Scalia: Of course guns can be regulated
Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court’s most vocal and conservative justices, said on Sunday that the Second Amendment leaves room for U.S. legislatures to regulate guns, including menacing hand-held weapons.
“It will have to be decided in future cases,” Scalia said on Fox News Sunday. But there were legal precedents from the days of the Founding Fathers that banned frightening weapons which a constitutional originalist like himself must recognize. There were also “locational limitations” on where weapons could be carried, the justice noted.
When asked if that kind of precedent would apply to assault weapons, or 100-round ammunition magazines like those used in the recent Colorado movie theater massacre, Scalia declined to speculate. “We’ll see,” he said. ‘”It will have to be decided.”
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2
I think his argument was the classic Federalist argument… the Several States are allowed powers to control behavior, even otherwise constitutionally protested behavior, that the USG is not.
I tend to agree with him.
JohnGalt23 on July 29, 2012 at 4:30 PM
LegendHasIt on July 29, 2012 at 4:14 PM
Perhaps you’re unaware, but you’d do well to avoid that particular term for those in the legal profession, as it has some racial undertones.
/the more you know
almosthandsome on July 29, 2012 at 4:32 PM
protested = protected
JohnGalt23 on July 29, 2012 at 4:33 PM
Oh, please do explain further. I’d really be sad if I used a word that someone might think is racist.
LegendHasIt on July 29, 2012 at 4:40 PM
Woe is me!
Will no one educate this poor ignorant hick as to why “shyster” is a racist term?
LegendHasIt on July 29, 2012 at 5:14 PM
Which can describe “keep the change” on just about everything.
cozmo on July 29, 2012 at 5:17 PM
You probably have to go to law school to understand, lol.
xblade on July 29, 2012 at 5:29 PM
so the states can violate the 2nd by telling us what we are allowed to carry and where, but they have no say in illegal immigration by trying to protect their own borders?
Lifeisdeath on July 29, 2012 at 5:32 PM
Not just any law school, but they probably pass that secret on only in Ivy League Law schools.
They never told me about it in my four semesters of Business Law when I was working on my MBA at some hick State University, and I never ran across it when reading my father’s library of American Jurisprudence, or the Statutes of my hick flyover country State; etc.
LegendHasIt on July 29, 2012 at 5:53 PM
I’ve met and chatted with Justice Scalia twice to date. The man is an intellectual heavyweight and honest to the core. His integrity is above reproach and no one could convince me that he would ever sell out his principles for political expediency (***cough***Roberts***cought***). He doesn’t hold back and calls it as he sees it regardless of whether a person or a whole group of people is offended. I once saw him bawl out a young liberal woman for asking an impertinent question about Bush v. Gore in front of an entire auditorium (500+ people). Needless to say, he’s clear about his understanding of the law and given his intellect and instinct, I highly value and believe what he says.
Everything he said in this interview is consistent with what he wrote in Heller as well as the law in general. The 2nd Amendment, much like the 1st, is subject to some limitations; no right in a society is absolute.
Speakeasy on July 29, 2012 at 9:54 PM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2