Now that This Man is Out of His Way, Obama Can Shred the 2nd Amendment with Reckless Abandon
Almost immediately after the news that Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia died, the political posturing for his replacement began.
The question now becomes who will replace Scalia.
Certainly Obama will nominate someone who favors gun control.
The big challenge for Republicans is will they spend political capital to stand up to Obama in an election year?
Consider this Breitbart article that illustrates Scalia as the champion of gun rights and the Second Amendment:
The late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was a bulwark for the individual right to keep and bear arms.
He voted with the majority in the seminal case of District of Columbia v Heller (2008), a decision that defended the right to keep and bear arms as one individually possessed rather than collectively held. Two years later he voted with the majority in McDonald v Chicago (2010), a decision that clarified the protections on the individual right to gun ownership by showing that Second Amendment rights are incorporated with Fourteenth Amendment protections.
Heller resulted in the abolition of the gun ban in Washington DC, a federal district. McDonald resulted in the abolition of the gun ban in Chicago.
The fact that Second Amendment rights are individuallike all other rights in the Bill of Rightsmeans the federal government cannot infringe upon them. The fact that they are incorporated means cities and states are limited in actions they can take to curtail the exercise of Second Amendment rights as well.
Criticism of Scalia was intertwined with criticism of both Heller and McDonald. For example, The New York Times responded to Heller by intimating that Scalia had literally created the individual right to keep and bear arms in 2008. They denied the existence of any individual right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment, but suggested Scalia found one anyway via Heller. For this reason, NYT pointed to judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, whom the Virginia Law Review quoted as saying, Heller represents a form of judicial activism that is new, yet familiar.
One thing is certain
If the Senate approves an Obama nomination, it will be no Antonin Scalia when it comes to protecting the Second Amendment.
And that my friends is cause for serious concern, especially in light of Obamas pledge to finish out his last year fighting for gun control.
The Second Amendment will be the battleground of this nomination.
Poster Comment:
Scalia will be sorely missed. His replacement will be no match.