{"id":148,"date":"2010-07-02T14:15:29","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T19:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/2010\/07\/02\/the-embarrassing-2nd-amendment\/"},"modified":"2010-07-02T14:15:32","modified_gmt":"2010-07-02T19:15:32","slug":"the-embarrassing-2nd-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/2010\/07\/02\/the-embarrassing-2nd-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Embarrassing 2nd Amendment."},"content":{"rendered":"

from Kids
\n Prefer Cheese: The Embarrassing 2nd Amendment.<\/a><\/p>\n

Had a nice glass of wine last night, and re-read one of my favorite
\nessays, by one of my most favoritest lefties….Sandy
\nLevinson<\/a>, of the UT-Austin Law School.<\/p>\n

Here is the essay: The Embarrassing 2nd Amendment.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sandy (whom I got to know down at UT-Austin when I was there) is honest.
\n He does not like the 2nd Amendment. But he believes in the rule of
\nlaw, and so feels obliged to point out two things.<\/p>\n

First, the
\nwords in the 2nd Amendment have meaning. They appear to mean that there
\n is an individual right to keep and bear arms. Subject to regulation,
\nnot an absolute right, all that’s true. BUT. SOME. INDIVIDUAL. RIGHT.<\/p>\n

Second,
\n we can’t pick and choose which amendments to enforce. If the Bill of
\nRights is important, if the Constitution cannot be violated, then we
\nhave to enforce all of it. If you don’t like the 2nd Amendment, then
\namend the Constitution.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed re-reading the piece, as I
\nsaid, given the events of this week. I particularly liked these
\npassages:<\/p>\n

To put it mildly, the
\n Second Amendment is not at the forefront of constitutional discussion,
\nat least as registered in what the academy regards as the venues for
\nsuch discussion \u2014 law reviews, casebooks, and other scholarly legal
\npublications. As Professor Larue has recently written, “the second
\namendment is not taken seriously by most scholars.”<\/p>\n

…I cannot
\nhelp but suspect that the best explanation for the absence of the Second
\n Amendment from the legal consciousness of the elite bar, including that
\n component found in the legal academy, is derived from a mixture of
\nsheer opposition to the idea of private ownership of guns and the
\nperhaps subconscious fear that altogether plausible, perhaps even
\n“winning,” interpretations of the Second Amendment would present real
\nhurdles to those of us supporting prohibitory regulation. Thus the title of this essay \u2014 The
\nEmbarrassing Second Amendment \u2014 for I want to suggest that the Amendment
\n may be profoundly embarrassing to many who both support such regulation
\n and view themselves as committed to zealous adherence to the Bill of
\nRights (such as most members of the ACLU).<\/span> Indeed, one sometimes
\ndiscovers members of the NRA who are equally committed members of the
\nACLU, differing with the latter only on the issue of the Second
\nAmendment but otherwise genuinely sharing the libertarian viewpoint of
\nthe ACLU.<\/span><\/p>\n

Give Sandy credit: that is an honest portrayal
\nof the problem. He at least realized that he should be embarrassed.
\nAnd he was.<\/p>\n

For two decades, I have been given at best a
\ncondescending hearing when I have claimed that the 2nd Amendment clearly
\n confers at least a limited individual right to bear arms. And since
\nthese same super-silly-ass folks also claim to believe the Constitution
\nsays what the Supreme Court says it says….well, I love America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Kids Prefer Cheese: The Embarrassing 2nd Amendment. Had a nice glass of wine last night, and re-read one of my favorite essays, by one of my most favoritest lefties….Sandy Levinson, of the UT-Austin Law School. Here is the essay: The Embarrassing 2nd Amendment. Sandy (whom I got to know down at UT-Austin when I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149,"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gentropy.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}