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Comments by YACCS

 

Guns are bad. The New York Times says so.

The Justice Department submitted briefs to the Supreme Court on Monday that said that the Second Amendment protected an individual right, not just a collective right, to bear arms. That the current administration believes this isn't news, of course, but the Times felt the need to mention that John Ashcroft had previously announced his position to the National Rifle Association. Actually, mentioning the NRA wasn't quite enough, so the Times had to elaborate: he wrote a "letter to the rifle association's chief lobbyist."

And then the Times had to try to prove that this is a novel theory, that John Ashcroft was going against established law. Unfortunately, since he wasn't, the Times had to make something up:

The Supreme Court's view has been that the the Second Amendment protected only those rights that have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well regulated militia," as the court put it in United States v. Miller, a 1939 decision that remains the court's latest word on the subject.

Actually, this cleverly clips the Supreme Court quote in just the right part so that she can paraphrase it incorrectly. The Supreme Court's view in Miller is that the Second Amendment protected only those weapons that have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia. (The actual quote:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

One is free to agree or disagree with the Supreme Court's interpretation -- though not in a news article -- but one should at least make an attempt to describe it accurately.
posted by David Nieporent at 5/08/2002 07:17:00 AM |