The Bush Administration's Support for Gun Control

More evidence emerged this month that the gun debate is turning a corner in America.

Only days after signing the first gun control legislation in over a decade, the Bush Administration has now disavowed the most extreme outcomes implicit in the gun lobby's view of the Second Amendment.

In its brief in the D.C. v. Heller case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bush Administration acknowledges that because of the "unquestionable threat to public safety that unrestricted private firearm possession would entail" that "various categories of firearm-related regulation are permitted by the Second Amendment."

The Brady Center welcomes this surprising development. It demonstrates the problem with the "private purpose" interpretation of the Second Amendment. This view might have sounded good politically to the Ashcroft Justice Department [pdf], but now the Bush Administration realizes that the lower-court decision could "cast doubt on the constitutionality of" common-sense gun control laws like the "federal machine gun ban," the restrictions on firearm possession by felons, and the licensing of gun dealers.

Rather than defend the long-standing view of virtually every Federal court - that the Second Amendment has an obvious militia purpose, and is no barrier to the adoption of gun control laws by legislative bodies responsible for providing public safety and for weighing competing views on the effectiveness of and need for such laws - the Bush Administration brief proposes a "heightened scrutiny" test when the gun control law "has no grounding in Framing-era practice."

This test would consider the "practical impact" on the individual ("including the nature and practical adequacy of the available alternatives") and the "strength of the government's interest in enforcement of the relevant restriction."

This case-by-case approach would permit "Second Amendment doctrine to develop in an incremental and prudent fashion," according to the Bush Administration. Judges in different parts of the country could presumably reach different decisions on similar gun control restrictions based on the different law enforcement challenges in those communities.

Do we really want judges making those decisions rather than democratically-elected legislative bodies? Nine national police organizations have joined the Brady Center's brief [pdf] defending the pre-Heller state of Second Amendment law, which gave this power to communities.

Police and mayors and district attorneys (all of whom are on briefs supporting the District of Columbia) know that gun control laws that make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons help keep their communities safe.

The Second Amendment should not be a barrier to the adoption of sensible gun laws that help save lives. We're glad that the Bush Administration seems to agree.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

Comments

[mike101]

"LOL ~ I can't help (appropriately) laughing at your absurdity here ... sorry, OldSFMJT."

OK. In what non-absurd way would you protect your family against an intruder? I'm going to keep asking this question until we get an answer, or until you stop telling us how absurd we are, without backing up anything you say.

Joyce Foundation funded pseudo-research is not a credible source.

[shedances]

Quite simply, having a firearm does not necessarily protect you (or others) from harm ... in fact, it could be just the opposite case. Guns are a vital 'ingredient,' if you will, to gun violence. So, if gun ownership is a significant part of your lives as private citizens, then you should be able to understand & respect the limits/controls that go with it. If not, then you just don't have the necessary sensibility, IMHO. As Paul Helmke/BC wisely noted in past blogs, Americans should be able to deal with 'a little red tape, if it avoids more yellow tape' from gun homicides, suicides, and accidents!

K

[mike101]

One of the great mysteries of life is how many members the BC has. They won't tell us.

I'll bet they have even fewer than they tell themselves they do. They just sent ME an email asking me to contact my senators, Frank Lautenburg and Bandito "Under-Federal-Investigation" Menendez, and urge them to support "closing the gunshow loophole".

The BC is counting ME as a member, I'll bet.

Talk about your LOL.

[DMeadows]

Feeling safe without a firearm is not the same as being safe without one.

According to the most recent statistical analysis by the DOJ of firearm self-defense:

"A fifth of the victims defending themselves with a firearm suffered an injury, compared to almost half of those who defended themselves with weapons other than a firearm or who had no weapon."

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt

That's right. Without a firearm, you stand a 5 in 10 chance of being hurt by your perp. With a firearm, you drop your odds of being hurt to 2 in 10.

[MSorgy]

In Election Season, Mum’s the Word about Gun Control

Article about how gun control is a losing issue and how more people are realizing that CHL laws do reduce crime...

One thing is beyond doubt, however: Contrary to what anti-gun advocates predicted, after 5,000,000 carry permits have been issued, violent crime has dropped dramatically—and virtually no gun-related crimes have been committed by ordinary people with carry permits.

This result has produced a sea change in criminological opinion. As a young criminologist, Prof. Hans Toch of the State University of New York believed that “reducing the availability of the handgun will reduce firearms violence.” Thirty years of research later, he repudiated that: “When used for protection firearms can seriously inhibit aggression and can provide a psychological buffer against the fear of crime. Furthermore, the fact that national patterns show little violent crime where guns are most dense implies that guns do not elicit aggression in any meaningful way. Quite the contrary, these findings suggest that high saturations of guns in places, or something correlated with that condition, inhibit illegal aggression.” [Toch, “Research and Policy: The Case of Gun Control,” in Psychology and Social Policy, edited by Peter Sutfeld and Philip Tetlock (NY Hemisphere, 1992).]

