Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Heller Hearings

Heller Hearings

As I mentioned last night, I wasn't able to get in to the arguments. Two acquaintances got in because they were lawyers who are members of the Supreme Court Bar; two more because they were at the Respondent's table; one was allowed in because she was an invited guest of Justice Thomas.

The scene in front of the Court was pretty interesting. We had a huge crowd of people, either going in for the three minute line (you get to watch for three minutes and move on), or protesting. The various gun control groups were handing out signs, which were largely meaningless.

The handmade signs on their side were either false ("3000 children a year are killed by guns") or simply outrageous ("The NRA arms terrorists and criminals"). On our side, most of the signs were at a bumper sticker level of thoughtfulness or cliched.

The Second Amendment Sisters were there, and one of their numbers was holding a bullhorn and leading them in silly chants. The gun control side tried to do likewise, but there simply weren't enough of them. Unsurprisingly, this brought the media running--because it had good visuals. Serious and thoughtful discussions of the issues weren't of much interest to most of the journalists with whom I tried to speak.


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UPDATE: Here's the official transcript of the oral arguments.

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