DC v. Heller! Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday!

It’s finally here, and apparently people are camping out just to get a seat (ElGuapo?).

Also, the ACS recently held a debate on the subject (mp3 file here).

I don’t have to camp, I have tickets. I’ll be in the first row for the whole thing (behind the bar members of course). Speaking of which . . . Christ, I better go to bed.

Well it was quite interesting. We were asses to elbows in there.

My prediction is they overturn the law and most laws that restrict a total ban but in the opinion mention some reasonable restrictions can be applied be local legislature. There was a lot of very precise wording as the second amendment, they took each phrase and discussed it individually. What does “the people” mean, militia or all the people? What does “bear” mean? “Keep”? What constitutes a militia? (heavy emphasis on this)

Scalia got some good barbs in. Giving one of his famous hypotheticals, Breyer asked a yes or no question of the Heller side. Scalia piped in with “Just answer no”.

They even discussed gun locks and their relevance and if they were constitutional. Roberts asked the lawyer for DC to explain to him how a gun lock worked. The lawyer was miming how the lock works, the different kinds (through the trigger guard vs. though the handle and slide), etc. Roberts asked him if it was a combination. The lawyer replied some are. So Roberts goes "So you hear a bump in the night in your house. You turn on your bedside lamp. Then you get your reading glasses out. . . "

Of course, every single justice spoke multiple times except for Thomas. Why does he even come? Stop the charade and just don’t show up to oral arguments anymore if you think they are irrelevant you phony. He hasn’t spoken in TWO YEARS.

The Thomas not speaking thing is equal parts creepy and disturbing.

The non-insulting explanation is that he thinks the justices only speak to each other (which they do later in private anyway), and it’s a farcical exercise since all their cases are on appeal and the judgment is really made off a written record and submitted briefs. Also, he’s complained in the past that this is an especially “chatty” Court compared to previous ones.

I saw that on C-Span. Totally worth watching. They get into an almost fight over the meaning of tyranny, and the guy on the right trots out a batshit insane theory about how this case got to court. It involves the NRA, radical Libertarians, and some other stuff that I wasn’t able to concentrate on because I was laughing my spleen out. The others at the table just stare at him, and then they’re like “no, not at all.”

And get this, his name is Carl Bogus.

Payton is the sane one at the table, even if he is in favor of control, and he and Kopel have several fantastic interchanges. The Bogus guy is just there as comic relief, as far as I can tell.

C-span has the clip up, but it’s not even worth posting because it’s so horrible. It’s real audio and it repeatedly cuts out (tried on two different computers, a PC and a Mac, on two very different networks, so it’s not me)

Better off reading the transcript: here

…the guy on the right trots out a batshit insane theory about how this case got to court. It involves the NRA, radical Libertarians, and some other stuff that I wasn’t able to concentrate on because I was laughing my spleen out.

He’s partly telling the truth, about the NRA not wanting this to go to court… They seem to have been very shy about bringing gun cases to court, lately.

“There are enough handguns on our streets”

~ Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty

I think the reasonableness standard of the handgun laws in the District, which are not completely banned, because there is licensed handguns in the District of Columbia for law enforcement, retired law enforcement, federal law enforcement, security agencies. So, there is not a complete ban on handguns.

~ Washington DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier

lulz.

How would you react if Thomas stated that he never looked at the briefs?

Oral Arguments may not be the most important part of the process, but they are still part of the process. They should be respected. No judge who showed this disrespect for the system would ever become a Supreme Court Justice. Life tenure for judges and justices is undeniably a good thing, on balance, but this is an abuse of that privilege. Thomas is effectivley delcaring that he doesn’t believe in the system that he’s at the very top of.

Audio is up, and actually listenable (I guess the server was just overloaded). Real audio. :(
rtsp://video.c-span.org/archive/sc/sc031808_2amendment.rm

I predict 6-3 decision for Heller with strict scrutiny granted.