had to maintain the fiction that federal law trumps local law, or many of its previous rulings would be suspect.
Posted by: A. Gandolph | June 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm | Report this comment“the last small step to prohibition, however beneficial to the locality concerned, is beyond its competence and demands extraordinary if not impossible political exertions. What am I missing?”
Perhaps what you’re missing is the fact that the “last small step” (i.e. outright bans) has not been all that beneficial for the US cities of Washington (the murder capital of the US in the 1990’s) and Chicago. Nor has an outright ban on handguns in Great Britain stopped homicidal Britons from killing each other with knives.
Posted by: DMO | June 27th, 2008 at 5:10 pm | Report this commentI think you’re placing too much emphasis on the last couple of paragraphs of a 57-page majority opinion. The opinion says quite clearly that other measures may not pass constitutional muster, but the Court hasn’t been asked to rule on them so it hasn’t. It says quite pointedly that the plaintiff didn’t say he had a problem with licensing and registration, so the court offers no opinion on them. However, the court didn’t merely strike down the handgun ban, it also struck down the secure storage regulations in DC - that goes beyond saying just a prohibition fails constitutional muster.
It will require further litigation to establish what “shall not be infringed” actually means.
The real question is whether the Second Amendment is a restraint purely on the Federal Govt. or on the States and localities as well, which is why the test case was made in a Federal jurisdiction. It’s not clear from case law whether the 14th Amendment binds the States to follow the Second Amendment, although nearly all of them have similar provisions in their State constitutions or civil rights laws.
What is for sure in my opinion is that the District of Columbia appealing the Appeal court decision to the Supreme Court will probably go down in history as the most bone-headed legal decision by a US municipality ever.
Posted by: Steve | June 27th, 2008 at 5:34 pm | Report this commentJ Passmore, Totally agree.
Another “liberal” interpretation of the constitution.
So the federal government is going to send me to jail now because I won’t allow my children to carry guns into my house?
Posted by: D. So | June 27th, 2008 at 5:37 pm | Report this commentYou miss the fact that, in a liberal democracy, the government’s power is limited by the rights of the individuals. And the court just drew the line on government’s power to regulate guns (no outright ban, but regulation is possible).
You should not clamor for expanded government power over individual rights when a measure is popular. This is contrary to democracy and has nasty results (e.g., unconstitutional wiretapping, Guantanamo Bay, Japanese internment during WWII, etc.)
Instead of damming the court’s limitation of government power, you should be questioning why the court does not act the same way every time there is government overreaching.
Posted by: Ignacio | June 27th, 2008 at 6:19 pm | Report this comment“So the federal government is going to send me to jail now because I won’t allow my children to carry guns into my house?
Posted by: D. So | June 27th, 2008 at 5:37 pm”
Lose perspective, much? Or maybe you’re just unaware that the rights of minors doesn’t extend to gun ownership? Either way, a pretty silly way to argue for the shunting aside of the 2d Amendment.
Posted by: DMO | June 27th, 2008 at 6:26 pm | Report this comment“You should not clamor for expanded government power over individual rights when a measure is popular. This is contrary to democracy and has nasty results (e.g., unconstitutional wiretapping, Guantanamo Bay, Japanese internment during WWII, etc.)
Posted by: Ignacio | June 27th, 2008 at 6:19 pm ”
So are you saying that Japanese-Americans were truly terrorists (and thus deserved internment), or that Islamofascists are all innocents and deserve to be free?
Posted by: DMO | June 27th, 2008 at 6:30 pm | Report this commentIn its dissent in the Guantanamo detainees habeas corpus decision, the Supreme Court’s radical right wing block (as the word “conservative” is a misnomer) stated that the courts should defer to the executive and legislative branches, and that many Americans might be killed by the majority’s refusal to do so. The objective, of course, was to attempt to uphold authoritarian presidential power at the expense of a protection against tyranny that has been part of English law for 800 years.
In the gun decision, the Court’s radical right wing block took the opposite tack and sharply limited the power of the legislative and executive branches in order to make it easier for more Americans to be killed, as many unquestionably will be by lifting the ban on handguns. The objective? Clearly, to uphold the interests of the gun lobby. The right wing radical faction is, to all intents and purposes, a political faction. It uses legal interpretation as nothing more than a pretext for ideology.
