Supreme Court Must Uphold Gun Ban

This year, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to overturn a lower court decision striking down the District of Columbia's 1976 handgun ban designed to reduce violent crime. If the Court reverses the lower court and upholds the ban, it will keep in place a crucial measure for the protection of the health and safety of our children in our nation's capital and communities nationwide.

At issue in the case, District of Columbia v. Heller, is the contention of opponents to the D.C. handgun ban that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees individuals the right to own and keep guns of any type for private use including self-defense. The Second Amendment states: "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." Those seeking to uphold the ban contend the measure was written for an 18th century America that did not maintain a large standing army. They see the Amendment as providing for the collective rights of state militias of citizens who, if called upon, would provide their own weapons in response to an emergency. They argue that the Constitution does not deny communities the right to enact gun control laws designed to protect public safety. It is important to note that the D.C. ban does not prohibit shotguns or rifles.

On January 11, 2008, the Children's Defense Fund joined with four other national organizations: the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, Women Against Gun Violence and Youth Alive!, in a brief amici curiae filed with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the District of Columbia's argument that the D.C. handgun ban should be upheld. A great deal is at stake in this case. As organizations committed to the well-being of all children, we see handguns as an ominous threat to the health and safety of our young people. In the brief, we state and believe that "the absence of handguns from children's homes and communities is the most reliable and effective method to prevent firearms-related injuries to children and adolescents." Our brief further asserts that, while "statistics reflect the devastating impact of handguns on people of all ages, handguns pose a unique danger to children and adolescents. Handguns are light, portable and easy to handle -- they are also accessible, romanticized in media available to adolescents, and fascinating to children."

Each year, thousands of children and teens are victims of gun violence. The most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that 3,006 children and teens died from firearms in 2005. Our research shows that every day in America we lose eight children and teens to gun violence. Since 1979, gun violence has snuffed out 104,419 young lives. The U.S. stands last among industrial nations in protecting its children against gun violence. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the average cost per gunshot victim, excluding rehabilitative and long-term care was $45,000. But gunshot injuries can add up to $2.3 million in lifetime medical costs -- about half of which is borne by taxpayers.

Gun control measures in other countries do work. Australia integrated gun control laws and government-sponsored gun buyback programs that resulted in cutting firearm homicides by more than half. Japan has one of the most restrictive gun control laws among democratic nations, outlawing firearms altogether with very few exceptions. In 2005, Japan had a total of 19 firearm homicides.

To understand the need for gun restrictions like those in place in the District of Columbia, one doesn't have to go back to last April 16 when Cho Seung Hui gunned down 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech University. Just this Valentine's Day, Stephen Kazmierczak entered a classroom in Northern Illinois University and shot five people to death and wounded many others before killing himself.

The residents of the District of Columbia are not alone in their desire to remove handguns from their community. In 2006, more than 100 U.S. mayors called for national leadership to wage war on the gun violence that ends so many lives in America.

Upholding the D.C. handgun ban is vital to our commitment to protecting the health and safety of America's children. Therefore, we urge the Supreme Court to do what is right and let the D.C. handgun law remain in place.

Comments

[perldog007]

Quote:
"If the Court reverses the lower court and upholds the ban, it will keep in place a crucial measure for the protection of the health and safety of our children in our nation's capital and communities nationwide."

No Ma'am. Flawed analysis. Have you ever been sworn in down at the Reeves Building and worked as a Special Police Officer in the projects and less affluent areas of D.C.?

I have. Having held a dying child in my arms one February evening at Potomac Gardens my opinions on this matter tend to be strong.

The Ban in D.C. simply gives criminals and lunatics a monopoly on the use of force with predictable and measurable adults.

More K-12 students die playing football than in school shootings. Also the School shootings like the one stopped at Pearl Mississippi by a responsible gun owner don't get much press.

When we talk about college nobody wants to talk about Grundy Va where students ran to their cars, got their guns and stopped a massacre in progress. Simply brandishing their weapons stopped the killer and made him put down his gun before other students tackled him.

In Utah they talk about incidents like that and students and faculty with permits carry at the state schools there.

Most children under 18 getting shot are gang members shot by other gang members.

Please consider one other thing. You are calling for the second amendment to be read as a dead letter, or perhaps invalidated by other means.

So I ask you Ma'am, what would stop the government from doing the same to the first amendment or any other fundamental right when some argument "for the greater good" could be forwarded?

Is it so inconceivable that the Military Industrial Complex could use influence to muzzle the press from telling the truth about war that would upset profits?

Which rights are negotiable? Because once you start down that slope getting back up will be a task. A very difficult task for a people without arms if you follow History as the founders did.

Respectfully,

Doug

[Sneaky]

Marian, I don't understand you. Could you please tell me what is so different about a violent crime involving a gun crime than a violent crime not involving a gun? Do you think a parent cares that their lost child was shot or stabbed?

Look closely at those international numbers you seem to like. Look closely at the incidents of violent crime, especially assaults and rapes, after the major gun control laws were implemented.

