Too bad for Senator “Moran” Bunning and all his friends at the NRA. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is not only still alive and kicking after surgery for pancreatic cancer, but she actually penned an opinion regarding gun control which convinced all but two of her Republican appointed colleagues to agree with her that people who abuse their spouses lose the right to own firearms:
The Supreme Court yesterday affirmed federal efforts to bar those convicted of crimes involving domestic violence from owning guns.
It was the court’s first decision concerning gun rights since last year’s landmark decision recognizing an individual’s Second Amendment right to own a firearm. But the 7 to 2 decision authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg contained nary a word about Heller v. District of Columbia, which struck down Washington’s ban on handguns. […]
The question was whether gun ownership was barred because someone had been convicted of a generic law against the use of force, or whether the law in question must specifically have as an element that the victim was in a domestic relationship with the aggressor.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said it was the latter. It threw out the conviction of Randy Edward Hayes, who had been convicted of battery on his then-wife in 1994. Ten years later, police responding to a domestic violence call about Hayes and his girlfriend found firearms in the home and indicted Hayes.
Hayes said that the 1994 battery conviction did not trigger the federal ban on firearms, because it was not specifically on the charge of domestic violence.
But nine other circuits around the country had read the law the other way, and Ginsburg said they were right. Fewer than half the states have laws that specifically denominate domestic violence as an element of a crime.
Only Scalia and Chief Justice Roberts dissented. I guess they don’t mind if wife beaters can buy guns with which to threaten and/or murder their battered spouses and children. Way to show those family values, guys. Even Alito and Thomas, your fellow travelers on the right, don’t buy the argument that the second amendment is so unlimited it grants individuals with a known history of violence the right to bear arms (and please, dear commenters. no jokes about hairy armed men). Hell, even you guys didn’t try to argue that the Second Amendment is unlimited in scope (though I’m sure you would if you could find three other justices to agree with you).
Remember when McCain said he wanted to appoint more justices to the Supreme Court like Scalia? Well, thank god he is never going to get the chance now. And God bless Ruth Bader Ginsberg. May she live long and prosper, to quote a certain fictional alien humanoid species.
