Time: 'Arch-conservative' Scalia, Unlabeled Stevens

Time's Alex Altman wrote a story online titled "The Future of Gun Control," which declares the text of the Second Amendment to be quite "puzzling" and "convoluted," but its liberal tilt clearly came through by how it described the justices:

The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Justice Antonin Scalia, the court's arch-conservative, wrote in the majority opinion....

In one of two dissenting opinions, Justice John Paul Stevens called Scalia's argument "strained and unpersuasive." He also blistered the majority for its expansive reading of the Amendment's "ambiguous" text.

Time illustrates my maxim that to the media, the epic battles of our time are fought between the arch-conservatives and the non-partisans.

Wouldn't your average American who wants to land in a reasonable, less ideological position lean left as they read this piece? Or maybe they're too busy laughing at the notion of a liberal scolding a conservative for an "expansive" reading of the Constitution. Altman also displayed a labeling imbalance at article's end:

Instead of rendering the Second Amendment a dormant law, the Court's ruling has given it life. "It is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct," Scalia wrote. That view aligns the Court's conservative wing with most current scholarly interpretations, says [Randy] Barnett, the Georgetown professor. But despite finally affixing its imprimatur on a reading of the convoluted Amendment, the Court's ruling raises nearly as many questions as it settles. As Justice Stevens wrote, it "leaves for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope" of its impact.

Time's writer deserves credit for balancing the experts by using Randy Barnett, who's written and blogged a bit for National Review. I have his book Restoring the Lost Constitution.