Commercial Appeal Gets it Wrong

In other news, George Carlin is still dead.

Today's totally stupid editorial comes from... well, I guess it comes from the paper itself, seeing as nobody's name appears on it. so, I hereby name this person Anonymous Editorializerer.

Then again, if I wrote something this stupid, I wouldn't put my name to it either....

Taking aim at gun laws starts off with a howler:

The court reversed years of precedent in its interpretation of the Second Amendment that excludes its mention of well-regulated state militias. In effect, it created a new gun ownership right for civilians.

Listen, cupcake. The Second Amendment always referred to an individual right. The years of precedent you reference (I assume Miller) put forth no such thing. It's the bed-wetting buttwipes that cry "militia!" all the time, not the court.

As a matter of fact, as Kevin Baker tells us, the Supreme Court actually mentions how the Second Amendment applies to us, in 1856 (Dred Scott), 1875 (U.S. v. Cruikshank) and 1886 (Presser v. Illinois).

Here's a little bit of the Dred Scott decision. Kevin's comments in black, Dred Scott in red(emphasis original):

The earliest case in which the Supreme Court discusses what are our individual rights as citizens is Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1856 - a case in which seven of the nine Justices decided that blacks could not be citizens - slave or free - because citizenship:

"would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

In that I count: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and the rights to keep and bear arms outside of any mention of militia service.

Me, too.

Here, the Anonymous Editorializerer whips out another standard anti-gun talking point:

Anyone who misinterprets it as a license to restore a Wild West mentality in America may be in for a rude awakening.

The only misinterpretation going on here was your "new" right of gun ownership. Those of us who can read already figured out what it meant. Too bad it took the Supreme Court to clarify it for the rest of you.

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