Heck yeah!

Read the whole editorial here:

Among the Bill of Rights were such assurances that Americans were free to speak and pray unfettered, to own guns, to bar intruders from their homes, to not testify against themselves, to received an informed, speedy trial by a jury of peers, to receive a reasonable sentencing, and freedom from anything not otherwise listed. Oh yeah, the states were free, too.

Free from whom? The federal government. Future laws could not encroach on these individual freedoms.

It is illogical that Madison would embed an item to further empower the government in his list of items to empower the people against that very government. Yet that must be the belief of four dissenting Justices who presumably think the Second Amendment is about the right of America to have a National Guard. To the contrary, many founding fathers feared a standing peacetime army of any kind. It might abuse its power.

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Another Whiny Editorial

Click here to read the whole thing. From the Washington Post:

What else can the city do except go with the flow? That’s what presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barrack Obama appears to have done. Although Obama has campaigned for gun control and against gun violence, he issued a statement praising the Supreme Court for overturning the District’s gun ban.

Ricochet shooting like that might even inspire a specialty gun shop all its own. Call it Shot in the Foot or, to capture the sentiment of betrayal expressed by some Obama supporters: shot in the back.

During the Supreme Court deliberations, members of Congress signed petitions calling for the District’s handgun ban to be overturned. They deserve a gun shop of their own. So let them have it: the Hamilton and Burr, perhaps. Motto: Why talk ‘em to death when you can leave ‘em bleeding on the floor?

In a culture that loves the faceoff, the showdown, the high-noon drama –at home and abroad — there is no reason that D.C. residents should be denied such an essential tool for conflict resolution.

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Chocolate City

An all together not unexpected editorial on the Heller ruling from a different perspective. An anti is an anti is an anti, or so it would seem, regardless of their background or social station.

Some excerpts:

It’s a ruling that’s bound to bring more bloodiness to Chocolate City.

Last week, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s three-decades-old ban on handgun ownership. Not surprisingly, National Rifle Association types, people who have long been oblivious to the body counts in urban America, hailed the decision as a victory for the Second Amendment guarantee of the right to bear arms.

…

But just as the justices didn’t imagine that the Founders envisioned gun ownership as a right only for militias, I’m sure the Founders didn’t envision the crack cocaine trade. Or Uzis and Magnums. Or crime-ridden communities in which people wouldn’t have to defend themselves against foreign invaders or the forces of a president-turned-despot, but their fellow citizens

…

Arthur Kellerman, a professor of emergency medicine and public health at Emory University, wrote in the Washington Post about how his studies had revealed that guns kept in homes were 12 times more likely to wind up injuring a member of the household than an intruder or another bad guy.

He also cited Justice Department statistics that show that far more guns are stolen by the bad guys to commit crimes than are used by the good guys to prevent them. In Atlanta, he said, a study of 197 home-invasion crimes revealed only three instances in which the inhabitants got to their guns before the intruders did.

…

Last year, for example, I wrote about a single mother who, after being concerned about the rise in burglaries and homicides in her community, purchased a gun. What she didn’t count on, however, was that her young son was going to be more fixated with the gun than any would-be criminal.

She kept catching him trying to get to the gun. She continued to move it to places where she figured he couldn’t get it. But he finally did get to it — and fatally shot his younger sister while playing with it.

…

Then there are the people who are living in such frightful conditions that they literally believe in shooting first and asking questions later. Many times, that means elderly people who’ll wind up shooting the neighbor who comes up on their front porch at night to hand them a piece of mail that wound up in the wrong box.

…

I hate that the NRA’s narrow pursuit of preserving gun rights is making it nearly impossible for places like the District, which is plagued with urban violence, to take the steps necessary to stop gun violence.

And I worry that District officials and officials throughout the nation are going to have a tough time stemming the tide of illegal guns because of their single-minded focus.

Wow, so many anti-right talking points in such a short editorial. From the founders not envisioning modern weapons, to Arthur Kellerman’s flawed and discredited study, to holding up one irresponsible mother who left her gun out where her son could get to it and implying this is what will happen because of the ruling, to the old shooting the mailman canard, to the public health angle; this editorial is chock full of anti-rights chocolaty goodness.

I wonder if the author would react the same way if the ruling denied him/her the right to vote or the right of free speech.

After all, it’s for the children, and if it saves one life, right?

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BS from the LA Times

Yeah, I’m shocked too. Read it here.

Their proposal is akin to blaming auto makers for the deaths caused by bad drivers and makes about as much sense. I suppose it’s no accident the last name of one of the authors is Sugarman.

Here’s a short taste:

We propose a new way to prod gun makers to reduce gun deaths, one that would be unlikely to put them out of business or to prevent law-abiding citizens from obtaining guns. By using a strategy known as “performance-based regulation,” we would deputize private actors — the gun makers — to deal with the negative effects of their products in ways that promote the public good.