Posted by: algasema | June 27th, 2008 at 7:50 pm | Report this commentActually, ‘algasenema’, a surer “protection against tyranny” is enshrined in the 2d Amendment of the US Constitution. I urge some folks here to actually read the thing before they pontificate about “us(ing) legal interpretation as nothing more than a pretext for ideology”, as the US radical left-wing have a penchant for doing. If some here feel that Guantanamo detainees deserve any rights at all, perhaps they can persuade their governments to take these ‘fine’ individuals as citizens. After all, radical Islam seems to have made quite a home for itself in Europe…
Posted by: DMO | June 27th, 2008 at 10:11 pm | Report this commentAs a lay person, I understand that it’s up to the congress to make the law and it’s up to the court to interpret the law. The court should not be nagating existing laws or establishing new laws through radical interpretation or outright mis-interpretation.
The fact that many of the important decisions are 5-4 means that congress should do its work by making new laws or clarifying existing laws. Otherwise, a few people at the court will always be making these decisions.
Posted by: Andy | June 27th, 2008 at 10:31 pm | Report this comment“Instead of damming the court’s limitation of government power, you should be questioning why the court does not act the same way every time there is government overreaching.
Posted by: Ignacio | June 27th, 2008 at 6:19 pm ”
I agree with Ignacio here BTW, especially when we’re talking about government-controlled health-care systems. From my Canadian relatives’ horror-stories about this kind of system, something tells me government shouldn’t be involved heavily in this endeavor, as well.
Posted by: DMO | June 27th, 2008 at 10:43 pm | Report this comment“So are you saying that Japanese-Americans were truly terrorists (and thus deserved internment), or that Islamofascists are all innocents and deserve to be free?”
Posted by: DMO | June 27th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I mean neither.
I mean that none of these persons should have had their due process rights infringed and imprisoned because it was the popular thing to do. These suspects should be sent to jail only if found guilty of a crime, after a fair trial.
Posted by: Ignacio | June 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pm | Report this commentYou apparently missed the whole thing.
Posted by: Jim Papa | June 28th, 2008 at 12:19 am | Report this commentYou might remember our 18th No alcohol amendment. It had to be removed by the 21st.
Amendments are not there to be ignored but to be followed. There is probably not a constitutional right that cannot be limited in some way. But the limitation cannot vitiate the right. As one cannot allow a fool to shout “fire” in a crowded dimly lit theater, one would not allow a psychotic or felon to have firearms. The first does not think well and we know the propensity of the other to have his own way.
The reason many of the gun laws have not been challenged is that the false theory of the “militia” requirement kept challengers subdued.
As Craig Ferguson repeats on occasion in his show, “They are all very polite in Texas, because they are all packing.”
I note with sadness that the crime rate in Gt.Britain has risen manyfold since they instituted a total ban on firearms some three? years ago.for
Dear DMO,
We could do without your irrelevant comment on Europe and radical Islam, this is not a Murdoch paper.
Also, sorry to say but on health care (another one of your irrelevances), the horror stories you are referring to are rather coming from your side of the border:
Highest infancy mortality in the developed world, millions of Americans without health cares, unscrupulous insurance companies, costs that are out of control and I could go on and on.
Last but not least, about your offer on Guantanamo detainees, there is one Canadian out there. His name is Omar Khadr. He was 15 when he was sent in five years ago. Can we have him back please? We’d like him to have a fare trial. We’ve tried through official channels but somehow it doesn’t seem to work…
Your neighbour from the North
Posted by: Christian G. | June 28th, 2008 at 1:12 am | Report this commentI mean that none of these persons should have had their due process rights infringed and imprisoned because it was the popular thing to do. These suspects should be sent to jail only if found guilty of a crime, after a fair trial.
Posted by: Ignacio | June 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pm | Report this comment
Requirements durng wartime differ from the requirements of criminal law. Prosecution of a war is not identical to prosecuting criminals. Each task requires different means. I think you have failed to recognize that.
