In June, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, D.C. v. Heller. For over 70 years, the federal courts had read that amendment to protect only a state's right to organize militias, like the National Guard. In a long-awaited victory for the gun rights movement, the Court reversed course and held that the Second Amendment protected an individual's right to own guns for personal self-defense.
So far, the victory hasn't turned out exactly as the gun rights folks had hoped.
As many legal scholars predicted, the Supeme Court's decision led to a tidal wave of Second Amendment challenges to gun control. Every person charged with a gun crime saw the Supreme Court's decision as a Get Out of Jail Free Card.
To date, the lower federal courts have ruled in over 60 different cases on the constitutionality of a wide variety of gun control laws. There have been suits against laws banning possession of firearms by felons, drug addicts, illegal aliens, and individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. The courts have ruled on the constitutionality of laws prohibiting particular types of weapons, including sawed-off shotguns and machine guns, and specific weapons attachments. Defendants have challenged laws barring guns in school zones and post offices, and laws outlawing "straw" purchases, the carrying of concealed weapons, possession of an unregistered firearm, and particular types of ammunition. The courts have upheld every one of these laws.
Since Heller, its Gun Control 60, Individual Right 0.
Before the Supreme Court's decision, none of the numerous challenges to gun control laws raised in recent months would have had any hope of winning. Now, with a revolutionary ruling recognizing a renewed individual right to keep and bear arms, they still have no hope of winning.
About the only real change from Heller is that gun owners have to pay higher legal fees to find out they lose.
The basis for most of these lower court rulings upholding gun control is a paragraph near the end of the Supreme Court's decision that, at the time, seemed like a throwaway. The Supreme Court wrote that "nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions on the commercial sale of arms."
What gun rights advocates are discovering is that the vast majority of gun control laws fit within these categories.
"I would have preferred that that not have been there," says Robert Levy about this laundry list of Second Amendment exceptions. Levy, executive director of the CATO Institute, which funded the Heller litigation, believes that paragraph in Scalia's opinion "created more confusion than light."
But to a die-hard gun rights advocate, the problem is exactly the opposite: the paragraph shed too much light. It revealed that the Supreme Court believes that almost all gun control measures on the books today are perfectly lawful--a message that hasn't been lost on the lower courts.
Hardliners in the gun rights community cannot help but be disappointed with their long-awaited triumph.
Also, Patrick Henry and George Mason believed that all of the people were the Militia.
America's belief that the 2nd Amendment, individuals owning guns, was based on England's Declaration of Rights of 1689 which guarantees citizens the right to keep and bear arms, expounded on by William Blackstone.
If you look at the Pennsylvania State Constitution, it clearly outlines that the individual has the right to own firearms for self defense.
When Vermont was ratifying the constitution, they were the first state to add a declaration of rights, or a bill of rights, which included the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms.
All of the founding fathers believed that this was a natural right, to defend ones self, with weapons.
Liberal Senator Hubert Humphrey believed that the 2nd Amendment was for the individuals to keep and bear arms.
Lastly, Thomas Jefferson, while an Ambassador to France in 1785, wrote to his 15 year old nephew, stating that the firearm should be the constant companion of every man.
I am a liberal, and love Obama, but the one thing that concerns me about the Obama Administration is the strict stance, belief of the 2nd Amendment, and what they will do to limit guns in the hands of law abiding citizens.
The numbers have proven time and time again, that when law abiding citizens have firearms, crime goes way down.
* The blockbuster movie “Titanic”grossed $376 million in 9 weeks. The hunting and shooting sports generate that much every 4 days.
*The entire motion picture industry gross revenue from theater admissions is about $5 billion,annually. The firearms and ammunition industry and related activities generate that much in two months.
*More than 25 million Americans participated in shotgun, handgun and rifle target shooting activities in a 1996 study. That’s more than three times as many people who played racquetball during the same period, more than twice as many as take part in water skiing,and is about the same number of people that played golf.
* Hunting and target shooting activity employ annually more people than Chrysler, Phillip Morris,United Parcel Service and Ford combined and nobody is asking for a bail-out.
