My father was both a criminal defense and civil trial lawyer. He graduated No. 1 in his law class of 1963 and in his prime could hang with the best. I thought about becoming a lawyer even clerked somewhat for my dad when I was in high school, but decided to pursue another path when I finished my undergrad degrees. It worked out well for me, but in essence, I was raised by a man who told me bedtime stories on how to conduct voir dire or how to handle a hostile witness on cross examination. Or how to win over a jury or kiss up to a judge or when to plea bargain a sentence. All those things. So, even though I didn’t attend law school in body, I did in essence graduate from the Robert A. Jackson School of Law.
I find myself thinking about my father this morning because he hated Antonin Scalia’s writings for the most part. For those who don’t read the law, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was not a friend of criminal defense trial lawyers.
So, while the far right claims Scalia was/is their godlike constitutional defender of the 2nd Amendment, here’s what Scalia actually wrote in District of Columbia vs. Heller:
“Like most rights, the right served by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. It is… not a right to keep and carry any weapon in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
So there it was/is from the mouth of the most conservative member of the Court and a Ronald Reagan appointee at that. How simple can it be? Reagan himself was shot his first year in office in office and would be nodding his head in agreement with everything I just wrote on this post. But like I wrote last night, we are in unchartered waters as far as waters as far as whoredom. We truly are.