Monday, November 19, 2007

Absolute Compromise

Those having read me for awhile know that I’m not a member of the NRA. I’m also not a “strict constructionist” when it comes to interpreting the Constitution.

Over the last year of this blog, I’ve done a couple of posts about gun control and the Second Amendment. You can find them by searching the blog for “Second Amendment gun” if you want to know the details of what I think.

The Supreme Court will announce soon whether it will hear the latest Second Amendment case which found the District of Columbia’s very restrictive gun law to be in violation of the Second Amendment. (Only the D.C. Circuit and the Fifth Circuit have held that people have an expansive right to own guns, the rest of the Circuits (ten) have held that restrictions on ownership, types of guns allowed and uses are constitutional.)

Robert A. Levy, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is one of the lawyers that brought the D.C. challenge. He wrote an opinion piece that has been published in a couple of papers. Here is the link to it in The Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-levy14nov14,0,2444377.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

What I found interesting is that he does not believe the Second Amendment gives “absolute” rights when it comes to guns.

“What restrictions on gun possession and use would be permissible? Almost no one argues that 2nd Amendment rights are absolute. After all, under the 1st Amendment, the right to free speech does not protect disturbing the peace; religious freedom does not shield human sacrifice…. Similarly, gun regulations can be imposed on some weapons (e.g., missiles) some people (e.g., preteens) and some uses (e.g., murder).”

Speaking of his case he said “[s]omewhere in the middle, regulations will be deemed constitutional even if the Supreme Court upholds the lower court.”

If Mr. Levy is right, and I think he is, review by the Supreme Court is much ado about nothing. What will change if he is right is that gun law will become more of a federal matter, with less discretion left to state and local government. We'll see a long series of Supreme Court cases that flesh out the ruling, the results ebbing and flowing over the decades along the lines already seen with the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and most recently, Eighth Amendments.

It's interesting to contrast this with the apparent trend in abortion cases where the Supremes are ceding more control to state and local governments. Different amendments, different treatments, with the same result.

3 comments:

The Exception said...

We are watching this case as it unfolds with interest. I do see the trend you mentioned in the last paragraph, but I have to wonder if that trend will be different now that the Court has changed?

Dave said...

Hey Exception,

I was going to write more about the contrast, but ran out of time and realized it was another subject.

I actually think that the trend will accelerate under the Roberts Court. It is trapped by its jurisprudence in a way. The current majority doesn't like Rowe v. Wade in any way. Yet it doesn't want to flat out over rule it for a lot of reasons. It is left with chipping away at it. The easiest way to do that is to talk up the ability of a state legislature to enact "reasonable" legislation that tends to restrict abortion.

Where the Court wants to intervene, say an election in Florida a few years ago, Federal law is seen to trump.

I don't think that most of the Court really wants to decide the gun case; but, it may feel compelled to given the split in the decisions coming out of the Circuits.

I guess my point is that regardless of the mindset the Justices bring to the Court and the issues to be decided, the Court over the long run tends to compromise, bending to accomodate what it feels it must.

Not what I learned in law school; but, I think a reality of our system.

The Exception said...

Yesterday they decided to hear the case. As you might imagine, it is BIG news here. But then, anything this Court is news as everyone is attempting to figure out just how the Court will change. They need to do all they can this year because, if a D president is elected, the prediction is that there will be some appointments for the next president.