Gun Fight (analysis of Parker/Heller DC gun case)

Washington Lawyer (DC Bar Journal) ^ | August 2007 | Joan Indiana Rigdon

[Atlas Sneezed]

Rudy too.

[hadit2here]

Please let me know which ones are bogus, so I can remove them from my list.

Thanks.

[2A_Martian]

“...which ones are bogus...”

I’ve read these two are potentially bogus and possibly others:

“The beauty of...” by Jefferson
“The constitution...their right...” by Jefferson

Here are some sites claiming to identify bogus quotes (of course I question their verity as well!):

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndbog.html

http://www.saf.org/pub/rkba/general/BogusFounderQuotes.htm

http://www.hkweaponsystems.com/cgi-bin/quote.pl?_disputed

[2A_Martian]

” There are millions of would be despots waiting in line for the day guns are outlawed.”

“I can think of one...Hillary.”

And Obama is even more stridently anti-second amendment. I wonder if people will rally like they’ve done in the recent past and think of their gun rights on election day?

I think Fred Thompson paired with someone (Ron Paul?) could take them down because he’s also popular with independents and a lot of dems, too. Paul could pick up the libertarians. I’ve heard from fence-sitters that they fear losing their RKBA and are putting aside a lot of the other issues that would normally energize them.

[goldstategop]

Its important to settle the Second Amendment question. I think the U.S Supreme Court will agree its an individual right and hold that courts must apply the same kind of test on the RKBA as they do on free speech. Government regulations will be allowed only if they meet a strict scrutiny test. That would invalidate DC's handgun ban. The city of course could make the whole point moot by re-drafting its gun law. But its asking a lot of its politicians to give up their absolute control over the lives of the city's inhabitants. So Parker likely appears headed to the SCOTUS for ultimate resolution.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[rmh47]

For decades, the District has said the ban has reduced murder and suicide rates. Its view was supported by a 1991 study published by the peer-reviewed medical journal, New England Journal of Medicine, that examined homicides and suicides in the District, starting almost a decade before the ban, and ending almost a decade after. The study compared these rates with corresponding data for nearby metropolitan areas in Maryland and Virginia, where there is no ban.

The authors concluded that the adoption of the handgun ban coincided with a 25 percent decline in gun-related murders and a 23 percent decline in gun-related suicides in the District. The study didn’t find a similar drop in neighboring Maryland or Virginia, and it didn’t find an increase in District murders and suicides that did not involve guns.

The ban “prevented an average of 47 deaths each year after the law was implemented,” the study concluded.

I can't believe this "study" is still being presnted as evidence for the effectiveness of the DC ban! This is a perfect example of politics trumping science.

Yes, the number of murders declined in DC after enactment of the ban, but so did the population. Yes, the number of murders in the surrounding areas went up, as did the population. This so called "study" compared the absolute number of murders in those areas over time, not the murder rates! Talk about flawed methodology.

Still, to get the results they wanted, the authors of the study had to end it in 1987, even though later data were available, because the crack epidemic in DC started the next year, with its concurrent huge increase in murders.

[Erik Latranyi]

The NRA’s backing of a legislative fix of the DC gun ban before the case can be heard by SCOTUS may be related to the NRA’s understanding that a win by pro-2A forces in court would serve to reduce the NRA’s raison d’etre, at least as a political entity.

No, what the NRA is afraid of is a ruling like "Roe v Wade" where the Supreme Court rules you do not have an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Such a ruling would stand for decades before being challenged again.

Is that what you want?

[Erik Latranyi]

I wonder if people will rally like they’ve done in the recent past and think of their gun rights on election day?

Imagine this scenario: SCOTUS rules DC ban unconstitutional (but for a convoluted reason, not citizen rights), then Hillary/Obama run for the White House minimizing any gun control efforts, citing the recent SCOTUS decision.

Gun owners stay home....Hillary/Obama get elected...the new President sends her Attorney General out to find 'loopholes' that need to be closed in existing gun laws.

[Erik Latranyi]

This is a perfect example of politics trumping science.

Liberals are the masters of clouding crime rates to suit their socialist agenda.

They still count children killed by firearms as those chilren up to the age of 25 and those shot by the police during the commission of a crime.

[Hazcat]

Here is an analysis of the sentence of the 2A that is very hard to argue with.

http://www.largo.org/literary.html

[P8riot]

No, what the NRA is afraid of is a ruling like "Roe v Wade" where the Supreme Court rules you do not have an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Such a ruling would stand for decades before being challenged again.

Is that what you want?

Such a ruling may launch us into another revolution should anyone try to enforce it.

[Hazwaste]

“Is that what you want?”

WTH?

[Erik Latranyi]

Such a ruling may launch us into another revolution should anyone try to enforce it.

A real bloody revolution, with police, military and civilian turning against each other.

The NRA just wanted to wait until the odds were better that the SCOTUS would rule in our favor.

[Erik Latranyi]

WTH?

Do you think a ruling in our favor is a given?!

[Erik Latranyi]

Here is an analysis of the sentence of the 2A that is very hard to argue with.

Liberals have no trouble arguing against facts.

Lawyers and judges have so convoluted the meaning of the constitution that a ruling either way is not a given.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Thanks for the good reminders about that study. Unfortunately, the DC Bar Journal does not publish letters to the editor.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Thanks for the good reminders about that study. Unfortunately, the DC Bar Journal does not publish letters to the editor.

[marktwain]

“Yes, the number of murders declined in DC after enactment of the ban, but so did the population. Yes, the number of murders in the surrounding areas went up, as did the population. This so called “study” compared the absolute number of murders in those areas over time, not the murder rates! Talk about flawed methodology.”

Not only that, but if memory serves me right, the comparison dates were very carefully selected to maximize the murders before the ban, and minimize them afterward. I think, for example, that they included data as under the ban before it even went into effect.

[P8riot]

The NRA just wanted to wait until the odds were better that the SCOTUS would rule in our favor.

The odds haven't been better in a long time, and if the Dems retain control of congress and gain the WH, it may not happen again in a long time.

As for the revolution; this country is poised for one right now. We haven't been this divided since the 1860's. Couple that with theexpress willingness of the government to force its will on us, all that is needed is a spark, and depriving freedom loving, gun owning Americans of that basic right could be that spark.

[Travis McGee]

The best way to authenticate the quotes is not to just rely on lists of RKBA quotes, which often include the bogus ones, but to go to scholarly sites containing only verified quotes by each founding father. For example, UVA has a site which catalogs all of TJ’s authenticated writings.