Supreme Court's Decision on Gun Rights

The day is June 26, 2008. It is a historic day for the American system of checks and balances. Since the enactment of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments in the U.S. Constitution, this is the first time the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment.

The right to bear arms has always been an issue in the American history. Even in a more peaceful environment, as the 21st century is, that right is not out of the Americans' agenda. In a country where there is much attention on what is written in the Constitution and, provided that it is mentioned there, the right to bear arms cannot be a disregarded political, judicial and even a business issue.

What the Supreme Court ruled today will doubtlessly be included in the history books. In my opinion, the today's Supreme Court ruling is the beginning of a continuous debate on the Second Amendment. It is not that it has never been a debate, but from now on, more and more justices appointed by America's future presidents are expected to be scrutinized by the media on how they stand in the right to bear arms.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is said in the Second Amendment. This awkward sentence is among the major reasons for the creation of the debate. It appears that the people are Militia. In a time when the American people were fighting for their freedom from Great Britain, they were truly Militia, so that is I believe is the reason why the Second Amendment presents the people as Militia.

In my opinion, what the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says is that the American people are directly involved in the security of their free State and that is why they have the right to bear arms. And by American people I mean each American citizen: including mentally retarded, criminals, murderers and others. Good thing the Supreme Court ruled that some laws can in fact encroach on phrases such as "cannot be infringed", as the website www.usconstitution.net points out. Thus mentally retarded people, criminals, murderers and other groups of that kind could be stripped of the right to bear arms as it is unthinkable to consider them involved in the security of the Land of the Free. However, this ruling leads to endless debates and interpretations of the U.S. Constitution, especially after the today's ruling against Washington D.C.'s 32-year ban on guns [which ban] excludes those guns being owned before the 1976 ruling.

It appears that Washington D.C.'s ban on guns cannot in fact encroach on the cannot-be-infringed part of the Second Amendment, opponents would say. However, the Supreme Court ruling on the so-called encroachment involves only some and not every encroachment. The other side of the coin is that this is an outstanding way the Supreme Court justices found in order to interpret the Constitution in a way they find most convenient so that their lifetime judicial service can hardly be impeached! On the other hand, the encroachment ruling leads to the immortalization of the U.S. Constitution thus making it compatible with every generation. That's why there are two types of justices in the Supreme Court: strict constructionists and judicial activists. The former are conservative justices. In other words, they are justices who interpret the Constitution literally: for example, the right to bear arms cannot be infringed regardless of the time we live in. To the latter, the judicial activists, the Constitution is a living document: for example, we do not need guns in 21st century.

In my opinion, today's Supreme Court decition on gun rights must not surprise anybody for at least two reasons. First of all, of the nine Supreme Curt justices, five are strict constructionists: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy. The rest are judicial activists: Ruth Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, John Stevens and David Souter. The former voted for the strike down of the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment while the latter voted against the strike down. You can see it on page 3 of the following published document: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf. Justice Antonin Scalia said that the individual right to bear arms is supported by the historical narrative both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted. He also said that the Constitution does not permit the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. In the minority report, Justice John Paul Steven pointed out that the majority would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons which evidence is nowhere to be found.

Those are two typical strict-constructionist and judicial-activist opinions and only represent the current status quo in the U.S. Supreme Court. However, I somehow doubt that there would be a way different decision if judicial activists were more than strict constructionists. They probably would not discuss the Second Amendment in such a situation. In my opinion, if the majority of Supreme Court Justices were judicial activists, they would not make any decision on the Second Amendment unless the gun rights ban had already been enacted not just in the District of Columbia, a rather small part of this big country, but also in vast territories of the United States of America. However, even under those two conditions I cannot see them ruling other way because gun rights involve money as well. A ban on handguns in most of the states would hinder the development of the business connected with the production of handguns and therefore would serve as a prerequisite for a possible creation of a handguns black market.

What I am saying is that the right to bear arms shall never be infringed in USA unless the Second Amendment is eliminated from the Constitution which calls for a new constitution and such a decision will never be endorsed by the American politicians and people. I am not saying that the U.S. Constitution should be rewritten. What I am saying is that I see the Second Amendment as a main reason for the creation of a never-ending but fortunately not a grave debate in a powerful country.

Gas Prices or the Prices That Control Prices

Gas prices have always been an issue since the beginning of the use of gas-operating devices. They have always been not just a political issue but also an economic, a financial and one that concerns the security of a country, that is, the most important issue for its existence.



