Mr. McDonald and the Absurdity of Liberal Empathy

Otis McDonald is the epitome of every liberal's definition of the "little guy". He's 76 years old. He's a grandfather. He was born into poverty in Louisiana and he lives in the rough Chicago neighborhood of Morgan Park. That's where gangs like the Gangster's Disciples all congregate. Shootings, lootings, and robberies are all a way of life in Morgan Park. Despite Chicago's longstanding handgun ban, the gang bangers have no problem getting a gun. McDonald is a law abiding citizen that also wanted a gun to protect himself and his family against the gang bangers. He's now the plaintiff in the landmark case decided yesterday.

This is great. I am so happy," McDonald said from Washington, D.C. "It's a milestone."

McDonald, the son of Louisiana sharecroppers, said he got emotional as the ruling came down.

"I was feeling the poor blacks who years ago had their guns taken away from them and were killed as someone wished. That was a long time ago, but I feel their spirit. That's what I was feeling in the courtroom," he said.

So, how do the liberals on the court, those that President Obama claims show more empathy, feel about McDonald's predicament?

“The reasons that motivated the framers to protect the ability of militiamen to keep muskets available for military use when our nation was in its infancy, or that motivated the Reconstruction Congress to extend full citizenship to freedmen in the wake of the Civil War, have only a limited bearing on the question that confronts the homeowner in a crime-infested metropolis today,” Justice Stevens wrote in his final dissent before retiring.

He said the court should have proceeded more cautiously in light of “the malleability and elusiveness of history” and because “firearms have a fundamentally ambivalent relationship to liberty.”

So, when there's a real live person that epitomizes the little guy, the liberals have no use for his struggle. Instead, they rely on some sort of unprovable theory that fits their ideology. I'm no fan of judging based on who is more sympathetic but when that's only an excuse to judge based on your ideology, that's even worse.