Prof. Dorf on Heller

Typical Pro DC Diatribe and Lawer doublespeak his view is atypical of the Gun Banning crowd.

Why do so many "professors" argue from a statist, legalistic, "this is how the government can get around the constitution" standpoint rather than one of broad constitutional principles?

Most ordinary people (you know, those folks that give the government power) think of rights and the COTUS in broad terms and sweeping freedoms, not the kind of machinations Prof. Dorf describes.

I read an article by a professor the other day which said that "the people" in the second amendment indicated that it was a collective right. Now we have another professor arguing for the inclusion of dicta, unrelated to the case and controversy at issue, in an opinion. Where do they get these guys?

William F. Buckley perhaps said it best in 1963:

"I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."

- Harold

Sorry that this is unrelated to the parent post, but it is interesting:

http://www.nbc4.com/news/15688264/detail.html

DC Police are now going door-to-door trying to search houses for guns to confiscate.

I suspect they are trying to round up as many as they can before SCOTUS strikes down their laws and makes all these guns legal.

After the SCOTUS ruling, expect DC to put up other obstructions. First obvious step; since they don't allow handgun dealers, there will be nowhere for a DC citizen to even buy a handgun.

Harold: thanks for that quote; I have been looking for it.

Zobo: Josh Sugarmann at the Violence Policy Center has an FFL; maybe he'll sell handguns, once they're legal again.

There's a reason his name is Dorf.

I've read the Dorf article a couple of times, and I'm not sure that it is necessarily "hostile" to the individual rights position.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to merely lay out the difficult issues the Court is going to have to address.

Of course Dorf's personal opinion may be hostile, but, if so, I can't fine anything explicit.

His discussion on "incorporation", and his assertion that the Court will have to consider it, is thought provoking. But his evaluation of CJ Roberts' philosophy - if accurate - probably takes that off the table.

It would be a stunning victory if incorporation actually did result from this case.

Given the text of the question the Supes are answering incorporation will not come from this case. Several of the justices might go off on a tangent, but that would just be "dicta." The gun-grabbers would blow it off. That said, it would be good to get the legal and historical background set for an incorporation case. Quoting James Madison, for instance, could not be dodged by the pro-government firearms monopoly crowd.

I didn't read it as anti-gun either. Also, I was encouraged by the notion that incorporation might be addressed after all, though I doubt it myself.

I didn't read it as anti-RKBA. As much as we love the 2nd Amendment, we must be honest with ourselves that, from a public policy perspective, the Justices have a real tiger by the tail.