Posted by: Tory Torrison | June 28th, 2008 at 9:18 am | Report this commentDMO, you do not seem to have the faintest idea what habeas corpus means in the Guantanamo context. It means that the Guantanamo detainees have the right to a fair hearing over the question whether they indeed took up arms against the US, or whether they were locked up by mistake, as has frequently happened in the US program of arbitrary detention, rendition and torture that was once marketed to the public as a supposed “war on terror”.
The alternative, supported by the radical right Supreme Court minority, is to let George W. Bush (perhaps with the help of some sage advice from Dick Cheney) make the the sole decision about who is an “enemy combatant”, without anyone having the right to challenge it.
There are, it is true, countries with systems of government that give their chief executives this kind of power. Burma is one, for examp[e. Zimbabwe is rapidly turning into another (if it has not already been one for quite some time).
Arguably, some of the alleged “radical Islamists” whom you would like to see locked up indefinitely, in a throwback to Star Chamber justice, may also support this expansive view of executive power, in a radical Islamic state, of course. The Supreme Court minority’s view of unlimited executive power is actually closer to that of the “Islamo-fascists” than it is to what most Americans understand by the word “democracy”.
Posted by: algasema | June 28th, 2008 at 3:29 pm | Report this commentThe Supreme Court of the USA is a political entity regardless of protestations to the contrary. As many people note when commenting on the last 8 years of the current USA Administration, we as USA citizens will finally be rid of the disastrous policies of the current Administration within months, but the legacy of right-wing judicial appointments on the Court will be with us a very long time. Too bad for the country.
The Second Amendment has nothing to do with a modern world and everything to do with the need for the American colonialists in the 1800th century to have some means of asserting their rights against tyranny from the motherland - that is you United Kingdom. Not now of course, but under the tyranny of King George. Our current wannabe “King” George (Bush) is tyrannizing the Middle East, so it is understandable that Afghanis and Iraqis and Iranians should have the right to arm themselves - with nuclear weapons for that matter - to defend their homeland and themselves from the “foreign” tyranny that our Government represents.
But back to the matter at hand. The Second Amendment effectively permits citizens to have their own nuclear weapons as defense presumably against the tyranny of George Bush and Dick Cheney. I agree that we citizens need protection from those two and their cohort, but having the right to purchase machines guns, handguns or any other weapon will not protect us from the tyranny of the State. Having a Congress and Administration not controlled by the extreme right-wing offers far greater security to us than any right to own a gun.
The vast majority of the American electorate has no interest in gusn or any other weapons and certainly no interest in having weapons or guns in their possession. In fact the only interest of that majority is making sure that criminals do not have weapons. That situation can be effectuated by tight control over production and distribution of weaponry including draconian penalties against those who possess guns illegally (i.e. anyone except the police or those who own hunting rifles which are perfectly legitimate, although they can be and have been used to murder people rather than animals).
So let’s hope that the right-wingers on the Supreme Court become sufficiently disgusted with the political swing away from extreme right-wingism over the next few years that a few will quit - to be replace, one hopes, with justices with some good judgment that benefits all citizens.
Posted by: Wendell Murray | June 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pm | Report this commentWendell,
Let’s see 7 years of uninterrupted economic growth, minimal unemployment, consumer spending growth increasing at record levels, inflation blinking-but not flashing, North Korea no longer a nuclear or terrorist threat, Libya the same, Iraq a slow and expensive but marginally a success…yeah that sounds like the results of the “disastrous policies of the current Administration”.
I think I will trust the judgment of the Supreme Court over your topsy-turvy evaluation of things.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 28th, 2008 at 8:20 pm | Report this commentI’m puzzled at the Court’s attitude toward gun storage regulations. A decade or so ago, the Jacksonville, Florida area had a rash of children finding their parents’ pistols, then shooting each other or themselves. My recollection is that at first there was sympathy for bereaved parents, then lack of sympathy, then parents were taken to court for child abuse or manslaughter. The number of maimed and dead children duly declined.
