"The Second Amendment is not much of a right ..."

From Law Prof and blogger Ann Althouse, who does not make a value judgement but rather describes what she sees as the way the courts are working:

It's just not much of a right under the current workings of the law. 

I got that phrase "current workings of the law" from Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General, who was on TV yesterday talking about denying access to guns to people the government has put on its list. As I said yesterday:

The current workings of the law... what a phrase! What does it mean? I, a law professor, think it means: We'll meet the standards the courts impose, but we're part of the process of defining those standards, and if we can get a bill through Congress, we expect the courts to interpret the Due Process and the Second Amendment in a suitably responsive manner. 

And now, today, we see more evidence that — whatever fans of the Second Amendment may think or hope it means — in court, it doesn't mean very much. But Heller did win his case, so it means something. 

And so it makes me think of Judge Kozinski's view:

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees*. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Somehow this seems much more ominous to me this morning.  The Courts have not lost the courage to oppose, they've lost the desire.