25 March 2008

Interesting ignorance

I am amazed at the amount of people charged with enforcing the gun laws in this city are ignorant of the significance of DC v. Heller. Yet another DA has admitted he didn't know about the case, but he opined that lax gun laws do indeed feed the amount of guns on the black market. That wasn't really news to me given my experience.

On the other hand, there are a significant amount of people outside the District with a stake in seeing that DC's gun laws are upheld. In my opinion, by a recognition of stare decisis which means a reiteration of the "collective right" standard. Even if one wishes to say that the Second Amendment is an "individual right" that right is tied into the relationship to the desire and ability to preserve a well regulated militia, not for personal purposes. Dellinger was remiss in citing to the Swiss example where the use of the service weapon for any non-national defence purpose is subject to militiary penalty.

The chief justice is quite correct about coming up with an intricate standard and none is needed if precedent is followed. Does the law impare militia efficacy? No, then it's valid. That means that a total gun ban is more than reasonable under the Second Amendment if it doesn't impare militia efficacy.

Self-defence is not a constitutionally protected "right" and the Second Amendment should not be extended to include that concept.

Additionally, the term "people" is a collective one. It is a Synecdoche which is a term denoting a general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class. It is a figure of speech. In this case, it refers back to the militia. Anyway, the term "people" is not a singular noun, but a collective one.

Ignorantia juris non excusat. Unfortunately, there are people out there who have positions of power, but lack the knowledge to adaquately use that power.

It ain't what you know, but who you know.