<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">There's another new post on <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10px; "><a href="http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage">the Web of Language</a></span>:<br><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10px; "><p class="blog"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre; ">Supreme Court rules that guns don't kill people; throwing out DC gun law, Scalia finds that linguists are mad hatters living on the other side of the looking glass</span></p><p class="blog"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">On Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court, voting 5-4, threw out the Washington, D.C. ban on handguns because, in its view, the Second Amendment gives every American the right to own a gun.<span> ...</span></div><p class="blog" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "> </p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(65, 65, 113); ">Writing the majority opinion</a>, Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with <a href="http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs/07-08/07-290_PetitionerAmCu3LinguisticsEnglishProfsnew.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(65, 65, 113); ">a linguistic analysis</a> that the Amendment’s prefatory first clause – stressing the importance of a well-regulated militia -- gives the reason for its operative second clause (3).<span> </span>But wait, said Justice Scalia, there’s more.<span> </span></div><p class="blog" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "> </p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">... Americans also need those guns to exercise their longstanding Common Law right to kill one another in self defense, and to bear arms against animals as well as paper targets at firing ranges.<span> </span>Scalia fails to explain why English Common law, one basis of American Constitutional Law, permits the British to enact strict gun control on their side of the pond.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">The <a href="http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs/07-08/07-290_PetitionerAmCu3LinguisticsEnglishProfsnew.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(65, 65, 113); ">linguists’ amicus brief</a> in the Heller case read the Second Amendment in the context of eighteenth-century English grammar and lexicography to show what it meant to the framers, and what it still means today.<span> </span>The majority disagreed with several of our findings.<span> </span>The minority found our analysis more convincing.</div><p class="blog" style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "> </p><div style="text-align: justify; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Always ready to insult those who disagree with his interpretations, J. Scalia called the linguistic analyses supporting the D.C. law “<span style="color: windowtext; ">unknown this side of the looking glass (except, apparently, in some courses on Linguistics)” and </span>“<span style="color: windowtext; ">worthy of the mad hatter” (16).<span> </span><span> </span></span></div></div></span></p><p class="blog"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Justice John Paul Stevens and the three other dissenting justices weren’t convinced by Scalia’s explication of the Second Amendment, either.<span> </span>In his dissent, J. Stevens complains that Scalia’s parsing of the amendment is “overwrought and novel” (17).<span> </span></div><p class="blog" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "> </p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Looking at the same 27 words of the amendment, Stevens comes up with a linguistic analysis that is the polar opposite of Scalia’s: “When each word in the text is given full effect, the Amendment is most naturally read to secure to the people a right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a well-regulated militia” (16).</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">....</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Although J. Scalia equates linguists with mad hatters living on the other side of the looking glass, what goes on in linguistics courses actually illuminates how language works. No Supreme Court ruling can change that.</div><p class="blog" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "> </p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">The majority and minority opinions in Heller show that two groups of highly-educated people can look at the same text and come to opposite conclusions about its meaning. ..</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">find out what else linguists can learn from this landmark decision on<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10px; "> <a href="http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage">the Web of Language</a></span></div></div></span></p></span><div><br></div><div><br>DB<br><br>____________________<br>Dennis Baron<br>Professor of English and Linguistics<br>Department of English<br>University of Illinois<br>608 S. Wright St.<br>Urbana, IL 61801<br><br>office: 217-244-0568<br>fax: 217-333-4321<br><br><a href="http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron">www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron</a><br><br>read the Web of Language:<br><a href="http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage">www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage</a><br><br><br></div></body></html>