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But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities.

Antonin Scalia

The wise do not investigate such silliness.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Investigation Silly Weird Wisdom
If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Faith Goodness Judgement Reach Wrong
In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay, there are a lot more coming along.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Children Family Kind Perfection
[International law] doesn’t show what the Constitution originally meant, and it doesn’t show what is fundamentally important to Americans today. It shows what’s fundamentally important to somebody else today.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Day Fundamental Important Meaning Original
With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Acknowledgement Atheist History Nation Practice Public Respect
Bear in mind that brains and learning, like muscle and physical skill, are articles of commerce. They are bought and sold. You can hire them by the year or by the hour. The only thing in the world not for sale is character.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Brain Character Learning Mindset Physical Skills World
What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Literature Meaning Yourself
The purpose of the Federalist Society was to bring together young people who had this skepticism about what they were being taught and to let them know that there were others who shared this skepticism.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Purpose Share Society Teaching
The Constitution does not trust judges to make determinations of criminal guilt.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Criminal Determination Guilty Judgement Trust
This is an execution, not surgery. Where does that come from, that you must find the method of execution that causes the least pain?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Execution Pain Surgery
The principal purpose of stare decisis is to protect reliance interest and further stability in the law.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Interest Law Principle Protection Stability State
The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Change Democracy Freedom Law Right Speech System Virtue
I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Acceptance Argument Encouragement Myself Sexuality
The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims ‘all Men are endowed by their Creator.’
ANTONIN SCALIA

Children Creation Independence Parents Right
A law can be both economic folly and constitutional.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Economics Law
It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Difficult Illusion Invention Maintain Oneself
If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That’s flexibility.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Adoption Citizenship Constitution Flexibility Live Yourself
Why can’t the state accede to the public’s wishes?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Public State Wish
[The] government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution. The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Enjoyment Government Minimum Right Time Violence War Yourself
Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Act Case Lose Myself Principle Rule Save Short
Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited by the Constitution?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Determination Easy Face Hide
A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Basement Journey Machine Purpose
[The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Benefit Consequence Cost Freedom Ignorance
In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Eyes Government Oneself Race
The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed. I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Attitude Change Growth Myself People Weapon
I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over nonreligion.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Fight Government Religion Thinking True
A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Majority Right Worth

But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities.

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But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities.

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Popular Authors

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