D.C. Gun Ban Baloney
04 September 2007 5:07 pm by Taylor Marsh
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Talk about ridiculous, this editorial is staggering in the whopper-ific category,
compliments of D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, and Linda Singer, the District’s
attorney general.
The handgun ban has saved countless lives, but this fundamental part of the
District’s public safety laws will be no more if the Supreme Court does not
review and overturn this year’s decision by the D.C. Circuit. Departing from
the consensus of the courts, the court (in a 2 to 1 vote) decided that the
Second Amendment is not about state militias after all but about personal
gun rights. We think that ruling is extraordinary and wrong. Indeed, it is
the first time a federal appellate court has used such a view of the Second
Amendment to strike down any gun-control law. …
The D.C. handgun ban has saved countless lives? Are they kidding? Isn’t D.C. still the
murder capital of the country? Maybe not, because the city lost the title in ‘05, but it’s still a very dangerous place.
But it’s nothing compared to the petition filed to try to undo the previous win against the gun ban. One section reads as follows:
The choice of a ban further reflects the recognition that the threat of handgun
violence extends well beyond the premeditated acts of criminals. The Council
noted that guns “are more frequently involved in deaths and violence
among relatives and friends than in premeditated criminal activities,”
and that many “murders are committed by previously law-abiding citizens,
in situations where spontaneous violence is generated by anger, passion, or
intoxication.” App. 102a.
Evidently, Fenty and Singer think it’s their job to save people from themselves.
Nanny gun alert! Scotusblog
has the link of the petition, plus analysis. Only a lawyer could decipher this
junk.
The Supreme Court has not ruled on the scope of the Second Amendment in 68
years — not since U.S. v. Miller in 1939.Washington, D.C., is a city that is often described as a “crime capital”
because of the high incidence of murders and other assaults. The petition,
without applying any such label to the city, suggests that the need to regulate
handguns is a life-or-death matter there. “Absent review by this Court,”
it contends, “the District of Columbia — a densely populated urban locality
where the violence caused by handguns is well-documented — will be unable
to enforce a law that its elected officials have sensibly concluded saves
lives.”It notes that the city has been regulating guns since 1858, and goes on to
document the problems the local City Council discerned when it adopted the
current handgun ban 31 years ago. At the time, it said, handguns were used
in 88 percent of armed robberies and 91 percent of armed assaults, and in
one year — 1974 — “were responsible for 155 of the record 285 murders”
in the city.Handguns, it sums up, “present a singular danger,” leading the
Council to adopt a freeze on the “pistol population” within the
District. … ..
But get this, Singer
really believes they can win.
The ruling, written by conservative senior judge Laurence Silberman, “wears
the trappings of a bona fide legal theory, but it distorts both the words
of the amendment and the plain intent of the founders,” according to
the petition. The city offers arguments aimed at making it palatable for the
Court’s conservatives to uphold the ban noting, for example, that the city
allows possession of rifles and shotguns. It also makes a federalism argument,
asserting that the Second Amendment targets only federal interference with
state militias — and therefore has no effect on the D.C. ban.Singer calls the city’s arguments “very textual” ones that would
appeal to any justice who wants to honor the words of the Second Amendment.
She sounds confident that victory is within reach. “If we didn’t think
we could win, we would not have taken it up.”
I’m all for gun laws that work and make sense, but just because D.C. residents
can purchase and own shotguns doesn’t make the D.C. handgun ban right. It’s
wrong. The March decision is correct and I hope the Justices walk away from
D.C. mayor, who has overreached by not only saying that D.C.’s handgun ban has saved lives, but that owning a shotgun means that you don’t need or shouldn’t want a handgun.
In my own case, I can’t shoot a shotgun worth beans. First, I’ve done it and can’t control the kick, which knocks my boney shoulder, because I’m too shotgun shy not to wince before pulling the trigger. Call me a wimp. However, with my HK everything is different. I’m sure, confident and prepared to protect myself. It’s absurd to think that if I lived in D.C. I’d be relegated to anything other than a handgun, which is the only way I would feel safe in a home alone at night. However, according to the D.C. mayor I might get liquored up and shoot someone with my handgun, which I wouldn’t do with a shotgun. Go figure.
Stupid gun laws are heralded by people who seem ignorant of reality. I’ll let the lawyers and the Supremes, God help us, decipher the rest.
