Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Is Strict Scrutiny Really a Trojan Horse to Defeat the RKBA?

I'm no lawyer, but I think I'm with Backwoods Engineer on this one.

5 comments:

Backwoods Engineer said...

Thanks for linking, and adding your opinion, Mike. I'm no lawyer either--just a backwoods electronics engineer-- but I think I've read and understood enough of this to know that in our present legal system, which is full of anti-gun lawyers and judges created in anti-gun law schools, this is one method of reining them in.

I am still trying to formulate a rebuttal to the question, "What if the judges don't like being told to use strict scrutiny? Wouldn't they use it to take our rights"? My immediate answer, "I don't think so" doesn't satisfy even me.

Anonymous said...

Well, Scalia is on record saying that "levels of scrutiny" are poor jurisprudence to begin with. But as 2A advocates, if there is to be a level of scrutiny applied (and currently that is almost always going to be the case) we want strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny places the burden of proof squarely on the government that a law has an *essential* purpose that can be served *no other way*, otherwise it fails. The only other legal analysis that we should seek is "historical-categorical", which is going to be tougher to get in most cases.

The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit said...

I am a lawyer and I'm in agreement with him. :)

Anonymous said...

I'm with Francis X. Porretto (see his
comment at Backwoods Engineer's blog.

Anonymous said...

We don't need to rely on laws, legal philosophy, or any other words on paper for the protection of our gun rights. All we need are our guns, our ammo, our brains, and our balls. That applies to the defense of all other rights as well.