The Rude Pundit - Guns, Baby, Guns: More Scalia-Scribed Batshittery

[meegbear]

If words could be tortured, Supreme Court Antonin Scalia would be their Torquemada. For, indeed, Scalia can take the most obvious of phrases or words and place those poor bastards on the rack until their intestines are straightened, shove a red-hot poker up their asses until he can brand "Big Tony" on their colons, and give them a particularly nasty titty-twisting, and, by fuckin' God, those words are gonna give up whatever their obvious and relevant definitions are and let Scalia say what they "really" mean. If you see an OED yelping with its hands over its crotch running down Pennsylvania Avenue, chances are that it's being pursued by demonically puffing, sweaty-robed Scalia holding a nut vice.

For in his majority opinion on the District of Columbia v. Heller gun law case, Scalia teaches us that lives are doomed because the rules of grammar and the definitions of words are interpretable and fluid. Enjoy: "Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command. The Second Amendment would be nonsensical if it read, 'A well regulated Militia,being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to petition for redress of grievances shall not be infringed.' That requirement of logical connection may cause a prefatory clause to resolve an ambiguity in the operative clause ('The separation of church and state being an important objective, the teachings of canons shall have no place in our jurisprudence.' The preface makes clear that the operative clause refers not to canons of interpretation but to clergymen.) But apart from that clarifying function, a prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause...Therefore, while we will begin our textual analysis with the operative clause, we will return to the prefatory clause to ensure that our reading of the operative clause is consistent with the announced purpose."

For want of a Strunk and White, the people of DC (and Chicago and Detroit and etc.) were lost.

And then, seriously, motherfucker goes through the definitions of the words in the phrase "to keep and bear arms." No, no, seriously. For pages and pages: "The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined 'arms' as 'weapons of offence, or armour of defence.'" Or: "At the time of the founding, as now, to 'bear' meant to 'carry.'" It's the jurisprudence version of "Fuck you," which means it's simply par for the course for Scalia.

By the time he gets to the opening of the Second Amendment, "A well-regulated militia," Scalia's not quite as free with the overexplanations: "Finally, the adjective 'well-regulated' implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training." And, that phrase being anathema to his overarching point, it's all he says about it. Nothing more about what the meaning of "well-regulated" might be from the majority. That's left to the dissenters to say, "Umm, motherfuckers, you left something out."

By the way, other words left out of Scalia's dictionary (and his opinion): "shoot" and "shot" (except in reference to Scalia's favorite substitute for the penis he hasn't seen for decades, his "shot gun") and "kill" (except in reference to game) and "death." Those get in the way of the majority's opinion, which is, "Fuck that inconvenient first clause in the Second Amendment. Go out and buy yourself a Glock, America."

Scalia argues with Breyer's dissent, saying that rights cannot be conditional, as Breyer does when looking at DC's handgun ban, saying that gun violence in a cities might have an effect on regulation. That's quite the contradiction with the Scalia who raped the Fourth Amendment just a week ago or so in his dissent on the Gitmo habeas corpus decision. But, hey, let's give Scalia the point: he's correct that just because shit gets ugly that rights oughta be tossed aside. He's so fuckin' wrong though on what that right actually is.

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[jody]

1. Thank goodness the D.C. v. Heller opinion supported the Democratic Party Platform.

[enlightenment]

2. Scalia really is quite insane, isn't he?

Scalia argues with Breyer's dissent, saying that rights cannot be conditional, as Breyer does when looking at DC's handgun ban, saying that gun violence in a cities might have an effect on regulation. That's quite the contradiction with the Scalia who raped the Fourth Amendment just a week ago or so in his dissent on the Gitmo habeas corpus decision. But, hey, let's give Scalia the point: he's correct that just because shit gets ugly that rights oughta be tossed aside. He's so fuckin' wrong though on what that right actually is.

Talk about throwing almost a 100 years of jurisprudence under the bus.