Lock and Load

[Woodmonkey]

Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law.

In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.” The ruling will give gun-rights advocates a powerful new legal tool to try to strike down gun-control laws across the nation.

This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.

There already is a national glut of firearms: estimates run between 193 million and 250 million guns. The harm they do is constantly on heartbreaking display. Thirty-three dead last year in the shootings at Virginia Tech. Six killed this year at Northern Illinois University.

On Wednesday, as the court was getting ready to release its decision, a worker in a Kentucky plastics plant shot his supervisor, four co-workers and himself to death.

Cities and states have tried to stanch the killing with gun-control laws. The District of Columbia, which has one of the nation’s highest crime rates, banned the possession of nearly all handguns and required that other firearms be stored unloaded and disassembled, or bound with a trigger lock.

Overturning that law, the court’s 5-to-4 decision says that individuals have a constitutional right to keep guns in their homes for self-defense. But that’s a sharp reversal for the court: as early as 1939, it made clear that the Second Amendment only protects the right of people to carry guns for military use in a militia.

In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens was right when he said that the court has now established “a new constitutional right” that creates a “dramatic upheaval in the law.”

Even if there were a constitutional right to possess guns for nonmilitary uses, constitutional rights are not absolute. The First Amendment guarantees free speech, but that does not mean that laws cannot prohibit some spoken words, like threats to commit imminent violent acts. In his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer argued soundly that whatever right gun owners have to unimpeded gun use is outweighed by the District of Columbia’s “compelling” public-safety interests.

In this month’s case recognizing the habeas corpus rights of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Justice Scalia wrote in dissent that the decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Those words apply with far more force to his opinion in this District of Columbia case.

The gun lobby will now trumpet this ruling as an end to virtually all gun restrictions, anywhere, at all times. That must not happen. And today’s decision still provides strong basis for saying it should not.

If the ruling is held to apply to the states, and not just to the District of Columbia — which is not certain — there will still be considerable dispute about what it means for other less-sweeping gun laws. Judges may end up deciding these on a law-by-law basis.

Supporters of gun control must fight in court to ensure that registration requirements and background-check rules, and laws against bulk sales of handguns — a major source of guns used in crimes — are all upheld.

The court left room for gun-control advocates to fight back. It made clear that there were gun restrictions that it was not calling into question, including bans on gun possession by felons and the mentally ill, or in “sensitive places” like schools and government buildings.

That last part is the final indignity of the decision: when the justices go to work at the Supreme Court, guns will still be banned. When most Americans show up at their own jobs, they will not have that protection.

This audaciously harmful decision, which hands the far right a victory it has sought for decades, is a powerful reminder of why voters need to have the Supreme Court firmly in mind when they vote for the president this fall.

Senator John McCain has said he would appoint justices like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — both of whom supported this decision. If the court is allowed to tip even further to the far right, there will be even more damage done to the rights and the safety of Americans.

The Source

[Scrappy]

Originally Posted by Woodmonkey

If the court is allowed to tip even further to the far right, there will be even more damage done to the rights and the safety of Americans.

The Source

How can reasonable people think that a ban on guns will do anything but disarm the honest citizenry. Criminals have never obeyed the law and it doesn't matter if it's illegal or legal to be in possession of a firearm, they have and will continue to possess firearms.

It's the lack of trust of the responsibility of individuals that causes this mindset. Now that the specific question of individual's right to keep and bear arms is settled, do people think everyone who was affected by the unconstitutional law is going to go get a gun and start shooting everyone they see? The idea that people are not reasonable enough to make an intelligent decision about the use of the right to have a firearm, disgusts me. Should the editor who wrote this be banned from writing anymore because of his fundamental disregard for the constitution (or maybe just because he's a moron)?... oh no, he has a right to free speech.

I am glad to see the decision. I thought judicial activism would be absent from the Supreme Court, but with 4 in descent, it is apparent that even the court is not above politics

It's hard to get back what's been taken from you, especially if you willingly gave it up. Even harder to get it back from the government.

[Shooterman]

What the liars at the NYT fail to mention;

Yes, approximately 30000 firearm deaths per year; of which about 17000 are suicides, ( lack of a weapon will not affect that if someone truly wishes to kill themselves ) approx 12000 or a little less from homicides, about 800 accidental, and about 300 undetermined. Big difference. These were from 2001, the last figures I saw.

[Woodmonkey]

Part of those crime deaths is drug pushers and gang members killing each other. The statistics that are never put out there are how many people are shot while someone is protecting themselves from them? How many people are not crime victims because they had the means to stop the criminals?

[john mclaughlin]

The last time i went to dc was for a plant-page concert,and while walking back to the hotel,with 3 women ,these little asian dudes come running up scared to death asking if they could walk with us,they were actually hiding under me!why?they were getting beat,and shot at to dance right up the street.If they would have had a gun ?Anyway,i dont think the criminals will be as brazen.

[Scrappy]

Most, by that I mean over 90%, of convicted felons would rather be facing a cop than facing an armed citizen. Hmm, go figure LOL because a cop is in all actuality, a duty bound bystander to a confrontation, not directly the subject of the confrontation in it's initiation. That scares the bejezus out of a person in the wrong, to initiate a confrontation with someone in the right which they can hold little power over. No doubt every criminal will vote towards seeing the victim as helpless as possible. Should we call those against the protections of the second amendment supporters of criminals? I'm kinda liking some of the swing back away from the socialistic values.