Month: July 2010

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Mecklenburg Declaration and Mecklenburg Resolves

July 4, 2010 by

Before there was a Declaration of Independence of 1776, there were the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 and the Mecklenburg Resolves of May 31, 1775. While there is significant controversy over the authenticity of the former, there is none regarding the latter. There is controversy about the Mecklenburg Declaration because the original copy is reputed to have been destroyed in a fire and mention of it then only comes to light in 1819. Nonetheless, May 20, 1775 is the date enshrined on both the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina and the State Flag.

Both the Declaration and the Resolves were adopted in Charlotte Town in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Charlotte Town is now known as Charlotte. The area had been settled by the heavily Presbyterian immigrants from Northern Ireland and Scotland known as the Scotch-Irish. Upon hearing of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, they had been outraged and the Declaration was the result.

The Mecklenburg Declaration

  1. That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted or in any way, form or manner countenanced to unchartered & dangerous invasion of our rights as claimed by G. Britain is an enemy to this County – to America & to the inherent & inaliable rights of man.
  2. We the Citizens of Mecklenburg County do hereby desolve the political bands which have connected us to the Mother Country & hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British crown & abjure all political connection, contract or association with that nation who have wantonly trampled on our rights & liberties & inhumanely shed the innocent blood of American patriots at Lexington.
  3. We do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people – are & of right ought to be a sovereign & self-governing association, under the controul of no power other than that of our God & the general government of the congress, to the maintainence of which independence civil & religious we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes & our most sacred honor.
  4. As we now acknowledge the existence & controul of no law or legal officers, civil or military, within this County, we do hereby ordain & adopt as a rule of life, all, each & every of our former laws – wherein nevertheless the crown of great britain never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authority therein.
  5. It is also further decreed that all, each & every military officer in this County is hereby reinstated in his former command & authority, he acting conformably to these regulations. And that every member present of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz. a Justice of the peace in the character of a ‘Committee-man’ to issue process, hear & determine all matters of controversy according to sd. adopted laws – to preserve peace, union & harmony in sd. County & to use every exertion to spread the love of country & fire of freedom throughout America until a more general & organized government be established in this province. A selection from the members present shall constitute a Committee of public safety for sd. County.
  6. That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted by express to the President of the Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, to be laid before that body.
    Ephraim Brevard
    Hezekiah J. Balch
    John Phifer
    James Harris
    William Kennon
    John Foard
    Richard Barry
    Henry Downs
    Ezra Alexander
    Charles Alexander
    Zaccheus Wilson
    Waightstill Avery
    Benjamin Patton    		 Matthew McClure
    Neil Morrison
    Robert Irwin
    John Flennegin
    David Reese
    William Graham
    John Queary
    Hezekiah Alexander
    Adam Alexander
    John Davidson
    Richard Harris
    Thomas Polk
    Abraham Alexander
    John McKnitt Alexander

While there still exists much controversy on the authenticity of the Declaration, none exists with regard to the Resolves adopted on May 31, 1775. Captain James Jack of Charlotte was sent with a copy of the resolves and a letter to the North Carolina delegates to the Continental Congress requesting their approval by Congress.