Likewise, Prof. David Mustard wrote recently in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review: “When I started my research on guns in 1995, I passionately disliked firearms.... My views on this subject were formed primarily by media accounts of firearms, which unknowingly to me systematically emphasized the costs of firearms while virtually ignoring their benefits. I thought it obvious that passing laws that permitted law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons would create many problems. [But research has convinced me that]...laws that require [gun carry] permits to be granted unless the applicant has a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness reduce violent crime and have no impact on accidental deaths.” [David B. Mustard, “Culture Affects Our Beliefs About Firearms, But Data Are Also Important,”


http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19815&Itemid=1

Michael

[dragn1]

In those quiet moments Paul when you are all alone do you ever just let yourself go and admit you hate guns? Do you ever just admit that people with guns scare you and you wish we would all just disappear and be replaced by the frightened government slaves that you and other CDS members would like everyone to be; depending on the government from birth to death and everything in between? The truth shall set you free.

Oh and by the way I think you can still find where Kellerman admitted his research could not be recertified. This means if you cannot conduct a study over again and get at least similar results using the same information and figures it was a load of crap. Most good second year Bio, Psyc, or Chem classes would have taught this.

[mike101]

There's another fact that the anti-rights side has never addressed here.

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, during the 40 years of Gun Control, crime has rissen 313% per 100,000 inhabitants of the US.

So Kelli, I'd love to hear your version of how all of these "common sense gun laws" of yours have done something to reduce crime.

[shedances]

Feeling safe with a firearm is not the same as being safe with one. The presence of guns actually makes us all a lot less safe. According to study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2004) and discussed in the Washington Post last April by writer Jonathan Safran Foer, "guns kept in the home for self-protection are 43 times more likely to kill a family member, friend or acquaintance than to kill an intruder." And, according to the FBI that same year (also appearing in this Washington Post issue from April 22, 2007), "for every justifiable handgun homicide, there are more than 50 handgun murders." This is unacceptable loss of lives to firearms. And, especially when such gun violence concerns our children ~ that is, where nearly 3,000 American kids are killed by firearms each year in this country ~ we need to be far more active (proactive, really) in supporting important gun control measures.

K

[molonlabe]

Here's how we are keeping our streets safe in America:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/01/27/2008-01-27_215_convicted_killers_were_set_free_in_s-3.html

Will we blame the guns for our violence problem when these criminals offend again??

[mike101]

While you're at it, perhaps you can explain why the BC does not support NICS access fot private citizens, since that would close the alleged "gun show loophole" you all seem so concerned about.

Whatsa matta? Afraid you all won't have enough to complain about?

[mike101]

There is no shortage of guns in Washington DC (or Chicago), Kelli. Kindly explain why you and the BC support keeping the marketing and distribution of these guns in the hands of criminals.

[shedances]

If you talk with many people outside the gun crowd, they'll tell you that they support gun limits. And, in my view, the District is absolutely doing the right thing by fighting for their handgun law at the high court level ~ it's not for others to usurp DC's ability (eg., 'right') to determine their own necessary gun laws, or force them to abandon such measures to appease the gun lobby/gun crowd, IMO.

[WalterHiggins]

From the Wikipedia article on the Constitution of the (former) Soviet Union: "...Soviet constitutions guaranteed certain political rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. They also identified a series of economic and social rights, as well as a set of duties of all citizens. Nevertheless, Soviet constitutions did not contain provisions guaranteeing the inalienable rights of the citizenry, and they lacked the machinery to protect individual rights contained in many democratic constitutions. Thus, the population enjoyed political rights only to the extent that these rights did not conflict with the goal of building communism. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union alone reserved the authority to determine what lay in the interests of Communism."

This seems to be the direction that gun control advocates are moving. Just substitute "public safety" for "communism", and "Big City Mayor" for "Communist Party of the Soviet Union".

[mike101]

Hello. A little "guncrime" in the gun-free UK, what?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=509962&in_page_id=1770&ito=1490

[mike101]

Leifrakur-

I just spent some time poking around guncite.com. With all of that lovely pro-rights information, how is it all you were able to come away with was four lousey quotes, whose authenticity they question?

Well, since you obviously have a great deal of
confidence in what they say, and you respect their opinions so much, then perhaps you should have equal confidence in the correctness of their explanation of the intent of the 2nd Amendment.

http://guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html