A Constitutional Right to Loaded, Unlocked Guns in the Home

Gun Watch ^ | 7 December, 2012 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Americans have the right to keep loaded, unlocked guns in their homes. This constitutionally protected right was reinforced by the Supreme Court in the D.C v. Heller decision, and in turn applied to the states in the McDonald decision.

Here are the quotes from the Heller decision:

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., PETITIONERS v. DICK ANTHONY HELLER

Here is the first half of paragraph 4 of part IV:

“We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

Here is the summation paragraph:

In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment , as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.

This part of the Heller decision has not received the attention that it deserves. It effectively renders the current excuses given for infringing on the Second Amendment as a means of crime control, moot, dead, and buried. The modern fabric of misinformation designed to disarm the American people rests on a foundation that the purpose of the disarmament is to reduce crime. The vast majority of criminals obtain their firearms through theft, primarily by burglary. The guns are then distributed through the criminal distribution network, already robust from the drug war and street gangs.

The theory behind modern gun control is that if you make guns unavailable to most citizens, the criminal source of guns will dry up and you will have less guns used in crime.

Logically this theory fails on many other points, which I will not treat in this essay because of space limitation, but I will mention a few that each deserve articles of their own. These are, weapons substitution, home made guns, underground manufacturers, illegal importation, vast existing stockpiles, and the minimal number of firearms required for crime.

What the ruling in Heller does, is make it impossible to reduce the availability of guns to criminals by reducing the supply from citizens, because it accepts and recognizes the most basic and elemental of all natural rights, the right to life and by corollary, the right to self defense.

We now have a situation where the Supreme Court has ruled that the citizens have a constitutionally protected right to keep the 300 million plus existing firearms in their homes, loaded, unlocked, and ready for use in defense of self and others.

While this will undoubtedly assist in further reducing the crime rate, it also insures that criminals will have illegitimate access to the existing stock of firearms. These guns now are assured of being kept in the home... not in government armories as some anti-rights zealots have suggested. The citizens are assured of the right to keeo them loaded, so ammunition will be available, not locked up separately as anti-freedom leaders have insisted. They cannot be required to be locked in mandatory safes as a means of keeping them out of criminal hands, because having them available for self defense is now a clearly recognized and constitutionally protected right.

Therefore, it is futile to attempt to restrict criminals access to firearms by restricting the citizens access to firearms. Citizens access to firearms is guaranteed by the supreme law of the land, and crime rates continue to fall.

I do not expect this elemental logic to convert many anti-freedom zealots. Their visceral hatred of an armed citizenry was never really about disarming criminals in the first place. However, there are many people who have simply accepted the anti-freedom propaganda without much thought. They may find this argument persuasive.

[Greysard]

They cannot be required to be locked in mandatory safes as a means of keeping them out of criminal hands

There is no safe in the world that can successfully resist a determined thief, even when you talk about bank safes that banks pay big bucks for. A safe that costs a reasonable amount of money cannot deter a thief. The safe can be opened with a key that the thief finds, or the safe will be broken into, or the entire safe will be stolen. Some safes can be opened by a child.

If the owner is at home but unable to open his safe within 30 seconds that matter, then the burglars will have plenty of time to wait while the owner, with a knife at his child's throat, opens the safe for them.

[Boogieman]

Forget the home, we have a right to loaded, unlocked guns, period.

[Venturer]

Heller made little difference in DC.

The City Council only placed new roadblocks in place.

I would bet there arent 25 new licensed handgun owners in the whole city.

You can’t beat a determined leftist bunch of gun grabbers.

Of course there are still plenty of ilegal guns in DC.

[uncommonsense]

My dad was a state cop in MI. He had a dresser drawer full of knives - from zip knives to machetes - taken from riots in Detroit. And he had loaded firearms all over the house.

My brother and I used to open the dresser drawr full of knives to marvel at the selection, and we may have looked at my dads private reading materials, but we were scared $hitless of his guns because he educated us on their lethality (a few gory murder pictures and a couple of practice rounds shooting). My brother and I never, ever, touched his guns (or his tools - that would trigger [no pun intended] a beating)

[Marcella]

So, they wanted to make hand guns in the house inoperable, useless. Make it a crime to have a gun that will work as it is right then. D.C. is a prison. So are those liberal states/cities that won't allow one to have a gun.

Who are these people that want to control the air we breathe, the food we can and cannot eat, the medicine we can and cannot have, the doctors we can and cannot have.

I am thinking going Galt is the only sane thing to do. Just withdraw from these communist controllers and live as though they are not there. I don't need this controlling crap in my life. I am thankful I am old enough to be out of the workforce and just see this happen and not be totally in it.

I don't do organized Republican work anymore and that's a good thing ‘cause the state officials I know would kick me out just as Boehner kicked out those conservatives.

I've already lost a doctor this year due to this insurance crap and had hell trying to find a doctor to take Medicare and a supplement. To hell with it all, just leave me alone, world.

[GreyHoundSailor]

We keep one old 12 gauge pump that I paid $25 for near the front entrance. It’s loaded, but pity the poor fool that steals it and tries to shoot it; there’s a ‘barrel obstruction’ about six inches from the chamber that will probably blow his hands off if he racks the 3 inch magnum that’s first up. The police shouldn’t have any problem finding who ended up with that weapon.

[trebb]

If the owner is at home but unable to open his safe within 30 seconds that matter,

If you can't have a loaded/ready-to-fire weapon in your hand within 2 seconds, you may have missed your opportunity to defend yourself.