The American Spectator

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(Page 7 of 13)

p>Just a thought, a perspective within shadows of reason. br> -- Bob Philips br> New Mexico /p> p> WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN br> Re: Robert VerBruggen's Old Heller : /p>

Mr. VerBruggen, you overcomplicate this matter. The recent Heller decision by the Supreme Court changed nothing at all in practical terms for citizens anywhere in this nation. As a Court ruling it was an empty suit, so to speak. The only winners in this case were and will continue to be lawyers at least in the short term. It took 32 years to get to this point and the Court makes a broad and in depth declaration about the individual right to keep and bears arms and then takes a pass on actually stating anything of actionable substance on the matter. Subjective words like "reasonable," "dangerous" with regard to weaponry are ready made vehicles for abuse and currently used as such. In my judgment, the Court has done more harm and good.

As to the expense of D.C. continuing to ignore the 2nd Amendment protections, that's mostly a nonevent. Like most governments, particularly of this size they have a full time legal staff and passing laws cost nothing in essence. This is mostly a fixed cost affair to them. The converse is true to those that challenge this. I'll be dead and buried before I'll be able to legally defend myself in Washington, D.C. and I have no plans to go there until I can. The principle is what is important here and the Court put out a lot of flowery words on this topic but failed to execute in any way that has practical meaning on the mean streets of D.C. As you pointed out, Heller can't register what D.C. calls a "machine gun" because the Court left it up to the very same people that deny the right in the first place to determine what the meaning of relevant words are. This is just one of the problems with having lawyers write laws for other lawyers to interpret so that other lawyers can profit from what those words mean according to the last set of lawyers to review the text of the words in question. I'm not raging on lawyers here but the point is still valid. The meaning of the words and founding documents in question have never been in question with common folk for the last couple hundred plus years. Its lawyers that turn "shall not be infringed" into "but, however," "maybe" etc. It took explicit language changes to get concealed carry laws on the books and those words were "shall issue." A licensed 2nd Amendment is less of a privilege than getting a drivers license.

p>If the Supreme Court had a "pair" those five Justices would come to a common understanding that the purpose of the Constitution and Bill of Rights is to protect "the people" from government and the Court's purpose is to protect the Constitutional. They made a declaration without teeth. This is like issuing a restraining order against someone that promises to kill someone else and then wondering why they still went ahead and killed. That's all the Supreme Court has done here, issue empty words. If Justice Kennedy can't grasp that, no one can help him. br> --

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