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Court Action Threatens Softer Handgun Laws
WASHINGTON - A legal challenge to Chicago's 28-year ban on handguns could shoot down the right of individual states and cities in America to draft their own gun laws.
An assortment of Colt and Glock semi-automatic handguns are on display at the Nations Gunshow in Chantilly, Virginia in 2009. The US Supreme Court on Tuesday takes a new look at the right to bear arms in a case that could impact the growing push by President Barack Obama's opponents to loosen gun laws.
(AFP/File/Karen Bleier) The Supreme
Court action by four citizens who want the right to defend themselves
against potential assault and robbery could unleash a chain reaction
that overturns restrictive gun laws across the country.
It comes 20 months after the highest court in the US ruled as unconstitutional similar handgun laws in Washington DC.
The legal challenge touches a hot button issue in America where gun laws are constantly derided by lobbyists, such as the powerful National Rifle Association, as running counter to the constitution's Second Amendment, which enshrines the right of citizens ''to keep and bear arms''.
In Virginia, legislators are also in the midst of a battle over guns, with Republicans trying to repeal a 17-year law limiting the purchase of handguns to one a month. The change would also allow Virginians to carry concealed weapons into bars and restaurants, provided the holder does not drink alcohol and has a so-called ''concealed-carry'' permit.
The plaintiffs believe that allowing citizens to keep guns in their houses would make some of Chicago's tougher neighbourhoods safer.
''Allowing law-abiding citizens, responsible adults, the right to keep handguns in their homes is not going to make [violence] any worse; it will likely make it better,'' Mike Weisman of the Illinois State Rifle Association, which is a plaintiff in the case, told the Chicago Tribune.
Anti-gun activists have been marshalling opposition, too; both sides are using statistics to support their argument. Some studies suggest crime rates rose after the gun ban was enacted in 1982 and that Chicago now ranks higher on a list of most dangerous US cities. But city officials argue that murder rates are down and more than 60 per cent of handgun killings are gang-related.
Against that is the rising number of youth homicides. Last year, Chicago had the nation's highest youth murder rate.
A similar debate rages in Washington, where last year murders dropped by 25 per cent to 140 after the handgun ban was lifted.
The court's decision is not expected before midyear.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllWe may be bankrupt, homeless, and hungry, but thank goodness, we have a great supply of guns to keep the population in check. It worked fine in the wild west, so why not now? There is nothing like progressing backwards.
Whats wrong with owning a gun?
I agree with LAH, what's wrong with owning a gun?
The wild west wasn't really the wild west; shootouts were a rare exception, not the rule.
The gun control issue is one of those issues that causes progressives to lose. The progressives and democrats need to let this issue go, so that the real issues, like foreign wars, the environment and our compounding national debt can be addressed.
Don't like guns? Don't buy one. But don't let a singular issue hold up real progressive policy.
That whole 'wild west' thing is a total fabrication by Hollywood.
I read somewhere that there were 7 bank robberies in the wild west from 1850 to 1870.
There are seven bank robberies a month where I live.
Given a choice between, being 'allowed' to own a gun and 'not being allowed', I'll choose the former.
Well given The James gang alone robbed 12 banks and numerous trains, and that there were literally doznes of gangs roaming the west robbing banks, trains and stagecoaches, I find your recollection of what you read suspect.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-jamesyoungergang.html
Further to that in the period of which YOU speak (1850-1870) there really was not a lot of bank robbing going on because Americans were too busy shooting one another (in a non violent way) in the Civil war.
"Don't like guns? Don't buy one"
Wait a minute a progressive and I actually had an agreement? I'm not sure how to really respond to this other than lets have a beer see what else we can agree on.
I agree too and I am not just a "progressive" but a hard left activist. I think the stupid gun control issue is perhaps the single biggest reason the left is out of touch with working people. I'd go as far as to say as it has actually helped to increase corporate control as many working people especially in rural areas have embraced pernicious pro corporate Republicans largely over the gun issue.
I agree. Gun ownership is cross political at this point. 58 senators signed a friend of the court on this case supporting incorporation of the 2nd Amendment.
I really feel that if we don't fight for ALL rights, then we are not going to get any at some point.
Ask the Native Americans....no one shot at them. They were all too happy to pack up and leave their lands so the more deserving folk could move in.
The Civil war...overrated. They were not really shooting at one another.
Real progressive policy does not come about because you are more willing to shoot someone else then that person is willing to shoot you. I really do not think much of the "Progressive Policy" that is got by killing.
For every one person trying to "defend" their rights with a gun (See those same Native Americans) there are about 2 dozen trying to take them away with a gun.
If those same Native Americans kept trying to defend their "rights" with a gun none of them would be left today.