In other words, rather than telling gun makers what to do, performance-based regulation would tell them what outcome they must achieve: Reduce deaths by guns. Companies that achieve the target outcomes might receive large financial bonuses; companies that don’t would face severe financial penalties. Put simply, gun makers — whose products kill even when used as directed — would have to take responsibility for curbing the consequent public health toll.

Under our plan, Congress might require gun makers in the aggregate to reduce gun homicides from 12,000 to, say, 7,000 in 10 years, with appropriate interim targets along the way. Individual firms would each have their own targets to meet, based on the extent their guns are currently used in homicides. Or Congress might simply leave it to neutral experts to determine just how much of a numerical reduction should be required — and how quickly. Either way, the required decline would be substantial.

How would gun companies go about reducing gun deaths? The main thing to emphasize is that this approach relies on the nimbleness, innovation and experimentation that come from private competition — rather than on the heavy-handed power of governmental regulation. Gun makers might decide to add trigger locks to their guns, or to work only with dealers who meet certain standards of responsibility. They might withdraw their semiautomatic weapons from the consumer market, or even work hand in hand with local officials to fight gangs and increase youth employment opportunities. Surely they will think up new strategies once they have a legal obligation and financial incentive to take responsibility for the harm their products cause.

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A Pro-Gun editorial from the Chicago Tribune

Click here to read more of this excellent article:

Of course it’s fair that they have guns and you don’t

John Kass
June 19, 2008

That Washington, D.C., gun ban that the Supreme Court should toss out any day now because it is unconstitutional is often compared to the handgun ban in Chicago.

But what’s not often reported by the decidedly pro-gun-control media is that since Chicago’s anti-handgun law went into effect in 1982, only two classes of people have had ready access to firearms:

The criminals. And the politicians.

Cynics who scoff at everything decent suggest these are one and the same, but taxpayers know the difference.

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Washington Times Editorial

The Washington Times came out with an editorial today supporting the individual rights definition of the second amendment.

EDITORIAL: The right to arm

Most Americans believe that owning a gun is the right of every citizen. According to a Gallup poll, 73 percent of the U.S. public believe that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to gun ownership. Therefore the Heller decision, which is expected any day now, could play a pivotal role in the 2008 presidential campaign. Former Ohio Secretary of State-turned-pundit Kenneth Blackwell calls it “the Roe v. Wade” of gun rights and suggests that the case (and its results) will ripple beyond District borders to impact “90 million American gun owners.”

It was six D.C. residents, fed up with escalating crime and the inability to protect themselves in they city they love, who filed suit in 2003 to challenge the constitutionality of the District’s ban on handguns. The lawsuit was dismissed but reversed on appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which found that the petitioner: 1) had standing to bring the lawsuit, 2) is protected by the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms (handguns) and 3) therefore, the District “is not open to ban them.”

Last year, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty failed in his petition to rehear the appeal, paving the way for both defendant and plantiffs to petition the Supreme Court. That brings us to where we are today, in the midst of a presidential election when opinions on every matter are measured at every turn and the issue of “gun rights” is beginning to weave its way in and out of the political debate.

Generally speaking, more gun owners identify as Republicans (53 percent) than identify as Democrats (39 percent), according to Gallup. And a Harris poll, out this week, backs that up. It found that 51 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Democrats support an individual’s right to bear arms.

While the justices are expected to make their decision based on rule of law, not public opinion, the weight of whether the two presumptive presidential candidates are in sync with the public’s views on the issue should not be lost among voters. But nailing either candidate down on the matter is dicey. We know Barack Obama referred to Hillary Clinton as “Annie Oakley,” suggesting that she attempted to pander to gun owners during the primary campaign. But Mr. Obama didn’t do himself any favors with with his “they cling to guns” remark. Mr. Obama has also opposed “right to carry” laws, voted to ban almost all rifle ammunition and has endorsed a complete ban on handgun ownership.

John McCain has caught grief from gun advocates for his support for closing gun-show “loopholes.” But he is seen by many in this same group as the “lesser of two evils.” Mr. McCain also joined close to 300 other lawmakers in signing a court brief which supported lifting the D.C. gun ban, and he delivered a laudable speech to the National Rifle Association’s annual conference last month, addressing what he considers Mr. Obama’s glaring contradiction on gun rights: “Let’s be clear if … Obama is elected president, the rights of law-abiding gun owners will be at risk.”

The Gallup poll cited also found that the majority of Americans don’t actually own a firearm (only 35 percent say they do). But that doesn’t mean they forfeit the right to purchase one if they so desire. We hope the majority of justices agree.

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