The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
No Wonder the Jaguars Lost
“Jet Fuel Mistakenly Pumped Into Cars at 3 New Jersey Gas Stations”–headline, Associated Press, Dec. 11
Under the Gun in Springfield
Barack Obama’s Chicago has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. According to NeighborhoodScout.com, the Windy City has 55 violent crimes a year for every thousand residents, giving it just a 6 on a 100-point safety scale. One reason is that Illinois is the only state in America that has an absolute prohibition on carrying a concealed firearm for self-defense.
But that’s about to change, thanks to a ruling by a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In Moore v. Madigan, the judges gave the Legislature in Springfield 180 days “to craft a new gun law that will impose reasonable limitations, consistent with the public safety and the Second Amendment . . ., on the carrying of guns in public.”
The Second Amendment is an area of constitutional law that is in its infancy. Incredibly, the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t even recognize until 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the amendment means it when it says that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It would be two more years until the court established, in McDonald v. Chicago, that states were obliged to respect that right, as they must respect most other constitutional rights.
In the Moore case–the plaintiff, incidentally, is named Michael Moore, though we’re pretty sure it’s not the porcine propagandist behind “Bowling for Columbine”–the state asked the court to disregard binding precedent and adopt a cramped reading of the amendment that would protect the right to keep and bear arms only in connection with “militia duty.” As Judge Richard Posner notes, “The Supreme Court rejected the argument.”
The state, Posner continues, asks him and his colleagues “to repudiate the [Supreme] Court’s historical analysis. That we can’t do. Nor can we ignore the implication of the analysis that the constitutional right of armed self-defense is broader than the right to have a gun in one’s home.”
The latter right was at issue in both Heller and McDonald, but, as Posner notes: “Heller repeatedly invokes a broader Second Amendment right than the right to have a gun in one’s home, as when it says that the amendment ‘guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.’ ” A man’s home may be his castle, but when he goes out, the Constitution goes with him.
Although this seems to be a no-brainer, it was only a 2-1 decision. Judge Ann Williams, a Clinton appointee, dissented. But then McDonald was a 5-4 decision at the Supreme Court; and, as we noted in July, Obama nominee Sonia Sotomayor was among the dissenters, despite having declared during her confirmation hearings that “I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller.” Obama’s other high court appointee, Justice Elena Kagan, hasn’t yet weighed in on the subject, but it will surprise nobody if she too turns out to be on the side of treating the Second Amendment as if it were a nullity.
The president has been careful to avoid direct attacks on gun rights. But if he gets to replace just one of the five justices who made up the Heller and McDonald majorities, Second Amendment jurisprudence is likely to be strangled in its crib.
Two of those justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, will be octogenarians by the time Obama’s second term ends. If they outlast him, our constitutional liberties will have dodged a bullet.
War Is Peace
Here’s how the Detroit Free Press covered the union thuggery we discussed yesterday:
There were some scuffles between police and protesters, leading police to use pepper spray. A tent erected by right-to-work proponents also got torn down. Three people were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and are expected to be arraigned today. But, overall, considering the size of the crowd, police and organizers described the day as peaceful.
The Washington Examiner reports that union thugs also destroyed a hot dog cart owned by Clint Tarver and “and called Tarver an ‘Uncle Tom,’ among other racist epithets, for serving right-to-work proponents.”
Remember when police had to use pepper spray against Tea Party members who had started “scuffles,” Tea Partiers tore down a tent erected by Nancy Pelosi fans, Tea Partiers assaulted a black man and shouted racial epithets at him–and the media uncritically relayed a description of the events as “peaceful”?
Neither do we.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has an anti-right-to-work op-ed from Barry Goldman, “an arbitrator and mediator and the author of ‘The Science of Settlement: Ideas for Negotiators’ “:
This was a sneaky, cynical, backdoor, lame-duck gimmick. If these bills are enacted, the labor movement in Michigan will be radically weakened, and capital will be able to further dominate the system.
Hey hey, ho ho, right to work has got to go.
Wait, this guy mediates and arbitrates labor disputes? What kind of executive would accept such a manifestly biased negotiator? Also, what kind of editor would publish an op-ed that “argues,” “Hey hey, ho ho”?
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