[Liberty332]

I wonder how law-makers get around the word "people" in the second amendment? By the way "People" is also used in Amendments 1,2,4 in 5 its "person" People is in Amendments 9,10 as well. So forget what the second Amendment says for a moment and imagine that all guns are gone because law-makers say people don't have the right to keep and bear arms. The POSSIBLE long-term affect is that some Left-Wing loon will use that as ground work to disenfranchise other "People's" amendments. Don't think it can happen? Look where you are starting, with the Second Amendment. By the way, the cities and states with the most restrictive gun laws also have the highest crime rates as well, Camden NJ #3, Washington DC is right up there, Los Angeles CA and I could go on and on and on. The gun measures that people want only arm the criminals more. For some interesting reading on the issue you should try "The Bill of Rights, Original Meaning and Current Understanding." Edited by Eugene W. Hickok Jr.

[research]

Gun control: Ghandi was against it, and Hitler was for it.

What else do you need to know?

[dragn1]

I wonder Marian have you read recently that Montana is stating that in the contract by which it was granted statehood " any person has the right to a gun", thus pointing out that if the court decides on a militia basis it would invalidate the contract of statehood.

[molonlabe]

I wanted to respond to this piece with the usual fervor and zeal of a pro-rights proponent intent on convincing an otherwise ignorant anti-gunner of the truths about gun control. But I see the the usual suspects are already on the scene with factual-based information refuting the emotional rhetoric of the anti's. So I just have one question for Ms Edelman:

Does the Children's Defense Fund provide services to those 18-20 something year old gang-banging "children" who make up a significant statistical demographic of those being "harmed" by gun violence? Just wondering.....

[JohannP]

Did the ANTI-SELF-DEFENSE LOBBY tell you that a FBI study of crime at schools, colleges, and universities, from 20000 through 2004, found there were 10,970 incidents involving a blade while only 3,461 incidents involving a gun?

Since England banned all guns in November 1997, gun crime has gone up. Scotland Yard noted, in 2006, that more people than ever were illegally carrying firearms as "fashion accessories". A report in January 2006 showed offenses involving guns soared by as much as 50 percent in some parts of the country. Kings College in London found that the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent in the two years after the weapons were banned.

Did the ANTI-SELF-DEFENSE LOBBY tell you that the "hot burglary" rate in Britain is 59%, in Canada is 44%, and in the Netherlands is 46% while it is only 13% in the USA? (Hot burglary is when the victims are present when the burglar enters.) Clear proof that criminals fear armed victims, especially those armed with guns. A study, by a criminologist, revealed that the #1 explanation of burglars in the U.S. for not entering an occupied building was: "I might get shot."

In nearly gun-free Britain, Scotland, and Australia the violent crime rate tops the U.S. rate.

Switzerland, Israel, & Norway all have very high rates of private gun ownership, yet they all have low gun related crime rates. Furthermore, in Switzerland and Israel many of those privately owned guns are true assault weapons (i.e., they have full automatic fire capability).

Did the ANTI-SELF-DEFENSE LOBBY tell you that the first very restrictive gun control to be enacted in England was the Firearms Act of 1920 and it was adopted because the upper class feared an armed uprising by the Bolsheviks?

[Thirdpower]

Virginia Tech. Gun Free Zone established to let people "feel safe".

NIU. Gun Free Zone.

Wash DC. Gun Free Zone.

If you honestly think that it "doesn't prohibit rifles and shotguns" then you tell us why people have to wait up to a year for a license at the whim of the police and why they're forced to keep them locked up and disabled? Defacto prohibition.

[Thirdpower]

How many of those "3000 teens and children" were involved in criminal activity when they were killed?

Why did the murder and suicide rates in Australia stay the same even after the bans? Why did you limit it to "firearm homicides"?

Why is the violent crime rate in Japan rising?

~Sunday, February 2: Gunman shoots and kills three at suburban Washington, DC pizzeria after argument over Super Bowl;

Handguns are banned in DC.

Boy, that worked out well.

[1will]

The man that brought the lawsuit against DC, Heller, is an armed guard at a Federal Building. According to DC laws and their local government this man is trustworthy enough to guard government buildings and employees but not trustworthy enough to use that handgun to protect himself at home.
I believe that the DC courts and government buildings (local) should be unguarded if the city officials truly believe their gun laws make for a safer city.

[Kyuzo]

I agree completely. I also feel that anti-gun politicians should be forced to have unarmed bodyguards.

Did you know that Dianne Feinstein (one of the most vocal anti-gun advocates) possessed the only handgun permit in San Francisco while she was mayor? Because she felt threatened?

Apparently gun bans apply to everyone except the people passing them.

[fsilber]

We will never be able to control guns any better than we can control access to marijuana, heroin, or cocaine. (That's not even considering the ease of making bombs or mustard gas for mass murder.)

Since gun control isn't going to work very well anyway, there's no justification for giving goverment ownership information -- particularly a government infiltrated by people who deny that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual Constitutionally protected civil right.

