June 26, 2008 will probably not soon resonate with the same significance and clarity as July 4, 1776, but perhaps it should. Today the rights of a free people, above the vagaries of a political class, have been reasserted and affirmed. We the People will be ruled only by God and ourselves, and when elected officials seek to rule otherwise we will have the means to resist, exactly as the Founders had intended.
According to Fox News,
The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.
Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.
The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns.
In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
You can read the entire opinion here, but what it comes down to is whether the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written to be a comprehensive list of rights granted to the People and that could be changed according to the thinking of the times. Or, are the Constitution and Bill of Rights written to constrain government, the natural enemy of the People, the rights being self-evident and flowing from the hand of God.
0 comments:
Post a Comment