Constitutional!

Do you know an object or person that might benefit from being shot at by you with a gun?  If so, you’re in luck:  Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Americans have the right to own guns (though the court will decide who and what they can shoot with those guns on a case-by-case basis).

I’m not sure how I feel about this ruling.  On the one hand, the decision threatens handgun bans in cities like Washington D.C. and Chicago, where gun violence is a very real threat to innocent people.  On the other hand, the pen is mightier than the sword.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that the person who invents a gun that shoots out pens is going to be a very rich man.

At its heart, this case is all about freedom.  But Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion is embarrassingly weak on this point, in my opinion.  Speaking of the popularity of the handgun among Americans he writes:

There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: It is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long gun; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police.

Is this the best your bloated brain can do, Scalia?  I’m sorry, but if I had just used my cat-like reflexes and deadly skill to subdue a burglar in my home with a badass handgun that I owned, as is my (now) indelible right as an American citizen, I would not be dialing the police with my free hand.  I would be doing something appropriately badass:  I would be holding the burglar in a crazy Judo grip, breaking his fingers one-by-one as I said coldly, “After I’m through with you, the only thing you’ll be burgling is an enormous bottle of Aspirin”; I would be fixing a celebratory submarine sandwich; I would be fondling a boob; I would be flashing a thumbs-up or an OK sign to the cameras; I would be holding another gun, but in that cool, sideways way.  But dialing the police?  Do you even live in America, Scalia?

Because that free hand, like the handgun in the other one, symbolizes America.  That free hand symbolizes democracy.  More than anything, that free hand symbolizes freedom, I think.  America is the freest country in the history of the world.  But, more importantly, we don’t use that freedom to do boring things like calling the police or ensuring that our citizens have health care.  No.  We start irresponsible wars.  We drive ATVs over endangered woodpeckers.  We give ourselves Jack Daniels colonics while riding atop giant stretch hummers through the streets of our small, Midwestern towns, blasting Soulja Boy (that might just be me?).   Scalia’s opinion completely misses the innovative and awesome ways we Americans exercise our freedoms, including the freedom to own guns.

Plus, the handgun is not America’s favorite weapon, because it is not America’s freest weapon.  That would be the head-mounted pistol, which gives you the freedom to point a gun at a burglar while ordering more and better guns on eBay.  Just as the founding fathers intended:

headgun