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Antonin Scalia, a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, has died:
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - one of most conservative members of the high court - has died. Justice Scalia's death could shift the balance of power on the US high court, allowing President Barack Obama to add a fifth liberal justice to the court. The court's conservative majority has recently stalled major efforts by the Obama administration on climate change and immigration.
Justice Scalia, 79, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He died in his sleep early on Saturday while in West Texas for [a] hunting trip, the US Marshall service said. Justice Scalia was one of the most prominent proponents of "originalism" - a conservative legal philosophy that believes the US Constitution has a fixed meaning and does not change with the times.
Justice Scalia's death is, unsurprisingly, now being widely reported.
From the San Antonio Express News:
According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.
[...] The U.S. Marshal Service, the Presidio County sheriff and the FBI were involved in the investigation. Officials with the law enforcement agencies declined to comment.
A federal official who asked not to be named said there was no evidence of foul play and it appeared that Scalia died of natural causes.
A gray Cadillac hearse pulled into the ranch last Saturday afternoon. The hearse came from Alpine Memorial Funeral Home.
Most major news outlets are covering this story, including CNN [video autoplays], The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:26AM
Well, no, I'm not wrong and your post is bullshit.
You're confusing changes to the constitution with changes in the interpretation of the constitution and those are completely different things. The problem with Citizen's united is that they changed the definition of person to include things which are definitely not people and that could be fixed in the near future if the court gets competent jurists rather than right wing ideologues appointed to it.
The founding father's intended for the Supreme Court to be the final say on the interpretation of the laws and the constitution which is exactly what you're decrying here. They aren't rewriting the constitution, they're adjusting the interpretation to match the current climate. Trying to guess what exactly the founding father's meant with the verbiage they used isn't always easy. You have people that still insist that the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights when that's almost certainly not what they had in mind and doesn't even make sense from a historical point of view.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:18AM
**sigh**
Words develop new meaning with time, and old meanings go out of style. The militia is every male from roughly age 12 to 60. It doesn't mean the national guard. The word "regulated" means accurate, capable, and similar. It doesn't mean restricted by law. Even if this were not so however...
You need to be good with English grammar. The sentence construction works like this: "Because we think X is important, the right to Y is allowed." Note that the first part is merely a justification. It has no bearing on the law. It's no different from the first part of "Because blind people suffer, they get a tax credit of $XXXX per year." (which is NOT a law requiring blind people to suffer or making the discount only available to those who do)
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:09PM
Bullshit. Then why can't I own a rocket launcher? It's because the second amendment was never intended to be an individual right to keep and bear arms.
Also that's a restrictive clause. It's not a matter of explanationtion, it's a restriction. What's more it definitely did have a bearing before the right rewrote it in order to suit their agenda. It is a group right so that the states could have armed police and guard troops.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:41PM
By our constitution, it looks like you can in fact own at least a hand-held rocket launcher if not more. (do you "bear" a truck-mounted one or even a silo?) We probably should have put a stop to rocket launchers via a constitutional amendment, but instead we let judges get away with reinterpreting our constitution to deal with the issue.
It's wishful thinking, or a failure to understand English, that leads some to think that the 2nd amendment starts with a restrictive clause. That just isn't how English works.
Where our constitution reserves rights to the states, it actually says so. This isn't the case with the 2nd amendment. You might as well say that the 1st amendment is a collective right so that states can, via their senators, speak their mind.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @12:52PM
You have people that still insist that the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights when that's almost certainly not what they had in mind and doesn't even make sense from a historical point of view.
Which is a silly claim to make. After all, individual gun ownership was universal to all the states and came with the colonies. It was used to help enforce the individual right to self defense. And the Second Amendment clearly states that there is a right to keep and bear arms. Everywhere else such a right is stated in the Bill of Rights, it is always an individual right not a collective right.
Second, what's a collective right and how can we have collective rights without individual rights? For example, what does it mean to you to have a collective right to keep and bear arms? What does that collective right mean for the individual?
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:53PM
You have people that still insist that the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights when that's almost certainly not what they had in mind and doesn't even make sense from a historical point of view.
Sorry, virtually every constitutional scholar disagrees with you.
The pre-existing right to gun ownership by citizens was PRECISELY what the 2nd amendment had in mind. And having just overthrown one dictatorship, and not wanting another, it made perfect sense historically to preserve the right to bear arms. (In fact there is a well reasoned school of thought that the 2nd Amendment preserves the right of people to keep and bear ANY similar weapons that an individual soldier might carry into battle.)
Further, you betray a very broken understanding of the constitution by your phrase "the 2nd amendment grants individual gun ownership rights". The second amendment, like all amendments, restricts the government from abridging a right. It does not grant a right. The rights precede the government. This is probably at the root of your misunderstanding of the Constitution. The Constitution limits and controls Government. Not People. You've managed to fundamentally miss the point all these years,
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.