Woman Tries Her Hand(Gun) at Exterminating
In Today's News
Instead of providing my own commentary, I will just juxtapose this article with a quote from Scalia's majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Second Amendment case handed down a few weeks ago. The emphasis added is, of course, my own:Woman Pulls .44 Magnum On Mice, Shoots Herself
POTTER VALLEY (AP) ― A Mendocino County woman who was trying to kill mice in her trailer with a gun ended up shooting herself and another person. Full article here.
It is no answer to say, as petitioners do, that it is permissible to ban the possession of handguns so long as the possession of other firearms (i.e., long guns) is allowed. It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon. There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: It is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long gun; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police. Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.
1 comment:
You've gotta love Scalia's tortured, self-serving, circular reasoning. Because Americans prefer hand-guns today for a variety of reasons, which also make them considerably more likely to result in the owner of the gun being injured by the gun then to defend themselves with the gun, the founders expressly prohibited any restriction on owning them over 200 years ago (Before hand guns were even invented.) For the life of me I can't understand why he can read this into the constitution but not a right to privacy in the use and control of one's own body. It is a much, much shorter jump.
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