Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackaukus has joined 33 other California DA’s in a Supreme Court brief supporting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The California district attorneys joined with several Nevada and Arizona district attorneys, police organizations, and other persons and groups concerned with protecting the public safety benefits of citizens possessing firearms for self-defense. They argue that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies to the states, as well as the federal government.
Rackauckus and company filed their amicus brief in the “Chicago Guns Case”, McDonald v. City of Chicago. The McDonald case concerns the constitutionality of Chicago gun registration laws banning the possession of most handguns. The plaintiffs filed their cases following the Supreme Court’s decision in the 2008 Heller case, affirming an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. The trial court dismissed the plaintiff’s cases, holding that the the Second Amendment right in Heller applied only to federal gun laws and not to the states. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case after the the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court in rejecting application of the Second Amendment to the states.
Rackauckus and company argue that the Second Amendment applies to the states, as well as the federal government. The Supreme Court has held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates most of the Bill of Rights against the states (including the judicially-crafted privacy right that encompasses contraception and abortion). They argue that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms should also be incorporated because that right is inextricably tied to an inherent, natural, and fundamental right to self-defense that is deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition.
Judge Easterbrook, writing for the appellate court, repeatedly rejected the notion that individuals have a fundamental right to self-defense. The court reasoned that there is no foundation for such a right. So, state legislatures are free to abrogate it entirely. In doing so, the court ignored a right that is well-established in state and federal law. Judge Easterbrook even suggested that a state might limit the right to “arms” to “pepper spray”. The right to individual self-defense, he concluded, might better be left to federalism, leaving states the power to abolish pre-existing human rights, including the fundamental right to self-defense.
We need some self-defense against Rackauckas. He postures as the D.A. but looks the other way whenever elected officials commit crimes. His hypocrisy is blatant, and Orange County’s most corrupt residents (elected officials) get a pass. I see no difference between criminals and those who refuse to prosecute them.