Supreme Court to Hear 2nd Amendment DC Case

[mikem317]

Not to take away from either of Bush's current threads, but here's some contemporary news on the 2nd Amendment, specifically on the Washington DC handgun ban.

Court to hear gun case

By James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins

Tribune staff reporters

7:15 PM CST, November 20, 2007

WASHINGTON

The Supreme Court again stepped squarely into the culture wars Tuesday by agreeing to hear a high-profile gun-ban case, one that may make firearm ownership a significant issue in the upcoming election year and could have major implications for Chicago.

At stake is a law that prohibits residents of Washington, D.C., from owning handguns. The justices will decide sometime next spring whether such a ban violates the Constitution. If they rule that way, it could eventually spell trouble for gun bans in other cities, such as Chicago.

The move left gun-rights activists euphoric.

"I'm on cloud nine," said Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation, minutes after the court's order accepting the case was released. Ironically, Monday was National Ammo Day, a day in which gun devotees such as Gottlieb called on sympathizers to buy 100 rounds of ammunition in support of gun stores and bullet manufacturers.

While gun-control advocates were hardly cheered by the Supreme Court agreeing to consider the case, they were consoled by fact that the court could rule on the issue in a relatively narrow way. Only the right to own a handgun in the home will be addressed by the justices, not restrictions on assault rifles or concealed weapons.

Thomas Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said that while his organization supports the right of local governments to limit handguns in the home, its primary concern rests with prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons in public. "I'm not ready to say it's a setback," Mannard said.

Moreover, any decision from the court will only apply to the federal government and not laws passed by states and cities, because the District of Columbia is a federal entity.

Even so, the court has not ruled on the scope of the 2nd Amendment since 1939, and the timing might be right for gun-rights supporters given the court's conservative drift and its newest justices, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. A favorable ruling would be "the building block we've been fighting for for 30 years," Gottlieb said.

Last spring, the federal appeals court in Washington struck down the District's 30-year-old handgun ban, moving the city's government to appeal to the Supreme Court. The decision to appeal troubled many gun-control supporters, who worried that the case would finally provide the kind of unstoppable legal weapon that activists like Gottlieb have long sought.

But lawyers for the city and its mayor, Adrian Fenty, said they had no choice but to seek an appeal, saying their responsibility was to the District, not the nation as a whole. The question will be whether the court's ruling will have applicability beyond Washington.

"At a minimum, I think a favorable decision would mean that people have a right to keep functional firearms, including handguns, shotguns, and rifles, in their homes for self-defense," said Clark Neily, a D.C. lawyer representing the plaintiffs who filed suit against Washington's gun ban.

Lawrence Rosenthal, a former deputy corporation counsel in Chicago and now a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., said that "for localities that have banned handguns, like Chicago, this case is huge."

Throughout the 1990s, gun advocates filed about two legal challenges a year to the city's handgun ban, Rosenthal said. But the city successfully defended its law, relying on a Illinois Supreme Court case decided in 1984.

"The gun rights groups have always been hoping to overturn" that decision, which involved a gun ordinance in north suburban Morton Grove, Rosenthal said. "They had been effectively headed off. But everything may be up for grabs at this point."

He said the ban is important because it gives police a broad legal justification to search or frisk people they suspect of carrying handguns. "That greatly expands the ability of the police to intervene on the street at drug and gang hot spots," Rosenthal argued. "If guns became legal, it would be much harder."

Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for Chicago's Law Department, said, "Whether a win for the gun owners in the U.S. Supreme Court would doom Chicago's handgun ban would depend on how the court's opinion was written." She said city officials are following the case closely and may file a friend of the court brief in the case.

"It's something we're very concerned about," Hoyle said. "We've successfully defended it [the ban] for years and we're committed to doing that before the Supreme Court. . . . It's a major part of our crime control efforts."

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani lauded the court's decision to take the case, and said that the justices should strike down the D.C. ban. In a statement, the Republican former mayor of New York City called the appeals court decision "an excellent example of a judge looking to find the meaning of the words in the Constitution, not what he would like them to mean."

But the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he "...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional."

joliphant@tribune.com

mjhiggins@tribune.com

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...,1290211.story

[leemajaz]

But the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he "...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional."


i'm all for handguns in d.c. in any state for tht matter. i think they just wanna keep the weapons as far away from the "powers that be" as possible , making them feel more secure. i say the hell with it though.if i'm good enough to have neighbors who own guns legally then they should be privi to the same.

obama's response seems more like" i don't wan't muf*&!kas shootin' at me!" lol

[mikem317]

I think he's trying to pander to both sides of the aisle with that comment.

It sounds like officials want to simply want to wipe their ass with the Bill of Rights rather than actually fix the problem, IMHO.

[leemajaz]

i don't think there is much fixing that can be done unfortunately. most guns that are aimed at people are purchased by illegal means and intended for such use. it does'nt matter if they allow it or keep it the same, criminals will still find the means to get weapons and use hem. no guns? bats. no bats? knives ect ect..

a while back, d.c was the murder capitol( by amount of homicide cases per sq. ft.) a while back and that law was in place then as well.

[mikem317]

That last observation might be indicative of the problem. Reference victim disarmament.

[leemajaz]

jenifer hoyle-
"It's something we're very concerned about," Hoyle said. "We've successfully defended it [the ban] for years and we're committed to doing that before the Supreme Court. . . . It's a major part of our crime control efforts."

criminals will still have the same access to weapons with or without the ban.
true... the murder rate could go up if the ban is lifted but i'd like to think that more of the would-be victims could be able to protect their homes now, instead of becoming one of the murdered.

[stryder]

just another way for the government to make sheep of the law abiding public. Unless they are thinking that they need to disarm the public, in order to prevent people from revolting!!
Screw it, they can take my guns when they pry them from my cold dead hands.

[EEfz6]

Originally Posted by leemajaz

the murder rate could go up if the ban is lifted but i'd like to think that more of the would-be victims could be able to protect their homes now, instead of becoming one of the murdered.

I agree with what I think you meant by that statement, but I disagree with the way that it was worded completely. Self defense is NOT murder. The amount of shootings may go up (extremely unlikely) as a result of people defending themselves, but not the murder rate. The murder rate would go down, due to would be murderers being killed in self defense before being able to commit murder.

The more likely scenario is crime rate dropping due to criminals knowing that they are less likely to be approaching an unarmed easy target, and due to many that take that risk getting exactly what they deserve, a few extra holes in their body, preventing them from repeating their crime.

[steeltoe]

I agree with Ted. It's a silly argument to begin with.

YouTube - Ted Nugent Gun Control