Gun Owners Win One
09 March 2007 4:00 pm by Taylor Marsh
Gun Owners Win One
| The CATO Institute |
It could happen…
You\’re suddenly awakened by a noise from downstairs.
You listen closely…. but nothing. Was it your imagination?
One night, my husband was on night duty, so I knew it wasn\’t him, but still,
it was definitely a noise. Shhh… there it was again.
Quietly, I get up, reach underneath my side of the bed to pull out my HK. The
adrenaline is pumping the moment I feel the grooves of the gun. Breathing, I\’m
trained and prepared. I\’ve experienced violence and trauma in my life before,
never again, not by choice. This time I was ready. It also wouldn\’t matter if
the person was 6\’ tall and 210 pounds. As the old saying goes, God created
man. Samuel Colt made us equal. For a woman, especially finding yourself
alone and facing danger, this matters.
Did the above happen to me? No. Could it? Yes.
Personally, I can\’t imagine a city law banning all guns in private homes. It\’s
absurd. I believe it is also unconstitutional. As for my gun expert husband,
he simply wouldn\’t live where guns were banned by law. No American
should be forced to; not with the Second Amendment as law.
Good for CATO.
In a ground-breaking opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit today overturned the D.C. gun ban, a three-decade old
prohibition on possession of firearms within the Nation\’s Capital. Senior
Judge Lawrence H. Silberman, joined by Judge Thomas B. Griffith, a recent
Bush appointee, concluded that \”the Second Amendment protects an individual
right to keep and bear arms.\” Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson filed a dissenting
opinion.The case, Parker v. District of Columbia, was brought by six D.C. residents
– including Cato senior fellow Tom Palmer — who sought to keep functional
firearms in their homes for self-defense. The appellate court reversed a lower
D.C. court on all counts, and held that the activities protected by the Second
Amendment \”are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual\’s
enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued intermittent enrollment
in the militia.\”Cato senior fellow Robert A. Levy acted as co-counsel to the plaintiffs.
Under existing law, no handgun could be registered in the District, and even
pistols registered prior to D.C.\’s 1976 ban could not be carried from room
to room within a home without a license. The sum result of D.C.\’s myriad firearm
codes: no one within the city limits may possess a functional firearm within
his or her own home.Washington,
D.C. Circuit Court Strikes Down 30-Year Old D.C. Gun Ban
“We conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right
to keep and bear arms.”
Parker v. District
of Columbia pitted six fed up Americans against an age old gun law. They won
a big one. It will be stayed, then appealed.
In the majority opinion, Silberman wrote that federal and state courts have
been divided about the extent of protections covered by the Second Amendment.
Some have sided with the position advocated by the District, that a \”militia\”
means just that. Others have ruled that the amendment is broader, covering
people who own guns for hunting or self-defense.The Supreme Court addressed the Second Amendment in 1939, but it did not
hold that the right to bear arms meant specifically that an individual could
do so.Today\’s majority opinion said that the District has a right to regulate
and require registration of firearms but not to ban them outright in homes.
The ruling also struck down a section of the D.C. law that required owners
of registered guns to disassemble them, saying that would render the weapons
useless.Alan Gura, an attorney for the plaintiffs, issued a statement saying, \”This
is a tremendous victory for the civil rights of all Americans. The case has
implications far beyond the Second Amendment\’s right to keep and bear arms.
The court today affirmed that the Bill of Rights means what it says.\”
It\’s not over by a long shot, but I hope that the ruling stands and that D.C.
residents get the right that all Americans deserve under the Second Amendment
of the Constitution. Keep fighting.
Guns are not for everyone. If you don\’t like them, don\’t own one. Of course they need to be regulated, with background checks for owners mandatory. But they should definitely not be banned.
