Constitutional protection for devices and activities that can kill people

[Miguel Schor]

  I thought the point of Heller is that the policy
  implications of a decision (i.e., whether the
  decision leads to greater homicides) don't (and
  shouldn't) matter; only the words of the 2d
  amendment and, of course, it's supposed original
  meaning matter.  In any case, if the public policy
  implications of a constitutional issue matter (a
  point I wholeheartedly concur in), then legislatures
  have a role to play as well in construing the
  Constitution and should be afforded some discretion,
  no?  I would love for the Court to drop originalism
  and to take the policy implications of its decisions
  into account but why should its reading of the
  empirical evidence trump that of a legislature?  

Miguel Schor
Associate Professor of Law
Suffolk University Law School
120 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02108
617-305-6244
SSRN Webpage http://ssrn.com/author=469730


  ---- Original message ----

    Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:42:10 -0500
    From: "Raymond Kessler" <rkessler at sulross.edu>
    Subject: RE: Constitutional protection for devices
    and activities that can kill people
    To: "'Bob Sheridan'"
    <rs at robertsheridan.com>,"'Volokh, Eugene'"
    <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>
    Cc: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
    >Much of the legal debate on guns and crime is
    meaningless if there is no causal connection
    between guns and people killing other people.
    There is no credible, consistent research evidence
    of a causal connection between guns & homicide or
    that gun control is effective in reducing
    homicide.
    >
    >Ray Kessler
    >Prof. of Criminal Justice
    >Sul Ross State Univ.
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