... I wonder how Stout knows Scalia "clearly takes pride in his writing as well as his reasoning." Did the use of the words "frivolous" and "bizarre" somehow imply that pride or is the evidence elsewhere and we're just supposed to know it?....I'm not saying they changed it because of what I wrote. But that is curious, freakish, odd, peculiar, strange, unusual, and weird.
Oh, no! Reading Stout (and Liptak) today, I'm nagged by the question What would Greenhouse have written? Would Linda Greenhouse have inserted commentary about Scalia pride?Not to be outdone, Justice Stevens called the majority’s interpretation of the Second Amendment “overwrought and novel” and said it “calls to mind the parable of the six blind men and the elephant”...Would Linda Greenhouse have imputed that competitive motivation to Stevens's choice of words? Stout's writing has something of the problem that plagued Jeffrey Toobin's book "The Nine." For narrative effect, the Court is portrayed as a psychodrama.
And Greenhouse notably and admirably avoids the Court-as-psychodrama problem.
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One of the things I love about using a Mac is the ability to print articles to PDF. If it's something I find interesting or want to comment on, I automatically make it a PDF.
Alan,
I just did the same using my PC and Acrobat (full product)
the "Convert current web page to pdf" button is on my IE browser bar
You think I should be saving a copy of everything I blog?
I never thought a front page NYT article would disappear. My quotes are cut and pasted. They are the real quotes.
Why would Greenhouse try to claim that democrats are in favor of individual gun rights when most are clearly not.
Perhaps the Times editors did some polling on the issue and found that 75% if the people supported Scalia on this one. With such support they figured it wasn't worth sticking their neck out for liberals and instead made the "editorial" decision to point out in a nuanced way that democrats and Obama support individual gun rights too!
The real political story about this decision is that Obama just recently said he supported the ban and then just recently changed his mind. What caused Obama to change? The only intervening fac tthat I can think of for this issue and Obama is the campaign. The one thing maybe Obama has more experience than McCain on is knowing Constitutional law (since Obama was a constitutional law professor). Thus, it seems odd that Obama can't even get straight his own opinion of the constituion on this issue. Does Obama have any concrete principles for anything?
Professor,
You blog a lot. So no, you shouldn't save everything you blog. I was just saying it's a nice feature the Mac provides. Nonetheless, some things are worth saving, even for a short time.
Don't worry, I doubt anyone but the hardcore anti-althousians would think you'd misquote someone. And even then they'd only be doing it to goad you.
Drill Sarge,
When I used Windows, I'd email webpages to myself. Saving them to PDF is so much more convenient.
Outlandish, eerie, otherworldly, preternatural, uncommon, necromantic, fascinous, voodooesque, metamorphic, diableric, bizarre. Perhaps, intuitive, now that would be buggy.
The one thing maybe Obama has more experience than McCain on is knowing Constitutional law (since Obama was a constitutional law professor).
Since Obama was never a constitutional law professor, we can rule that one out.
ahh the lasting legacy of GWB. You guys got what you wanted when you elected him. Now you have to live with this nonsense until we can get a balance back.
The only thing worse than an old fool is a young fool growing old.
Now you have to live with this nonsense until we can get a balance back.
"balace?" ROTFL!
I finished reading all the opinions. Stevens opinion is persuasive in its own right, however, it has some serious flaws. The most notable is that if original intent were to win out and the 2nd amendment required that individuals can own guns for the purposes of keeping a militia, then individuals would still need the right to own guns to make sure the militia could be established at any given moment. Banning handguns/sidearms wouldn't work because a handgun is just as much a well recognized weapon of war as a rifle, and therefore both are need to establish a militia. Moreover, Stevens interpretation would ironically open the door to reversing any ban on automatic weapons or larger heavier weapons. Surely if one of the reasons for requiring a militia is to defend the rights of the people against the government, having a militia with puny weapons would not fit into the original intent of the Amendment. If we are to follow original intent, we need a militia that can be worthy against a modern standing army. A militia just armed with rifles and handguns in the modern era would be worthless. Therefore, under Steven's interpretation we should be allowed to own machine guns, anti air missiles, etc...
What is sad about Steven's dissent is that we know Stevens doesn't really believe in original intent. He just used it as an argument in this case.
Breyer's dissent is abysmal. He believes, as Obama does, that the 2nd amendment should be nullified.
Picking up on Ann's New York Times links and Sloan's substantive analysis above, I was struck by the phrase that the Times highlighted from Steven's opinion (it's in the graphic that accompanies Greenhouse's article and appeared on the front page of the web site most of yesterday):
"The majority 'would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the framers made a choice to limit the tools available to selected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.'"
Well, yes. That's why it's called the Bill of Rights.
To be fair, I think Steven's point turns on the word "civilian" not on the dismissive "over 200 years ago," but I'm still astonished. What the hell do you think your job is, Justice, if not to take seriously that stuff written 200 years ago?
Some critics argue that if Steven's interpretation is correct, that we would not need hand guns to establish a well regulated militia. Allowing rifles would suffice. However, if we are to assume that in the modern era women would be part of the milita, banning lighter weapons such as handguns would prevent women from adequately participating.
It is clear that, based on your penultimate sentence, you take great pride in your writing.
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