That sound you hear is the Brady Bunch bleating
At the San Francisco Chronicle of all places comes a reasoned discussion of Alito’s dissent in the machine gun case (the first reasonable discussion I’ve seen in the media, anyway):
In a lone dissenting opinion as a federal appeals court judge in 1996, Alito argued that the federal ban on possessing machine guns was unconstitutional — a stand described by both admirers and detractors Tuesday as one of the most revealing cases in the lengthy judicial record of President Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“He understands the original design of the Constitution as being one of limited government,” said Roger Pilon, director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. In his opinion, Alito said the federal ban on possessing machine guns exceeded Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce, but a majority of his court disagreed, and the Supreme Court denied review. He took no position on whether the Constitution protects an individual’s right to possess firearms.
Pilon said the case showed Alito’s recognition that Congress’ constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce is not a license “to regulate anything and everything.”
Reasonable until the Bradies get their turn:
But Dennis Henigan, legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the opinion is “perhaps the most powerful evidence that Judge Alito is very much a right-wing judicial activist” willing to disregard congressional judgment.
When asked if he’d ever heard of checks and balances, Mr. Henigan replied: Those are gun parts, right? You right-wing, militant whacko!
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:21 pm
This article is a bit less “reasonable” than you give it credit for. First, it repeats the “lone dissenting” canard I pointed out yesterday: when you’re dealing with a 3 judge panel, all dissents are “lone” dissents, by definition. Second, and more importantly, it falsely claims that 18 U.S.C. 922(o) “has been upheld by every federal court that has considered it,” when in fact, Frisco’s own Ninth Circuit struck that law down 2-1 in USA v. Stewart two years ago.
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:27 pm
True. I guess I was surprised that the paper pointed out it was a commerce clause issue and not a ‘machine gun sammy’ issue.
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:35 pm
But I like Machine Gun Sammy. When a group of me and my colleagues carpool to lunch, others call “shotgun” but I usually call “assault rifle” or “M-1 Garand.” That schtick was starting to grow a bit old until earlier this week, when I called “Sam Alito’s machine gun.”
November 6th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
Machine Gun Sammy
Bob Egelko of the S.F. Chronicle spins the Samuel Alito dissent in U.S. v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273 (3d Cir….