Comedian Dean Obeidallah wrote a column for MSNBC on Saturday that argued the right to own a gun was decided by a “cravenly political” Supreme Court rather than the U.S. Constitution.
As several media outlets attacked supporters of the Second Amendment as “barbarians” in the wake of a mass shooting in Texas, Obeidallah insisted that it was the 2008 Heller case that decided that owning guns was a “constitutionally guaranteed right.”
“But even if such laws were to be enacted — on either the federal or state level — there’s one big problem: the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court, in a 5-4 decision, essentially rewrote the Second Amendment to create a constitutionally guaranteed right for an individual to possess a gun,” Obeidallah wrote.
Obeidallah argued while the Second Amendment referenced the right to “bear arms,” it wasn’t until the 2008 court decision that the nation decided to codify “an individual’s constitutional right to have a gun.”
With loaded firearms in hand and flags all around people gather for a 5 Mile Open Carry March for Freedom organized by Florida Gun Supply in Inverness, Florida, U.S. July 4, 2016.
(REUTERS)
“James Madison drafted the Second Amendment, and in his notes from the 1789 Constitutional Convention, there’s not a single mention of an individual’s right to possess a gun for self-defense or recreational use. If the framers wanted to create a constitutional right to gun ownership, then they would have made the Second Amendment a mirror of the First Amendment,” Obeidallah wrote.
To counter what he sees as a “political decision,” Obeidallah called for the overturning of the Heller decision, similar to the possiblility of the Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Cindy Nell of Prince Georges County, Md., holds a list of school shootings since 1998 during a demonstration with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, at the Senate steps of the U.S. Capitol after the latest mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“That’s why we need to make overturning the Heller decision a rallying cry the same way the right made overturning Roe v. Wade its mission. Even though there are some who say the Second Amendment should be repealed, the amendment itself is not the issue,” Obeidallah wrote. “The issue is the GOP-controlled Supreme Court’s rewriting of that amendment in Heller. You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand that the Second Amendment was never intended to provide an individual a constitutional right to possess a gun. The language of this one sentence amendment could not be more clear.”
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“Why didn’t they? Simple. They were expressly tying the right to bear arms to militia service,” Obeidallah argued. “It’s time to be blunt: Heller was a political decision, not one based on a good-faith reading of the Constitution.”
A police officer maintains a watch during a demonstration by victims of gun violence in front of the Supreme Court. A helicopter landed near the building Friday after someone tried lighting himself on fire.
(Joshua Roberts)
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While Congress has yet to take action on the issue of guns, some media outlets and figures have blamed all Second Amendment supporters after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Some liberal activists like filmmaker Michael Moore called for the repeal of the Second Amendment.
