BCT Editorial – 5/1/05

This page was last updated on May 2, 2005.

A poser; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 1, 2005.

I hate to get into name-calling, but this is one of the most idiotic editorials I’ve read. It’s literally the equivalent of trying to convince someone that “black” really means “white.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

5/2/05 - I made the mistake of assuming the editorial correctly reported the name of the person whose conviction the Supreme Court overturned. The man’s name is Gary Small, not Gary Sherwood. Sherwood is his middle name. I corrected my error below.

“Judge bashers, here’s a poser: How did the U.S. Supreme Court’s most moderate justices vote to expand the Second Amendment right to bear arms?”

[RWC] As you will read below, the subject ruling did not do what this question claims. The ruling had nothing to do with the Second Amendment. It is a clear example of judges ignoring the clear language of a law, an example that “judge bashers” will use as a “poster child” for their cause.

“In recent weeks, the American right has been having a field day attacking the state and federal judiciary.

“But last week’s ruling shows how dangerous and wrong it can be to pigeonhole judges.”

[RWC] Actually, the ruling is a prime example of judges ignoring the explicit and plain language in a law, as you will read below. This is exactly what critics of judicial activism find objectionable.

“The Associated Press reports Justices Stephen G. Breyer, who wrote the majority opinion, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg ruled that people convicted of crimes overseas can still own guns in the United States.”

[RWC] I could be wrong, but I believe the vast majority of Second Amendment supporters also support keeping firearms out of the hands of convicted felons.

“The ruling was in favor of Gary Sherwood of Export, who answered ‘no’ to the felony conviction question on a federal form when he bought a handgun in 1998, a few days after he was paroled from a Japanese prison for violating Japan’s weapons laws.”

[RWC] Mr. Sherwood was convicted for smuggling guns into Japan by concealing them in a water heater. He was in prison for three years.

“The five-member majority ruled that the U.S. law that prohibits felons who have been convicted in ‘any court’ from owning guns applies only to domestic crimes.”

[RWC] What part of “any court” wasn’t clear? If the law had said “any domestic or foreign court,” you can be certain at least some of these judges would have challenged the meaning of “foreign.” Lest we forget, a former president questioned the meaning of “is.”

“Writing for the majority, Breyer said interpreting the law broadly to apply to foreign convictions would be unfair to defendants because procedural protections are often less applied in international courts. If Congress intended foreign convictions to apply, they can rewrite the law to say so specifically, he wrote.”

[RWC] What hypocrisy! The same judges who rely on the “international justice system” for other decisions – like striking down capital punishment for crimes committed by a minor – don’t like international justice when it may keep firearms out of a criminal’s hands.

Despite my objection to the ruling, my personal opinion is that, in general, criminal rulings by foreign courts should have limited application in the United States for the reasons cited by the majority opinion. Though I have personal reservations about including foreign criminal convictions, “any” means “any.” As soon as we allow judges to “read between the lines,” written laws lose their meaning.

“The court’s two steadfast conservatives, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, voted to uphold the law. They were joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy.”

[RWC] The editorial author appears confused about the case when he wrote three justices “voted to uphold the law.” The case was not about the law’s constitutionality. The case was whether or not to uphold the conviction of Mr. Small.

Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas upheld the conviction because they believed the law meant what it said, “any court.”

“As Lewis Carroll of ‘Alice of Wonderland’ fame put it, ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’”

[RWC] The only thing “curiouser and curiouser” is how far the Times will go to misrepresent a situation in order to advance its economic, political, and social agenda.