Although an individual now has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, wrote Scalia, a hunter. [emphasis Murdoc's]
Via the Free Constitution Blog.
As I noted earlier:
No matter which way the SCOTUS goes, their decision will define what the 2nd Amendment has been all along.
It's not that they're redefining it, and that this afternoon it will mean something different than it did yesterday. It's that they're going to decide what it's meant since the day it was written.
This is not a "new right." People are going to tell the story that way, but they're either mistaken or lying.
Here are the quick points I posted over at Murdoc Online:
- The official position of the United States of America is that the keeping and bearing of arms is an individual right.
- The 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution does not grant that right to citizens.
- It guarantees that government cannot infringe upon that right, the right that Just Is.
- The Court's ruling does not change what the 2nd Amendment means. It doesn't mean something different this afternoon than it meant yesterday. It has always meant it. Some people and some laws were just wrong when they claimed otherwise.
- This isn't the end of the gun control battle.
- But, to coin a phrase, it might be the end of the beginning of the gun control battle.
- Future debates will center on thing like the definition of "arms" and what "shall not be infringed" and "keep and bear" mean.

