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Blogs FeedSlade Gorton interview part 3
6 August 2012
Part 3: Healthcare & Gun Control
You can read parts 1 and 2 of the interview with the former US senator here and here.
While Gorton isn't a fan of the Roberts Court's reasoning in the healthcare case he says the ultimate result isn't too bad.
“I think Roberts was too smart by half. He wanted very much not to have a 5-4 partisan division on the constitutionality. So he went in an entirely different direction which is just a hell of a stretch. Now, leaving the determination on healthcare to the Congress, I think the ultimate result was probably pretty good. Obama and the Democrats say will the debate is over; Obamacare is extremely unpopular they don’t want it to be a major election issue. It will be, but it is up to elected officials to make decisions of that nature. So in that respect I’m only mildly disappointed in the decision but I think it distorted the law related to taxes. I don’t think it was a tax and do I think it was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause but I’m not wildly unhappy because I do think people should decide that in an election.”
Gorton also weighed in on the issue of gun control. We spoke the week after the Aurora shooting and I asked what steps could or should be taken to prevent future tragedies like that one.
"I agree with the Supreme Court’s decisions under the Second Amendment. I can’t think of any realistic change in the law that would have affected that one. That guy had no record that prohibited him from purchasing firearms and none of the proposals control long firearms. This is a societal problem not a problem with machines that are used by individuals. It was a terrible tragedy and of all of them it seems like one of those that would be hardest to prevent. He was a model student who went downhill very very rapidly, no one suspected him. For example the killing at Fort Hood was due in my view to political correctness; no one dared say this Muslim doctor is a danger. They were afraid they would lose their careers and they probably would have. That was a real failure of intelligence this wasn’t this was not something that could have been prevented from happening like the one several years ago and the one in Spain."
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