September 3, 2010

Ron Johnson's Second Amendment fantasies

Candidate Ron Johnson discusses D.C. v. Heller:
The Justices that Senator Feingold has supported are the ones who voted against an individual right [to bear arms].
That's news to all three of those Justices:
In interpreting and applying this Amendment, I take as a starting point the following four propositions, based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I believe the entire Court subscribes:

(1) The Amendment protects an "individual" right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred.
h/t Stephen Breyer (boldface added).

Johnson's claim against Senator Feingold is a false one.

Candidate Johnson again:
The right to bear arms I think of as an absolute right and I'm glad the Supreme Court has finally ruled on that.
Continues Justice Breyer:
(4) The right protected by the Second Amendment is not absolute, but instead is subject to government regulation.
Where on Earth does Ron Johnson come up with this stuff?

One more, always a favorite:
Strict constructionists ... people like Scalia ...
Hold it right there:
Textualism should not be confused with so-called strict constructionism, a degraded form of textualism that brings the whole philosophy into disrepute. I am not a strict constructionist, and no one ought to be—though better that, I suppose, than a nontextualist.
h/t Antonin Scalia.

And finally:
I'm going to be a very strongest defender of the Second Amendment. ... And of course the fear of people that are strongest defenders of the Second Amendment is that the government will use that registration to some point in time possibly confiscate weapons. In my mind there's really no reason for the government to know who has these guns.
Holy Mackerel. Ron Johnson has gone from a fisherman who believes guns should be the business of Department-of-Transportation-style bureaucracies to Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Idaho Militia.

That's not just a flip-flop, that's a geomagnetic reversal.

How the heck to tell this guy from a career politician?

1 comment:

Grant said...

I think what he meant to say was Who you gonna trust? An impotent, limp-wristed, uh, heathen? Or a big, swingin', gun-totin' Johnson?