Yeah, I'm a Militia

The latest term of the US Supreme Court ended Thursday. We're not in a labor camp yet. Let's all share in a collective sigh of relief.

Talk like that often gets me pegged as an extreme liberal, as if conservatives all welcome being sent to labor camps. That's not how it works. A conservative is someone who doesn't mind if YOU are sent to a labor camp. What part of my editorial "We" didn't we understand?

I'm actually so far right I look left because the Universe is curved.

A good issue with which to illustrate my point is the gun control thing. Until last week I was in favor of gun control because I can't get a gun. If I can't get one, I don't want anyone else to have one. This is a deeply conservative view that has been around since the beginning of history. If I don't have a club, you can't have one. If I have one, mine has to be bigger.

In my case the reason I don't have a gun isn't because the state forbids me, but because the economy forbids me. This brings us to Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963. In that case an earlier Supreme Court decided full-out-freaking unanimously that poor people like Clarence Earl Gideon [mugshot left] (who'd been convicted of burglary) were entitled to court appointed lawyers at state expense, forcing Florida to retry Mr. Gideon, which retrial resulted in an acquittal. All of which was based on the 6th Amendment (4 amendments AFTER the 2nd, so only a third as important) which says, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." The justices acknowledged unanimously that a right to something that's denied because you can't afford it is a right not enjoyed.

How would that work if the problem had been that Mrs. Gideon couldn't afford a Glock? Let's say Mrs. Gideon was heading home from the sweatshop at 11 PM and a guy jumped her and stole her last buck fifty for a ride on Metro. But the 2nd Amendment says, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In The District of Columbia v. Heller, last Thursday, the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia pontificating, said that the framers of the 2nd Amendment meant that all the Mrs. Gideons should have the right to guns.

[Above right: See the baby Glock! Is'ms the cutest widdle baby Glock ever? Yes'ms is!]

That's great, but what good does that do Mrs. Gideon, when the cheapest gun in the pawn shop is over a hundred dollars, and it explodes in your hand when you fire it? The answer is, we now need a Mrs. Gideon v. So-And-So in which the Supreme Court would again acknowledge, hopefully as unanimously as before, that a right denied economically is a right denied, period, and order the states to pass out firearms to all us poor people, at state expense. For the sake of American Freedom!

I trust that, when this issue does make it to the Supreme Court, that the conservative justices especially will rule my way, crediting me with being a bigger conservative son of a bitch than they are.

Make mine an Uzi, I can't aim.

Exercises for the Motivated Reader

1. Take any weird conservative ruling of the Supreme Court, such as, say Hudson v. Michigan, 2006, wherein they decided that if cops broke the law and invaded your house without announcing themselves, "It's all good." Think of at least one way that someone light-years to the right of the Roberts Supreme Court might have said, "No it's not." (Hint: His middle name is Not-My-House and his last name is Wesson.)

2. Commentators on Garcetti v. Ceballos, also 2006, in which the Supremes ruled that public employees could be muzzled, have called it a conservative decision. Explain in 200 words or less what value or principle was conserved. Good luck.

3. If you completed exercise 2, and you're a government employee, turn yourself in to the authorities at once.