Posted by: David Martin | June 28th, 2008 at 8:48 pm | Report this commentCongratulations to Wendell Murray for his brilliant description of everything that is wrong with America.
It is pathetic that John Powers is so blind to the increased hardships that the middle class, not to mention the less advantaged, have suffered during the past seven years. But he is right in one sense: the economy has been working quite well - for the wealthiest few at the very top (except for those who happened to be working for Bear Stearns, that is.) This is exactly what the Bush policies intended. To this extent, they have been very successful.
Citing Iraq and North Korea as administration successes is laughable. How can one call a war a success that has cost over a trillion dollars (let’s be honest - anyone who believes it is only 600 billion might as well be out there still looking for the smoking gun that is also a mushroom cloud), 4,000 US soldiers killed, close to ten times that number severely wounded, four million internal and external Iraqi refugees with more than 100,000 civilian deaths, and an active Al Qaeda in Iraq organization where none existed before?
Of course, it is a success from one standpoint, that of Halliburton, Blackwater and, most of all (or most of oil), the big energy companies that are finally succeeding in arm twisting the Iraqi government into giving away its oil wealth. Was there any other purpose to this war right from the start?
As for North Korea, I agree that there has been real progress. But this is only because George W. Bush finally came to his senses and actually listened to people like Condoleezza Rice and Christopher Hill (whom the neocons now call “Kim Jong Hill”) instead of following the right wing fanatics who wanted to start a war with North Korea that would have led to the incineration of all of South Korea and half of Japan. In other words, Bush acted like a Democrat. This has led to his greatest success as president.
I also respect and admire President Bush for his support of the Kennedy-McCain Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill which failed in the Senate last year. It took courage for both Bush and McCain to take on the anti-Latino, anti-Asian lunatic fringe in their own party. Unfortunately, both have since reneged - McCain by expressly disavowing his prior support of his own tolerant, humane (and also deeply flawed) bill, and Bush by instituting a reign of terror with workplace raids, mass arrests, detention in inhuman conditions and assembly line deportations of Mexican and other Latin American immigrants whose biggest crime was coming here to try to prevent their families from starving at home.
I do not mean to sound excessively partisan on this issue. The Democrats also have good reason to be ashamed at their record on immigration. All too many of them have gone alone with the “enforcement only” madness, including plans to build a new Berlin Wall along the Mexican border, out of the same kind of cowardice and political expediency that have made them go along with Bush’s trashing of our civil liberties, and have held them back from going ahead with long overdue impeachment proceedings against both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney.
I just watched Barack Obama give a speech on immigration on C-Span in front of a mainly Latino audience. It was so full of equivocations, evasions and half measures. They gave him some polite applause. He is lucky he wasn’t booed.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 12:53 am | Report this commentI meant: “gone along with”, not “gone alone with”.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 12:57 am | Report this commentWell, what can you say, Senator Obama is a politician first and foremost. The According to “the nattering nabobs of negativism” that is mainstream media a Presidential candidate in the USA has to move to the “middle” once a nomination is secured. In Senator Obama’s case it is more like moving from the middle where his policies have been to the extreme right. To appease blue-collar racists? Not a good move. If the small number of such racists will in fact vote for Senator McCain, let them. Racism will never go away, but it is a mistake to pander to it for any reason. Most blue-collar white supporters of Senator Clinton will support Senator Obama. Most are not racist despite the innuendos to that effect by the media.
JBP: I do not know what planet you are on, but certainly not Earth. Read algasema’s riposte which debunks every nitwitted comment you make. Are you angling for a position in the twilight of the Bush Administration? It certainly seems like it.
Posted by: Wendell Murray | June 29th, 2008 at 1:25 am | Report this commentRoger (and Wendell),
Just because you do not like the president, does not mean that facts change. Economic growth, inflation, unemployment measures are pretty much agreed upon for 60 years now. Since you don’t like Bush for one reason or another, you insist on a new measure that does not favor him. Not easy to satisfy that one, as I am sure you can find another thing that irritates you.
As a factual measure, President Bush has announced that 30,000 troops are coming home from Iraq. This was in a press conference with Gordon Brown, that the FT decided not to cover.
