Parker: Almost the Perfect Test Case?
Clayton Cramer notes that Parker is about as good as it gets for a test case:
4. Unlike many of the right to keep and bear arms cases that have worked their way up through the courts over the years, where the defendant is a criminal of some sort, or at least an unsympathetic character, such as Dr. Emerson in USA v. Emerson (5th Cir. 2001), we have squeaky clean plaintiffs on this case, so the Court doesn’t have to worry about releasing a criminal if they make the right decision.
5. Rather than directly challenging the bearing of arms, or the right to own some rather unusual or exotic weapon, this case involves the right to have a loaded and functional handgun in your home for self-defense. This is about as much of a no-brainer as there can be for the courts. While the decision doesn’t directly challenge the constitutionality of a handgun registration law, it does make it clear that the current DC strategy of prohibiting new registrations for handguns is unconstitutional.
Via Les, who I’d also like to strangle for giving me an ear worm.
March 14th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Heh. Did you know Sasha Baron Cohen, AKA Borat, did the “You got to move it move it” voice in Madagascar? That was a shocker to me.
March 14th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Parker contains some great scholarship on 2A, and I agree with Clayton Cramer that it is a good case to go up to SCOTUS.
I didn’t like the gratuitous dicta (i.e. comments that are not part of the ruling itself) re gun registration.
March 14th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Have you seen the writeup in Reason today? The drive-by commentors have not called me a Nazi, yet 🙂
March 14th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Hah! I love when the crazies come to Reason.