BCT Editorial – 3/10/10

This page was last updated on March 10, 2010.

Punishing language; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 10, 2010.

While I pretty much agree with the editorial up to the last paragraph, I do want to address a bit of innuendo the Times slipped in. In the final paragraph we read, “In recent years, the five conservative members of the court have been expanding the Second Amendment right to bear arms.” For reference, the Second Amendment reads, “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.”

Unless you have some political agenda, the Second Amendment is pretty clear. How can “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” be expanded? The Supreme Court ruling (2008) in District of Columbia v. Heller simply affirmed the Second Amendment means what it says. According to a Wikipedia summary, the ruling was in response to a 1975 DC law that “banned residents from owning handguns, automatic firearms, and high-capacity semi-automatic firearms, as well as prohibited possession of unregistered firearms. Exceptions to the ban were allowed for police officers and guns registered before 1976. The law also required firearms kept in the home to be ‘unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock or similar device’, thus amounting to a prohibition on the use of firearms for self-defense in the home.” I found no Times editorials addressing the Heller ruling.

The editorial concludes with, “Will they [the five conservative members of the court] protect First Amendment rights or curtail them? It matters.” What a hoot! Keep in mind the Times is selective when it comes to “protect[ing] First Amendment rights.” As you may remember from “For what it’s worth” (1/26/10) and “Scared stiff” (1/29/10), the Times is completely onboard with the infringements on “First Amendment rights” in “The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002” (aka McCain/Feingold). Those editorials expressed displeasure with the Supreme Court decision striking down some of that law’s infringements on “First Amendment rights” and even referred to the ruling as the result of “activist judges.” The “activist judges” who stood up for “First Amendment rights?” “[T]he five conservative members on the U.S. Supreme Court” the Times is now worried won’t support “First Amendment rights.”