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by moose_man 880 days ago
[1] It benefited the rich and powerful is what you mean. The fact that donations went more toward Democrats than Republicans doesn't change that. So rich people are trying to control the center left side of politics...this isn't news.

[2] The interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is a modern construct, it became in vogue during the 1980s and 1990s when the NRA and gun manufacturers aligned in right wing politics. The individual right to bear arms in all circumstances didn't exist until then.

[3] There is definitely a contradiction in preventing states from regulating gun control rights (preventing the killing of other people) and enabling states to regulate abortion for the purported purpose of preventing the killing of other people.

1 comments

[1] I don't know how that's the republican's fault. Again, it's the constitution.

[2] This is entirely incorrect. Garry Wills, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, Simon and Schuster, 1999, p. 252. ("Until recently, the Second Amendment was a little-visited area of the Constitution. A two thousand-page commentary on the Constitution put out by the Library of Congress in 1973 has copious annotation for most clauses, but less than a page and a half for the Second Amendment.")

The Tommy guns and explosives used during the gangster wars of the prohibition were almost entirely legally obtained (some were imported from Ireland in exchange for liquor). As a lawyer, what you are saying is literally the opposite of the truth. Until the 1980s, gun rights were understood to be a state's rights issue, and most limitations on the federal level (like in the Dredd Scott decision) were based around the rights of black former slaves to own guns.

[3] There is only a contradiction if you assume that the supreme court only exists to prevent the death of people and the unborn, rather than to enforce the constitution. If there was a constitutional amendment that said that every citizen had to go and kill a Mexican every Wednesday afternoon, it would be the job of the supreme court to enforce that constitutional provision until it was repealed.

The Supreme Court doesn't exist to impose your political views, it exists to impose the constitution. The constitution often produces outcomes that are not in synergy with each other or a broader overall purpose. That is the problem of the legislature and the constitution, not the court.