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Even the Chief and Justice Scalia are content to damn gun possession with faint praise

By Douglas A. Berman

I have now read the Supreme Court's work in the Hayes gun possession case, and it confirms my sense that none of the Justices (even those who championed individual Second Amendment rights in Heller)have any interest in giving real force or even serious attention to the constitutional right to gun possession in the home.  Consider first this passage from the majority opinion in Hayes, authored by Justice Ginsburg and joined by Justices Alito and Kennedy: Practical considerations strongly support our [broad interpretation of this federal criminal statute prohibiting gun possession by certain persons].  Existing felon-in-possession laws, Congress recognized, were not keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers, because ?many people who engage in serious spousal or child abuse ultimately are not charged with or convicted of felonies...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 24, 2009 (boomark / email).