Posted on 03/13/2007 9:50:20 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Last week's decision, striking down the District of Columbia's ban on guns as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, flowed directly from the text, history and original understanding of the Constitution. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision rejected the Ninth Circuit's "collective rights" theory and embraced instead the Fifth Circuit's holding that the Second Amendment protects individual rights. In so doing, the D.C. Circuit took a major step forward in protecting the rights of gun owners throughout the country.
In some ways, the decision should not be at all noteworthy or surprising. After all, the text of the Second Amendment explicitly protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the D.C. gun ban amounted to a complete and total prohibition on citizens owning operational firearms in the District of Columbia. The challenged city ordinances prohibit the private possession of all handguns and also require that all long guns (i.e., rifles and shotguns) be disassembled or have trigger locks in place at all times. This latter requirement has no exceptions -- so that even if a violent crime is underway in your home, removing the trigger lock in self-defense or in defense of your family constitutes a crime.
No state in the union has a prohibition as draconian. Indeed, the constitutions of 44 states, like the federal Constitution, explicitly protect the individual right to keep and bear arms, and the legislatures of all 50 states are united in their rejection of bans on private handgun ownership. Forty-five states go even further, allowing private citizens to carry concealed handguns for self-defense.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
bang
Compared to the 50 states, DC ranks number ONE in the Murder and Negligent Homicide rate (2005 statistics). Maybe now they'll realize the truth in John Lott's study. More guns owned by law-abiding citizens actually reduces violent crime.
I actually heard some clown on TV say the gun ban in DC reduced "gun related crimes." Come to think of it I think that clown was the mayor of DC but I'm not positive.
So finally the legal a**holes got it right, but my question ...
Why now?
For the past 6 years State after State is losening their grip on the 2nd and our citizenery is arming themselves.
Are the elites getting nervous about something?
>>I actually heard some clown on TV say the gun ban in DC reduced "gun related crimes." Come to think of it I think that clown was the mayor of DC but I'm not positive.<<
Is he out of jail again? Or maybe this is a new guy.
Marion Barry?
Even the Democratic Congress do not dare to pass new "Gun Control" laws (yet).
It's true that concealed carry laws have been expanding in the states, there is a wonderful dynamic map on Wikipedia that shows the trend. But what is the extremely effective action that President Bush had to do with all that?
I'm not sure whether it was extremely effective or not, but Ashcroft's letter to the state's attorney generals affirming that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right was cited in the Appeals Court decision, and the Justice Department filed a brief in support of the appellants. President Bush deserves credit for that.
Even the Democratic Congress do not dare to pass new "Gun Control" laws (yet).
Wil you say the same after Bush signs a new "assault weapons" ban? He's already said he would.
I have often wondered how this gun ban could be maintained in DC. Nearly all the congressmen maintain residences there, one would think that at least a few of them would like to have a firearm for personal protection. You would think that they would have filed suit aganst DC when the ban first began.--nevermind, there's probably none of them that actually like the 2nd amendment.
No, it wasn't Marion Barry it's a new guy. He said he was "OUTRAGED" at this decision. LOL What a goof.
(Never mind that it was black or dk. blue and his wife recollected he did own a "silver" pistol; the point is no one questioned his possession of a pistol in DC.)
Since he had just left the WH and gone straight to FMP he had to have had it in his car at the very least at the WH.
"Today's decision flies in the face of laws that have helped decrease gun violence in the District of Columbia."The same article quotes FBI statistics for 2005 as noting that homicides in DC were perpetrated 80% using guns, as compared to 68% nationwide.
That decision should be read by anyone concerned about the Second Amendment. It's long, but it's chock full of history and very well written. It's the most comprehensive and airtight defense of it as an individual right that I have ever read. The good news is that Ginsberg and Souter agree that it means more than just "soldiering."
Court Rejects Strict Gun Law as Unconstitutional
The majority in yesterday’s decision pointed to a 1998 dissent in which “at least three current members (and one former member) of the Supreme Court have read ‘bear arms’ in the Second Amendment to have meaning beyond mere soldiering.” They were former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and David H. Souter.
The bad news is that if the SCOTUS resolves the issue as an individual right, and I hope it does, then the GOP might lose a lot of those single issue voters. I think that's part of the reason the GOP lost the Congress in the last election, i.e. the dems at the national level refused to make gun control an issue, and the single issue gun rights voters stayed home.
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