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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Crock Pot Craziness / Scalia, the Second Amendment, and the Right to Bear Hand-Held Rocket Launchers

Scalia, the Second Amendment, and the Right to Bear Hand-Held Rocket Launchers

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Antonin Scalia is doing a publicity tour for his book or his ego or whatever, and stopped by Fox News Sunday to say some really stupid and dangerous things about how the Second Amendment might limit “frighting” — carrying a huge axe just to scare the shit out of people — but may not limit anything that can be held in your hand — like a rocket launcher.

Yes, that’s right — a fucking rocket launcher:

WALLACE: What about… a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute?

SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons — but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided.

WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?

SCALIA: Very carefully.

[full post here]

Reader Interactions

67Comments

  2. 2.

    Mike G

    Because an axe can’t be carried in your hand. And seeing a person walking around with a man-portable SAM near the airport wouldn’t possibly be frightening to anyone. Or something.

    This is what happens to the right-wing mind as it hurtles toward old-man-yells-at-cloud senility.

  4. 4.

    EconWatcher

    He is losing it. If those quotes are at all fair in context, then he’s commenting on cases he expects to come before the Court, and he’s taking a position to the far right of the NRA. This is not just outspoken, mischievous Scalia. This is an old man who’s lost it.

  5. 5.

    Mart

    WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?

    SCALIA: Very carefully – meaning I will pretend to mull it over, but you know I’m all in.

  6. 6.

    JWL

    “Textualist”: Seer of original intent where no such thing exists; village crackpot; Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

  7. 7.

    YellowJournalism

    Scalia must be hard of hearing. In that last line quoted he thought Wallace was asking how porcupines make love.

  8. 8.

    Kyle

    Truth-o-meter edited:

    WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?

    SCALIA: Very carefully. I made up my mind years ago when I was pissed off one day.

  11. 11.

    Roger Moore

    @Mart:

    SCALIA: Very carefully – meaning I will pretend to mull it over, but you know I’m all in.

    Yeah, he means that he has to prepare a very careful argument to give a patina of rationality to his absolutely crazy ideas. That’s his stock in trade, after all.

  12. 12.

    scav

    NB: if Crooks and Liars is to be believed, this was in close proximity to there being no constitutional right to contraception, of a size to fit in one’s pocket or not. It all depends on exactly the technology that the founding fathers supposedly saw around them at exactly the instant the Constitution was written. (although I think Scalia might be overlooking the whole history of contraception thing — he might have to admit we can have it so long as it’s made from leaves and berries found in the Original 13 Colonies or something.)

  13. 13.

    Frankensteinbeck

    It appears – and I’m being serious here – that ‘textualist’ no longer means ‘originalist’. Instead, it means treating the Constitution as the Literal Word Of The Founders. Each word is pregnant with perfect meaning to be deciphered. If the Constitution says ‘bear’ arms, it must mean actually carrying them.

    Do we have a Sovereign Citizen sitting on the Supreme Court now?

  14. 14.

    aimai

    The colonists were certainly familiar with abortifaciaents and also with contraceptives like sheep intestine condoms and probably sponges soaked in vinegar and other douches and suppositories. So we can haz contraception coverage now?

    aimai

  17. 17.

    PeakVT

    Textualist? That’s a new one. (I’m sure he meant “originalist”. Being a “textualist” with something as vague as the US Constitution wouldn’t turn out very well.)

  19. 19.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Frankensteinbeck: Yet these RWer’s go apeshit if someone on the left calls the Constitution a living document. But if he’s right I want the rocket launcher Rae-Dawn Chong used in Cammando, or the “Old Painless” that Jesse Ventura used in Predator, now that’s home security!

  21. 21.

    catclub

    There was a guy in Seattle’s Capitol Hill around 1985, whocarried a sword around on his back. We called him Conan.

    I would like to find out which restaurants Scalia goes to and go into them carrying a rifle.

  23. 23.

    Sir Nose'D

    Good to know. If I understand this correctly, cannons are out. Biological weapons and chemical weapons are in, as long as they can be wielded. And while the second amendment prohibits me from owning my own ICBMs, my suitcase nukes are a constitutionally-guaranteed freedom. You know–for self-defense!

  24. 24.

    Ira_NY

    Scalia is on the all overrated team.

    Where did Scalia get his reputation for being a brilliant legal scholar?

    The points Scalia makes are laughable.

