Louisianans will be voting on a strengthened Right to Keep and Bear Arms ballot measure this November. Needless to say if we lost on this, it would be a minor disaster, so if you know people there, or live there, help spread the word. This is also meant to send a strong message to the courts about how the people expect their rights to be treated. Practically every court has called for intermediate scrutiny for the Second Amendment, rather than strict, because it allows them to do the kind of interest balancing that should not happen with a fundamental constitutional right.
4 thoughts on “The Ultimate Poll on the Second Amendment”
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Not that I oppose the spirit of this ballot measure at all, but I smell its motive being more to get voters who are expected to vote Republican, to the polls, than to do a damn thing for the Second Amendment.
I know the cliche’s about the SCOTUS “watching election outcomes to learn what the constitution means” but I also think some of the justices (and potential justices) understand that their job includes putting a damper on the passions of the majority; so if they put their personal ideologies aside to be influenced by the outcome of a ballot initiative, I would be a bit surprised — whether I agreed with their ideologies or not.
Just thinking aloud — as often.
Ummm, you do realize this is to amend the Louisiana state constitution. And Louisiana is the most exceptional of US states, especially when it comes to law, it’s not based on English common law.
While I can’t see it hurting Federal 2nd Amendment jurisprudence, the real action is at the level of a state … which is important, since much if not most of what’s relevant to us happens at the state level.
Yes, I see that, and I didn’t mean to suggest in any way that I would oppose it.
However, having zero love for either of our political parties, that doesn’t stop me from seeing an entirely self-serving, short-term motive behind everything they do, and any benefit that accrues to the people as being strictly accidental, and possibly even a mistake on their part.
They probably could have gotten people to the polls with a gun rights amendment that was far weaker and gave them a lot more wiggle-room in the future. I guess our job is to try to steer them into more such blunders.
More like “Let’s call it intermediate scrutiny and proceed with rational basis…”