"If they can’t help you, then what? Are we all supposed to carry around guns now? I feel like nobody’s protected.” [More]What, you think somebody else is going to do for you what you won't do for yourself?
Amazing how outraged and surprised some people get when reality doesn't mesh up with their preconceived illusions...
[Via Mack H]
It appears that Elena Kagan agrees with the plaintiff.
ReplyDelete"Kagan Backed Broad Interpretation of 14th Amendment"
As a Supreme Court law clerk in 1987, Elena Kagan read the 14th Amendment as permitting lawsuits against reckless state officials who ignore their duties—reflecting the liberal view that the constitutional guarantee of liberty should be read broadly.
The 14th Amendment was intended "to protect the people from the state, not to ensure that the state protected them from each other," Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the majority. It provided "no affirmative right to governmental aid, even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government itself may not deprive the individual."
Some liberals have argued that it would be wiser to ground claims like DeShaney's in another 14th Amendment clause, which bars states from abridging "the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
Since the late 19th century, the Supreme Court has given little significance to the Privileges or Immunities Clause. But scholars across the political spectrum believe that reading is mistaken, and say its diminished status has resulted in limiting rights the framers intended citizens to exercise.
In one unusual alliance, this year they urged the court to strike down handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill., on grounds that the ordinances violate the Privileges or Immunities Clause. If the court were to invoke that dormant clause, it could lead to a reevaluation of constitutional theory.
The "right of protection" the court rejected in DeShaney was "unquestionably one of the Privileges or Immunities that the framers of the 14th Amendment considered a fundamental right of all citizens," David Gans, of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, wrote in November.
"The court has ignored this text and history in cases like Deshaney… holding that the Due Process Clause does not require state and local governments to protect anyone against threats of harm, even when the government turns a blind eye to known violence," he wrote. "Taking text and history seriously would not only require overruling DeShaney, it would also demand that all persons, citizens as well as aliens, be afforded the right to protection."
To quote Jeff Snyder:
ReplyDelete"How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself? Because that is his job and we pay him to do it? Because your life is of incalculable value, but his is only worth the $30,000 salary we pay him? If you believe it reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon another to do so for you?"
He will lose the case. Police are under no obligation to "protect" individuals from harm. He needs to read "Dial 911 and Die."
ReplyDelete