Population: One

Via How Appealing: the Ninth Circuit today concluded that the Second Amendment confers no individual right to own and carry arms. (That link is a PDF.) I recommend reading the opinion if you’re interested in such things. I suspect the language and arguments presented therein will be core to the gun control debate for some time, at least for those who are pro-gun control.

The argument seems to rest on the meaning of the phrase “keep and bear arms.” Judge Reinhardt’s opinion states that “bear arms” is a phrase used, historically, only in a military context. Quoting Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. (2 Humph.) 154 (1840): “A man in pursuit of deer, elk and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms.” Given that interpretation, he further reasons that the phrase would be nonsensical if the phrase “keep arms” had a wider interpretation than the phrase “bear arms.”

I am brutally summarizing this, and I am not a lawyer. I really do recommend reading it if you intend to mention the ruling in polite company, or even form opinions on it for yourself.

Here’s a sort of a counter argument. He doesn’t include any actual reasoning beyond a list of cases which he claims contradict the Ninth Circuit decision. The first one cited is the same decision I quoted above; I think that he might have done well to at least explain why the decision supports him and not the Ninth Circuit. Naked argument by reference is so medieval. I am hoping to see more and better disagreement soon.

Glenn Reynolds links to an article of his which discusses the problems with the general class of argument made by the Ninth Circuit, which seems to be worth reading. It doesn’t really address the decision, though. Note in particular page 30 of the decision, which postulates a sort of feudalistic state militia system in which the armies of the states are subject to federal control. This counters Reynolds’ line of argument, which requires the state militias to be protection against a tyrannical federal government. (A pity. I’m sympathetic to that line of argument.)

The White House has approved executing US citizens as a matter of policy, as long as they’re working for Al Qaeda.

Well, that’s interesting.

The spin is that any such action will wait for Presidential approval. However, the White House is not saying that it must wait for Presidential approval — just that in practice it will. The underlying assumption is that the President has the right to authorize executions without court approval, under certain conditions.

I don’t think this works. The justification is that Al Qaeda acts against American interests. There are plenty of NGOs that act against American interests. If Amnesty Internation convinces Britain to pressure the US on human rights issues, they’d be acting against American interests. By this precedent, the President would have the right to authorize executions of American members of Amnesty International.

Previously, such authorization has been reserved for cases where the American citizen is directly threatening the lives of other Americans or their allies. I.e., yes, on the battlefield you don’t have to double check with a judge and jury. This goes somewhat outside that scope.

It’s certainly true that the situation we’re in as a nation is different than any we’ve been in before. We need new rules, as I’ve noted before. However, this one fails the sniff test.

The UN weapons inspectors found their first irregularity today; a bunch of equipment tagged by previous inspectors has gone missing.

This is important for a few reasons. First off, it’s evidence that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the efforts of previous inspection teams. This counters the claim that previous UN inspectors were useless or worse than useless. Second, it’s evidence that the current UN inspection teams are capable of noticing something wrong and that they aren’t tipping the Iraqis off before the inspections. These guys aren’t a rubber stamp for Saddam. Third, and probably most important, it’s evidence that Saddam is up to something. Having positive evidence one way or another — which we don’t yet, but it’s a step in that direction — beats the hell out of maybes. I’m still anti-war but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the situation to be crystal clear no matter which way the US goes.

Once again by way of Instapundit, we bring you James Lileks on politics. This time he’s talking about the inevitable decline and fall of Europe. I don’t really have a lot of debunking to do here; I just wanted to point out the vast irony inherent in this sentence:

“Like a religion unhinged, it is desperately intense, gripped with eschatological certainties and devoted to an unswerving belief in a caricature that bears little resemblance to the actual nature of its enemy.”

The links are, of course, mine.