Throughout the years gas prices have suffered a significant rise. And, while their rise in the past was generally based on the fundamental economic principle of supply and demand, nowadays things do not look that easy. There are currently so many factors that have a certain impact on gas prices that even some economists struggle in figuring out why they rise or decrease. Factors such as: the U.S. dollar's value; the global warming; North Korea's missile tests; the wars in Iraq, Israel, Sudan, even the temporary unrests in Nigeria - are among the contributors to the rise in gas prices, let alone speculators - people who unrealistically raise those prices.



At first sight, those so-called factors are not just illogical - it is preposterous to consider some of them even a slight contributor to the rise in gas prices. I am about to make some hypotheses why everything matters nowadays when it comes to gas prices.



Let's pay attention to North Korea's missile tests. What first comes to mind is that those tests can threaten the world's security and/or can cause the world to unite and crush the Secret State. The second thought immediately goes to the trash can. Those beliefs preached by the United Nations, as much respect as I have toward them, are naïve. A famous British politician once said that Great Britain does not have eternal friends but eternal interests. I endorse this statement. Great Britain is a country and from this point of view it is not at all different from North Korea, the United States of America, Germany, France, China, Brazil, South Africa and so on. So, the North Korea's communist government launched missiles thus somehow showing the world what its interests are. In other words, they want to show how mighty and frightening they are to their enemies as a result of which they expect that the latter will give them whatever they want.



That immediately created an opportunity to raise gas prices. In this particular situation, I see only speculation. In other words, missile tests were presented by speculators as some kind of a possible military conflict between the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the two Koreas and, since such conflict between the six countries involves gas, which then causes higher demand, speculators then take the initiative to further rise its prices. After all, wars cannot be waged without gas. Military vehicles, like every other vehicle, run on gas.



The now-and-then unrests in Nigeria, on the other hand, decrease the supply which is another factor that determines prices. When supply is low, prices rise. Unfortunately, supply is not among the most important factors in today's value of the barrel. Saudi Arabia is about to rise its supply but people are pessimistic about a possible substantial decrease in gas prices. The booming economies of China and India are a huge obstacle not just for the environment's beneficial condition but also for the decrease in gas prices since there is increased demand for gas in those two countries.



In this particular situation, gas prices can hardly decrease. And, with the fact that oil gayzers will one day be depleted, things get even tougher when it comes to lowering gas prices. Oil-producing countries will not miss the opportunity to get more profit from something that one day will not give them profit at all.



The gas prices issue is so complicated that several decisions can be made in attempt to curb them and still none of them can be effective. The simplest one is boycott, that is, people stop buying gas for several days. However, it is not as simple as it looks like. Everything that we find at the supermarket and take for granted was delivered there by a truck driver from far away, and trucks run on gas. Besides, it is preposterous to think that so many people will be boycotting since there are so many commuters and those commuters have a family to feed.



Another decision is for countries to find [an] alternative producer[s] so that demand for Chinese goods will be lowered which will most likely bring its economy to at least a standstill. However, China is such a great producer of goods and it sells them so cheap that no countries can reach the supply and prices that China provides unless a new economic organization like OPEC be established. Its slight difference will be that its purpose will be production of goods that will be similar to the Chinese ones in terms of quality and prices. However, that brings the issue of building plants for the production of those goods along with cheap labor. This cheap labor cannot be established in first-world countries like Great Britain, USA, Canada, France, Germany and so on unless the state provides those cheap workers with privileges such as free food every day, free electricity and water and insignificant taxes. Such tactics are about to enrage the local population that pays for those conveniences, to say the least.

Another decision is for countries to gather at a special meeting and discuss the issue with mostly China and India but talks should involve each country. After all, in today’s economy countries are interdependent. In this special meeting, what has to be taken into consideration is mutual investments, average salary per worker in state-sponsored factories and plants along with the local living standard. The purpose of such a summit will be to understand where every country’s economy is going to and figure out what measures should be taken so that gas prices decrease and people all over the world live as well as possible. It should all start with solutions referred to the countries that most significantly increase the demand for gas. If a particular solution obliges a country to lower its economic development, then economic or material compensations from countries that import goods from there are to be initiated on the basis of the amount of goods being imported. As to the private sector, conditions will of course remain the same. Thus not only could gas prices decrease but pollution as well.



In my opinion, one thing is for sure. If gas prices continue to rise, measures that I mentioned in this article should be taken into consideration. Disadvantages such as importing not as many goods as it would be without those measures could be curbed by signing an international treaty that includes those conditions mentioned above. This international treaty will expire as long as gas prices lower as much as it is desired and/or when alternative energy such as hydrogen or electricity starts to be widely used. Even if my proposals are not the best ones, something should be done because people all over the world are starting to get furious. Electric cars and trucks are not a solution yet and if gas prices continue to rise with the same rate, things will get way worse.