* In 1937 during the Great Depression and at the urging of organized sportsmen, State wildlife agencies, and the firearms and ammunition industries, Congress extended the life of an existing 10 percent tax on ammunition and firearms used for sport hunting, and earmarked the proceeds to be distributed to the States for wildlife restoration. The result was called the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act. The measure was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 2, 1937. These taxes are currently 11 percent and raise in excess of $180 million dollars annually for wildlife management and habitat acquisition and improvement programs.
http://www.nodc.us/nvdemshistory.htm
The response will be to either raise taxes on firearms and ammunition some more, hence reducing purchases more, in a domino effect, and/or to raise taxes and fees elsewhere.
Hunting has been declining for several decades; it is down 40% since 1987. Taget shooting has declined 11% over the same period.
Moreover, rifle and shotgun production (US) are down 23% and 21% respectively during the period 1983-2001. During that same period, handgun production (US) is down 64%. Pretending hunting and shooting sports employs more people than the US auto industry is just silly.
Nobody is asking for a bailout? What a ridiculous comment.. The gun industry does nothing but ask for bailouts. What other industry demands that its products not be regulated, not be subject to litigation, and demand that illegal activities not be tracked?
Right. And 8 year old stats on production are relevant today how?
Of course this is coming from the same person that claimed Chicago had a population of 9.7 million in order to skew statistics.
What is even more interesting is that most of Saami's members are foreign-owned firearm manufacturers. So when they talk about the hunting and shooting industry employing more people than the US auto industry--they're certainly not talking about just the US hunting and shooting industry.
Saami also plays fast and loose with the facts; remember the line about the movie "Titanic" only making $300M in 9 weeks? What Saami neglects to mention is that 10 years after the release of the movie, "Titanic" had grossed about $1.3B in worldwide box office receipts. And that doesn't count home video receipts which certainly will far exceed that number.
And that's just one movie.
Saami also misstates the motion picture industry revenues. According to Dun&Bradstreet, the US motion picture industry has annual revenues of over $60B--not $5B--in 2004. OTOH, Businesswire puts the US hunting and shooting annual revenues at $2B--and falling
It seems that none of them even bothered to think about it, so please permit me to answer it for them, which hopefully will lead them to the light about what this debate is really all about::
"... surveys imply that private firearms may be used in self-defense up to two and a half million times each year, with 400,000 of these defenders believing that using the gun 'almost certainly' saved a life", Professor John Lott
(This is 6,849 acts of self defense and 1,096 lives per DAY)
http://christianparty.net/gunstudy.htm
Professor Lott didn't engage in a philosophical discussion of the Second Amendment. He merely took a statisticians look at the facts and drew conclusions that our Founding Fathers knew without such a study. We now have the benefit of their forethought, as well as the statistical proof that they were smarter than any of us today, as evidence by our very miserable performance in TIMSS.
The fraud and sockpuppet?
The 2.5M figure has been debunked--even the study's author has backed off that number.
Even if the number were half that, the annual number of defensive uses of firearms would still be statistically significant. Of course that concept doesn't fit your need.
You forgot to use "mouthbreather", "quisling", and some of your other signature epithets.
Ummm, yes they did, in most jurisdictions. Certainly there were attempts in the Jim Crow South, New York City, etc. to deny non-WASPS the right to own a gun (and some of those laws are still on the books), but until 1950's neo-Victorianism, gun ownership by women was more common, and middle-class African-Americans own plenty of guns and have since the end of slavery.
FWIW, our crime rates have trended DOWN since the 1980's, not up. And about 80% of what violent crime we do have can probably be traced directly or indirectly to our singularly irrational approach to the drug issue. You would think that the lessons of alcohol Prohibition would have been better learned.
Under a system where self defense is prohibitted:
...a woman who struggles against a rapist would then be charged with assault (assuming the rapist is somehow caught....doubtful he would be). And she would incriminate herself by admitting to the police that she tried to get him to stop.
...a parent could not legally interfere with the kidknapping or rape of her child.
...there is added motivation for a violent assailant to murder his victim(s). Dead people can't identify him in court (again, assuming he is caught), and the victim can't defend herself anyway.
...violent crime would likely skyrocket. Who is gonna stop it? Police? They are good, but they only go to where they are called.
...even the most responsible and law-abiding citizen is faced with becoming a criminal, if they want to live.
No. Lets not go that route.
The 2nd applies to everyone. The militia phrase does not give conditions for possessing arms. It gives a reason not to infringe the people's possession of arms.
1st, it's got nothing to do with thinking guns are cool.
