Brandish? We don't need no steenking "brandish"!

Larry Tribe earned more than a bit of respect from me for intellectual honesty by conceding a while back that the Second Amendment was intended by the Framers to create an individual right to gun ownership. But he seems remarkably uncomfortable with the natural result of his own thinking, now that the Supreme Court has the issue squarely before it:

Equally foolish would be a decision tilting to the other extreme and upholding the lower court's decision [invalidating the DC gun control law] simply because the right to bear arms is, judicial precedent to the contrary notwithstanding, a right that belongs to citizens as individuals. Such a holding would confuse the right to bear arms with a right to own and brandish the firearms of one's choosing.

Brandishing the firearm of the plaintiff's choosing is not at issue here. Owning it -- in a locked safe in his bedroom -- is.

Also, this paragraph is pure manipulative ass-kissing in its least attractive form:

Chief Justice John Roberts, ever since his days as a judge on the court of appeals, has virtually defined judicial modesty by opining that if it is not necessary for the court to decide an issue, then it is necessary for the court not to decide that issue. For this reason, and for the further reason that the scholarship on the reach of the Second Amendment and its implementation is still in its infancy, the court should take the smallest feasible step in resolving the case before it.

Professor Tribe knows as well as anyone that the Roberts Court has shown no inclination whatsoever toward judicial modesty if they view the issue at bar as a fundamental constitutional right. And lack of scholarship? Seriously? Maybe Professor Tribe could catch up on his reading, starting a decade ago with Stephen P. Halbrook's "Freedmen,The Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right To Bear Arms 1866-77." (Lib of Congress: KF4749.H34 1998.)