My Kitchen Table

Why The Supreme Court Gun Decision is Good for Gun Control Advocates

I think anyone who thought that the Supreme Court would rule any other way than it did earlier this week on Washington DC's gun control regulations was just fooling themselves. The "right to bear arms" has been a given in this country for a long time, even if it had never been really looked at by the top court. It might not make sense from a public safety or health point of view (there are lots of studies that show, gee, having guns in the home not such a hot idea), or the view that other people around the world have of America (we're all free-fire cowboys), but none of that matters one bit. Americans believe they have the divine right to pack heat. Period. And nothing is ever going to change that.

This week's ruling is so ambigious that, as many commentators have, we'll be arguing about the issues around the edges for years. But there is a not-so-unimportant blessing in this decision for gun control advocates and an example of "becare of what you ask for, because you may get it" for the extreme gun rights crowd.

Here's the important section of the ruling:

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.
It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any
manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed
weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment
or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast
doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by
felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms
in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or
laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of
arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those
“in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition
of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

For many years, gun rights proponents have argued that any attempt of any kind to regulate fire arms was a slippery slope. Like roads in the Roman Empire, they all had one destination - the complete overturning of the right to bear arms. And oh, how they played this up. (Remember Heston's "From my cold dead hands" remark when he became the NRA president years ago.)

But that dog doesn't hunt any more, not after the decision this week. One thing the Supreme Court decision did was take this arrow -- and it was the biggest one the had -- out of the NRA's quiver. There is no more slippery slope. Americans have been assured that they have the right to own a gun.  (Boston Globe conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby understands how this is a real benefit to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign for just these reasons.)

So now when gun control advocates suggest certain regulations, the NRA and others can no longer argue that it's all a plot to leave Americans defenseless. Now the argument becomes what kind of regulations, not that regulations of any kind are against the 2nd Amendment. (Even Justice Scalia said the ruling did not mean the end of gun regulations ... and he said the government also has the ability to regulate what kind of gun Americans can own, so say good-bye to your uzis friends, their days are numbered .)

In essense, this ruling is like abortion and the left can fight it in the same way that the right has fought against that ruling - death by a thousand cuts. Abortion remains legal in America, but bit by bit, the right has chipped away at access to it, making it more difficult to obtain. Gun control advocates can now do the same with their issue. Enact "common sense" regulations that make gun ownership a more regulated endeavour.

The NRA and others will still try and argue that all regulations are wrong and that Americans have the right to own whatever kind of weapon they want and use it where ever they want. But that won't work after this week. (For instance, the right to bring a gun to a school campus just got punched in the face by the Supremes.)

In the long run, this decision may actually bring a kind of balance to the right to bear arms. Yes, more people may now own a gun. But what kind of gun and how and where they can use that gun may end up being more restricted now then before this week's decision.

Court Tells Bosses: No E-mail Snooping!

I love this decision. For years I've felt that employers have had WAY too much power to snoop into people's in-boxes and other digital forms of communication.

Now a federal appeals court in San Francisco had made that a lot more difficult. The court ruled that workers have a "have a reasonable expectation of privacy" when it comes to sending text messages like (Think Twitter or AOL's IM.) The ruling also affects e-mail that's stored on a company's internal server.

YYYEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!

Pardon the outburst.

I have a sense, however, this one might ove further up the legal food chain. The organization that lost the case - the city of Ontario, California and its police department -- say it plans to appeal.

Supreme Court Upholds Part of Child Porn Law

After years of striking down attempts at a child pornography law, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to uphold "Congress's most recent attempt to prosecute those who would promote child pornography, ruling that the law did not violate free speech guarantees." The case was U.S. vs. Williams.

The Washington Post writes that "The court voted 7 to 2 that the law criminalizing 'pandering' of real or purported child pornography over the Internet or through the mail met constitutional standards. The majority dismissed arguments Justice Antonin Scalia called 'fanciful hypotheticals' that the law might make documentarians, movie reviewers and even unsuspecting grandparents subject to its pandering standards."

Justice Stevens, one of the most liberal members of the court, wrote a concurring opinion, because of the law's requirement that states the "defendant actually believed, or intended to induce another to believe, that the material in question depicted real children" involved in sexual activity.

(In other words, the law means that "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value" will not be found culpable because of this requirement that the child pornography be seen as "real" pornography. We'll have to wait and see how that holds up the first time someone sues over a book or movie or piece of art in a public setting ... because you all know it's going to happen.)

Take a look at Justice Scalia's majority decision. Here is the ScotusBlog on all of today's decisions.