Washington DC - In a sweeping 4 1/2 to 3.14159 decision with 1.35841 abstaining, the United States Supreme Court handed down a ruling this morning in the landmark Abdul the Party Clown v. U.S case, recognizing the individual rights to gun ownership by child rapists and Guantanamo detainees. The decision was immediately hailed by international human rights activists and child rape organizations.
"This is a great day for the Constitution," said Sunshine Liebowitz of the American Civil Liberties Union, who had filed an amicus brief in the case. She said the group would petition the court to order shipments of handguns to needy prisoners at the US military's notorious Camp X-Ray detention camp.
"This ruling helps reconcile and clarify several seemingly conflicted opinions coming from the court," said longtime court watcher Nina Tottenberg of National Public Radio. "Thank God it doesn't apply to Texans."
The petitioner in the case, Abdul Hamid Atwah, was a well known Taliban child entertainer and rapist who was detained by U.S. Marines after a 2005 sweep on an Afghanistan playground and has been held at Guantanamo ever since. In 2007 the court agreed to hear his case suing the government for restricting his Second Amendment rights to keep court-appointed handguns and explosives in his detention cell.
Writing for the majority, Justice William Kennedy said that "as an enthusiastic child rapist and terrorist, petitioner has a reasonable expectation of threats of harm. This court recognize his proportional right to self-defense under the sweet, elusive penumbra of our ever-mutating Constitution."
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said "I totally fucking give up."
Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsberg partially abstained from the decision, Souter citing a conflict of interest due to "an interest in clowning, and ambivalent feelings about children." Ginsberg left the bench in the middle of the hearing to wander in the hallway, announcing she was going to "arrest that lumberjack man who keep hiding my gavel."
While creating a sweeping expansion of gun ownership rights, the ruling specified it would be limited to individuals "whose day to day activities create a compelling need for self protection from angry mobs or the US military," such as "serial child rapists, foreign terrorists, or Supreme Court justices." In order to qualify for free federal weapons under the ruling, applicants would be required to provide proof of eligibility.
The court is expected to rule later this week on separate case involving Atwa, where he is seeking the right to court appointed children.
