Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSpecialist
Justice Scalia also wrote:
“. . . But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”
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And that's what the left just doesn't get.
Redefining, reworking and remolding the original, fundamental, pre-existing, never surrendered right to arms is not within the purview of any court or legislature.
Scalia expands on this principle multiple times in
Heller:
"The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad."
And that scope of protection, of prohibiting government gaining a foothold to restrain the right, is not diminished with time, technological advancements or especially, the aggrandizing opinion of liberals about being enlightened and unburdened by the framer's intent.
"Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, . . . and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, . . . the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."
(internal citations removed)
"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."
While the right to arms is not an "unlimited" right, that doesn't mean that government's
constitutional ability to restrain the right is limitless:
" . . . the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table."
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