The Mecklenburg Resolves

This day the Committee of this County met, and passed the following Resolves:
WHEREAS by an Address presented to his Majesty by both Houses of Parliament in
February last, the American Colonies are declared to be in a state of actual rebellion, we
conceive that all Laws and Commissions confirmed by, or derived from the Authority of
the king or Parliament, are annulled and vacated, and the former civil Constitution of
these Colonies for the present wholly suspended. To provide in some Degree for the
Exigencies of the County in the present alarming Period, we deem it proper and
necessary to pass the following resolves, viz.
1. That all Commissions, civil and military, heretofore granted by the Crown, to be
exercised in these Colonies, are null and void, and the Constitution of each particular
Colony wholly suspended.
2. That the Provincial Congress of each Province, under the Direction of the Great
Continental Congress, is invested with all legislative and executive Powers within their
respective Provinces; and that no other Legislative or Executive does or can exist, at this
Time, in any of these Colonies.
3. As all former Laws are now suspended in this Province, and the Congress have not
yet provided others, we judge it necessary, for the better Preservation of good Order, to
form certain Rules and Regulations for the internal Government of this County, until
Laws shall be provided for us by the Congress.
4. That the Inhabitants of this Country do meet on a certain Day appointed by this
Committee, and having formed themselves into nine Companies, to wit, eight for the
County, and one for the Town of Charlotte, do choose a Colonel, and other military
Officers, who shall hold and exercise their several Powers by Virtue of this Choice, and
independent of Great-Britain, and former Constitution of this Province.
5. That for the better Preservation of the Peace, and Administration of Justice, each of
these Companies do choose from their own Body two discreet Freeholders, who shall be
impowered each by himself, and singly, to decide and determine all Matters of
Controversy arising within the said Company under the Sum of Twenty Shillings, and
jointly and together all Controversies under the Sum of Forty Shillings, yet so as their
Decisions may admit of Appeals to the Convention of the Select Men of the whole
County; and also, that any one of these shall have power to examine, and commit to
Confinement , Persons accused of Petit Larceny.
6. That those two Select Men, thus chosen, do, jointly and together, choose from the
Body of their particular Company two Persons, properly qualified to serve as Constables,
who may assist them in the execution of their Office.
7. That upon the Complaint of any Person to either of these Select men, he do issue his
Warrant, directed to the Constable, commanding him to bring the Aggressor before him
or them to answer the said Complaint.
8. That these Eighteen Select Men, thus appointed, do meet every third Tuesday in
January, April, and October, at the Court-House in Charlotte to hear and determine all
Matters of Controversy of Sums exceeding Forty Shillings; also Appeals: And in Cases
of Felony, to commit the Person or Persons convicted thereof to close Confinement, until
the Provincial Congress shall provide and establish Laws and Modes of Proceeding in
Such Cases.
9. That these Eighteen Select Men, thus convened, do choose a Clerk to record the
Transactions of the said Convention; and that the said Clerk, upon the Application of any
Person or Persons aggrieved, do issue his Warrant to one of the Constables, to summons
and warn the said Offender to appear before the convention at their next sitting, to answer
the aforesaid Complaint.
10. That any Person making Complaint upon Oath to the Clerk, or any Member of the
Convention, that he has Reason to suspect that any Person or Persons indebted to him in a
Sum above Forty Shillings, do intend clandestinely to withdraw from the County without
paying such Debt; the Clerk, or such Member, shall issue his Warrant to the Constable,
commanding him to take the said Person or Persons into safe Custody, until the next
sitting of the Convention.
11. That when a Debtor for a Sum below Forty Shillings shall abscond and leave the
County, the Warrant granted as aforesaid shall extend to any Goods or Chattels of the
said Debtor as may be found, and such Goods or Chattels be seized and held in Custody
by the Constable for the space of Thirty Days; in which Term if the Debtor fails to return
and discharge the Debt, the Constable shall return the Warranty to one of the Select Men
of the Company where the Goods and Chattels were found, who shall issue Orders to the
Constable to sell such a part of the said Goods as shall amount to the Sum due; that when
the Debt exceeds Forty Shillings, the Return shall be made to the Convention, who shall
issue the Orders for Sale.
12. That Receivers and Collectors for Quitrents, Public and County Taxes, do pay the
same into the Hands of the Chairman of this Committee, to be by them disbursed as the
public Exigencies may require. And that such Receivers and Collectors proceed no
farther in their Office until they be approved of by, and have given to this Committee
good and sufficient Security for a faithful return of such Monies when collected.
13. That the Committee be accountable to the County for the Application of all Monies
received from such Officers.
14. That all these Officers hold their Commissions during the Pleasure of their
respective Constituents.
15. That this Committee will sustain all Damages that may ever hereafter accrue to all
or any of these Officers thus appointed, and thus acting, on Account of their Obedience
and Conformity to these Resolves.
16. That whatever Person shall hereafter receive a Commission from the Crown, or
attempt to exercise any such Commission heretofore received, shall be deemed an Enemy
to his Country; and upon Information being made to the Captain of the Company where
he resides the said Captain shall cause him to be apprehended, and conveyed before the
two Select Men of the said Company, who, upon Proof of the Fact, shall commit him the
said Offender into safe Custody, until the next sitting of the Convention, who shall deal
with him as Prudence may direct.
17. That any Person refusing to yield Obedience to the above Resolves shall be deemed
equally criminal, and liable to the same Punishments as the Offenders above last
mentioned.
18. That these Resolves be in full Force and Virtue, until Instructions from the General
Congress of this Province, regulating the Jurisprudence of this Province, shall provide
otherwise, or the Legislative Body of Great-Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary
Pretentions with Respect to America.
19. That the several Militia Companies in this county do provide themselves with
proper arms and accoutrements, and hold themselves in constant Readiness to execute the
commands and Directions of the Provincial Congress, and of this committee.
20. That this committee do appoint Colonel Thomas Polk, and Doctor Joseph Kennedy,
to purchase 300 lb. of Powder, 600 lb. of Lead, and 1000 Flints; and deposit the same in
some safe place, hereafter to be appointed by the committee.
Eph. Brevard, Clerk of the Committee.
Singed by Order of the Committee.

This document was printed in the North Carolina Gazette on June 16, 1775,
and the Cape-Fear Mercury on June 23, 1775. There was a slight variation in wording in
the two newspapers.

