From the wretched website/mailing list 'Gun Guys': http://www.gunguys.com/?p=3083
June 30th, 2008
After the Supreme Court's Ruling On the DC Handgun Ban, Gun Control Advocates Have Good Reason To Cheer Up
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court, headed by conservative justice Antonin Scalia who wrote the majority opinion, overturned the District of Columbia's handgun ban by asserting that the ban violated the Second Amendment. In doing so, Scalia reversed over 200 years of legal precedent and ignored the robust history of gun control since the founding of the country in order to justify the Court's new, dramatic, confusing and certainly misguided decision.
But something big got overlooked amidst the headlines.
The Supreme Court held that, in fact, gun control is Constitutional, and certainly viable. For example, even the conservative members of the Supreme Court, and Scalia himself, stated unequivocally that governments have the right and authority to regulate carrying concealed weapons, regulate gun sales, allow for the registration of guns, and even prohibit "dangerous and unusual weapons" -- which we read as an ability to ban to military-style assault weapons and powerful .50 caliber sniper rifles.
In short, the conservatives on the Supreme Court fully endorsed gun control as a concept and legal doctrine, and that no right is beyond sensible regulations.
Scalia wrote in his opinion:
"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited...[It is not a] right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. …[The Court's] opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms," (p. 54-55).
By definition, the only way to screen "felons" and the "mentally ill" is to enact common sense measures such as universal background checks, waiting periods, licensing gun owners and other sensible provisions that do not, according to Justice Scalia, violate anyone's Second Amendment right.
What does this mean? It means that gun control advocates have very good reasons to feel optimistic. In fact, the conservatives on the Supreme Court may well have sucker-punched the gun lobby without even realizing it.
By asserting that there is an individual right to keep and bear arms -- which we hope one day gets reversed and put back in its proper reading of the Second Amendment -- and holding that gun control won't lead to a slippery slope of confiscating all guns, the Supreme Court completely eviscerated the NRA's two main pillars for its fundraising operations.
In other words, it is entirely possible that all of the wind has been taken out of the gun lobby's sails. What "fear card" can the gun lobby possibly play anymore?
For the short term, however, the gun lobby is feeling empowered, and already targeting Chicago's own handgun ban which Mayor Daley has sworn to fight for. Although it might be highly optimistic to think so, the gun issue "could" evolve from the divisive political debate into a new phase of problem solving and what to do about the approximately 30,000 gun deaths and tens of thousands of Americans wounded each year.
There is no question that the Supreme Court violated its own standards by ignoring longstanding precedent in stripping DC of its handgun ban. And legal experts have rightfully chastised Justice Scalia's legal doctrine of "originalism" as a sham in light of his parsing of words and ignoring his own theory that Courts should not create laws and invent new legal interpretations, which is exactly what Justice Scalia did.
June 30th, 2008
After the Supreme Court's Ruling On the DC Handgun Ban, Gun Control Advocates Have Good Reason To Cheer Up
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court, headed by conservative justice Antonin Scalia who wrote the majority opinion, overturned the District of Columbia's handgun ban by asserting that the ban violated the Second Amendment. In doing so, Scalia reversed over 200 years of legal precedent and ignored the robust history of gun control since the founding of the country in order to justify the Court's new, dramatic, confusing and certainly misguided decision.
But something big got overlooked amidst the headlines.
The Supreme Court held that, in fact, gun control is Constitutional, and certainly viable. For example, even the conservative members of the Supreme Court, and Scalia himself, stated unequivocally that governments have the right and authority to regulate carrying concealed weapons, regulate gun sales, allow for the registration of guns, and even prohibit "dangerous and unusual weapons" -- which we read as an ability to ban to military-style assault weapons and powerful .50 caliber sniper rifles.
In short, the conservatives on the Supreme Court fully endorsed gun control as a concept and legal doctrine, and that no right is beyond sensible regulations.
Scalia wrote in his opinion:
"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited...[It is not a] right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. …[The Court's] opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms," (p. 54-55).
By definition, the only way to screen "felons" and the "mentally ill" is to enact common sense measures such as universal background checks, waiting periods, licensing gun owners and other sensible provisions that do not, according to Justice Scalia, violate anyone's Second Amendment right.
What does this mean? It means that gun control advocates have very good reasons to feel optimistic. In fact, the conservatives on the Supreme Court may well have sucker-punched the gun lobby without even realizing it.
By asserting that there is an individual right to keep and bear arms -- which we hope one day gets reversed and put back in its proper reading of the Second Amendment -- and holding that gun control won't lead to a slippery slope of confiscating all guns, the Supreme Court completely eviscerated the NRA's two main pillars for its fundraising operations.
In other words, it is entirely possible that all of the wind has been taken out of the gun lobby's sails. What "fear card" can the gun lobby possibly play anymore?
For the short term, however, the gun lobby is feeling empowered, and already targeting Chicago's own handgun ban which Mayor Daley has sworn to fight for. Although it might be highly optimistic to think so, the gun issue "could" evolve from the divisive political debate into a new phase of problem solving and what to do about the approximately 30,000 gun deaths and tens of thousands of Americans wounded each year.
There is no question that the Supreme Court violated its own standards by ignoring longstanding precedent in stripping DC of its handgun ban. And legal experts have rightfully chastised Justice Scalia's legal doctrine of "originalism" as a sham in light of his parsing of words and ignoring his own theory that Courts should not create laws and invent new legal interpretations, which is exactly what Justice Scalia did.
