Legal News

When Gun Case Is Heard By Supremes, Will Scalia Flip-Flop?

By Amir Efrati

“Of course, properly understood, it is no limitation upon arms control by the states.” — Justice Antonin Scalia, writing in 1997 about the Second Amendment.

Since we declared our affection for McDonald v. Chicago, the big gun rights case that will be heard next month by the Supreme Court, the pre-gaming analysis has continued unabated. (LB background here.)

Today LB colleague Jess Bravin weighs in with his own take on the alliances and buzz surrounding the case, and he’s got a lot to say, particularly about Justice Scalia (pictured) and the above passage the justice wrote in a 1997 book.

In 2008 Scalia wrote the majority opinion in the court’s 5-4 decision to strike down a local handgun ban in Washington D.C., a unique federal enclave. The question in McDonald, which is a challenge to bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill., is whether the ruling applies to states and cities.

In his 1997 book, “A Matter of Interpretation,” Scalia wrote that he viewed “the Second Amendment as a guarantee that the federal government would not interfere with the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Yet, he added, “properly understood, it is no limitation upon arms control by the states.”

Now a claim to the contrary-that the Second Amendment does limit arms control by the states-is being decided.

Does Scalia still believe what he wrote? Through a court spokeswoman, Scalia declined to comment to WSJ.

Meanwhile the case, Bravin writes, has also scrambled traditional alliances.

For example, the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal advocacy group with ties to members of the Obama administration, is urging the justices to strike down the Illinois gun bans. The center says the case allows the court to correct a poor constitutional interpretation from the late 19th century and that establishing a federal right to self-defense could open the door to progressive readings of individual rights in future cases.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 19, 2010 (boomark / email).