In the commentary “We can fix the Supreme Court’s misfire,” Sept. 3, the author blames the National Rifle Association’s money for the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment. It is a neglectful but lengthy essay with its main substance being the writer’s belief of his correctness.
What about the legal arguments on the other side of the issue? There is plenty of scholarship available that claims the right to bear arms on which the founders based their thinking had been in existence since the Middle Ages, which probably means, if true, it predates even that. These arguments come from people having credentials at least equal to those of the writer of this commentary.
Quite apart from the issue of the Second Amendment’s larger interpretation, maybe the Supreme Court finally fixed some of what needed fixing. New York was forced to acknowledge the rigged, arbitrary and capricious dispensing of handgun-carrying privileges. It wasn’t really about the Second Amendment but about its unequal application. Sheridan in this piece fails to mention this.
New York state will nonetheless continue to stymie rectification with its various legal workarounds of the truth.
Paul DeGennaro
Glenmont