Seems odd, doesn’t it? Relatively good news is dismissed, while some nonsensical bad news like “consumer sentiment surveys” make the front page.
I suggest you not believe everything your read, and nothing that you write.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 29th, 2008 at 2:14 am | Report this commentJBP
Getting back to why we were spending our Saturday responding to a FT weekend column, perhaps what Mr. Cook may be missing is that our Constitutional framework dictates a formal process for constitutional amendment, but not for constitutional interpretation. And as this nation’s first Chief Justice, John Marshall, pronounced in the landmark decision of Marbury v. Madison: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judiciary Department to say what the law is.”
If anything, the history of Constitutional jurisprudence in this country makes abundantly clear that the Bill of Rights is not, and has not been judicially regarded as, a proclamation of absolute limitations, but has been and is, instead, an ever-qualified political imperative of limited absolutes. So much so, that anyone first encountering the Bill of Rights as written, without any awareness of the case law it has spawned, would be thoroughly amazed to see how much the courts have read into the Bill of Rights over time in applying and tailoring its principles to the unending diversity of daily political life.
Actually, I think Mr. Jim Papa, above, got it right when he said most succinctly: “There is probably not a constitutional right that cannot be limited in some way. But the limitation cannot vitiate the right.” And it is precisely that unending tension between the limitation and right that is at the core of the Supreme Court’s function as final arbiter in resolving the tension by recognizing/making distinctions ? unpopular and fallible though they may sometimes be. That in a nation of robustly political beings, some of us may quarrel, for whatever the reason and from decision to decision, with where the line of distinction has now been drawn is, of course, all in the nature of our historic national discourse.
But the bottom line is that our Constitution has established the guidelines and it is for the courts to say, from time to time and sometimes questionably, where they apply, how far they go and when they have been exceeded, but certainly not to erase them altogether.
Posted by: John de Clef Piñeiro | June 29th, 2008 at 4:22 am | Report this commentHa! I live in Washington, D.C. If you lived here you would want guns to protect yourself too. During the gun ban, EVERYBODY has guns anyway. So what good did it do? Now I will have my constitional right returned to defend my self in my own home. Those who believe in big government will ALWAYS get the shaft in the end. Don’t be fools. The U.S. is on the brink of economic ruin. Don’t YOU be one of the unlucky ones without a gun (and don’t forget the bullets!) when the food riots start.
Posted by: Tom | June 29th, 2008 at 5:17 am | Report this commentJohn Powers, instead of trying to refute the factual bases of my criticisms of the Bush administration, you are falling back on the old Fox News style trick of saying that I do not like the president, even though my previous comment contains a sentence beginning with the words “I respect and admire President Bush…”
How many Americans would say those words these days in any context whatsoever? How many Republicans? Would John McCain say them? By writing those words, I have included myself among a tiny minority of people who can find anything good at all to say about George W. Bush. Since you evidently did not catch this positive note in my comment, perhaps you might wish to read it again a bit more carefully before jumping to a conclusion?
Perhaps you might even wish to pay just a small amount of attention to what is actually going on in America these days, instead of acting only as a cheerleader for the privileged, well-connected, wealthy, military - industrial elite?
As I understand John de Clef Pineiro’s argument, it seems to be to the effect that resolving the tension between a constitutional right and a limitation is basically a political decision. I would agree that all constitutional interpretation is political. However, it is too simplistic to view this simply as tension between a “right” and a “limitation”.
In the gun case, for example, Jim Papa to the contrary, there is a serious question as to whether the “right” he refers to, namely that of an individual (as opposed to a collective body, such as a militia) to bear arms ever existed in the second amendment at all. The operative word is the word “the people”. Current usage, of course, is that “people” means a number of individuals. But was this true in 18th century America, especially among the founders?
Or did they regard this term in the sense that it had in Latin (which all of the founders of this country can be presumed to have known quite well), i.e. “populus Romanus”? This implies that the term “people” meant a collective body. This usage still appears in American law today.
For example, in New York and many other states, when someone is prosecutted for a crime, the case is entitled: “The People of the State of New York vs. [name of the defendant]”. This obviously does not mean that just any person at random can prosecute a criminal defendant.
