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Independence Day Weekend

Americans celebrate our independence with annual traditions.

Based on the current state of our country, which item best represents what you will be doing this holiday weekend?

Modernize my home to be energy efficient according to O’s standards
Lowering the asking price on the sale of my home. AGAIN
Writing another letter to my Congressional Rep – that I know they won’t read. AGAIN
Tuning out ANY coverage of Michael Jackson
Scheduling any potential surgeries I think I may need
Updating my family’s passports
Using Hamburger Helper for my July 4th BBQ
Going to warehouse store to buy normal incandescent light bulbs – in bulk
Tuning out ANY coverage of “the one”

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Four Radical Chinese Muslims Transferred to Bermuda

Four Chinese Uighers (radical Chinese Muslims) were recently transferred to Bermuda. Do you think it's a good idea to release Gitmo detainees to idyllic vacation retreats?

Yes
No
Not Sure

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June 27, 2008

Exclusive: SCOTUS Ruling on D.C. Gun Ban a Victory for Individual Rights and Personal Security

The Editors

In a highly anticipated ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court declared the 32-year-old gun ban in Washington D.C., one of the nation's strictest gun laws, unconstitutional in a 5-4 ruling.

Via On Deadline, the major proponents of the ruling are as follows:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

(a) The Amendment's prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court's interpretation of the operative clause. The "militia" comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens' militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens' militia would be preserved.

...

2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller's holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those "in common use at the time" finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District's total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition - in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute - would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.

The full decision can be found here. It's more than likely that other gun bans around the nation will be challenged in light of this landmark ruling.

In light of the recent disappointing SCOTUS ruling which conferred constitutional rights upon terror suspects being held in Guantanamo Bay (thus endangering American lives), the decision in D.C. v. Heller is a welcome one, as the Second Amendment goes to the very heart of basic rights and freedoms held near and dear to Americans since the founding of this country.

As has been argued by many Second Amendment supporters, criminals by their very nature do not abide by the law, including bans on handguns. Therefore, why should law-abiding citizens be penalized by their willingness to follow the rules set forth by those who wish to have a civilized society? As a bumper sticker puts it, "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.."

Back in 1986, sexual assaults in Orlando fell by 88% and burglaries by 25% when women began arming themselves. And, as World Net Daily reports, not one of the 2,500 women who took a firearm safety course offered by the police ended up actually having to fire their guns in a confrontation. Having a gun does not necessarily mean you will have to fire it. Just knowing you have it (or may have it) is often deterrent enough for criminals.

In the UK, handguns were banned in 1999. But a study two years later indicated that despite the ban, the use of handguns in crime went up 40%. And by 2007, gun crimes had gone up another 10%.

Overall, crime in the UK has been growing steadily since the mid-1950s. Reason Magazine explores the possibility why (all emphasis added):

This sea change in English crime followed a sea change in government policies. Gun regulations have been part of a more general disarmament based on the proposition that people don't need to protect themselves because society will protect them. It also will protect their neighbors: Police advise those who witness a crime to "walk on by" and let the professionals handle it.

This is a reversal of centuries of common law that not only permitted but expected individuals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors when other help was not available. It was a legal tradition passed on to Americans. Personal security was ranked first among an individual's rights by William Blackstone, the great 18th-century exponent of the common law. It was a right, he argued, that no government could take away, since no government could protect the individual in his moment of need. A century later Blackstone's illustrious successor, A.V. Dicey, cautioned, "discourage self-help and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians."

But modern English governments have put public order ahead of the individual's right to personal safety. First the government clamped down on private possession of guns; then it forbade people to carry any article that might be used for self-defense; finally, the vigor of that self-defense was to be judged by what, in hindsight, seemed "reasonable in the circumstances."

In other words, an increase in socialist policy has led to a higher rate of crime.

As the old saying goes, "a man's home is his castle." When a man can no longer defend that castle it will fall. We applaud the Supreme Court in their wisdom of upholding the original intent of the Second Amendment in the spirit of personal security and, in a broader sense, national security.

Brought to you by the research staff and editors of FamilySecurityMatters.org

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