  25. 25.

    uptown

    He seems to be laying the ground work for a Constitutional Amendment to clear up the issue. I’m sure his friends at the NRA are real happy about that.

  26. 26.

    Misterpuff

    My weapons grade cyborg arm is being fitted right now.

    Cyborg Militia forming up soon.

  27. 27.

    Hob

    “Textualism” would be easier in a language with no homonyms. How are we supposed to know if “keep and bear arms” means 1. carrying guns, 2. giving birth to weapons, or 3. having forelimbs made out of castles and bears?

  28. 28.

    John M. Burt

    “Bear arms” does not just mean “carry”.

    Gentlemen of means kept cannon.

    And since the amendment says right in its text that the right is being protected on behalf of the militia, it’s hard to argue that it only protects civilian weapons. Quite the contrary.

    What we need is more of that “well-regulated” part. Anyone who wants to own a weapon should be required to register it with the local militia and turn out regularly for drill, and accept the necessity to be put on suspension if they are found by their commanding officer to be inadequately trained or inadequately rational.

  30. 30.

    chuck butcher

    Scalia is an idjit – and I say that as someone who has actively supported the 2nd – his opinion in Heller is a POS. I think Heller was correctly decided, but that doesn’t make Scalia less of an asshole or his opinion sensible or even a correct reading of the 2nd.

  31. 31.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Hob:

    What’s not to understand? Every American has the right to hang a pair of bear arms on their wall!

  34. 34.

    Mart

    Being good propagandists they are moving the outrage bar down the road. One hundred round clips on automatic rifles are no big problem, as when you think about it, there really should be no restrictions on rocket launchers.

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    so he gets deep into the weeds on the meaning of “bear”, but the whole “well regulated militia” thing they were just kidding about?

  36. 36.

    Linda Featheringill

    I recommend that we promote Scalia to the position of legal commentator on Fox. With a nice, large salary. And a very secure contract.

    He’d have to resign from the Court, of course.

  37. 37.

    scav

    Course, he might just be setting up the Right to Bare Arms as ultimate protection against the men in white coats trying to wrestle him into the white coat with long sleeves. Off to build a bigger butterfly net then. . .

  38. 38.

    Warren Terra

    @scav:
    There shall be no infringement of the liberties of pocket rockets, just as there shall be none regarding shoulder rockets.

  39. 39.

    red dog

    A member of the SCOTUS can be impeached for many of Scalia’s public proclamations, so lets get to it.

  41. 41.

    Highway Rob

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gun-rights advocates actually have a rationalization that “regulated” meant something different in the founders’ days than it does now. It’s fairly ludicrous, or so I remember from my law school days–my eyes kind of glazed over at that point, especially because I knew it wasn’t going to wind up on the final.

  42. 42.

    Hungry Joe

    Some friends and I were talking the other day about guns. We all said that we’d never been in a situation where we wished we’d had one, except for a guy who said there was one time when he did wish he’d had a gun, and about twenty seconds later he was glad he didn’t.

    Good god, if you think somebody is in your house, make some noise and turn on the lights: “HONEY, DID YOU HEAR SOMETHING?” “I THINK SO. I’LL PUT ON MY ROBE AND SLIPPERS AND GO TAKE A LOOK.” By the time you get out of your bedroom any home invader (although it’s probably the wind or a cat) will be long gone, unless he came in the house specifically to kill you, which never happens, and if it does he’ll probably get you anyway. Meantime countless defenders will have blasted away at walls, cats, drunk neighbors, and who knows how many children.

    Then there’s defending your freedom by opposing a tyrannical government. Yeah, you’re going to fight off the U.S. Army. The same U.S. Army that your kid or nephew or niece is now serving in. Support the troops! … Wait … what?

    I confess to not getting it. The whole gun thing. None of it. I’m clueless, lost.

  43. 43.

    Bill Arnold

    @Sir Nose’D:

    suitcase nukes are a constitutionally-guaranteed freedom

    Carried to the limit, so would be bearing of 50 kilos of antimatter. Or bearing of something nasty and self-replicating, organic or not. etc. How do 2nd-admendment absolutists deal with this sort of hypothetical?

  44. 44.

    West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)

    Doesn’t that guy look like he should be named “Tony the Weasel” and be standing behind Vito Corleone?

  45. 45.

    Brian S

    @Hungry Joe: One of my former professors woke up because he heard something and shot what he thought was an intruder. Turned out to be his mom. In the confusion surrounding his being woken up, he forgot that she was staying with him. She survived, fortunately.