Certainly, this smacks of being an “originalist” interpretation of a constitutional provision. Of course, we all know that the far right Supreme Court “conservative” block would absolutely never, ever, advocate an “originalist” interpretation (except when it suits the political agenda of these four justices to do so).
I wonder, by the way, if anyone remembers that there actually was an incident in Washington many years ago when a reporter (as I remember reading) went to the home of Nixon - apppointed Chief Justice Warren Burger to try to get a story of some sort, and was greeted by that distinguished jurist pointing a gun straight at the reporter, obviously thinking that he was a intruder. This would seem to be a pretty clear statement that at least one prior Supreme Court Chief Justice believed in an individualist intrpretation of the second amendment. Fortunately, no one was shot.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 6:57 am | Report this commentJBP: The invasion and occupation of Iraq is a disaster by any measure. Read algasema’s note or any of the many factually-based books or articles about any - including current - aspect of it. From your definition, it would have been “relatively good news”, were the “production rate” of murders in Nazi extermination camps reduced by the lack of Nazi manpower to perform executions or for that matter the lack of human beings to murder. An exact analogy to the situation in Iraq and surrounding areas caused 100% by the utter and complete stupidity of the Bush Administration. The stupidity is continuing of course.
With the exception of the mendacity of the reduction of marginal tax rates that was the only domestic policy goal of the Bush Administration that has caused the debt level and debt burden on tax-payers to balloon while overwhelming benefiting the very highest income-earners, as the late economist Herbert Stein always noted - Administrations generally do not have much of an impact on economic performance of the country.
It is a well-known fact that the earnings of the average USA worker have stagnated since the mid 1970s - ultimately the effect of both general, global economic conditions and of explicit Administration policies, including that of the Clinton Administration, whose whole-hearted support of NAFTA contributed to the stagnation in wages and the rise in income to capital - directly at the expense of American labor.
It is hopeless, I realize, to ever try to convince extreme right-wingers of the facts about anything, but you might learn something if you paid some attention to them.
Posted by: Wendell Murray | June 29th, 2008 at 8:45 am | Report this commentI also apologize for yet another typo, in the word “interpretation”.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 2:16 pm | Report this comment“Last but not least, about your offer on Guantanamo detainees, there is one Canadian out there. His name is Omar Khadr. He was 15 when he was sent in five years ago. Can we have him back please? We’d like him to have a fare trial. We’ve tried through official channels but somehow it doesn’t seem to work…
Your neighbour from the North”
Very well! Would that be in a pine box, or metal? Also, we’d like to allow you to keep all those so-called ‘conscientious objectors’ who have traipsed up to you. Send us those individuals who wish to live in a country free of Free-Speech Star Chambers and are willing to defend themselves, as you apparently have no need of them due to your peaceful southern border.
Sincerely,
Your neighbor on your unguarded Southern border
“DMO, you do not seem to have the faintest idea what habeas corpus means in the Guantanamo context. It means that the Guantanamo detainees have the right to a fair hearing over the question whether they indeed took up arms against the US, or whether they were locked up by mistake….
Algasenema | June 28th, 2008 at 3:29 pm | ”
Do you know how many have been held in Club Gitmo? Do you know how many are there now? That little fact puts the lie to your remark, but you can’t seem to get beyond the hype you’ve been fed. Just out of curiousity, do you know how long German POWs were held after hostilities ceased, Post-WWII? Did Habeas Corpus apply to them, too?
As for those who just toss the weak-minded Fox News meme, among others, at anyone who disagrees with their loony views, kudos for reminding us you have nothing more substantive other than these results of the brain-washing you’ve endured. Reality doesn’t affect y’all much, does it?
Posted by: DMO | June 29th, 2008 at 6:06 pm | Report this commentRoger, it is hard to disagree with your facts, as you ignore the common economic measures when they do not agree with your narrative. Of course some people make more money than others, but on the whole, across the board tax cuts and free trade have kept the economy humming for the last 16 years or so.
