Woke up this morning, got myself a gun...
By definition, an activist judge is one who issues a decision that you disagree with.
While I may not disagree with some aspects of the landmark decision in the Supreme Court case of District of Columbia vs. Heller -- I think it was proper to strike down the ban, but went too far in saying the Second Amendment guarantees nearly unrestricted gun ownership -- it was work of activist judges.
In this case, activist judges who disregarded precedent, went beyond the scope of the issue they'd been asked to examine and relied on ideology rather than evidence to reach their decision.
Interesting, the coverage of the ruling seems to be kind of misleading. Much of it reports that this is the first time the Supremes have examined the Second Amendment.
Not true.
The 1939 case of U.S. vs. Miller, about a law banning sawed-off shotguns, set a pretty clear precedent.
The unanimous ruling, written by Justice James Clark McReynolds, said, in part, "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."
The current court -- Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the five-justice majority -- apparently interpreted that to mean that certain kinds of weapons may be banned by the government and that the courts may pick and choose. In this case, handguns are OK. In Miller, sawed-off shotguns weren't.
Anyway, it's an fascinating ruling, even if you have to wade through the thousands of words Scalia uses to define what "arms" entail.
And you citizens of D.C.? Keep you heads down.
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