Editorial out of LA supports Second Amendment?

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

The Second Amendment is often ignored, derided, and considered outdated by many. They don’t like the fact that it protects our right to keep and bear arms.

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And in Los Angeles, they really don’t like the Second Amendment.

Which is why an editorial from the Los Angeles Daily News caught my attention. It started out in a manner that almost made it sound like so many others decrying the Bruen decision, but ultimately seems supportive of the ruling.

The United States Supreme Court has no troops to enforce its rulings, but the justices are doing what they can to enforce their decision earlier this year in a major Second Amendment case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc., v. Bruen.

Last week the court took a dim view of a Massachusetts law that bars people convicted of gun-related misdemeanors from ever being allowed to buy a handgun again.

In Morin v. Lyver, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Massachusetts law using a two-step balancing test that the Supreme Court forcefully threw out in its New York State Rifle & Pistol decision. The Supreme Court has now vacated the First Circuit’s ruling and sent the case back down to be heard again under the high court’s new standard, which is based not on subjective judicial balancing tests, but on history.

This is an important course correction. The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not a privilege that governments may arbitrarily withhold or revoke. A written constitution is the consent of the governed, and it places limits on government power. Enforcing those limits is the job of the Supreme Court. Freedom depends on it.

Honestly, this was surprising to me. I fully started reading this one expecting to see a criticism of the Bruen decision, an attempt to try and justify gun control as a necessity despite the Second Amendment’s plain text.

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And that’s not what I got.

This is Los Angeles, the city that doesn’t seem to think anyone not in the movie industry should ever have a gun, yet the second-largest publication in the city just came out and defended the Bruend decision as necessary for preserving freedom.

Of course, I actually agree with their description of the importance of the Court’s decision regarding the Massachusetts law. It’s a ridiculous measure that should be overturned. Vacating the ruling and sending it back to the lower court for them to consider post-Bruen makes sense and, if that court has any intellectual integrity, they will find differently this time around.

And, to be fair, the Los Angeles Daily News tends to lean conservative on policy issues. This isn’t likely a new position for them.

However, this is also the second-largest publication in Los Angeles.

What this may mean is that there’s more support for the Second Amendment in the City of Angels than many of us might believe. Not a majority, maybe, but still present and not particularly tiny.

Additionally, it’s a reminder that not everyone who seeks a career in the news media is a rabid anti-gun nutjob like so many we encounter.

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