What many anti-gun people fail to realize, is that the right to private gun ownership already existed long before the constitution was written. The English brought it with them in 1607.
The militia clause, or preamble if you prefer, is cited as the reason for providing a constitutional guarantee that this previously existing right, cannot be taken away.
"Then again, who knows?"
The Founders know.
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html
There are a ton of quotes regarding the individual right to keep and bear arms, easily found on the internet. Poke around a bit. And despite what the author of this blog says, the courts have almost always held that this is indeed an individual right. Other posters go into this in more detail further down the blog.
Those of us he didn't obey the confiscation. It will be done begrudgingly though. If the people of this country didn't care enough to fight before it got that far, I don't think they're worth fighting for.
First of all, government — at any level, shape, form or function has delegated powers: NOT rights. Your statement completely illustrates that established law and structure completely depends on the actual support of those elected and/or appointed to apply and enforce that law and structure. No support for the original intent, the law becomes arbitrary and essentially meaningless.
One poster mentions that the Iraqis' had weapons under Hussein and that those weapons did not help them at all. I disagree. Hussein had completely abandoned the structure of the Iraqi constitution in favor of the application of complete unrestrained power. The results were horrendous. Yet, the Kurds and others were still able to make Hussein's police and military walk with care in many parts of the country.
Looking at the larger picture of government and its' relation to the people, it has been proven time and time again that when government's application of power is for only the control of the people and it's own survival, the social structure begins to decay, with generally predictable results.
Which was the way the founding fathers felt about government.
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. " --George Washington
An armed populace is the check and balance of last resort. The Federalist Papers, No. 46 (Madison) touches on that topic.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp
Thus a prediction:
When the Left -- bourgeoisie and working-class alike -- finally awakens to the extent the President and the Democrats in general have betrayed the hope for change, Obama will demonstrate once again his truly peerless grasp of Machiavellian governance.
Using the Second Amendment escape-clause cited above, the President will unleash Attorney General Eric Holder and the anti-gunowner faction in Congress to impose national restrictions similar to the laws of New York City: no handguns for civilians; rifles and shotguns only for "legitimate purpose" (and then only by police permission); and -- worst of all -- the criminalization of mental health care so that (as in NYC today) even one outpatient visit to a psychiatrist, psychologist or psychological counselor terminates your Second Amendment rights forever: no exceptions, no appeal.
Which will (again) fragment the U.S. Left, but it will placate its largest faction: the pacifist zealots who want to impose mandatory defenseless (and thus statutory victimhood) on all the rest of us. The resultant fragmentation will prohibit (as in years past) the emergence of a third party, and though many (former) firearms owners will desert to the Republicans (also as before), the pacifists will remain faithful to Obama and give him victory in 2012.
Are you sure you're not talking about NJ? We've had statutory victimhood imposed on us for years. We aren't even allowed to own pepper spray here.
But hey! We got an A- from the Brady Campaign!
Professor Winkler conflates three different populations under the rubric of "gun owner": Gun criminals, criminal defense lawyers, and law-abiding gun owners.
The remaining population consists of the millions of Americans who legally own firearms. They do not commit gun crimes and their accident rate is extremely low (about 500 accidental shootings a year for around 100 million guns. Swimming pools have an death rate about 101 times higher than do legally owned guns.) People with concealed carry permits tend to be hyper law abiding. For example, the state of Florida has issued more than 3 million concealed carry permits with a revocation rate of less than 0.01%. (The most common reason for revocation is the inadvertent carry of a weapon into an airport terminal.)
The outrage to be seen in some of the comments to this post comes from people such as myself, who are gun owners, but are also law-abiding homeowners, voters, blood donors, charity and political volunteers, etc.. We get very tired of hearing ourselves characterized as criminal monsters, psychopaths, and potential mass murderers by people who know nothing of us, and who know nothing about guns, shooting, criminology, or of real and overall beneficial social effects of firearm ownership in the United States.
Private ownership of guns was very common under Saddam Hussein's regime (source).It certainly didn't protect the Iraqi people against political tyranny.
http://www.guninformation.org/
You bring up Saddam Hussein how about Hitler first thing he did was disarm the citizens, oh and Stalin he took the guns away from citizens too. How safe were these countries? I think 50 million people died between these two dictators.
