Liberals who defend gun rights ... - Democratic Underground

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Sun Mar-28-10 01:44 PM
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Liberals who defend gun rights ...

Claudette Ortiz: The case of liberals who defend gun rights ...

Because of a Supreme Court argument, McDonald vs. Chicago, the liberals who defend gun rights are coming out of the woodwork. The Supreme Court is expected to rule before June on the case that decides whether or not state and local ordinances violate the Second Amendment.

It should be no surprise that there are liberals who see gun rights as part and parcel of their individual rights, and going hand-in-hand with abortion rights, gay rights and civil rights. Bodily autonomy is important to liberals.

The liberal view is, if a woman looks in her empty pantry and knows without a doubt that she and her husband cannot feed another child, the choice is hers because it is her body and her family. Likewise, what a body does in his own bedroom is his own business. So why wouldn't any person big on bodily autonomy also support the gun rights that protect that body and the bodies of his or her family?

Liberals in the West are more used to having a gun around. There is a healthy respect for its power. There are safety courses to pass in order to hunt, just like there are tests for driver's licenses in order to drive. Having gun racks and gun cabinets in the house is like having a car in the driveway and a swimming pool in the backyard. Anyone afraid of gun cabinets should be petrified of the car in the driveway and the water in the pool. They are all deadly if combined with liquor or neglect or homicidal tendencies. The more power we hold, the more responsibility we hold. Karate teachers don't teach hot-heads for the same reason; its discipline is as important as its power.

For families in the West, conservative and liberal alike, most of the guns are simply collected for interest and value. Then there are the hunting rifles to clean and care for. If there is a gun carried as an instrument for protection, it is nothing to dwell upon anymore than wearing boots in high grass. It has its practical aspect, but it isn't the reason for the trip, any more than the chance to get bit by a snake is the reason for walking around in high grass.

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Rather than seeing gun rights through the narrow interpretation of a militia's right to bear arms, the brief filed by the Constitutional Accountability Center defends individual gun rights in McDonald vs. Chicago. The liberal CAC is beating the NRA drum in the name of bodily autonomy and it's about time. Gun rights are a mechanism to protect a body from attack.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-opinion/ci_14751179

The Unlikely Liberal Case for Gun Rights
Liberals and the NRA have found common cause in a pending supreme court case.

When the constitutional accountability Center launched in 2008, it looked like just another liberal legal-advocacy group, dedicated to "fulfilling the progressive promise of our Constitution's text and history." The causes it has backed run the standard liberal gamut: among other things, the group supports California's efforts to regulate carbon emissions and pushes for "robust due-process protections for immigrant criminal defendants." So if you were told that the CAC had filed an amicus brief in McDonald v. Chicago, a case about gun control to be argued before the Supreme Court this week, you might think it was siding with Chicago, whose restrictions on gun ownership are being challenged.

You would be wrong. For decades, liberals have opposed gun rights on the grounds that the Second Amendment is limited to the establishment of state militias. But some liberal dissenters from this view now say that is too narrow a reading of the Constitution. They contend that it fails to take into account the historical record and contradicts liberals' own reading of the Constitution's protection of individual rights.

The CAC has joined forces with staunch conservatives, including Steven G. Calabresi, cofounder of the Federalist Society, to support expanding individual rights, including gun rights, in the states—inviting the possibility that Chicago's virtual ban on handguns might be overturned. "There is a deeply progressive historical basis for some individual right to bear arms," says Douglas Kendall, the CAC's founder.

This is still far from the standard liberal view. But Kendall does have allies. Some sharp liberal legal minds are part of his campaign to reverse and embrace the right to gun ownership. "I believe in an individual right to bear arms, consistent with a living Constitution," says Adam Winkler, a professor of law at UCLA and a frequent participant in the American Constitution Society, the liberal answer to the Federalist Society. Winkler was one of eight scholars, including other prominent liberals, who signed the CAC's brief in the McDonald case.

What is going on here? For much of the nation's history, Kendall and his supporters argue, the right to bear arms was considered essential to citizenship. "Forty-two states in their state constitutions provide protections for the right to bear arms," says Winkler. "It is one of the longest-standing, most deeply entrenched rights in American history."
http://news.malaysia.msn.com/newsweek/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3912129