Ah yes;guns si,heabus corpus no:bring on the patriot act,torture,more war because this is what it is an extention of and where does it begin?FEAR!Those wild west days were something too.Funny,that the only thing mentioned was about banks and money.No mention of buffalo shot for sport and the Indians who were in the way.Real uplifting this stuff.Disgusting.Just as soon die as to shot someone.Tony
Paint with a broad brush much? I am very pro restoring our civil liberties such as restoring the habeas corpus, overturning the Patriot Act completely, ending not just our illegal imperialist wars but our overseas military bases as well, and pro gun rights. Why? Because the founding fathers were right that an armed population was the first bulwark against tyranny. Exactly when a phony sock puppet Palin/Freedom Works proto fascist movement is arising is exactly the wrong time to advocate disarming the population.
As for Native Americans I voted for Leonard Peltier for President in California who was on the ballot in 2004, and you? Guess what AIM is also pro eek scary guns because the native American people who had genocide done against them know that facing the corporate/bankster controlled U.S. government a-prori unarmed is very foolish. So BTW were the black Panthers, so are the Pink Pistols (pro gay rights gun group), so is Hugo Chavez's peasant militia. Don't just assume that arguing for the right to resist if necessary by force of arms automatically indicated regressive thought. And yes non violent resistance first is always the best idea, but if that fails having a plan B is a good idea IMO.
P.S. lets overturn corporate personhood while we are at it. Want to get working class people on board with doing that? Drop the stupid gun control issue which is mainly being pushed by middle and upper middle class yuppies out of touch with working people. Do you think the old effective IWW movement was pro gun control when Pinkerton's were shooting striking mine workers? Not a chance, what happened to the left?
And all of this proves that guns are good for you?All the ones you mention are minorities but even then if and this is a big if there were more jobs for everybody and a social safety net those who cant,not wont,but cant.Another article here today on CD about education and there is no way to convince me that letting guns out into the streets is any answer because it looks like education is going the way of factories;bring them in run them through due a quality control with a test and bingo!You have got a dummy with a diploma.Keep your gun,I cont care but the law could and probobly will be more than you want.This gov. is isolating people into groups and all of them in the poor,lower middle class and middle class and pulling all the strings otherwise why the loosening of what was a law that allowed states to regulate and that wants education privitized?"We have met the enemy and he is us" Pogo.Tony
You missed the point entirely. You made the ass-umption that everyone who supports the right to bear arms is a regressive right winger and my point was to assure you that, that is not true. Whether you like it or not there are a lot of armed back to the land lefties in the Pacific northwest and in places like Vermont, and in the inner city, to just write off those people is way beyond stupid.
Don't assume I am anti education becaus I am pro 2nd amendment, I would actually like to see our society become more overtly socialist and would place myself somewhere between the Green party and Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian socialists on the political scale. The level of brainwashing that has taken place that makes people associate a pro 2nd amendment stance with regressive privatization is astonishing to me. The armed central and south American hard left like Zappitista and Bolivarians get this even if brainwashed north Americans don't. :( How do you think the Zappitistas established their autonomous zone, that's right with eek scary guns.
Should we encourage peaceful solutions in our neighborhoods? Of course that is *not* incompatible with allowing people to have their 2nd amendment rights. In fact gun control can arguably make things *less* peaceful by driving the gun trade underground as opposed to above ground sales that are often associated with gun safety programs. I suspect you understand driving the drug trade underground is a bad idea and legalization would help drug addicts seek treatment and would lead to safer more responsible drug use. The same argument applies to guns as well.
BTW if you would space between your sentences they would be *much* easier to read. Thanks!
1 I have an ass-umtive personality
2 My english comp. and sentence struture is questionable.
You mention that you think that my rant was about right wing nuts;never reserved that nutship to them exclusively as it makes no difference if they be right,left,red,black,white,brown,yellow.It is guns going out like GM crops being a pullutant and as for the Zapatistas they have been persacuted since forever and nobody but some minorities here have had to face what they do.I'm a pacafist and when everyone gets all the guns they want and if shit happens in this country like in some others;who are going to be the good guys since all are going to be loaded up? Tony
That was kind of hard to parse, are you supportive of armed third world movements or not? If you are why can't oppressed Americans have the same rights as other oppressed people?
I still want to know why I'm limited to a knife with a 4" blade. The constitution says "...keep and bear arms..." - It doesn't specify firearms. It's not like I want to run around with a Crock Dundee monstrosity - but 4 inches? C'mon.
I'll be damned - I think guns are fun too. I've owned a few. And to LAH above - I'll take ya up on that beer! You're buying, right...
Dafoe
One should be able to carry ones sidearm into any building, public or private, and to defend oneself against what one thinks is a life threatening occurrence with out fear of the law The age limit on gun ownership should depend on passing a test on gun safety. The right to bear arms is a constitutional thing and every new borne infant should be presented with a gift certificate entitling the bearer to a side arm or rifle when they pass a test. Bullet proof vests will be given out once the young are of school age and from then on will be a requirement of the national dress code. All rather logical. One would expect deaths by gunshot, accidental or deliberate, will rise but that is the price of living in the best country in the world.
When the dictatorship comes along and it will, my bet is that all the root'n toot'n bearers of arms will fold like a stack of cards.
A couple of the founding fathers suggested that one have a revolution every couple of decades to sort of clean the stable but its 200 plus years and nothing, the stables are piled to the ceiling with BS/HS and all is quiet!!??