If you’re an L.A. Times editorial board member, it’s probably the part between the quotation marks.
You know that a reading comprehension problem is about to rear its ugly head when an editorial begins by trying to re-argue an old case. It’s one thing if time has passed and we see that case in a new light; like the Miller case, for example. It’s quite another when you’re merely banging your shoe on the table and rehashing the losing argument. Speaking slowly and loudly won’t make you understood to a Supreme Court justice either. That’s where this editorial regarding the Peruta decision starts.
Even if you accept the notion that the 2nd Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms — a proposition we wish the Supreme Court had rejected — states should be able to place reasonable restrictions on that right in the interests of public safety.
But then it gets better. Since speaking slowly and loudly seemed to have little effect, The Times moved on to simply misstating the Court’s Heller and McDonald decisions. In Heller, Justice Scalia writes for the majority that gun ownership is protected in the home, at a minimum. The DC law invalidated in Heller failed Constitutional muster because it violated the 2nd Amendment even in this most narrow interpretation of the right. The Court was in no way asserting that the 2nd Amendment was limited to the home; no more than they would assert that the 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Religion is limited to church property or that Freedom of the Press is limited to libraries.
But I guess it’s a little hard for the Times editorial board to actually read the rulings in question when they’re wailing like hungry zombies.
