ConfirmThem

The majority opinion affirming Heller is by Scalia, the dissent is by Breyer - typical 5-4 split.

SCOTUSBlog now says there are two dissents, but only one majority opinion - Scalia's.

Has he redeemed himself?

He can be so frustrating sometimes.

Thank you President Bush for Roberts and Alito. Bush's victory in 2004 delievered this. If Kerry had won, Rehnquist and O'Connor would have been replaced by liberals and the decision would have gone the other way, a 6-3 that eviscerated the 2nd amendment for the next 50 years at least.

The two dissents are by Stevens and Breyer.

I was surprised when I saw a single dissent.

I expected Breyer to side with individual rights but not set aside all of the restrictions

In today's SJC meeting, Kyl stood up for Keisler by quoting his commendation from the IG's report on the DOJ's hiring program.

Also, Coburn directly asked Leahy if there would be any more circuit court hearings this year. Leahy refused to answer him directly, and said that he would be negotiating the matter with Specter in light of the Thurmond Rule.

In addition, Leahy and Feingold actually said they supported Scalia's Heller opinion.

At the end of the meeting, Specter reemphasized Kyl's previous point about Keisler's commendation in the IG report and specifically asked that Keisler's nomination be brought back up by the committee.

Helveticus - As a justice, Kennedy is beyond redemption. He is nothing more than a legislator wearing a black robe and voting his policy preferences. Sometimes his votes line up with the Constitution, sometimes they don't, but that is pure happenstance.

But in the big picture, he's not as bad as he seems.

In the past few years he's voted to uphold the partial birth abortion ban, to strike the gun ban and affirm the 2nd amendment, to strike campaign finance and overturn McConnell, to strike affirmative action and overturn Grutter, to uphold voter ID laws, to uphold the death penalty and lethal injection, to affirm the federalism and 11th amendment cases, to uphold free exercise claims, and others.

He's not ideal, but he is far better than any of the four liberals.

it's interesting that Scalia was able to hold a full court considering how blistering his opinion was in going after Stevens and Breyer by name. He constantly referred to Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer over and over again, way more than is usually done as if he was out to personally goad them.

In FN 5 he write "And Justice Stevens is dead wrong to think that the right to petition is primarily collective in nature". I can't recall too many opinions where one Justice uses such stark language as dead wrong to attack another one. He goes on to use equally blunt words throughout the opinion.

Scalia has had a tendency in the past to sometimes go too far or to not be able to hold a Court to get a full precedential opinion, but he was able to in this case. I'm somewhat surprised Kennedy signed on in full without comment, but I'll take it.

The opinion in my view is fairly clear that the Court will incorporate the 2nd amendment when such a case presents itself. Apparently the NRA said today they're filing suit against the Chicago handgun ban, so the 2nd should be incorporated within the next couple of years. Perhaps they could even use such a case to revive the Privileges or Immunities clause and use that clause as the vehicle for incorporation and not the due process clause.

I was surprised that Scalia said in a footnote that all laws have to pass a basic rationality test. I thought that was more in to the substantive due process that he and Thomas have disavowed.

It didn't set out a standard of review but I think it was pretty strong in suggesting that strict scurtiny or something very close to it will be the standard.

All in all, a very strong opinion, about as good as could have been hoped for and then some. That it got 5 Justices with no concurreces is impressive.

Now we just need one more conservative to be appointed and the revolution will be complete.

I disagree. I think Kennedy is far more dangerous than the four leftists on the Court. With them, at least we know where they will stand on almost every issue, so there's usually few surprises. With Kennedy, it's a game of chance, and a deadly serious one people who care about the constitution don't want played.

erased an amendment from the Constitution today and reduced the Bill of Rights to 9 amendments, can you really believe that?

Just think if Kerry or Gore had won, Stevens would have written the majority.

Now, that is truly dangerous.

Helveticus, Scalia's frequent mention of Stevens and Breyer can also be taken as a mark of respect. Maybe it was intended as such, and maybe not. But, if I was a dissenter, I would certainly like it if the majority opinion tried to address all the reasons for my dissent.

And regarding rational basis, Scalia referred to the recent Equal Protection case of Engquist v. Oregon. I tentatively agree with Scalia that a state law that locks some people up but not other people has to have some rational basis for treating the two groups unequally.

I'm assuming that Justice Stanley Matthews was correct when he said that the equal protection of the laws requires the "protection of equal laws".