For a choice example of how Hillary Clinton tacks to the left instead of the center, feature her remarks last night in respect of the Second Amendment. It has been called by two of America’s greatest jurists — St. George Tucker and Jos. Story — the “palladium” of our liberties. Chris Wallace, by far the best debate moderator in this campaign, asked Secretary Clinton about it, quoting her as saying only last year: “‘The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment.’” He added: “And now, in fact, in the 2008 Heller case the court ruled that there is a constitutional right to bear arms, but a right that is reasonably limited.”
What Mrs. Clinton could have said — and would have if she had an instinct for the center — is this: “Heller is settled law.” She could have marked that what Heller did was establish that the Second Amendment right, to keep and bear arms, is a right that inheres not merely in the “well-regulated militia” but in the people. It was based not only on a plain reading of the parchment that is the supreme law of the land but also on another body of law, the laws of grammar. The District of Columbia Circuit and the Supreme Court made a point of this.
Where the Second Amendment says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” the grammar is clear. The militia may be the motive, but it is not a restriction, and, in any event, it is in the people that the right inheres. Heller came up in the confirmation hearing for no less liberal a justice than Elena Kagan. It was raised by that most liberal of Democratic senators, Patrick Leahy. He supported Heller. And so did Justice-to-be Kagan. She called it “binding precedent” and “settled law.”
by The New York Sun
