Gun fighters
Posted: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:02:02
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2010 ... 010/533248
http://tinyurl.com/y8hxqo7
Gun rights and controls after the Chicago case
Date published: 3/11/2010
TWO YEARS AGO in District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court settled decades of Second Amendment debate by ruling that the right to possess firearms inhered in individual American citizens, not state militias. Perhaps Heller, boosted by the national surge in conservative populism and last year's resounding GOP electoral victory in Virginia, prompted Republicans in the current General Assembly to introduce scores of "pro-gun" bills, in full confidence that most would be signed into law by a like-minded governor.
Then the Dempire struck back.
Irked that his Senate Courts of Justice Committee, thanks to a few unreliable fellow Democrats, was approving bills expanding gun rights (e.g., the ability to carry a concealed pistol into a restaurant that serves alcohol), Chairman Henry Marsh, D-Richmond, created a special subcommittee, stacked with anti-gun senators, to weigh all gun bills. Also, departing from committee tradition, he empowered the panel to kill such bills rather than merely recommend their defeat and leave their fate to the full committee. The Marsh Special proceeded to mow down pro-gun measures, including one that would have scrapped Virginia's law limiting gun buys to one per month.
Thus, the wages of overreach. The anti-gun Virginia Center for Public Safety opposed 54 General Assembly firearm bills. This onslaught, says The Washington Post, represents a 15-year high in proposed gun-rights legislation, including such lulus as allowing the firing of weapons near subdivisions.
Unfortunately for Mr. Marsh and other Virginia gun-control enthusiasts, much of the quick work his "kill bill" committee accomplished will very likely soon be pronounced unconstitutional. Although the Heller ruling applies only to the federal government and its enclaves (notably, Washington, D.C.), the high court last week during oral arguments in a Chicago gun case gave every indication it will soon apply the right-to-possess principle to the states in the manner of other civil liberties--free speech, religious latitude, the right to assemble, and so on.
On its face, then, the one-gun-per-month law--which, despite many loopholes, restricts the average Virginian to a single gun buy every 30 days--seems scarcely more constitutional than a law limiting newspaper readership to one edition per month or church attendance to every fourth Sunday. Besides its dubious "liberty-rationing" aspect, One A Month was passed ostensibly to keep Virginia pistols off the streets of New York City. Continuing to defend it after the Supreme Court extends Heller to the states would put Virginia legislators in the position of valuing the welfare of Gotham over the basic constitutional rights of Virginians.
THREE CHOICES
Post-McDonald v. Chicago, as the newer case is styled, what is an opponent of handguns (surely few Americans want to ban normal rifles and shotguns) to do? Obstructionism is always an option--Southern states used it for years to deny blacks their rights--but there are two better ones.
One is to overcome visceral misgivings and embrace the high court's interpretation of gun rights. This may be prudent, whatever one thinks of Glocks and banana clips. Listen, with an open mind, to famed Democratic attorney Alan Dershowitz: "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right, or that it's too much of a public-safety hazard, don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like." Anyone think the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause needs a little trim?
This doesn't mean, of course, that Virginia liberals should strap on a big iron and join the NRA. They can work with conservatives to more effectively restrict firearm ownership to the law-abiding and sane, and they can support sensible gun regulations, such as no "carrying" on school grounds. They should, however, oppose outright gun bans or their equivalent as simply contrary to the rule of law. (Ironically, until the high court formally rules in McDonald, the right of a city dweller to have a firearm is guaranteed only for citizens of the until-recently disarmed District of Columbia--a Bizarro World inversion if ever there was one.)
There is one more perfectly honorable option for Americans truly convinced that an enlightened society should disallow the widespread ownership of guns, whose dangers, they believe, outweigh their
benefits: a new constitutional amendment that would reverse or revise the Second. This process is long and arduous and requires overwhelming public support. Moreover, no liberty contained in the Bill of Rights has ever been nipped and tucked by later amendment. But though the target is distant, it's in theory hittable.
Ideally, those on both sides of this contentious issue will work imaginatively and in good faith to put safety and freedom on the same team. That's where they belong, rather than blazing away at each other across the public square.
