Something popped out at me at one point while reading lower (appellate court) arguments in a couple of other cases.
Often times a statement is made in a brief that seems all-too-innocious, such as D.C. here claiming a legislative finding that handguns have no legitimate purpose in the totally urban D.C. but it doesn't stop people from exercising their right to own long guns. In a number of cases, courts have asked some embarrassingly simple, yet fundamental, questions about government decisions. In the D.C. case they say residents can keep long guns for legitimate recreational purposes... expect at least one justice to ask where in D.C. a resident can engage in sport or target shooting. Or to take the opposite tack and ask D.C. counsel Why stop at handguns? If the ban worked, wouldn't criminals then turn to (sawed off) long guns instead? What justification was there to allow long guns? And sometimes the explanation reveals the flaws in their own logic.
publius42 - what I find amusing (and I hope at least one of the justices points this out) is that the constitution was written by men who were highly educated (even by our standards today). But if you read the constitution, it is almost unquestionably written so that any person who can read may understand the meaning of the document. Yet lawyers and others will attempt to parse out several different and distinct meanings of words like "The People" or "right" to torture and twist the grammatical simplicity with which the document is written.
Torturing "themselves" in the PA constitution as meaning "villiagers" or a collection of people but not individuals could be argued, but makes as much sense as saying the right of the people peaceably to assemble only means groups of people, not individuals. (huh?)
Often times a statement is made in a brief that seems all-too-innocious, such as D.C. here claiming a legislative finding that handguns have no legitimate purpose in the totally urban D.C. but it doesn't stop people from exercising their right to own long guns. In a number of cases, courts have asked some embarrassingly simple, yet fundamental, questions about government decisions. In the D.C. case they say residents can keep long guns for legitimate recreational purposes... expect at least one justice to ask where in D.C. a resident can engage in sport or target shooting. Or to take the opposite tack and ask D.C. counsel Why stop at handguns? If the ban worked, wouldn't criminals then turn to (sawed off) long guns instead? What justification was there to allow long guns? And sometimes the explanation reveals the flaws in their own logic.
publius42 - what I find amusing (and I hope at least one of the justices points this out) is that the constitution was written by men who were highly educated (even by our standards today). But if you read the constitution, it is almost unquestionably written so that any person who can read may understand the meaning of the document. Yet lawyers and others will attempt to parse out several different and distinct meanings of words like "The People" or "right" to torture and twist the grammatical simplicity with which the document is written.
Torturing "themselves" in the PA constitution as meaning "villiagers" or a collection of people but not individuals could be argued, but makes as much sense as saying the right of the people peaceably to assemble only means groups of people, not individuals. (huh?)