Saving the Second Amendment
By Peter Robinson via NRO:
Image: Judge Laurence Silberman
This week on Uncommon Knowledge, the man who saved the Second Amendment.
In 2007, Judge Laurence Silberman, senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, wrote a decision overturning the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns. The following year, the Supreme Court agreed with him.
The Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Judge Silberman:
The [long-accepted] notion was that the prefatory clause [of the Second Amendment] modified the right to keep and bear arms. That is to say, the prefatory clause indicated to some people and to a number of courts that there was no individual right [to bear arms]; the right was only to act in the militia. It is only because I had never looked at the issue in any legal proceeding that I had this background view that it [the right to bear arms] was a collective right. When I started reading the briefs in the case and looking carefully at the language of the Second Amendment, I concluded otherwise.
To watch Judge Silberman explain his reasoning in the most important Second Amendment decision in at least seven decades, click here.
Heller and the Nation owe thanks to Judge Silberman.
5 Responses to “Saving the Second Amendment”
Linoge on 28 Sep 2009 at 1833 #
Wow. Thanks for pointing him out!
Minstrel on 28 Sep 2009 at 1955 #
It’s amazing - a judge that gives credit to the legal skills and intent of the founders. I earnestly hope that there will be more like this guy sitting on the courts. Click the “click here” link to see the interview. It’s only six minutes or so.
DirtCrashr on 29 Sep 2009 at 1515 #
Good post! I watched it and to my mind his admission is amazing, that he didn’t go and take all the credit to himself and offer up his own “Living Constitutionality” - like a guest on Oprah, but he READ the statute.
Uncommon Knowledge used to be on TV up here but PBS stopped carrying - I think it was inconveniently conservative and attacking the rest of the PBS Liberal lineup, stuff they would prefer to obscure and hush.
Minstrel on 29 Sep 2009 at 1818 #
The most galling aspect about the PBS ‘filtering’ is that we, the taxpayers, subsidize them.
DirtCrashr on 30 Sep 2009 at 1342 #
I’m guessing they didn’t know the Hoover Institute was the producer or it snuck under their radar.