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While we are talking about legal research, let me pose this one:
Using only a litigation strategy, how long would it take, and how
much would it cost, to completely return federal jurisprudence to
strict compliance with original understanding of the Constitution?
Even if you confine the question to one issue, like gun control,
that would still involve unwinding 193 years of commerce and
necessary and proper clause precedents going back to McCulloch
v. Maryland (1819). My estimate is that it would take a minimum of 60 years and $ten billion, and that part of the cost would require the total re-education of new generations of lawyers and other public officials, and creation of more courts and appointment of more judges to handle the caseload. In other words, it is not feasible. It would be less infeasible to adopt amendments to the Constitution, which was the solution adopted with the Bill of Rights and the Reconstruction Amendments. It might still take a cultural revolution to do that, and make the amendments likely to be enforced, but litigation is too slow and expensive. You might ask, isn't the Second Amendment enough? It seems clear enough. Alas, as long as militia is subject to "regulation" and the words "necessary and proper for carrying into execution" are interpreted not as making an effort but as getting a desired outcome, all of our rights are threatened with "reasonable" restrictions if there is a "compelling public interest". I have drafted some amendments. See http://constitution.org/reform/us/con_amend.htm -- Jon ---------------------------------------------------------- Constitution Society http://constitution.org 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 twitter.com/lex_rex Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------- |
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