Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Consistency is a Jewel

Why?  Because it is rare.

SCOTUS recently ruled that a person possessing a right in one state has that right in all states. Yay.

In Arizona citizens can carry guns without permission from the bureaucracy. Yo, New York, California, you got that?

8 comments:

  1. Careful - the well-established principle here is for the Supreme Court to discover - in the ragged, unraveling edges of shadows of emanations, or under the sofa cushions, whatever - that the Constitution clearly (never mind the hand-waving!) intended the Court to clear up all this by overturning the laws of every state and just telling us poor dears what we would have meant to enact into law had only we some dim reflection of the luminous enlightenment enjoyed, god-like, by the Court. Americans must be weaned from this silly idea that the wisdom of the nation, like the sovereignty of the nation, resides in the people.

    In the meantime, can I fish anywhere I want with my California fishing license? Or are bigoted haters gonna try to stop me?

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    Replies
    1. California lets you fish? I'll have to bring my Michigan any species fishing license over there.

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    2. California lets you fish? I'll have to bring my Michigan any species fishing license over there.

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  2. Not only that, but SCOTUS has once again relied upon a dignitary harm argument, which could also be used in gun rights litigation (and lots of other cases too), as this article predicted two months ago:

    ...the right to dignity—now celebrated by liberals for what it means to gay rights—could ultimately produce other decisions in unrelated cases that they would not be so quick to celebrate. In the McDonald case, striking down gun possession laws under the Second Amendment, Justice Scalia recognized a dignitary interest attached to the right to bear arms. “[T]he conceptual core of the liberty clause ... pertains to ... [an individual’s] [s]elf-determination, ... dignity [or] respect,” he wrote. ...

    If dignity is defined so elastically, then conservatives judges might invoke it to strike down not only gun-control laws, but also other progressive legislation. Libertarian groups invoked the “sweet-mystery-of-life” my language in Casey to argue that the Obamacare healthcare mandate unconstitutionally violated the dignity and autonomy of Americans by forcing them to buy health insurance. In the future, cigarette smokers might argue that anti-smoking bans violate their ability to create an individual identity. And conservative Christian wedding photographers could claim that anti-discrimination laws compelling them to photograph gay weddings violate their dignity and ability to define themselves as conservative Christians. What courts would do when confronted with the clashing dignitary rights of the religious wedding photographer and the gay couple, or the hunter and the victim of gun violence, is anyone’s guess, because dignity is such an abstract concept that its boundaries are difficult to discern.

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  3. What's special about Arizona is not carrying guns without a permit, it's carrying guns concealed without a permit.

    Going around with a gun not concealed—"open carry"—is legal without a license in all but 18 states. (It is illegal, and no licenses offered, in California, Washington D.C., Illinois, New York, South Carolina, and, somewhat surprisingly, Florida and Texas.)

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  4. Scalia's dissent is beautiful to read -- a veritable jeremiad,

    Except for the glaring blunder.

    Pride does not goeth before a great fall.


    JJB

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  5. The courts have been moving in a gun-rights direction lately. Maybe they will issue such a ruling. The amusing part is anticipating the reaction on the Left.

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  6. @jmhenry: Thanks for the article and quote. It just goes to show how shallow the majority opinion is on the same-sex "marriage" case. The best and the brightest, huh. Could've fooled me. It's a complete joke of a legal decision. And that picture of the men holding hands in front of the court house raised in triumph - truly disgusting and laughable.

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