[NOTE: Please forgive another blog so soon after one, but I wanted to say two things relevant to the last mass shooting in Buffalo, NY. One is that the FBI is still not taking domestic terrorism seriously; I suspect that some--that is, too many--agents sympathize with white nationalist groups. The other is the blog below.]
The Second Amendment, as interpreted in Justice Anton Scalia’s opinion in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), extends the right to own firearms to individuals not in a “well regulated militia.” Scalia identified himself as an originalist—that is, one who reads the Constitution as it was presumably intended to be read—in matters of its legal interpretation. He was nothing of the sort. He was a robed hypocrite who interpreted the Constitution to serve his political proclivities. He should be regarded as the patron saint of the gun violence which has metastasized throughout the country and left cities and states powerless to protect their citizens.
His opinion is an abomination. The Second Amendment is brief: “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 abridged.” The first thing to say about this amendment is that its “original” circumstances no longer exist and make it obsolete, though an “originalist” interpretation would have to limit itself to those circumstances. The amendment arose from frontier conditions. Settlers on the frontier, fearing that a remote government could not defend them from marauding natives, demanded militias so that they could defend themselves. The Constitutional Convention required them to be “well regulated” not because unregulated they would be ineffective, but because unregulated they could become dangerous, with armed mobs becoming a threat to “ordered liberty” (Justice Samuel Alito’s favorite phrase). Moreover, the Convention knew that, in their defense, states operated independently of one another and relied on themselves individually. States maintain them today, well regulated, as National Guards under the command of state governors to serve state needs. Only when the country declares war are they federalized in defense.
The second thing to say about the amendment is that, per grammar, the introductory absolute construction phrase defines the context of—in this case, places a limit on—what follows. The implication is obvious: as a Constitutional right, people may own and use arms for the purpose of public defense as part of an organized military body. The amendment is silent about, but does not deny, ownership and use of firearms for other purposes—which were not issues. However, it does not affirm ownership and use of firearms for other purposes as a Constitutional right. It leaves to the states the right to exercise or delegate to cities the authority to regulate whatever pertains to firearms for purposes of safety in businesses and residences, and recreational activities like hunting and sport competition. On this understanding, federal and state governments permitted or restricted firearms depending on their non-military purposes.
However, by recently curtailing the right of states and cities to regulate whatever pertains to firearms, the Supreme Court has allowed the manufacture, distribution, sale, and use of weapons with no defensive purpose to protect a state, its cities, businesses, and homes. Storekeepers, homeowners, hunters, and competitive shooters have no use for armor-piercing or dum-dum ammunition, high-capacity magazines, or rapid-fire handguns and rifles. These are features of offensive weapons intended to kill people and for no other purpose.
What people? Obviously, drug dealers and gang members use them in their nefarious operations. Quasi-patriotic paramilitary groups use them in training for fantasized apocalyptic showdowns with the Forces of Evil. The latter merge into various extremist groups with strong xenophobic, racist, and antisemitic tendencies. White teenage males under the influence of Fox mythologies use them to prevent their replacement. (Frankly, I favor the replacement of those who fear it.)
The result is an increasing number of casualty-inducing attacks mostly on blacks and other minorities in churches, businesses, movie theaters, and malls. Weapons like AK-47s, which have no rational purpose in civilian life, are the modern equivalent of ropes used for lynching. Justice Scalia’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, upheld and extended by subsequent Supreme Court decisions, makes it a hunting license for Whites to kill people of color, Muslims, and Jews. Despite the carnage, the Catholic conservative Supreme Court justices appear satisfied with the termination of Black, Brown, and Yellow Lives, Which Don’t Matter. Were such firearms used to kill large numbers of whites in mass shootings, the Supreme Court would hasten to reverse precedent by interpreting the Second Amendment as its “original” circumstances defined its meaning.
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