In their amazing wisdom, the founding fathers of our great nation understood the dangers of allowing too much power to be gained by a single entity. They had seen first-hand what life was like under a dictator (a long line of British kings and queens), and they were determined to avoid even the possibility of their new country ever slipping beneath the iron fist of one. To that end, they developed a form of government where the power is shared equally among three entities: The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.
The Congress (the Legislative branch) writes laws which govern how we live our lives, and the role of the Supreme Court (the Judicial branch) is to make sure those laws don’t violate any of the provisions of the Constitution. If they do, they strike them down. It’s then up to Congress to either rewrite the law to conform to the Constitution or propose a Constitutional Amendment which, if passed via the process set up to do so, would change the Constitution itself to make the proposed law “legal”.
The President (Executive branch) has a role in enacting or striking down laws as well. He can either sign a Congressional bill into law if he thinks it’s a good idea, or he can veto it if he doesn’t. But a veto isn’t the end of the road for a bill. Congress can (and often does) vote to override a President’s veto, making a bill become the law of the land even if the President doesn’t like it.
This system of government guarantees a “balance of power” under which no branch can take it upon itself to run the country as it sees fit by ignoring the will of the people and/or the other two branches. There are hard to achieve, but realistic provisions in place to override the decisions made by all three branches of government. The same “balance of power” structure exists at the state level as well, and laws enacted by the state legislatures can be struck down or affirmed by the state’s judiciary, and/or ultimately by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd Amendment does in fact guarantee the rights of individuals (and not just militias) to bear arms has the liberals among us so upset that they are actually expressing an open desire for the Supreme Court to overstep it bounds and “make law” when they have no Constitutional authority to do so (that authority belongs exclusively to the Legislative branch).
Check out these statements made by a couple of ill-informed, yet very prominent Mayors:
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley: “It’s a very frightening decision. We believe every mayor will be outraged by this.”
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom: “This ruling just flies in the face of reality. You just wish the Supreme Court could spend a week in public housing and then come out with this decision. It’s very easy and comfortable to stand there with security guards and metal detectors and make these decisions.”
No, Your Honor. This ruling is exactly what was called for under the Constitution which you have taken an oath to honor and uphold. So you don’t like the 2nd Amendment? That’s fine, because you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. You and your like-minded counterparts are perfectly free to do whatever you can to seek a Constitutional Amendment which would negate the second one.
You are NOT free however to expect the Supreme Court to circumvent that process by legislating from the bench and rendering our most precious government document meaningless. There is a well-defined process available for changing any perceived wrongs in the U.S. Constitution, and it has already been used successfully 27 times. Within certain limitations, individual citizens clearly have a Constitutionally guaranteed right to own and use a firearm in their own defense, and unless and until that hallowed document is amended to change that you’ll just have to deal with it.
When it comes to our Constitution and the validity thereof, there is absolutely no perceived wrong egregious enough to warrant circumventing the process that has been set in place to amend it when required. Otherwise, we’ll quickly find ourselves headed down that slippery slope towards a dictatorship.
The problem with all of this lies on the next President. Depending on who gets in we could have huge battles on this decision.
What you said about the process of the government is spot on, the problem is when you give all three houses to one party. Then there really is no checks and balances. The American people do not realize this either.
I agree about the battles. In fact, they have already begun. But the battles will now be about the limitations on gun ownership, not whether the Constitution guarantees the rights of individuals to own them at all.