A Liberal Case for Gun Rights Helps Sway Judiciary

From The New York Times:

...Several other leading liberal constitutional scholars, notably Akhil Reed Amar at Yale and Sanford Levinson at the University of Texas, are in broad agreement favoring an individual rights interpretation. Their work has in a remarkably short time upended the conventional understanding of the Second Amendment, and it set the stage for the Parker decision.

The earlier consensus, the law professors said in interviews, reflected received wisdom and political preferences rather than a serious consideration of the amendment’s text, history and place in the structure of the Constitution. “The standard liberal position,” Professor Levinson said, “is that the Second Amendment is basically just read out of the Constitution.”

The Second Amendment says, “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.” (Some transcriptions of the amendment omit the last comma.)

If only as a matter of consistency, Professor Levinson continued, liberals who favor expansive interpretations of other amendments in the Bill of Rights, like those protecting free speech and the rights of criminal defendants, should also embrace a broad reading of the Second Amendment. And just as the First Amendment’s protection of the right to free speech is not absolute, the professors say, the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms may be limited by the government, though only for good reason.

I've referred to Sandy Levinson's liberal heresies on this issue previously. The Times has given a new prominence to this debate in the aftermath of Virginia Tech and a controversial and divided appellate court decision. Watch for much more on this issue.

I have not studied the constitutional issue sufficiently to have a considered personal view. While I (of course) deplore gun violence as much as the next effete urban Jew, I have come to doubt the efficacy of incremental reform at the state level, and to despair at the non-likelihood of meaningful legislative action (beyond the symbolic) at the federal level. So I am not among those trashing Democrats for not leading much of a charge post Virginia Tech.