Wendell, comapared to past wars Iraq is nowhere close to a disasater. The Allies lost more men in a single day in WW2 on many occasions than we have lost in Iraq. It is slow and expensive, but I have yet to hear from anyone in the Leftist camp a better alternative.
The casualty figures in Chicago from gang violence are apporoximately the same as US casualties in Iraq…and Mayor Daley is cheered for running the city that works.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 29th, 2008 at 8:09 pm | Report this comment“The casualty figures in Chicago from gang violence are apporoximately the same as US casualties in Iraq…and Mayor Daley is cheered for running the city that works.
JBP”
Perhaps, JBP, if Obama becomes POTUS (G_d forbid), he will suggest withdrawal from Chicago, as well as DC. By his outdated and largely disproved Iraq standards of victory, it’s just not worth it for the US to be in these places anymore…
Posted by: DMO | June 29th, 2008 at 8:47 pm | Report this commentJohn Powers, all of us may disagree on many things concerning Iraq, but no matter which camp we find ourselves in, I think we can all agree one one point. This is that, regardless of whether or not the Iraq war has been a disaster for the US or for the prople of Iraq, it has certainly not been a disaster for everyone.
It has not been a disaster for Blackwater. It has not been a disaster for Halliburton. It has not been a disaster for Exxon, Shell, BP or other major US oil and defense companies.
In the same way, our economy may have a few potholes (literally as well as figuratively, at least for people who live near levees along the Mississippi or who drive across bridges in Minnesota). It is certainly a disaster for the 47 million Americans who cannot afford health insurance and the 2 million who are at risk of losing their homes to fraudulent or predatory lenders, not to mention the people in Alaska devastated by the Valdez oil spill, who will now receive next to no compensation at all to rebuild their busineses and their lives, thanks to an ideological, pro-big business Supreme Court majority.
But, admittedly, the economy is humming along quite smoothly for most, if not all, of the investment banks and mortgage lenders whose unregulated excesses nearly wrecked the world’s financial system, for the huge agribusinesses whose subidized food exports have destroyed the agricultural sector in so many developing countries that are now facing famine, and for the big polluters that are bringing aboute climate change that could threaten the future of all of humanity; and, above all, for the arms dealers and defense companies that are making bigger profits then ever from our obscenely bloated military budget and imperial arrrogance that seeks to “project American power” in every corner of the world (except where it is desperately needed, as in Burma and Zimbabwe).
If anyone wants to argue that the US economy is nothing but gloom and doom, please don’t count me on your side.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 9:44 pm | Report this commentOops, “people of Iraq”, not “prople”.
Posted by: algasema | June 29th, 2008 at 9:49 pm | Report this commentNo Roger, you are wrong on a litany of subjects you mention, but this one stands out:
Investment banks have been getting hammered for about a year now, as have lenders like Countrywide. Companies such as Bear Stearns lost 95% of their market value, and investment bankers lost their retirement funds, their jobs, and their company. Bankers at Washington Mutual and Citigroup have lost a fortune, while the government sends out checks so that the “poor” can buy more Plasma TV’s.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 29th, 2008 at 10:02 pm | Report this commentWith so many statistics being cited in this comment section, I wondered just which were correct and which were incorrect.
Since discussions of fact are only as good as the facts cited, I decided to look up a few numbers - and their sources. Readers of the comments will know the comments to which the numbers relate.
