|
Ruling has gun-control advocates reaching for the sky
Supreme Court ruling and gun control
Date published: 7/20/2008
WHEN THE ruling comes down, the majority view of the Supreme Court is all that matters. The Constitution says you are free to disagree, but not to disobey.
Take the recent ruling that struck down Washington, D.C.'s ban on gun ownership. One of the toughest gun-control laws in the country, it had been a prime target for gun-rights activists. District officials must now decide how to proceed, which will be difficult because the ruling is vague on a community's options short of an all-out ban.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, finding that the Second Amendment guarantees Americans the right to own a gun. "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," it reads.
That's so straightforward, some say, that it's surprising Washington's gun ban held up for 32 years.
On the other hand, some of the nation's most brilliant legal minds read the amendment as limiting the right to bear arms to members of a government-regulated militia. Americans know well that lawyers readily construe different meanings from even the same word or phrase.
Too bad we can't ask the Founding Fathers exactly what they meant.
LAWYERS WILL ARGUE
As of June 26, however, five of the nation's nine most important lawyers read the Second Amendment as guaranteeing the right of an individual to keep a gun. But that won't deter lawyers from arguing ad nauseam the intricacies of Scalia's opinion.
Here's one reaction: "This is a great moment in American history," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive, adding that the organization would now target gun regulations across the country.
Hey, Wayne, why stop there? Why not call for all couples to report the conception of a child under a new Firearms for Fetuses program?
I'm almost positive that it was not Scalia's goal to make LaPierre or the NRA happy. Nowhere did he forbid government from enacting valid and necessary gun-control laws.
If you want to keep a gun, whether it's a long gun for hunting or a handgun for self-protection, fine.
Richard Amrhine is a writer and editor with The Free Lance-Star.
|
|
Date published: 7/20/2008
Most recent reader comments:
What did he say!!!
(posted by
Xfile
, July 26, 2008 10:46 pm)
Did you actually have a point you were trying to make or where you just practicing your typing. Gun control only turns would be law abiding citizens into criminals should they choose the defense of their (and family's) lives and property more valuable than "a gun ban". The scum of society could not care less. Give the power back to the law abiding people so they don't have to choose "Law over Life"
For those fellow citizens who take exception
(posted by
Sled505
, July 25, 2008 2:39 pm)
to the recent supreme court ruling, you have my condolences. We all have different opinions. My ancestors immigrated from Ireland, a country that does not allow it's citizens to bear arms. Its' been quiet in Belfast for the last ten years, but there was no storage of violence before that. Legal gun ownership in Washington, DC makes little difference to the criminal element, but it does restore a Constitutional Right to the average law abiding citizen. I applaud the recent ruling.
Mankind
(posted by
AtackDuck
, July 25, 2008 1:23 pm)
always finds a way to abuse everything within reach. I believe that the Founders would not approve of the way that we (as a society) have tried to fob our civil responsibilties on the governments. Chief among those those responsibilities, is to defend ourselves and community. In doing so, we have let the criminals get out of control.
Yes, and that inanimate tool
(posted by
pinkphantom
, July 25, 2008 10:26 am)
also makes incidents like Columbine and Virginia Tech so much easier to do. How many students at Tech would have been killed with a screwdriver before being overpowered by a bystander? One or two? Guns make mass killings and violence so much easier to do. That's all I'm saying. I'm not asking that the 2nd Amend. be re-written or abolished. It's too late for gun control. We have a lot of gun deaths every year because of it. I doubt the founding fathers, smart as they were, would approve of our gun culture.
Tools
(posted by
AtackDuck
, July 25, 2008 9:26 am)
"and this "inanimate tool" makes it so much easier to be violent and to kill easily." So do screwdrivers and your hands. It is the criminal actions that need to be controlled, not a chunk of metal and plastic. Don't forget: this same tool makes it possible for a 70 year old, 90 lb woman to defend herself against a 20 year old, 200 lb. attacker. The anti-rights people would take this away and have us defenseless, relying on the altruism of criminals. (Kras, thanks for word on Bellesiles).
|
Star Directory
