Supreme Court Justice Scalia Goes Gun Crazy....

No, that’s not my preferred
title, but the one used by Adam Winkler:

America has more than its
fair share of extremists who believe people need to stock up on guns to fight
against tyrannical government in Washington.Add one more to the list: Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In a speech in Montana on Monday, the jurist was
asked about the Second Amendment and what arms were protected by that provision
of the Constitution. That “remains to be determined,” he replied. As one
example, he asked if people have a right to “bear shoulder-fired rocket
launchers?” Perhaps they do, Scalia suggested. The answer would turn on the
historical understanding of the Framers, who Scalia said included the Second
Amendment in part to preserve the right of people to revolt against a tyrannical
leader.

Adam continues, “The idea
that the Second Amendment gives people the right to revolt against government
is broadly shared among gun rights extremists” (Adam is referring to people
like me – Adam would have been a loyalist during the revolutionary war, I would
have charged up King’s Mountain against the loyalist troops) … “The
insurrectionist understanding of the Second Amendment fails to account for two
other features of the Constitution. First, the Second Amendment itself includes
a preamble referring to the necessity of a “well regulated militia.”

Here Adam continues with
the well-worn and tired claptrap about well-regulated meaning controlled by the
state. Bob Owens has the must-read defeater argument on this, but since Adam
won’t care about this I won’t spend time recapitulating what Bob says. Adam can
continue to wring his hands and worry over things, and we can move on to one
salient observation about Scalia.

I have long lamented what
I perceive to be the weakness of Heller versus D.C. But perhaps Scalia really
does understand that the Second Amendment has absolutely nothing whatsoever to
do with hunting or self defense, and has everything to do with ameliorating
tyranny. And perhaps Scalia knows that the Supreme Court had to bite this off in
chunks. If so, this is a welcome evolution in Scalia’s thinking – at least as
it pertains to what he feels free to say out loud.

And oh, by the way, the
Hughes amendment was an unconstitutional obscenity.

UPDATE: Kurt Hofmann
writes me, observing that: ” … Mr. Constitutional Law Professor is already
lost, when he talks about any bill in the Bill of Rights giving rights.
Besides, my position has always been that the Second Amendment does not protect
“the right to revolt,” but protects the right to the means of effective revolt.
When revolt becomes necessary, a Constitutionally protected “right to revolt”
wouldn’t matter, even if there were one, because by then, the Constitution will
no longer be relevant.” Good points.

http://www.captainsjournal.com/2013/08/22/justice-scalia-goes-gun-crazy/