10:49 a.m. PT: Back in 1976, the Council of the District of Columbia thought it would be a good idea to ban the sale of handguns and require shotgun and rifle owners to keep these firearms disassembled. The council thought the ban would cut violent crime rates.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
In fact, violent crime, particularly murder, went up. The ban deprived law-abiding citizens of the constitutional right to bear arms and to protect themselves, while thugs ran free and killed without conscience.
Last March, a three-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declared DC’s ban on handguns unconstitutional and refused to rehear the case in May. The city appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and today the court has decided to hear the cases.
I am hopeful that sometime in 2008, I will be the owner of several (legal) firearms.
Does owning a gun go far enough? How about concealed carry? I dig that. 
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Concealed carry? Sure! But Open Carry is for free men and women….
Open carry, eh? I dig that, too!
This will indeed be a pivotal case. Congress and SCOTUS have kicked this can down the road for 70-odd years. Let’s hope and pray they put it to rest in the manner that the Forefathers intended.
PS. Good to be commenting again
some of you may remember a few weeks ago in LA(?), a politician who was pro-gun control was in his house or went to a house (of his) that was being built and there was an intruder on the premises. he, of course, was protecting his property and did it according to his deeply held beliefs; he shot the man.
The second Amendment II
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms. shall not be infringed”. Call me crazy, but this seems to be as self explanatory as it it can get. Explanatory to people who actually understand common sense that it is. Sorry liberals no offense.
Current and lifetime owner of several legal firearms and a CWP. So far my guns have killed one less than Ted Kennedy’s cars, but they have prevented a carjacking. Staring at a 9MM between your eyes must be a shock to a criminal, but them criminal Mexicans are fleet of foot.
Coincidental to this is an ongoing investigation of a Mr. Horn here in Houston Texas that killed two men stealing property from his neighbor’s house that was on vacation. The neighbor did request that Mr. Horn watch his house while he was gone. But,because it was his neighbor’s property and not his that he was protecting with a shotgun, He may be in trouble.
More to the constitutional point, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were put there as a protection of individual rights. There can be no doubt as to the original author’s intent. This rubrick over ‘well regulated militia’ as some type of qualifier of when or how citizens can bear arms is just that. It IS an individual right granted to us. I think we can use a little common sense to determine the difference between a twelve guage and a rocket launcher as to what constitutes bearing arms. The right to keep and bear arms was put there to allow us to protect ourselves in situations where the government couldn’t, or from the government itself if need be.
La Shawn,
I am glad you opened this post for comments. Having been a police officer for the last 22 years, I cannot imagine having to go about unarmed(even on my days off). It has come in handy a time or two, and it is a great feeling of security, particularly since my house was broken into twice this summer ( I interrupted the first one, but they got out the window before I caught sight of them, no doubt encouraged by my yelling out “Police” and drawing my gun upon entry and discovery).
As a life member (since I was 17) of the NRA, I have long been a proponent of the individual right to own firearms. Let’s hope the Supreme Court in its current makeup is wise enought to follow the intentions of the Founding Fathers.
La Shawn,
I have been looking forward to this case and the bigger picture is how this case will affect the rest of the Bill of Rights. If the court rules that firearms are an individual right, then the rest of the BOR stays intact. If the court rules that firearms are a collective right subject, then the BOR is subject to the whims of the party in power. (e.g. Think McCain-Feingold, The Fairness Doctrine and etc…)
Of course the wealthy privileged aristocrats of WASHINGTON D.C.(DISTRICT of CRINIMALS) want to enjoy their own armed protection but not to the working class what a bunch of spoiled little snobs i hope their appeal is rejected after all the 2nd amendment is about self defense and is not reserved for the wealthy liberal elitests.
I live in OK. We have had concealed weapons laws I think since 1996. People were carrying them before the law passed. It kept crime down for the most part. People have a right to protect themselves.
I heard the 911 call of Mr. Horn. He had planned on shooting when they were at his neighbor’s house. The 911 operator convinced him not to shoot. From what I remember the robbers stepped on his property before he shot them dead. If I’m correct he obeyed the letter of the law. This will be interesting to watch.
Where I live not long after the concealed weapon’s law passed a story came out about a father that wanted to protect his daughter. This is when the make-my-day law passed that said that if someone entered your home and you felt threatened you had the right to use deadly force. A father lives a few doors down from his daughter. He saw thieves leaving her home. He jumped in his pickup, followed the thugs and shot toward their vehicle. One of them was hit. He was not charged.
People are sick of being in places where there are not enough police to respond in a timely manner. They have the right to protect themselves from those that want to harm them. HOWEVER the protection that the 2nd amendment deals with is protection from the government, not normal intruders.
If the Supremes are silly enough to outlaw pistols or rifles for self defense or to uphold a localities right to suspend the Constitution regarding guns a’la Giuliani and his fellow N’Yarkers, then this country is defunct. Our 220 year Constitutional republic will have ended. This issue is the fulcrum of all other rights that we have. Without the 2nd amendment we are nothing. May God be with the Supreme Court as they decide the fate of the United States.
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