Right to defend yourself? What a kook!

People for the American Way has a selection of quotes from Janice Rogers Brown (who was just confirmed), apparently intended to demonstrate how nutty she is and what a threat her confirmation is to all that is good and decent. And indeed, some of it does seem a bit nutty; Brown appears to be a libertarian of the school that thinks the courts should be striking down any economic regulation that infringes on strict laissez-faire.

But what about this:

Janice Rogers Brown on the right of privacy vs. the “right to keep and bear arms” [dig the scarequotes]:

Curiously, in the current dialectic, the right to keep and bear arms – a right expressly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights – is deemed less fundamental than implicit protections the court purports to find in the penumbras of other express provisions. (citations omitted) But surely, the right to preserve one’s life is at least as fundamental as the right to preserve one’s privacy. [Concurring opinion in Kasler, 2 P.3d at 602]

Now, I’m sort of a squishy moderate on gun control (I come from a family with a long tradition of responsible gun ownership and have no problem with the private ownership of firearms in general, but I’m also fine with restrictions on automatic weapons, waiting periods, etc. And I don’t personally own guns or particularly wish to), but this doesn’t really seem that kooky to me, I have to confess.

I mean, surely Brown is right that the right to preserve one’s life is at least as fundamental as the right to preserve one’s privacy, isn’t she? On what moral scale would my privacy (and all that that has come to mean in our post-Roe world, which is what I take it Rogers is partly getting at) possibly be more fundamental than my life?

(PFAW link via Bunnie Diehl)