Lock and Load?

Lock and Load?
The New York Sun ^ | June 29, 2010 | Staff

Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 4:48:20 PM by neverdem

One of the most illuminating questions in respect of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the right to keep and bear arms is whether it should be applauded by the liberals or by conservatives — or both. The court, in a case called McDonald v. Chicago, followed a ruling two years ago, in a case called District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court said that the federal government could not infringe the rights vouched safe by the Second Amendment. In the latest case it extended that logic, deciding that the Second Amendment does apply to the states and municipalities. As in Heller, it stopped short of saying there could be no regulation of guns. But it did say that the Second Amendment protects Americans from interference by all levels of government.

In this sense it continues a process known as incorporation, in which the Bill of Rights, which was originally intended to restrict only the federal government, is extended via the 14th Amendment to restrict the states and local governments from interfering with the people’s rights as well. But is that a right-wing idea or a left-wing one? After all, the idea of states rights is thought of as a conservative idea, and the process of incorporation uses the 14th Amendment to limit what the states can do. But McDonald is a case in which the four more liberal members of the court — Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens, and Sotomayor — all dissented and said that the second of the 10 amendments that make up the bill of rights should not apply to the states and that the states should be able to do what they want to.

In any event, what an astonishing thing to see Chicago warning residents not to exercise the rights the Supreme Court just…

(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com …

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