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D.C. Gun Decision: In Perspective
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Loyola (Maryland) economics professor Tom DiLorenzo writes that the Supreme Court's acknowledgement of an individual right to bear arms illustrates the absurdity of allowing the federal government to determine the limits of its own authority.
Citing the erosion of state's rights during the Civil War era, he reminds us that while the high court's opinions previous to 1865 were considered by Congress, the states, and citizens to be just that -- opinions -- to our detriment they have since become the last word on constitutional matters.
The shocking thing about [yesterday's] decision is that if one man -- Anthony Kennedy -- voted the other way, then what -- we would all be forcefully disarmed?
A judicial dictatorship is what nationalists like Alexander Hamilton and his disciple, Justice John Marshall, wanted, and that of course is what we've ended up with. But imagine if the Court declared in 1805 that Americans do not have individual rights to own firearms. Do you think the Jeffersonians would have given up their firearms and genuflected to the black-robed deities of the Court? Hell no; they would have reached for them and commenced another revolution.
Unfortunately, we live in an era (and have for well over a century now) where the Supreme Court determines our rights for us; where its decisions essentially become the Supreme Law of the Land. As I explained yesterday, this should not be -- the court has no constitutional authority to overturn legitimate state laws. The Bill of Rights provides explicit limitations on federal power; it does not somehow grant the federal government plenary legislative powers over the states.
Given this widespread misapplication of the Constitution, yesterday's ruling "protected" an individual right that we already had, but it perversely did so for the wrong reasons. By exceeding its authority, it seems to many gun rights advocates that the court got this right because it "upheld" the Second Amendment. But what would we be facing now if, as Dr. DiLorenzo asked, Justice Kennedy went the other way? I shudder even to think, given our tendency to allow the Supreme Court to legislate from the bench.
It may appear that by applying the Bill of Rights to the states, the Supreme Court is merely extending constitutional protections universally. But this is a mirage. For one thing, it has no constitutional right to do so. But more importantly, to accept this notion is to give the federal government prima facie authority over virtually all state legislation, which contradicts the entire point of limiting its jurisdiction in the first place.
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