Sunday, July 29, 2012
Justice Scalia, the Insane Literalist
On a Sunday morning show, in response to questioning on which weapons are protected by the Second Amendment, Justice Scalia said this: "Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons — but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided."
You have to hand it to Justice Scalia: A literal interpretation of the Second Amendment would indeed seem to allow grant the People the right to carry a hand-held rocket launcher, grenades, and M-16s. And a suitcase nuke too, since it has the benefit of meeting both the definition of "arms" and of "hand-carried" (I have carried a suitcase before, two in fact, haven't you?). And since the Founding Fathers were prophets and Justice Scalia hears their voices every day...
And now, let us pray... Dear Founding Fathers, Hallowed by Thy Name...
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4 comments:
What's your point? Scalia is a Supreme Court Justice. He can only cite the law, and can only follow the law.
He can make it up, too.
See this. And this is what Jeffrey Rosen says of Scalia: "[...] in case after case, Scalia chooses among mutually inconsistent interpretive principles--textualism, originalism, traditionalism--in order to reach results that he finds politically congenial." So, he can follow the law, and he can make it up as he goes, which he is quite famous for doing.
Scalia is an "originalist" or what people used to call a "strict constructionalist". If we had 9 Scalias on the Supreme Court, it would be a disaster. If we had 9 of any of the same justices it would be a disaster.
That is why we have 9 justices. I, for one, believe that the Supreme Court still works, as was demonstrated in the recent decision regarding the challenge to ObamaCare.
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