Posted on 07/27/2008 6:28:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
Notwithstanding the adverse ruling the District of Columbia received from the U. S. Supreme Court for its unconstitutional ordinance restricting the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, bureaucrats in the Federal City continue their efforts to gnaw away at the Second Amendment.
That amendment is elegant in its simplicity: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Nevertheless, it took over 150 pages for the Court to expound upon its meaning. (Surely the justices have too much time on their hands!) Bottom line: "...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." The Court also directed the District to allow the complainant, Mr. Heller, to register his firearm and to issue him a permit to carry it in his home.
The Court ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual one and that it includes the right to use handgunsthe weapon of choice for most peoplefor self-defense. The Court recognized that the right to self-defense is inherent, and it is in the home where the "need for defense of self, family, and property is the most acute."
While D.C. is no longer the "murder capital" of the country, it is still seventh on the 2006 list of major cities that "where guns are outlawed, only the outlaws have guns."
You would think that Mayor Adrian Fenty would want to ensure that the District's residents would have the means to protect themselves. After all, as professor Gary Kleck explains in his book Targeting Guns, 25 to 75 lives are saved by guns for every life lost to a gun. But, think again!
Within a month after the ruling came down, the District passed a new set of draconian regulations restricting the rights of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms in the nation's capital. According to USA Today, the new laws require residents of the District to jump through multiple hoops to own a handgun. They must get a permit from the city, keep the gun in their homes only for self-defense purposes, pass vision and written exams, provide the weapon for ballistic testing, and prove they are a resident of the District. Securing the permits could take weeks to months. Most astounding in light of the Court's decision is the new requirement that guns be kept "unloaded, disassembled or secured with trigger locks" unless there is a "threat of immediate harm." The Supreme Court has recognized that the primary purpose of the Second Amendment is to establish the individual's right to keep a weapon for self-defense, yet the new D.C. law practically destroys the ability to exercise that right by forcing an individual to load, unlock, or assemble their weapon only after a threat is already present. Advantage, criminal!
America's Founders were willing to pay the ultimate price to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity. They well knew the danger of being defenseless against forces intent on harming them. Thus, in the Second Amendment, they secured the right of every citizen to have the means by which to protect themselves. The D.C. Council continues to trample upon this right leaving the District's law-abiding citizens defenseless in their own homes. And, because these bureaucrats fail to respect the Constitution, it is the citizens who pay the ultimate price.
Czar Fenty and his Commies on the D.C. Council need to be frog marched down to Lorton Virginia for a spell while a special master is appointed to run the D.C. regime.
Not that I’m holding my breath.
"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
Their owners provide for their welfare.
Special master? I’ll bet John R. Bolton could fix the place. Would be the first time a man has been in charge in quite sometime. The wimps would be running for cover!
I agree, but here's the problem. The Communists who run our country know that they can't and won't ever be able to truly control the people as individuals. Any attempts to do so would wake the people from their perpetual slumber, and interfere with the plan to move us entirely to Communism. What they do is control the businesses, which means that even though you're willing to disobey their chickensh!t gun control laws, the gun shops can't and won't.
“Murder is the only statistic that all agencies are required to report. Consequently some agencies particularly in Illinois do not report all the crimes. If components are missing the total is adjusted to “0.”
I’ll bet Chicago and King daley are lying through their teeth as to how safe the city is.
With that need for protection in mind Fenty decided his best choice for Police Chief would be a GIRL. A girl who sued the department repeatedly for sexual discrimination and was promoted to shut her up. (:^o)
It would definitely be an improvement to their current 10-20 because this is what Lorton looks like now.
Leftists are relentless in their march to destroy our rights and create a marxist utopia.
DC is hoping it takes another 30 years for these “new” rules to be challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court.
This is going to be the liberal tactic....stall, obfuscate, block and violate the edges of the ruling in hopes liberal judges can chip away at it over time, leaving you with a right to keep and bear arms only in your home and nowhere else.....and if you live up to impossible standards.
....Isn't it really civil disobedience and contempt of SUPREME COURT on the part of these city "officials" that would be disobeyed?
Wouldn't that make it a double wrong making it right?
Oh I agree with your estimation of Bolton, however I think his qualifications and talents would be wasted in what would be essentially a municipal clean up job, I want to see him as Vice President or even President. Secretary of State at the minimum because it would scare the bejesus out of those entrenched career traitor-bureaucrats at State who sell us out each and every day and night, 365 days a year.
Bolton would drain that swamp if he had to personally deliver termination notices to each and every damn one of those clods.
Bolton is a patriot, and he got short shrift by this Administration, and that’s because our illustrious President caved in to the professional appeasers and fools like Condi-the-Piano-Player, Christopher Hill, and the rest of those acolytes of Neville (Chamberlain).
Within the U.S. there is no such thing as an unconstitutional law. There are unconstitutional statutes, ordinances, regulations, and other rules, but those are not laws.
So who voted these yahoos and neanderthals into office? Blame them.
I thought the lock provision was one of the things explicitly struck down (and ridiculed) in Heller. Am I mistaken?
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