Democracy Is In The Balance
By Mitch Berg
Americans who care about genuine civil liberties for Americans are watching the Supreme Court today for the Heller case arguments.
Clayton Cramer – one of the best Second Amendment bloggers out there – writes about the line of people waiting, sleeping outside the Supreme Court overnight in sleeping bags to try to get seats in the Court:
I only found one person in line willing to defend DC’s position–and she was a lawyer with Legal Community Against Violence who had written their brief. I had a heck of a time getting her to defend what the Second Amendment did protect. She agreed that it did protect some kind of an individual right–but exactly what, she wasn’t prepared to articulate. She seemed focused primarily on the idea that whatever it protected, the Fourteenth Amendment could not incorporate the Second Amendment against the states–and that DC was not part of the federal government, and therefore the Second Amendment didn’t restrict DC government–only the federal government.
I sense a monumental victory coming for us when their side can’t come up with an argument better than this.
Here’s hoping.
We won’t know until June, of course – which means three glorious months of parsing oral arguments on the web.
I can hardly wait.
That gives us a few months to try to teach Hugh Hewitt about the Amendment…
March 18th, 2008 at 8:02 am
“which means three glorious months of parsing oral arguments on the web”
Which would be a colossal and, if I may editorialize from experience, boring waste of time. Most justices and judges have their minds made up about the outcome before orals begin based on the briefs and their clerk’s research .
If you want to get a good idea of what the ultimate decision will be, listen to the justice’s questions. Who’s throwing up softballs?; which questions are intended and succed at tripping up counsel for which side?
Ignore the oral arguments themselves. They’re almost always a formality.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:55 am
What is Hugh’s take, Mitch?
March 18th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Me, I’m getting more and more optimistic.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Mitch admitted: “Clayton Cramer – one of the best Second Amendment bloggers out there – writes about the line of people waiting, sleeping outside the Supreme Court overnight in sleeping bags to try to get seats in the Court”
More jobless fanatics, willing and presumably experienced at sleeping on the street, whose only understanding of Constitutional law is the vague, but fervent notion that they have a sacred right to own assault rifles. Bet that picture will be on the cover of the next issue of “Armed Standoff” magazine.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:15 am
they have a sacred right to own assault rifles
No, merely more rights than those who disregard the law.
Although “assault rifles” (actual selective-fire weapons) have been largely illegal since, IIRC, 1934 – roughly 10 years before the term “assault rifle” was coined.
But why would “knowing the law” matter to a clown, anyway?
March 18th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Which would be a colossal and, if I may editorialize from experience, boring waste of time.
Duly noted. Not being a lawyer, I tend to lump “arguments from the lawyers” and “stuff the judges throw back at them” together.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
It’s pretty clear that angryclown has a lot to say about something he seems to know little about. 😉
March 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Anyone have a chance to explain whatever Hewitt’s take on all of this is… that’s the part I know nothing about.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Re: Hewitt:
It’s hard to find much on his blog about Heller, and I haven’t been able to hear the show much lately (I bus to-from work, and one of my son’s slapnuts acquaintances stole my IPod).
My composite impression of Hugh so far is that, being a conservative con-lawyer, he’s right on the overarching principle that the Amendment is an individual right – but that he’s a lot hinkier on specifics; he expresses horror that we might re-consider “gun free zones” at schools, for example, and is fairly clueless about what it means to get a carry permit.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Gura was great. I think we’ve won, but I think it’ll be a very narrow decision. We’ll see.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Thank goodness you guys are protecting our Constitutional right to shoot people.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
And thank goodness you’re stumping for our right to get shot like dogs without the right to defend ourselves.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
You should wear a suit of armor, like they did in the days when your political ideas first became popular.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
And you should ride a horse and carry a bullwhip, for about the same reason.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Hey, AC – didja get my email yesterday? I don’t know if I have your current email or not…
March 18th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I didn’t. I’ll shoot you an e-mail right now and you can hit me back.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Hmm…I thought angryclown would be more appropriately be pulling around a guillotine. *shrug*
March 18th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Thank goodness you guys are protecting our Constitutional right to shoot people.
And thank goodness for your crowd getting the dry heaves over guns to the point where super soakers are being confiscated. Before you know it they’ll start going after the clown guns that fire a white flag that says “BANG”.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Thanks, Mitch… I always got the impression that, although nice enough and well-intentioned enough, Hugh was too much a lawyer.
Too much a water-carrier, as well, but that’s another conversation.
~~~~~
Brad C,
folks like AC are never going to let anyone ban anything that even resembles a white flag.
😉
March 19th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
angryclown Says:
More jobless fanatics, willing and presumably experienced at sleeping on the street, whose only understanding of Constitutional law is the vague…..”
I hardly think the jobless, experienced at sleeping on the street, are amoung those who would wait in line for perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Highest Court in this country listen to arguments to the substance of a constitutional ammemdment from the original Bill of Rights.
Two words for your dribble AC; PURE BILE !