In re Sheila W. (Wisc. July 10, 2013) involves this issue, though the court declines to reach the question on grounds of mootness: The petitioner, Sheila W., is a minor who was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. She opposed on religious grounds any life-saving blood transfusions and her parents supported her position. [Sheila W. is a […]
Archive | July, 2013
Koppelman’s Two Gun Minimum
By Eugene Kontorovich on July 10, 2013 10:40 pm in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Criminal Law, Guns, Seventh Circuit
At Balkinization, Andy Koppelman has witty – and wise – rejoinder to the discussion Nick and I have had here about the plural of “Arms“: If this strict textualism is to be followed, there is an interesting implication: perhaps there is only a right to bear “arms” – plural – but not to bear a […]
Full Faith and Credit, Pardons, and Gun Rights
From Blackwell v. Haslam (Tenn. Ct. App. June 28, 2013) (paragraph breaks added): This appeal involves the Full Faith and Credit Clause and firearm rights. The petitioner was convicted of felony drug offenses in Georgia. The State of Georgia granted the petitioner a full pardon for his crimes; his Georgia pardon expressly restored his right […]
My First Appearance at FreedomFest in Las Vegas
Later this week, I will be speaking at FreedomFest at the Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas. I am looking forward to attending for the first time and seeing friends. If you are attending here are the programs I will be on: Friday at 5pm: I will be the judge in a moot trial: “The […]
Police Should Stop Shooting So Many Dogs
A. Barton Hinkle has a column on the tragic prevalence of police shooting dogs for little or no cause: Across the country, both state laws and departmental policies seem to let police officers use deadly force as a first resort against family pets that often present little or no threat. In one infamous 2010 case […]
Chicago: From a Handgun Ban to a Right to Carry Concealed Handguns
Illinois has just become a shall-issue state, which means that pretty much any law-abiding adult age 21 and above can get a license to carry a concealed handgun in public. To be sure, something will depend on how the law is implemented, and my understanding is that gun rights supporters see the law as narrower […]
Three Tips for Trial Filings
Trial filings are the Ugly Ducklings of written advocacy. Rarely do judges say, “Ross, I just read the most incredible motion in limine” or “Wow, you’ve got to see this memorandum in support of partial summary judgment that I just devoured.” Let’s face it, although most litigators hang around the trial courts, most of the […]
Political Ignorance in Britain
By Ilya Somin on July 10, 2013 11:10 am in Democracy, Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance, Public Opinion, Voting With Your Feet
Sam Bowman of the Adam Smith Institute has an interesting post analyzing recent survey data on widespread political ignorance in Britain [HT: Nigel Ashford]: The public is ignorant about politics and lacks even the basic facts that it would need to make sound judgments about political issues. A new poll by Ipsos-MORI shows just how […]
Rot at the Court!
An interesting new article by Raizel Liebler & June Liebert in the Yale J. of Law and Technology on “link rot” in Supreme Court opinions finds that almost 30% of the Internet URLs cited in Supreme Court opinions since the first such citation in 1996 (!) no longer work. It’s not the end of the world, […]
Multiple Location Search Warrants and Plural Nouns in the Constitution
The Fourth Amendment protects people in their “houses, papers, and effects” – all plural, and understood to extend to an indefinite number of such belongings. That is, the right is coextensive with however many things a person happens to have. However, there is an interesting difference in the language of the warrant clause: a warrant […]
The Multilateralist Blog Interview on How American Conservatives See the UN Today
David Bosco, who authors the outstanding “The Multilateralist” blog at Foreign Policy (where he is a contributing editor and who is also my American University colleague in the School of International Service), conducted an interview a few weeks ago with the Heritage Foundation’s Brett Schaefer and me on the United Nations. The idea was to ask how […]
The Supreme Writer on the Court: The Case for Kagan
Justices Scalia and Kagan have joined forces on deer-hunting trips. Do they share the same gift for writing as well? In only a few years’ time, Kagan’s engaging yet biting opinions and dissents have astonished a once-skeptical Left — and have catapulted her to the top of the liberal bloc, if not the entire Court. […]
Arms and Persons
Eugene Kontorovich has argued that the plural “Arms” in the Second Amendment implies a right to more than one gun per person. I argued that “Arms” had to be plural to match “the right of the People,” plural, and so the plural tells us nothing about number of guns per person. Eugene responds with a […]
Response to Prof. Rosenkranz: ArmS & the Man – or Arms & the People
By Eugene Kontorovich on July 9, 2013 2:33 pm in Constitutional Amendments, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Fourth Amendment, Guns, Originalism, Right to carry, Self-Defense
Nick takes issue with my suggestion that the Second Amendment on its face bars laws restricting people to one gun, such as that currently proposed by Gov. Quinn in Illinois. My (first) argument is not an originalist or purposivist one, but rather a purely textual one. The primary meaning of “arms” is plural. Nick argues […]
Does the Plural “Arms” Imply Multiple Guns Per Person?
Eugene Kontorovich has posted (here and here) arguing that it would be unconstitutional to limit each person to carrying only one gun, because the word “Arms” in the Second Amendment is plural. I applaud his attention to text, and I am sympathetic to his bottom line, but I don’t find the textual argument persuasive. The […]