NY Times Supports DC Gun Ban

The NY Times recently published an editorial supporting the DC gun ban. Among its principle reasons for upholding the law were the change in times since the nation's founding and the violent reality of guns in homes.

The editorial can be found below:

"By agreeing yesterday to rule on whether provisions of the District of Columbia’s stringent gun control law violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has inserted itself into a roiling public controversy with large ramifications for public safety. The court’s move sowed hope and fear among supporters of reasonable gun control, and it ratcheted up the suspense surrounding the court’s current term.

The hope, which we share, is that the court will rise above the hard-right ideology of some justices to render a decision respectful of the Constitution’s text and the violent consequences of denying government broad room to regulate guns. The fear is that it will not.

At issue is a 2-to-1 ruling last March by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that found unconstitutional a law barring handguns in homes and requiring that shotguns and rifles be stored with trigger locks or disassembled. The ruling upheld a radical decision by a federal trial judge, who struck down the 31-year-old gun control law on spurious grounds that conform with the agenda of the anti-gun control lobby but cry out for rejection by the Supreme Court.

Much hinges on how the justices interpret the Second Amendment, which says: “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.”

Opponents of gun control sometimes claim a constitutional prohibition on any serious regulation of individual gun ownership. The court last weighed in on the amendment in 1939, concluding, correctly in our view, that the only absolute right conferred on individuals is for the private ownership of guns that has “some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well-regulated militia.” The federal, state and local governments may impose restrictions on other uses — like the trigger guards — or outright bans on types of weapons. Appellate courts followed that interpretation, until last spring’s departure.

A lot has changed since the nation’s founding, when people kept muskets to be ready for militia service. What has not changed is the actual language of the Constitution. To get past the first limiting clauses of the Second Amendment to find an unalienable individual right to bear arms seems to require creative editing.

Beyond grappling with fairly esoteric arguments about the Second Amendment, the justices need to responsibly confront modern-day reality. A decision that upends needed gun controls currently in place around the country would imperil the lives of Americans."

U.S. Supreme Court Accepts Gun Ban Case

A video recapping the soon-to-be contentious case over the DC gun ban. Given the Court's conservative leaning and the fact that the arguments on behalf of striking down the gun ban are based on the right to self defense, it's very likely that the Justices will rule in favor of striking down the law, setting a precedent that could change the course of gun control laws for a very long period of time.

USSC Could Overturn D.C. Gun Ban

The U.S. Court of Appeals for DC recently ruled unconstitutional a D.C. law which banned the ownership of hand guns (with the exception of active and retired law enforcement officials). It joins only one other federal appeals court--one in New Orleans--to do so purely on the grounds that the law violates the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms.

The USSC has ruled only once on the Second Amendment in 1939 on the case of U.S. v. Miller. They upheld a gun control by a vote of 8-1. According to FindLaw, in that particular case, "Arkansas bootlegger Jack Miller was indicted for violating the National Firearms Act of 1934 by carrying a sawed-off shotgun across state lines. Miller argued that the case against him should be dismissed because the Second Amendment protected his right to own and carry the weapon."

The Court also seemed to affirm the collective right of the people--not persons--to bear arms. The Court wrote:

"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State of Tennessee, 2 Humph., Tenn., 154, 158."

The people pushing for the case to go to the USSC are fielding some criticism for appealing the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision. With a slightly more conservative court, owed most in part to the nominations of President Bush and a undeniable texualist sitting on the bench as well (Justice Scalia), the prospects for upholding D.C.'s gun ban do not look very promising.