 So on this day as we honor the Nation’s Founders and the Declaration of Independence of 1776, let us also honor these men from a provincial North Carolina backwater who recognized that our future lay in independence from Great Britain.

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McDonald Decision: It’s Not Just About Guns Anymore

July 4, 2010 by

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, thinks that Tea Party activists, libertarians, and conservatives should look to the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald v. Chicago as inspiration.

let me offer a positive lesson from this experience, one with relevance for today’s motivated Tea Party activists and depressed conservatives and libertarians alike. Because the story of the Second Amendment, and of gun rights generally, over the past two decades is a story that offers hope for those interested in protecting and restoring liberty in all sorts of areas.

Read the whole article here.

His conclusion –

So in little more than 15 years, we’ve seen an amazing turnaround on an issue where the “establishment” side had broad support from politicians (in both parties, really) and almost universal support from the media. Gun control now is nearly dead as an issue, and the “establishment” view that the Second Amendment didn’t protect any sort of individual right, but merely a right of states to have national guards, did not get the support of a single Supreme Court justice.

So what’s the lesson for today? It’s that activism matters.

Now the issue on which activists differ from the establishment is the size of government. Politicians (in both parties, really) are pretty happy with big government. In this, they have the near-universal support of the media (now using covert e-mail lists to agree on how to slant their stories).

But if people care about shrinking government as much as gun rights activists care about protecting the Second Amendment, then this situation, too, can see a turnaround.

For the sake of the country, it had better.

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In Honor of Independence Day

July 4, 2010 by 2 Comments

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

I believe every citizen of our great country should read this at least once a year. It explains why we are citizens and not subjects.

There is an interesting side-by-side comparison of Jefferson’s draft with the Congressional draft and then the final version here.

Even more interesting is the recent finding by scientists that Jefferson wiped off the word “subjects” while the ink was wet and replaced it with “citizens”.

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The Next Director of BATFE?

July 3, 2010 by

Is Andy Traver slated to be the next Director of the BATFE?

That is what Mike Vanderboegh speculates on his blog today.

He sums it up by saying:

So let’s sum up: Traver has been an ATF agent for 23 years, starting out as an entry-level jack-booted thug (“an original member of the Entry Control Team, forerunner of the Special Response Teams”). Since then, he has risen through the agency hierarchy, all the while making friends of notorious Illinois anti-firearm rights politicians of both parties. He has had personal friendly contact with Barack Obama and Hizzonor, the King of Chicago Richard Daley. He has worked with the virulently anti-firearm Joyce Foundation and the IACP, putting his efforts and his name to a report which calls for more firearm bans and regulations that amount to the gutting of the Second Amendment.

Traver is, then, an extremely politically well-connected, anti-firearm, pro-citizen-disarmament zealot. He may be a nice guy, but he is an enemy of the Founders’ Republic and the Constitution they wrote.

And if he checks out to be “confirmable,” he will be the next jefe supremo of the federal gun cops. No wonder Mayor Daley has been wearing that “I’ve-got-a-secret” shit-eating grin since the McDonald decision. Screw the Supreme Court. The Chicago gang is fixing to take over THE Gang.

H/T The War On Guns

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Chicago City Council Approves New Gun Laws

July 2, 2010 by

Following their defeat in McDonald v. Chicago, Mayor Daley and the Chicago City Council went back to the drawing board. They approved the new law by a vote of 45-0 this morning.

According to the Chicago Tribune the provisions include:

*Applicants would need a Chicago firearm permit, costing $100 every three years, as well as an Illinois firearm owner’s ID card. They would be required to register all their guns with the city, at a cost of $15 per gun every three years.

*Firearm sales would be banned in the city.

*Chicago residents could register no more than one handgun per month for each qualifying adult in a home.

*People who now own firearms illegally would get a 90-day grace period after the new law takes effect to register the guns without penalty.

*Gun training totaling four hours in a classroom and an hour on a firing range is required before getting a permit. But firing ranges are banned, so training would need to be completed outside Chicago.

*To transport a gun, it would have to be “broken down,” not immediately accessible, unloaded and in a firearm case.

* Firearms could be possessed only inside the dwelling. It would be illegal to have a gun in the garage, on the front porch or in the yard. Guns also would not be allowed in hotels, dorms and group living facilities.

*Only one firearm per permit holder can be kept in ready-to-fire condition. Other guns must be taken apart or have trigger locks in place. In homes with minors, all guns must be secured when they are not in the possession of the owner.

*Permit applicants must be at least 21 years old, unless a parent signs for someone 18 or older.

*Assault weapons are banned, as are sawed-off shotguns and “unsafe” handguns, as defined by the Chicago Police Department, which will maintain an online list of prohibited guns.

