Interesting Op-ed found via Reason:

washingtonexaminer.com

Is Justice Scalia abandoning originalism?

Justice Antonin Scalia holds himself out as the patron saint of originalism, the idea that judges should interpret the Constitution according to its original public meaning. To do otherwise, he adds, is to succumb to government by black-robed philosopher-kings who fill the empty vessel of a “living Constitution” with their own policy preferences.

Last week, however, in a case building on Scalia’s own landmark opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller—which found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right—when the justice was faced with a golden opportunity to advance originalism, he blinked. And in rejecting originalism, Scalia cited the un-originalist reason that following a different—and clearly incorrect—line of precedent was “easier.”

The case at issue, McDonald v. Chicago, involves a challenge to Chicago’s gun ban and seeks to extend the right to keep and bear arms to the states—as nearly all other provisions in the Bill of Rights have been extended.