The decision isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It doesn't allow the ability to buy guns from coin operated vending machines, which seems to be the N.R.A.'s goal. We have the individual right of ownership affirmed, and the locality's right to restrict transactions and concealed carry.
You're still going to get more dead people, though.
Deadly Consequences -- But the Right Call
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, June 27, 2008; A17
Few landmark Supreme Court rulings have been so widely predicted as yesterday's decision striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. The mere fact that the court agreed to hear the case was a pretty good indication that the justices were itching to make some kind of big statement about the Second Amendment. Questions from the bench during oral arguments in March left little doubt as to which way the wind was blowing.
This case, for me, is one of those uncomfortable situations in which my honest opinion is not the one I'd desperately like to be able to argue. As much as I abhor the possible real-word impact of the ruling, I fear that it's probably right.
The practical benefits of effective gun control are obvious: If there are fewer guns, there are fewer shootings and fewer funerals. As everyone knows, in the District of Columbia -- and in just about every city in the nation, big or small -- there are far too many funerals. The handgun is the weapon of choice in keeping the U.S. homicide rate at a level that the rest of the civilized world finds incomprehensible and appalling.
I realize that the now-defunct D.C. law was unusually comprehensive and restrictive and thus, in the legal sense, offered a bull's-eye for the pro-gun lobby. I also know that the law was easy to attack on grounds of efficacy: Given all the handgun killings in the city, was the ban really having any beneficial impact?
But come on, it's not as if the law was making gun violence in the city any worse -- and it's not as if striking down the law, and perhaps adding hundreds or thousands of weapons to the city, will make things any better. The law was flawed, but it was a lot better than nothing.
I'd like to be able to thunder about the injustice committed by an activist, archconservative Supreme Court that seeks to return our jurisprudence to the 18th century. I will, almost certainly, about some future outrage. But this time, I can't.
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The interesting part to me
The interesting part to me is that Scalia seems to have pretty much left intact most restrictions short of a complete ban. A clever pro-gun control lawyer can now rebut the NRA by saying that the Supreme Court has affirmed that all these restrictions are in fact constitutional.
IANAL but I think this may actually allow a sounder gun control argument than in the past.
She's back!
I actually think this is the best outcome you could get.But here's the thing...they also said it's not settled whether the second amendment constrains state governments as well as the feds. The same argument has been made as regards the establishment of a state religion.
Yeah, I agree this may
Yeah, I agree this may actually be the best possible outcome. I would assume the NRA will try to litigate soon to resolve the question of incorporating against the states; I guess we got lucky that this case involved the District of Columbia and not a state.
I think it is best to let each state legislate according to its needs. A state like New Jersey, for instance, can have strict gun control while Montana could be more lenient. Fortunately, even if the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states, they can still have very restrictive gun laws.
I'll be very interested to see how this develops.
I don't disagree with the
I don't disagree with the Court's decision as much as I am still wondering what can be done to assist municipalities like Camden, New Jersey. Camden, on a per capita basis, is now one of the most violent cities in the United States. New Jersey has strict gun laws but Pennsylvania does not. The Camden police can't do anything to stem the tide of illegal guns that are flowing into the city that are purchased, many suspect, by Pennsylvania residents who live in Philadelphia. Hand guns purchased in Pennsylvania are routinely transported from Philadelphia across the Walt Whitman Bridge into Camden.
The City of Philadelphia is now fixed even more between a rock and a hard place. The city's leaders have seen their efforts to impose reasonable handgun controls on the city's residents thwarted again and again by rural Democrats in the state house and the Republican-dominated legislature. Philadelphia only wanted to limit the number of handgun purchases city residents could make monthly but even this fairly moderate proposal sent the NRA and its supporters in Harrisburg into a hissy fit.
Race is never far from this issue although Pennsylvania Republicans and the NRA would swear on a stack of King James editions that it is freedom, not race that guides their deliberations. But the City of Philadelphia's government is a favorite whipping boy of the state Republicans. The city's leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't, which is what the state Republicans love. They ignored the City of Chester's descent in bankruptcy and senility until the citizens elected a white Republican mayor and then fell over themselves trying to provide state and federal aide.
and it's not as if striking
Only because people no longer know how to use handguns to defend themselves from criminals. If law abiding citizens were trained to use handguns responsibly for self-defense, criminals would be far less compelled to prey on them.
No longer?
When did "people" ever know how to use handguns to defend themselves?
But at least it's a better line than that 'defend ourselves against the government' fatuousness.
But they're not, are they?