Quote of the day—Alan Gura

To decide this case, it is enough to acknowledge what has long been established in our legal system: access to fundamental rights does not turn on some official’s whim. No “good and substantial reason” is required to exercise fundamental rights.

History, not social science or debatable notions of public policy, determines whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun. And because history determines that it does, the state lacks any legitimate interest in suppressing the right as an end unto itself. The exercise of constitutional rights simply cannot be against the public interest, and the state cannot satisfy any legitimate interest, however compelling, by voiding a fundamental right and forcing individuals to prove a special need to exercise it.

Alan Gura
July 30, 2012
From the appellees’ brief Raymond Woollard and Second Amendment Foundation, Inc. v. Denis Gallagher, Seymour Goldstein, Charles M. Thomas, Jr., Marcus L. Brown, Terrence Sheridan.
[In other words the question of “need” need not be answered in the case of a specific enumerated right.

I would go further and suggest that raising the question of need implies the asker should be put a watch list for potential past or future violations of 18 USC 241 and/or 242.—Joe]

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One thought on “Quote of the day—Alan Gura

  1. How about “I NEED to hear hoplophobes shriek in terror at the thought of wide-spread gun ownership”

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