Justice Stevens’ Unimpressive Dissent
Here are a couple priceless quotes from Justice Stevens' dissenting Heller opinion.
"The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to
elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons…"
"There is no indication that the Framers of the [Second] Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the constitution."
There are many topics in history where there is ample room for honest disagreement and differing conclusions. Folks, this isn't one. We don't need to interpret or infer what the Founders thought of guns, self-defense and restrictions on guns because they were explicit about it. To the extent that they did not want to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense into the constitution it is only because they wanted to expand the protections of the right not restrict them.
Here are a few examples from the Founders.
| "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." |
| Thomas Jefferson, quoting 18th Century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764.) |
| "Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion… in private self defence." |
| John Adams in A Defense of the U.S. Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88.) |
| "Do you wish to preserve your rights? Arm yourselves - Do you desire to secure your dwellings? Arm yourselves - Do you wish to see your wives and daughters protected - Arm yourselves." |
| Tench Coxe |
| "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." |
| Samuel Adams, during Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution Ratification Convention, (1788.) |
| "The Constitution should never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." |
| Samuel Adams |
I think you get the idea. I can draw no conclusion other than either Justice Stevens is unqualified to write on the topic by virtue of having an inadequate knowledge of history or he is, to put it bluntly, lying.