Given that our tax dollars are subsidizing her salary, is it too much to expect PBS's Bonnie Erbe to have at least some intelligent command of the issues of the day?
On second thought, don't answer that.
In her latest blogging misadventure at USNews.com, the "To the Contrary" host portrayed yesterday's 5-4 ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago as a blow to "local rights":
The Supreme Court's decision, taking away important local rights to control gun ownership, marks another sad day in America's now seemingly endless political appetite for increasing the number of privately owned guns in this country.
By 5-4 the justices overturned strict gun ownership rules set by Chicago and one of its suburbs.
[...]
Perhaps the general lethargy that has caused many Americans to lose faith in government has crept into our philosophy on law and order, feeling hopelessly that even our local police and sheriffs can no longer protect us from harm. Vigilantism reigns supreme and with it a misinterpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that the powerful gun ownership lobby has interpreted to mean anyone can essentially own any weapon or weapons of any caliber.
Of course the Court's rulings in both McDonald and Heller dealt simply with the most extreme of liberal gun control schemes: complete bans on gun ownership by the cities of Chicago and Washington, D.C. In both cases the local authorities grossly overstepped the boundaries of their authority by infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Far from taking away a legitimate power of government, the Supreme Court's rulings were corrective actions to stop governmental abuse of individual liberties.
What's more, these rulings do not mean the Court has or intends to consider any and all gun control legislation to be illegitimate, just as the First Amendment doesn't mean one has a right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, to propagate libelous speech, or to burn a cross on someone's lawn in an effort to intimidate him.
Erbe, a Georgetown Law grad, most certainly knows that, yet she still elected to hack out hyperbolic drivel instead of at least attempt to present a cogent liberal case for why she believes the Court is off the mark.
