When it overturned California’s 10-round magazine limit last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit emphasized what Americans commonly do when they exercise their constitutional right to armed self-defense. Joe Biden, by contrast, thinks the relevant question is how many shells Americans are allowed to have in their shotguns when they hunt migratory birds.
Those two approaches represent the difference between judges who take the Second Amendment seriously and politicians who only pay lip service to it. Biden’s presidential campaign, which promises a raft of new gun restrictions while barely nodding toward the Constitution, shows the extent to which the right to keep and bear arms has become a partisan issue, a development that does not bode well for civil liberties.
The Biden campaign’s website mentions the Second Amendment just once, saying, “It’s within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment, which is limited.” Even that grudging acknowledgment is more than the Democratic Party’s platform offers.
Hellbound and Down 