Jeez, Hugh and Tom, both of you take a chill pill!
Sorry if my dry sense of humor wasn't coming through there. My debate with Hugh has certainly put me to work and got me thinking, but we're just not seeing eye-to-eye on this. Pillow fight at dawn to settle things, perhaps?
Maybe someone should answer Publius' question about whether the court may overturn Slaughterhouse.
They will likely feel obliged to--that's the only sane outcome. If they don't, it'll take some very creative wrangling to read
around it.
I 4 1 am far more interested in what effect the Court's decision will have on the 14th Amendment and state/local gun control laws than what the drafters of the amendment were thinking, whether they were sober, or misused the word "immunity."
They were sober men and true, and attentive to their duty. As for the effects, we'll have to wait and see. Individual restrictions will have to be weighed in the courts, and the process will take years, if not decades. As with Heller, don't expect anything to change overnight.
If you have time, download the oral arguments from the 7th Circuit hearings. Judge Easterbrook is charming and witty as always. Chicago counsel Solomon mentioned that there will likely have to be a new standard of review and scrutiny if P&I incorporation becomes the standard. Easterbrook admonished Solomon for falling back on "tired slogans" about social policy, but he warned that unfettered incorporation would mean that even Chicago's system for issuing parking tickets would come under 7th Amendment scrutiny.
Obviously, there will have to be some middle ground, but the net result will be a standard of very strict scrutiny, meaning it'll be very hard to justify present or future infringements.
Gang,
we're getting there, and fast.
I have a feeling that on the one side, will be the strange bedfellows of gun-rights, coupled with all manner of classical liberal thinking while on Chicago's side, will be the statists.
There won't be many of the latter. Notice the relative dearth of hysteria we're hearing on this compared to the caterwauling we heard regarding
Heller. The Left can fight a
gun case, but they'll have a harder time fighting a
civil rights case, especially one that stands to help some of their agendas as well.
Remember, for the cost of one gun rights lawsuit, you get guarantees of the rights to jury trial, grand jury, and protection from excessive fines and bails at no extra charge!
Some will claim to hold their noses at "the gun part," but will come aboard, while others will jump in feet first. We'll have a few "academics" quoting Fairman and Berger (and do please research those!), but they'll be on the fringes of what is one heck of a consensus-building debate.
This is what we call a serious, historical reaching-across-the-divide moment. We could gain a whole new swath of shooters and allies from some truly unexpected quarters.
And when our new friends come around, by all means, be accepting, be kind, and be patient!