--
Have you remembered to sign up for the VA-ALERT yet? If so, are you enjoying it? If not, what are you waiting for? It's FREE! just click
http://www.vcdl.org/va-alert.html
http://tinyurl.com/y8hxqo7
Gun rights and controls after the Chicago case
Date published: 3/11/2010
TWO YEARS AGO in District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court settled decades of Second Amendment debate by ruling that the right to possess firearms inhered in individual American citizens, not state militias. Perhaps Heller, boosted by the national surge in conservative populism and last year's resounding GOP electoral victory in Virginia, prompted Republicans in the current General Assembly to introduce scores of "pro-gun" bills, in full confidence that most would be signed into law by a like-minded governor.
Then the Dempire struck back.
Irked that his Senate Courts of Justice Committee, thanks to a few unreliable fellow Democrats, was approving bills expanding gun rights (e.g., the ability to carry a concealed pistol into a restaurant that serves alcohol), Chairman Henry Marsh, D-Richmond, created a special subcommittee, stacked with anti-gun senators, to weigh all gun bills. Also, departing from committee tradition, he empowered the panel to kill such bills rather than merely recommend their defeat and leave their fate to the full committee. The Marsh Special proceeded to mow down pro-gun measures, including one that would have scrapped Virginia's law limiting gun buys to one per month.
Thus, the wages of overreach. The anti-gun Virginia Center for Public Safety opposed 54 General Assembly firearm bills. This onslaught, says The Washington Post, represents a 15-year high in proposed gun-rights legislation, including such lulus as allowing the firing of weapons near subdivisions.
Unfortunately for Mr. Marsh and other Virginia gun-control enthusiasts, much of the quick work his "kill bill" committee accomplished will very likely soon be pronounced unconstitutional. Although the Heller ruling applies only to the federal government and its enclaves (notably, Washington, D.C.), the high court last week during oral arguments in a Chicago gun case gave every indication it will soon apply the right-to-possess principle to the states in the manner of other civil liberties--free speech, religious latitude, the right to assemble, and so on.
On its face, then, the one-gun-per-month law--which, despite many loopholes, restricts the average Virginian to a single gun buy every 30 days--seems scarcely more constitutional than a law limiting newspaper readership to one edition per month or church attendance to every fourth Sunday. Besides its dubious "liberty-rationing" aspect, One A Month was passed ostensibly to keep Virginia pistols off the streets of New York City. Continuing to defend it after the Supreme Court extends Heller to the states would put Virginia legislators in the position of valuing the welfare of Gotham over the basic constitutional rights of Virginians.
THREE CHOICES
Post-McDonald v. Chicago, as the newer case is styled, what is an opponent of handguns (surely few Americans want to ban normal rifles and shotguns) to do? Obstructionism is always an option--Southern states used it for years to deny blacks their rights--but there are two better ones.
One is to overcome visceral misgivings and embrace the high court's interpretation of gun rights. This may be prudent, whatever one thinks of Glocks and banana clips. Listen, with an open mind, to famed Democratic attorney Alan Dershowitz: "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right, or that it's too much of a public-safety hazard, don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like." Anyone think the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause needs a little trim?
This doesn't mean, of course, that Virginia liberals should strap on a big iron and join the NRA. They can work with conservatives to more effectively restrict firearm ownership to the law-abiding and sane, and they can support sensible gun regulations, such as no "carrying" on school grounds. They should, however, oppose outright gun bans or their equivalent as simply contrary to the rule of law. (Ironically, until the high court formally rules in McDonald, the right of a city dweller to have a firearm is guaranteed only for citizens of the until-recently disarmed District of Columbia--a Bizarro World inversion if ever there was one.)
There is one more perfectly honorable option for Americans truly convinced that an enlightened society should disallow the widespread ownership of guns, whose dangers, they believe, outweigh their
benefits: a new constitutional amendment that would reverse or revise the Second. This process is long and arduous and requires overwhelming public support. Moreover, no liberty contained in the Bill of Rights has ever been nipped and tucked by later amendment. But though the target is distant, it's in theory hittable.
Ideally, those on both sides of this contentious issue will work imaginatively and in good faith to put safety and freedom on the same team. That's where they belong, rather than blazing away at each other across the public square.
--
Have you remembered to sign up for the VA-ALERT yet? If so, are you enjoying it? If not, what are you waiting for? It's FREE! just click
http://www.vcdl.org/va-alert.html
