The final chapter in our country's long history of angst over the right to bear arms could be decided by the Supreme Court in a few months. The case involves a security guard in Washington, DC, who insists that he has the right to keep a handgun in his home, contrary to the DC law.
On Tuesday we might know whether the Court will take the case at all, that's the first step.
It's curious to me that something like the establishment to a right to abortion can be manufactured out of "penumbras" (i.e., thin air), but that a phrase right out of the Bill of Rights ("the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed") would lead to so many federal laws restricting that Constitutional right.
Here's the story about the case. And here's a very interesting article written about it.
3 comments:
D.C has somewhat misrepresented its case to SCOTUS. They did not respond to the ruling of the appeals court for the District in their appeal to SCOTUS. They failed to show, other than as a footnote, that firearms in the District must be UNloaded and either trigger-locked or disassembled. They claim citizens have the right to self-defense, but do not permit it in practice. The police there have already been shown to have no legal obligation to protect from rapes, attempted murder and other "trivial" crimes that occur in the District. D.C. did a horrible disservice to the citizens and to the respect for the 2nd amendment in the process and ignore social and criminal statistics to back up their untenable position. Crime is up since the ban was instituted in 1976 and selective statistics will not resolve that issue. The appeal I read looks like it was written by a 10th grader and is more a laborious elucidation of policy, rather than an explanation as to why the Court should grant certiorari. Effectively disarming law-abiding citizens of the republic borders on criminality. Even Ghandi finally realized that one of the worst things ever done in his country was to disarm its people. My sense is that these leaders in the District are not uninformed or misguided, they are stupid and have learned nothing from banning handguns for some 30 years now. These same people would find it difficult to near impossible to explain why the overall violent crime rates in some 40 carry states now are DOWN. Could it be when you take away an effective means of self defense from the good guys, and leave firearms in the hands of those who would do us harm has something to do with the problem? The founders of our U.S. Constitution had a fairly good understanding of human nature and the possibility of tyranny of a government against its citizens. They were NOT stupid, thank God, if we can still say that.
anonymous dude - my GOD man put in some paragraphs.
Think of the children.
Anonymous,
» The police there have already been shown to have no legal obligation to protect from rapes, attempted murder and other "trivial" crimes that occur in the District. D.C. did a horrible disservice to the citizens and to the respect for the 2nd amendment in the process and ignore social and criminal statistics to back up their untenable position. «
I don't know if you'll ever visit here again, but it would be useful to know what you meant by this sentence. Who or what was it that has shown that the DC police "have no legal obligation to protect from rapes, attempted murder and other 'trivial' crimes"?
This is only a piece of your rambling post. I may very well agree with you but I'm having a hard time understanding what you're saying.
Steve Erbach
The Town Crank
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