BuckeyeBlog

Mike Maurer is right about the fact that follow-up litigation will be necessary to define the scope of the Second Amendment’s individual right to keep and bear arms. While Heller is a landmark case in that it recognizes the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right, it also is fairly limited, at least on its face, in its application. In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia writes that “since this case represents this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field.” In discussing regulations of the right to keep and bear arms that might be permissible, Scalia avoids speculating about them, writing “there will be time enough to expound upon the historical justifications” for such regulations “if and when those exceptions come before us.”

The ban struck down in Heller was a District of Columbia law. Another issue left undecided by Heller is whether the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms against state or local regulations similar to the DC law.

We may get answers to some of these questions sooner, rather than later, as lawsuits are planned challenging gun restrictions in Chicago and San Fransisco.

Suppose you believe in a basic conservative tenet that governments are limited and that responsibility should devolve to the smallest unit of government practicable.

What do you do with those who are not competent to regulate their own behavior?

For the Left, this isn’t really a problem, because they aren’t hampered by a belief that government should be smaller. Indeed, for them, it’s a question of the best tool available, which always happens to be a bigger government that can demand more resources and have the best people in charge of it.

When it comes to personal behavior, the Left wants government to have no role whatever in regulating it if that role smacks of judgment – marriage, sex, obscenity, all are to be let alone. (This non-judgmentalism reverses with evangelical fervor if the conduct is something the Left judges inappropriate – Left-condemned speech, organized sexual restraint, campaign finance, health care finance, campaign finance, weaponry, cigarettes, property use and ownership.)

Of course, unrestricted individual behavior is also a prime goal of the Right, at least the libertarian side of it.

So what do you do when cities start passing laws that criminalize or otherwise punish parents for failing to supervise their children? Maple Heights passed such a law, and a judge threw it out as unconstitutional . Bedford has a similar law, and Cleveland is looking at it.

It’s not an easy question. Society is already well down the road to regulating without limit individual behavior. No smoking laws anyone? How about low-fat diet laws? How about mandatory health care finance? On the one hand, it makes a great deal of sense to consider parents neglectful and responsible for raising little monsters. But what a nightmare, putting government in charge of fixing it.

As the keynote speaker at the Columbus Federalist Leadership School dinner, conservative columnist and best selling author Robert Novak explained the relevance Federalism and how Federalist principles apply to events in today’s Washington D.C.

The event was sponsored by the Buckeye Institute and the Federalist Leadership Center and included a seminar on the Federalist thinking of the nation’s founders.

Mr. Novak also joined Buckeye Institute President David Hansen on Buckeye Voices for a casual discussion about his new book “The Prince of Darkness” and the state of the presidential election in Ohio and nationally.