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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Supreme Court Issues Stunning Decision On Second Amendment (Stun guns) Supreme Court Issues Stunning Decision On Second Amendment If you thought your second amendment rights weren’t going to be protected by the Supreme Court then you thought wrong. That’s because in a landmark decision the Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of our rights for self defense…even when the object in question isn’t a traditional handgun. The decision to allow a stun gun to be covered by the second amendment means millions of people who want to defend themselves can do so with the full protection of the law. As The Conservative Tribune writes: A decision released Monday, however, has been hailed a victory for gun rights, and conservatives everywhere will be relieved to see the court standing up for the Constitution even without Scalia. The court overturned a decision out of Massachusetts that determined that stun guns were not covered by the Second Amendment, siding instead with a woman who said she carried one as protection against an abusive former boyfriend. In an unsigned decision with no dissents, the country’s highest court ruled in favor of Jaime Caetano, who in 2011 was arrested for possession of a stun gun in violation of a state law banning such weapons. Caetano said she carried the stun gun for self-defense because her former partner was violent and abusive. In March 2015, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the stun gun was not covered by the constitutional right to bear arms. The Supreme Court, however, decided that ruling was inconsistent with a 2008 Supreme Court decision declaring an individual right to bear arms. The 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, had left open many questions about the extent of the individual right, the firearms covered and when government regulations would stand. Although the latest decision does not further clarify many of the case’s unanswered questions, it does require the Massachusetts court to hear it again in light of the 2008 decision. In doing so, it sent a message to lower courts that there is a broad range of weapons covered by the Second Amendment. In a concurring opinion, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wanted that message to be even stronger. “If the fundamental right of self-defense does not protect Caetano, then the safety of all Americans is left to the mercy of state authorities who may be more concerned about disarming the people than about keeping them safe,” Alito wrote, according to USA Today. Massachusetts, like liberals across the country, tried to argue that stun guns should not be protected because that type of weapon would not have been the type Congress envisioned in 1789 when it adopted the Second Amendment. Fortunately, the justices rejected that approach. Perhaps they know that the same logic could be applied to other constitutional guarantees. Imagine if we applied the same approach to the First Amendment. Would online forms of media not be covered by freedom of the press just because the Founders may not have “envisioned” the World Wide Web when they wrote those sacred words? Conservatives everywhere should be rejoicing at this post-Scalia gun rights decision, but there will undoubtedly be more and more anti-Second Amendment cases coming up that we must keep an eye on. Now of course it does need to be noted that this could change if Merrick Garland’s appointment leads to a tenure on the bench. Garland is notoriously anti-gun and would probably add significant weight to the rulings that move to the left. So even though this ruling appears to protect our rights our second amendment is by no means out of the woods. The only good news in all of this is Obama’s almost out of office and his ability to negatively affect the second amendment diminishes with each passing day. Are you hopeful the second amendment will remain intact for a while longer? Poster Comment: If the cops can have them, so can we. The U.S. Senate must fight tooth and nail the appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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