Activist court bans regulation of arms

The Supreme Court has let us down again.

A 5-4 majority shot down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns and also its trigger-lock requirement.

It is the first major ruling on the Second Amendment that was ratified in 1791: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Justice Antonin Scalia and four other justices ruled the Constitution prohibits the government from regulating arms, ignoring the word “regulated” in the first phrase.

Using the logic of the court’s majority, the government has no right to prohibit Americans from owning or acquiring nuclear weapons. After all, the Second Amendment refers to “arms” and nukes certainly fall in that category. Similarly, government has no right to prohibit felons from owning weapons, or to regulate the sale of automatic weapons.

While the Framers could not have foreseen nuclear weapons when drafting the Constitution, Justice Scalia’s interpretive philosophy does not allow judges to consider anything that has occurred since the states ratified the Constitution. Justice Scalia believes judges may consider only the Framers’ intent (as if Justice Scalia, or any other judge, could read the minds of those Framers more than 200 years ago).

Talk about activist judges.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons” and added such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

It is a sad day for all Americans, even those who support gun-ownership rights.