#432 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday August 17)
Good morning
APPARENTLY EVERYONE IN NEW YORK GETS TO CARRY A CONCEALED WEAPON—EVEN THOUGH THEIR STATE GOVERNMENT IS WORRIED ABOUT PUBLIC SAFETY
The Supreme Court’s broad interpretation of the Second Amendment caused it to reject a New York law that required that citizens wanting a concealed gun permit to show they had “proper cause” to do so and were people of “good moral character.” In striking down this law, the court is further expanding its already overbroad interpretation of the Second Amendment to preempt even reasonable limitations on guns imposed by a state. It also ensures that other states with restrictions on the right to carry a concealed weapon likely will find that their laws are unconstitutional. Having overturned a reasonable restriction on the carrying of weapons in public, ignoring the state’s reasonable objective of ensuring public safety, what reasonable restrictions are okay? This is a real problem. The Court’s majority seems to have bought into the gun lobby’s reading that most (perhaps all) state restrictions on the ownership and carrying of arms is unconstitutional.
Justice Alito, who lectured us all (incorrectly) on the long history of abortion in this country, doesn’t seem terribly concerned with the history of gun rights in this country (or at least he didn’t decide, as the Court’s historian-in-chief, to articulate that history in the majority’s opinion or a concurrence). Had he done his research, he would have found that the right of an individual (not otherwise organized as militia) to bear arms wasn’t articulated until the Heller case came along. By way of example, back in United States v. Miller in 1939, the Court held that Second Amendment was not intended to protect weapons not having “a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Shockingly, the current “textualists” were not moved by a prior Court’s actual reading of the text!
Even Antonin Scalia, in the Heller case, acknowledged that reasonable restrictions could be applied to this Constitutional right (as did most conservatives at the time, who were concerned with “law and order,” which, presumably includes the law and order achieved by not allowing citizens to arm themselves to the hilt).
IS THERE NO LIMIT TO A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT?
The gun lobby, NRA and much of the Republican caucus believe that the Constitutional right to bear arms should not be interpreted utilizing the actual words of the amendment—in order to maintain a well-regulated militia. Having adopted that broad reading, the Court behaves as if this right somehow is sacrosanct and not subject to reasonable limitation. Yet we have a history at limiting even our most precious rights. For instance, our First Amendment rights are constrained by the government all the time, in order to serve other public policy goals, including:
imposing limits on the noise level of speech,
capping the number of protesters who may congregate in a given area,
barring early-morning or late-evening demonstrations, and
restricting the size or placement of signs on government property.
To survive First Amendment constitutional challenges to limits on speech, such restrictions must satisfy a three-prong test outlined by the Supreme Court in Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989).
1. The regulation must be content neutral.
2. It must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest.
3. It must leave open ample alternative channels for communicating the speaker’s message.
How can this be analogized to guns?
1. Government has an interest in ensuring public safety in public places like schools, shopping centers, and offices
2. Government has an interest in reducing the chance that a gun carried in public can be used in haste or anger
3. Government has an interest in keeping guns out of the hands of convicted criminals, the mentally ill, and people with a history of domestic violence
4. Government has an interest in providing for personal protection at home, which need not extend to providing the tools for the aggressive use or display of guns (obviously affecting their availability for use in mass shootings).
Honestly, this doesn’t seem so hard. One can both acknowledge the Second Amendment right and go after the more egregious applications of that right. But, by the way, how can one read the Second Amendment as permitting ownership of weapons of war for anything but a “well-regulated militia ” and not a carte blanche for ownership?
MOVIES ASSOCIATED WITH STATES—PART II
More of a list of movies that evoke the states in which they are set. Again, some are pretty obvious, while others might evoke the region or a historical event.
Kansas, The Wizard of Oz (although filmed in California)
Kentucky: Coal Miner’s Daughter
Louisiana: 12 Years a Slave, A Streetcar Named Desire
Maine: The Shawshank Redemption, The Cider House Rules
Maryland: Wedding Crashers
Massachusetts: The Departed, Gone Baby Gone, Town, Good Will Hunting, Mystic River
Michigan: Gran Torino; Tucker, The Man and His Dream
As I indicated when starting this list, many of the movies easily are recognized for their states, while others are evocative of a region. For example, Coal Miner’s Daughter might just as well have been in Pennsylvania or West Virginia. 12 Years a Slave anywhere in the deep south, and Wedding Crashers pretty much anywhere (so much so that I only stumbled upon its actual location).
If you want a great period piece and the unlikely story of an automobile pioneer who challenged the “Big Three” (back when they had a lock on the auto industry), Tucker is a “sleeper.” Jeff Bridges and Martin Landau are exceptional in this Francis Ford Coppola film.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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