The 9th Circuit is going to release, soon, its ruling on a lawsuit that involves California’s claim that it can mandate that firearm manufacturers incorporate safety devices into their firearms.
Anthony Hakl, a lawyer for the state, said the gun-rights groups sought to establish a constitutional right to purchase any handgun of one’s choice from whomever one chooses.
“No such right exists,” he wrote in a September brief.
It’s impressive that a highly trained lawyer should make such a statement with a straight face. Alternatively, it’s depressing that our law schools do such a poor job of teaching our Constitution.
Here’s the 2nd Amendment on the matter:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Nothing in there about safety mechanisms, nor is there anything that addresses one way or the other the purchase of any handgun of one’s choice from whomever one chooses.
Here’s the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
There is no power to limit the sources of our Arms delegated to the United States by our Constitution. Even the power to require us to license our Arms is a power merely to require us to know how to use—to be safe—with them. Notice that, too: we have to be safe, not our Arms have to be safe in our stead. Although it’s true enough that a safe weapon helps us be safe with them, it’s our responsibility to be safe, not the responsibility of an inanimate object.
Now, here’s the 9th Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
As noted above, there is no power to limit the sources of our Arms, either delegated or enumerated (a delegation by our ratification). That’s a power retained by the people. That’s a power retained by We the People. The ability to purchase any handgun of one’s choice from whomever we might choose is already long established in our Constitution.
Only a Progressive lawyer would seek to rewrite the Constitution in so blatantly obvious a way.
