Is the upcoming firearm case lose-lose?

[disorderlyvision]

If they rule in favor of chicago, they are ruling against the right to bear arms

if they rule in favor of gun rights, they are saying that federal law supercedes state laws.

maybe I am missing something

[Pericles]

I'm going to go through this in more detail elsewhere, but a key question is the federal governemnt a creation of the states or of the people? I suggest the answer to this question is important in how we view inalienable rights.

If the federal government is a creation of the states, then the constitutional rights the SCOTUS can protect is limited to protection from intrusion by the federal government, as the constitution is a contract between the states delegating state powers to the federal government.

If the federal government is a creation of "We the people", then the Constitution is the supreme law of the land as stated in Article VI and every judge in every state is bound thereby, anything in any state law or constitution notwithstanding. The rights of the people are to be safeguarded at the federal level should a state attempt to infringe on the rights of the people. Otherwise, the only check of a state usurpation of a right is via the people of that state in the form of the militia, which being controlled by that state ......

One of the areas in which we have gone off track, is the notion that society (in the form of government) somehow acquires rights that can take precedence over the rights of an individual. The consequences of the "socialist" movement of the early 20th Century.

[Bradley in DC]

If they rule in favor of chicago, they are ruling against the right to bear arms

if they rule in favor of gun rights, they are saying that federal law supercedes state laws.

maybe I am missing something

You're a real glass half-full kinda guy, aren't you? :D

[fisharmor]

Like it or not, the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land. That fact is unalterable. Even people who wipe their asses with it still appeal to its authority when making their statist anti-liberty decisions about things like how much water we can flush down the toilet.

The constitution also has a fundamental flaw with it. There is a group of people, currently numbering nine, who have ultimate authority over what the constitution says. Moreover, since the war of 1861-5, there has not been any recourse if one does not agree that the current "interpretation" of the constitution is the direct opposite of the plain English the founders used.

That is the wider problem. Gun rights are just a casualty to that.

Yes, it is a lose-lose situation, but not in terms of gun rights. It's lose if they rule for guns, because the decision will not be unanimous, because some people are willing to ignore the plain meaning of English words in order to push an agenda.

It's lose if they rule against guns, obviously, but its a bigger loss, because that means that over half of our professional English-readers can't read English.