If there were any way of making the criminally insane safe to live among us, there'd be no need for insane asylums. But there isn't any way to do that, and to the extent that we cannot remove the danger from such people, the most important thing is our ability to kill them as quickly as possible when they go berserk.

Another constraint against the use of gun control in the vain hope of ameliorating this problem is that we need to be able to kill people efficiently in order (ideally) to deter rapists, muggers, burglars and carjackers, and to stop rapists, muggers, burglars and carjackers who are not deterred.

Perhaps people living in a police state such as Singapore don't require the means of self-defense, but people living in a free state (where police are limited with respect to what they can do to you until _after_ you've committed the crime) require the means of self-defense. Otherwise, street criminals will make us prisoners in our own homes, as they do in many London and Paris neighborhoods.

That's why the Second Amendment comments that a well armed and trained general citizenry (well-regulated militia) is indeed necessary to the security of a free state (but perhaps less necessary in a police state).

As for the 3,000 youthful gang members who die of gunfire each year, the solution is for teenagers not to join gangs or to associate with such people. Otherwise, they have to sleep (and be buried) in the bed they've made for themselves.

[hopeless277]

Of course you realize that Scalia wears a gun under his robes, don't you?

[TimmySlagle]

Marian,

All your hopeful rhetoric ignores, that DC has one of the highest rates of Gun Violence and Homicide in the Nation.

And since the 1976 gun ban was passed, things have only gotten worse. Meanwhile, states that have passed concealed carry laws have actually seen their crime rates decrease.

And if you think the 2nd amendment is a Constitutional Antiquity with no relevance in a modern America, you need to overwrite it, by passing a new Amendment.

Isn't ignoring the Constitution something the current occupant of the White House does, and the reason why the Democrats want him impeached?

Why is it okay to ignore the Constitution when it suits your goals?

[GritsJr]

Way to go, Marian. It's time to stand up to the NRA and end this madness. Our gun laws in the U.S. are an absolute joke and can't stop anyone from getting their hands on a gun (even criminals and prohibited purchasers can get them through unlicensed private sales and straw purchases through corrupt dealers). If we could get the gun lobby out of Congress, we could make immense improvement in this situation in a matter of months. It's not rocket science. But right now gun policy in this country is being dictated by a bunch of right-wing, would-be Timothy McVeighs. ENOUGH.

[Kyuzo]

Assuming that all pro-gun advocates are right-wing lunatics is a primary reason why Democrats lose elections.

[Bandofotters]

Correct. In a few months the problem will be solved the way we solved drunkenness with Prohibition and the way we eradicated mind-altering, addictive drugs? Or the way the last round of Immigration reform stemmed the tide of illegal immigration? The way the last round of campaign finance reform blah, blah, blah? The way that we fixed Social Security? Healthcare?

I agree one can make an "immense improvement" in months with respect to gun confiscation and shutting down legal commerce. As violent crime takes an upswing due to the Country-wide Gun Free Zone you can rest assured that you might be the only person who will then feel safer.

[Hoelder]

Why is it so bad to regulate gun purchases and owners? Look the British are not coming with a red robed army, neither do the Canadians or Mexicans and the chances of hitting a nuclear intercontinental missile from Russia with a shotgun is rather slim. Nor do Americans have the balls to overthrow a President lying and stealing because they believe that the free markets take care of it. I do not think that a sub machine gun is especially helpful at a duck hunt and the argument we have to protect ourselves is another excuse to avoid the social injustice problems we have in inner cities. Most of the guns we are talking about are specifically geared towards the killing of human beings. There are war zones in certain cities cops do not want to go into at certain times. Obviously private gun ownership has not succeeded to repel criminals. What is so bad about tracking guns from their manufacturing to their destruction? We have the infrastructure to do that. Our cars can be tracked much easier than that. But there are more important pieces of evidence that guns make results so much worse. In Europe you cannot buy a gun and violent crime is so much lower. Killing with a gun is so much easier than using a knife for instance. A knife requires closeness that make it more difficult to take a life, because you can feel the person face to face. Even if that natural threshold is taken, a victim has a better chance to come out alive, because of the effort and time necessary to take a life.

[Kyuzo]

Thankfully, the Second Amendment doesn't deal with what Hoelder thinks I should be allowed to own.

[Aaror]

So what you are saying is:
In 2001 terrorists killed 3000 men, women, and children, requiring the suspension of civil liberties including several parts of the bill of rights, and the declaration of war on two nations, one of which was not at all involved in the attacks.
In 2005 handguns killed 3000 children.
You want to do something over the deaths of 3000 children similar to what we did after 9-11? Can't you see that the deaths of 3000 children just don't compare to 9-11? How can you think that we might infringe on the bill of rights for children, we only do that for terrorists.
(end sarcasm).

[Kyuzo]

Let me correct your statistic:

In 2005, criminals and criminally negligent people killed 3000 children. Machines don't operate themselves.