  47. 47.

    RSA

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    So axes are scarier than guns? Someone should tell Jason Voorhees.

    Not only axes, but shurikens, ballistic knives, and sword canes, which are illegal in some states. Someone should tell ninjas and …uh, elderly enforcer types.

  48. 48.

    feebog

    So now I am left wondering about Big Tony’s take on flame throwers. The tank part is carried on your back, but you hold the nozzle. I’m pretty sure that this meets the Scalia “bear arms” test. Of course you might be a little slow in a shootout, but think of what you could do in a crowded theatre.

  49. 49.

    mellowjohn

    i don’t understand. if in fat tony’s originalist interpretation “bear” means things you can carry, why doesn’t it follow that “arms” means single-shot, muzzle-loading black powder muskets?

  51. 51.

    Citizen_X

    Well, whatever else it is you’re supposed to be allowed to carry, I’m fairly certain that Skittles are right out.

  52. 52.

    Mark S.

    I guess the freedom of the press doesn’t apply to Internet publications since, duh, they don’t use printing presses.

    I really Scalia dies soon. I hate that fucker more than Cheney.

  54. 54.

    NCSteve

    Clearly, if I were a white 18th century propertied, possibly slave-owning, man I would totally have expected the 2d Amendment to allow the ownership of a weapon I couldn’t possibly have imagined existing that can shoot down a flying machine I also couldn’t possibly have imagined.

  56. 56.

    thalarctos

    Originalism, in this context, allows muzzle-loading flintlock muskets for all!

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    What if I want to carry around a frickin’ pygmy shark with a frickin’ laser on its head? Does the Second Amendment give that a Thumbs/Fins-Up?

  59. 59.

    Commish

    I actually agree that the 2A was originally meant to apply to military arms. But in the 18th century the primary military arms were unrifled muskets that were so slow loading and inaccurate as to be useless except when massed for volley fire. The peacetime populace had little to fear from a lone Minuteman going postal with his Brown Bess. The technology of repeating weapons has rendered the 2A obsolete, but repeal or amendment is obviously a non-starter. Best we can do is focus on the “well regulated” clause, and on keeping the most dangerous weapons away from criminals and nuts. Also note that if you accept the reading that “bear arms” refers to open carry of military weapons, it should be clear that the 2A says nothing about concealed carry of handguns. The NRA shouldn’t be able to have it both ways.

  60. 60.

    lless

    “Very carefully.” First you start with the reactionary conclusion that you wish to embrace and then you engage in originalist construction to reach that conclusion.

  61. 61.

    Peter John

    According to Scalia a suitcase Abomb would be legal. So would be a canister of nerve gas or a biological agent.

  62. 62.

    Peter John

    To all those worrying that Scalia does not think there is a right to privacy in the Constitution and would gladly outlaw abortion and contraceptive you should also know that Scalia does not believe women have any rights to equal protection under the law because the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee those rights to women. Women may have the right to vote but nothing more.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    @Peter John:

    Look, I hate Scalia as much as the next person, and can’t wait to see him gone, but now you’re just bullshitting. The 14th Amendment uses the wording “any person”, not “any male” nor “any white male”, nor “any person that we deem acceptable.” And I don’t recall Scalia saying “Amendments don’t count, only the original Articles.”

    Or were you just trying to make a joke, and I didn’t get it?

  64. 64.

    Patricia Kayden

    So in Scalia’s mind, anything goes when it comes to guns. Interesting to know. Didn’t know that those who wrote the Constitution anticipated endless rounds of bullets being shot from guns by regular citizens.

  65. 65.

    Full of Woe

    @Highway Rob: I usually hear that “well-regulated” meant “using standardized ammunition sizes” when I bring up the well-regulated argument. My reply is usually, “Even if I accepted your interpretation of well-regulated, I fail to see how what we have now fits either.” I mean, doesn’t that definition imply that we should all own the same type(s) of gun? If I have a pistol and my neighbor has a shotgun, I can’t use her shells in my pistol, can I?

  66. 66.

    Ella in New Mexico

    So what he’s saying is that if I live in Florida, and an airplane with Antonin Scalia on board flies over my house, I can shoot it down with my rocket launcher and get no time under their Stand Your Ground law?

    Nice. :-)

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    I can’t decide if I want Obama to nominate you for SecDef or to the SCOTUS (to fill the vacancy you might create, if you feel Scalia threatened you, etc.)

    Maybe both! Win-Win-Win scenario!

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