BTW, it's not '2.7 times' if you understand anything about numbers. A 2.7 absolute ratio is statistically insignificant in the field.
Of course it doesn't explain why suicide rates are higher in non-firearm common countries.
But it's OK. I'm sure you're a true believer.
The term "Gun criminal" is not redundant. Only 18% of convicted violent criminals use firearms (I can provide research citations.) They come largely from the drug industry (including gangs such as the Crips or Norteños). They will continue to pack illegal guns because a) They do not obey laws, b) unable to settle disputes at law, they resort to violence, c) they can import guns through their drug smuggling channels. Their victims are overwhelmingly other gun criminals. Almost all gun criminals have shown deviant behavior since childhood. They are not simply people pushed over the edge. Far from endorsing such people, the NRA has pushed for draconian punishment for possession of firearms by felons and for crimes involving guns.
It is hard to imagine that I, a layman, have to remind Prof. Winkler that an attorney is required by the ethics of the profession to be a zealous advocate for the client, or that the attorney need only provide a reasonable doubt of guilt in order to prevail. A criminal defense attorney’s citing Heller in an attempt to convince a court to restore the firearms of an admittedly felonious client does not make that anyone's stated policy. To attribute such a sentiment to "gun owners" is a gratuitous libel. The fact that a Klansman writes a bigoted op-ed does not repeal our civil rights legislation.
The state actually had a pretty good year.
Illinois had a population of 12.83 million w/ a murder rate of 5.9/100K (752) in comparison to 6.2/100K last year.
Chicago had 22.1% of the population of Illinois yet accounted for 58.9% of murders w/ a per capita rate of 15.64/100K. A slight drop from last year in both population and murders.
Cook County had 41.2% of the population of Illinois yet accounted for 69.5% of murders w/ a per capita rate of 9.9/100K. It also had population and murder drops.
The Cook County murders in raw number/per capita decreased 9.7 and 9.2% respectively while arrest numbers and rates increased over 6.8% from '06 to '07. 2006 however, had an 18% drop.
If Chicago were to fall into Lake Michigan, the Illinois murder rate would drop to 3.09 .
Were the rest of Cook County to follow suit, the rate would drop to 3.03 .
So Chicago still accounts for 5x the murder rate of the rest of the state with it's "Model Gun Laws". For 2008, however, they broke 500 for the first time if over 4 years w/ no sign of it slowing.
Not that I'm really surprised.
Right, and Jesse jackson wasted no time in speechifying about " and not a single gun store has been closed", as if that's where these gang kids are getting their guns.
Of course he said this while surrounded by his gun toting entourage.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2132349.ece
When Mrs. Pettit was strangled, and her two teen aged daughters were tied to their beds and left to burn to death (mercifully, they died from smoke inhalation), the police had been on the scene for 30 minutes.
So much for 911.
http://www.ethicsscoreboard.com/list/death.html
I haven't seen any recent updates about a trial or anything.
I sometimes think of myself as undecided, when it comes to capital punishment. It does seem uncivilized, and perhaps serves our desire for revenge more than it serves as a deterent, because animals who would do something like this probably don't think they'll be caught.
That being said, I'd volunteer off these two insects personally.
Earlier, one of them went to the bank with Mrs. Pettit, and tried to force her to withddraw money. The teller became suspicious, and refused to make the transaction. When they left the bank, the teller notified police, and the police went to the Pettit home. This was in the first account I read, back when it happened. I'll see if I can find the story.
1st, I spelled the name incorrectly. It's Petit.
I first read the details of this story when a link was posted to a news report on the old Brady Blog, the day after it happened. That report said the police had been on the scene for 30 minutes when the murders were committed. I can't find it now, and all posts have been deleted from the Brady Blog archives.
From the newer reports I'm seeing, this is what happened:
The Police were notified by the bank at around 9am, that Mrs. Petit and her family were being held hostage in their home, immediately after Mrs. Petit and one of the perpetrators left the bank. Police and firefighters arrived at the home a little over a half hour later. By that time the home was on fire, and Mrs. Petit and her two daughters were already dead.
At about 9:50, Dr. Petit escaped from the basement and stumbled into the back yard. At 10:01, the two ex-con home invaders attempted to escape in the Petit's car. They sideswiped a police cruiser, and then rammed into the police roadblock that had been set up down the street.
I apologize for any confusion.