A Rhetorician's Practical Wisdom

Abstract

Written for a symposium honoring the scholarship of Jack Sammons, this essay explores the concept of practical wisdom by looking for living examples of the practically wise. Starting with Justice Breyer’s dissent in District of Columbia v. Heller, the essay moves on to the work of various lower court judges trying to apply Heller. The essay finds its concrete image of practical wisdom in the contrasting stories that result six years after Heller when, only a few months apart, two federal district courts – one in Idaho and one in Georgia – faced the same question: does the Second Amendment protect the rights of visitors to carry loaded firearms on recreational property administered by the Army Corps of Engineers?

Keywords: rhetoric, practical wisdom, Heller, Breyer, image, story