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What the opinion in Heller said is that it will have to be decided in future cases what limitations upon the right to keep and bear arms are permissible…so, yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed. What they are will depend on what the society understood were reasonable limitations at the time…Obviously the [Second] amendment does not apply to weapons that can be hand carried, it’s to keep and bear. So it doesn’t apply to cannons, but I suppose there are handheld rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes that will have to be – it will have to be decided.
The right wing will throw him under the bus the way they threw Roberts under the bus.
I guess even the staunchest right wingers with somewhat of a brain such as Scalia, see the idiocy in the current gun laws and how they don't remotely resemble what the founders had in mind.
You're reading into it something that isn't really there and isn't news at all. he already said arms in common use ae protected, whereas unusual/WMD's are not, in the Heller decision.
Here's the full (albeit rather short) excerpt of the gun control part of that interview to put it in context.
Quote:
WALLACE: Let's turn to an issue that is the news right now with the massacre in Colorado. And that is gun control.
You wrote in 2008, the opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, the majority opinion that said the Second Amendment means what it says, people have a right to bear arms. Question: how far does that constitutional right go? Can a legislature ban semiautomatic weapons or can it ban magazines that carry 100 rounds without violating an individual's constitutional right to bear arms?
SCALIA: What the opinion Heller said is that it will have to be decided in future cases. What limitations upon the right to bear arms are permissible. Some undoubtedly are, because there were some that were acknowledged at the time. For example, there was a tort called affrighting, which if you carried around a really horrible weapon just to scare people, like a head ax or something, that was I believe a misdemeanor.
So yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed. What they are will depend on what the society understood was reasonable limitation. There were certainly location limitations where --
WALLACE: But what about these technological limitations? Obviously, we're not talking about a handgun or a musket. We're talking about a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute,
SCALIA: We'll see. I mean, obviously, the amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried. It's to keep and bear. So, it doesn't apply to cannons. But I suppose there are handheld rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes that will have to be -- it will have to be decided.
WALLACE: So, how do you decide if you're a textualist?
SCALIA: Very carefully. My starting point and ending point probably will be what limitations are within the understood limitations that the society had at the time. They had some limitation on the nature of arms that could be born. So, we'll see what those limitations are as applied to modern weapons.
The right wing will throw him under the bus the way they threw Roberts under the bus.
That would be a nice start. Because nothing right is right in the head and SCOTUS rewriting the constitution to hand American sovereignty over to transnational corporate despots put THEM in a separate country from myself. Let the despots keep them. They aren't Americans anymore.
You're reading into it something that isn't really there and isn't news at all.
He already said arms in common use are protected, whereas unusual/WMD's are not, in the Heller decision.
This is the first time I heard about the "afrighting" tort.
In any case Scalia's position seems a reasonable standard that even non 2A supporters
won't argue the fundamental right to: the common civilian level weapons.
Well that remains to be seen. Scalia does not have to kiss the butts of the NRA. He's not worried about being re-elected, now is he.
That's what he said isn't it? He mentioned rocket launchers.
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