Alderman James Balcer is quoted as saying about the restrictions, that “You can buy one pistol a month. What is wrong with that? If you can’t protect your home with that armament, you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here.” After working that hard to keep the good people of Chicago disarmed for so long while crime ran rampant, perhap it is Alderman Balcer who shouldn’t be there.

UPDATE: Alan Gura gives his impressions of the new Chicago handgun laws.

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Clogging the Courts?

July 2, 2010 by

From the Legal Community Against Violence:

LCAV anticipates a substantial increase in the volume of Second Amendment litigation already clogging the nation’s courts, despite the fact that most, if not all, state and local firearms laws do not prevent a law-abiding citizen from possessing a firearm in the home for self-defense, and thus, would satisfy the holdings in Heller and McDonald.

They have a strange view of civil rights if they think that free citizens seeking to uphold the protections afforded them through the Second and Fourteenth Amendments should be considered “clogging” the courts.

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Reality Bites

July 1, 2010 by

Sayre Weaver is one of the leading legal lights of the gun control movement in California. She is one of the lead attorneys for the County of Alameda in the Nordyke case and she helped the City of West Hollywood develop their law prohibiting the sale of “junk guns”(sic). She has won awards from Women Against Gun Violence and the California Wellness Foundation for her work on gun control. The LA Times writes glowing articles about her that characterize her “as the California gun lobby’s Public Enemy No. 1.” So, when she says the McDonald decision is likely to spawn lawsuits challenging local gun control laws, I listen.

Weaver released her analysis on the impact of McDonald v. Chicago on Monday. Her analysis centers on the likely immediate impact that McDonald will have for local governments in California.

  • Local ordinances regulating firearm possession and sale are now more open to challenge on Second Amendment grounds

It appears likely that McDonald will generate challenges to a wide range of local firearms regulations, as well as ammunition regulations…..Because the Court has given little guidance on what standard a firearms regulation must meet to survive challenge under the Second Amendment, we anticipate that the decision will embolden individual litigants to challenge a wide range of firearms laws, including long standing laws that have previously survived challenge in the courts.

  • Local firearms ordinances must now meet a more rigorous constitutional standard to survive legal challenge

Because any restriction on firearms possession or sale might be argued to create some burden on the right to possess a firearm for self-defense in the home, local governments should anticipate numerous lawsuits challenging a wide range of firearms laws. There are already a number of such challenges in the California courts, which were stayed while those courts waited for McDonald.

  • Local ordinances regulating possession of handguns or prohibiting certain types of handguns are more vulnerable to challenge under the Second Amendment

Because the Second Amendment right articulated by the Court pertains to possession of handguns, which the Court characterizes as the most popular weapon among Americans for self-defense, it is likely that local regulations of handguns will be challenged under the Second Amendment.

  • Successful Second Amendment challenges to local laws may result in the award of attorney fees against a city and to the challenging party

While she doesn’t come out and say it, if a city loses a challenge to a firearm restriction in court, they will end up paying the costs for both the defense and the plaintiffs. In case-strapped California, this should make some municipalities think twice.

  • Local governments considering adopting new firearms ordinances may wish to consult with their City Attorneys

…ordinances will now be subject to a stricter test in the courts, and the legislative findings that may be needed for a given law to pass muster under the Second Amendment will be of particular importance.

The bottom line for Weaver is that the world as she knew it has changed with McDonald.

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Hypocrisy from the Dissenters

July 1, 2010 by

Jacob Sullum writes a very perceptive piece on the McDonald dissents of Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor. He notes that these Justices worry that overturning the Chicago gun ban would “undermine democracy.” However, these same Justices would never let local prejudices stand in the way of other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

Ah, but the Second Amendment is different, they say:

Second Amendment rights are different, Breyer says, because “determining the constitutionality of a particular state gun law requires finding answers to complex empirically based questions.” So does weighing the claims in favor of banning child pornography or depictions of animal cruelty, relaxing the Miranda rule, admitting illegally obtained evidence, or allowing warrantless pat-downs, dog sniffs, or infrared surveillance.

When they decide whether a law or practice violates a constitutional right, courts cannot avoid empirical questions. In cases involving racial discrimination or content-based speech restrictions, for example, they ask whether the challenged law is “narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest” and is the “least restrictive means” of doing so.

Sullum saves his strongest scorn for their claims that it will invite more litigation:

The dissenters’ most frivolous objection is that making states obey the Second Amendment “invites an avalanche of litigation,” as Stevens puts it. Every day we hear about cases in which people argue that the government has violated their rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, or Eighth amendment. Neither Stevens nor Breyer wants to stop this “avalanche.” Only when the Second Amendment is added to the mix do they recoil in horror at the prospect that Americans will use the courts to vindicate their rights.

Read the whole article.

H/T Instapundit