Total US Population
303,824,646 - CIA Fact Book
Gun owners
60,000,000- BBC Special Report
Percent of US Population owning guns
19.748%- Calculation
Number of guns in the US
200,000,000- BBC special Report
Avg. guns per owner 3.3- Calculation
Total US murders in 2000
15,517- BBC Special Report
Gun murders in the US in 2000
10,241- Calculation
Percent of gun murders of all murders
66.00%- BBC Special Report
US murder rate
0.0034% -Calculation
Annual deaths in US [2008]
2,512,630 CIA Fact Book
Death rate
0.827%- CIA Fact Book
Gun murders as percent of US deaths
0.00408% - Calculation
Murders in Chicago 1990-1995 [5 years] - Wikipedia
4,557
Murders in Chicago 2002 - 2007 [5 years] - Wikipedia
2,382
Reduction in Chicago murders
48 % - Calculation
Coalition deaths in Iraq War [started 20 March 2003 - 5 years] - Wikipedia
4,426
Iraqi combatant deaths - Wikipedia
7,600-10,800
US Contractors dead in Iraq- Wikipedia
1,029
All Iraqi violent deaths - Wikipedia - citing Johns Hopkins/Lancet
601,027
If you have more accurate figures, please share them, and their superior sources, and help refine the discussion. Thanks
Posted by: John L | June 29th, 2008 at 10:29 pm | Report this commentDespite the seriousness of possessing a deadly weapon, enshrining gun ownership in a nation’s constitution is similar to using the constitution to regulate the price of soft drinks. A national constitution is not the forum (in the 21st Century a least) where laws should be made on regulating gun ownership. It is a type of “category mistake”, and relegates any serious discussion about real consitutional issues (like the protection of the individual in society) to the possible means - and the alternatives - of accomplishing this. I seriously doubt the founding fathers had this type of reductio ad absurdum in mind.
Posted by: George Manka | June 30th, 2008 at 12:12 pm | Report this commentJohn L,
Thanks for the numbers. I’ll stick to the number of murders in Chicago being a reasonable proxy for the number of US casualties in Iraq.
The last time I checked (this morning) things like Hummer wrecks were included in casualty totals in Iraq, but they are not included in Chicago murders.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm | Report this commentI am a law-abiding gun owner, and I don’t ascribe to “right-wing idealogy”. Surprisingly, the vast majority of gun-owners I know have the capacity of independent thinking and don’t delve into the “all or nothing” concept of the extreme right (or left, for that matter).
Since I have a brain, I have come to realize that we have two options: (1) accept that the original intent of Jefferson’s Bill of Rights was to ensure that the rights of individuals were not trampled upon by tyranny - PLEASE read the ENTIRE BILL OF RIGHTS to determine that.
And (2) if WE THE PEOPLE don’t like an Amendment (including the 2nd) then it must be repealed by another Amendment. There is no other means.
Therefore, we can argue and debate over exactly what “militia” means or who “the people” are. But since very few of us were alive in 1790, we can only look at the hand-written words themselves. I could care less if you are Federalist, Whig, Republican, Bull Moose, Originalist, or even from New Jersey. We have to live with the words in our current context — milita has no tangible current meaning, and the people means “ALL OF US”. Using the logic that “The People” (as in “The People” vs. Some Accused Person) is the collective populace, will then have to mean that we all have the right of gun ownership.
I am not a radical right or left winger.
But I will shoot you if you try to kill me.
Posted by: eap | July 20th, 2008 at 6:51 am | Report this commenteap, a little logic would be useful, even if you don’t like the result. Even Scalia says that you can’t just pretend that words in a Constitutional provision don’t exist. The word “militia” is in the 2nd amendment, like it or not. The founders could have left it out, if they had wanted to. As Scalia himself pointed out, a number of states at that time had their own constitutional provisions concerning the right to bear arms which made no reference to a militia.
But in the federal constitutional amendment, reference to a militia was put in. This had to be for a reason. If one were to argue that it was put in for no reason at all, this would go against the entire “original intent” theory of construction that Scalia and his fellow right wing justices make so much of, and expose their supposed method of interpretation as being the hypocritical fiction that it in fact is.
Therefore, if there is any validity at all to Scalia’s “original intent” doctrine, one has to ask what possible meaning there could have been for inserting the “militia” phrase in the amendment except to justify and restrict the right to bear arms. The two concepts, participation in a militia and the right to bear arms, were clearly joined at the hip.
Today, while the word “militia” still has a meaning - take a look at the news out of Iraq on any given day - a militia no longer has a function or purpose in the US. Ergo, neither does the right to bear arms.
If you wish to have a proposed constitutional amendment introduced that does not make the right to bear arms contingent on a particular set of circumstances, your Congressional Representative’s and Senator’s offices are only a phone call away. But in the meantime, hold your fire.
Posted by: algasema | July 20th, 2008 at 11:59 am | Report this comment