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The Supreme Court Breakfast Table

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entries
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from: Dahlia Lithwick
to: Walter Dellinger, Jack Goldsmith, and Cliff Sloan

Today's Decision "Will Almost Certainly Cause More Americans To Be Killed"?

Posted Thursday, June 26, 2008, at 11:32 AM ET

Dear Jack and Walter and Cliff:

I am reading the decision in Heller as fast as I can and will post my thoughts as soon as possible. The headline is that the court decided 5-4 (no mushy plurality here) that the D.C. handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement violate the individual right to bear arms as protected under the Second Amendment. But I must first pass along this rather brilliant observation from professor Stephen Wermiel from American University, who wonders why none of the dissenters cautioned the majority that today's decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." (Boumediene, Scalia, J. dissenting.)

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Best,
Dahlia

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: Dahlia Lithwick
to: Walter Dellinger, Jack Goldsmith, and Cliff Sloan

Today's Decision "Will Almost Certainly Cause More Americans To Be Killed"?

Posted Thursday, June 26, 2008, at 11:32 AM ET
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Walter Dellinger is an attorney in Washington, D.C. and the Douglas B. Maggs professor of law at Duke. Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School and author of The Terror Presidency, worked in the Bush administration from 2002 to 2004 and is a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor. Cliff Sloan is an attorney in Washington, D.C.
Photograph of the Supreme Court by Tom Brakefield/Stockbyte. Entry 16: Photograph of handguns by Rick Gershon/Getty Images.
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