Supremes overturn D.C. handgun ban
June 26th, 2008 at 09:17am Pat Cunningham
In a decision likely to have an impact on political races this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., is unconstitutional.
UPDATE: HERE’s the prevailing opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia. The case was decided by a 5-4 margin along conservative/liberal ideological lines.
UPDATE II: HERE are highlights from Scalia’s opinion, including his observation that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”
UPDATE III: Andrew Sullivan has a ROUNDUP of reactions from the blogosphere.
UPDATE IV: In the first sentence of this post, I said the court’s gun decision is “likely to have an impact on political races this year.” THIS GUY says the effect will be to take gun control off the table as an issue.
Entry Filed under: gun control, U.S. Supreme Court
5 Comments Add your own
1. Menlo Bob | June 26th, 2008 at 9:56 am
In non election cycles Democrats opt for more gun control talk. When it comes to close elections they acknowledge a large population of gun owners and muffle their natural instincts with airy references to hunting–as if the constitution read like Field and Stream magazine. Self-defense is the issue and that resonates well with a cross section of voters. I don’t expect this to be as large an issue as it would’ve been if the DC gun ban had been upheld.
2. Pat Cunningham | June 26th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Bob: As one whose opinions on gun control have evolved over the years, I don’t disagree with the court’s ruling. I don’t own any guns myself, because I’m not a hunter and I don’t cringe in fear at things that go bump in the night. Nor do I need a firearm to make me feel like a man. And I think it’s silly for some of these gun enthusiasts to pretend that their little arsenals are what keeps tyrannical government at bay. I expect that a lot of people are going to be surprised to discover that this ruling does not overturn most of the gun-control laws in this country. It just says the government can’t ban basic kinds of firearms. Automatic weapons are another matter. There’s going to a lot of political wrangling over this matter for years to come, that’s for sure. In one sense, the pro-gun people have now lost the basis for future arguments that any proposed gun-control law creates a slippery slope that could lead to a total ban.
3. Craig Knauss | June 26th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
“We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.”
Interesting. Especially since some of those “all Americans” are in prisons, psychiatric wards, nursing homes, kindergartens, etc.
I can’t wait until the punks in our local prison demand their rights to own and bear arms. That’ll be fun.
Anyway, it’ll have little impact where I live now, since every Tom, Dick, and Billy Bob is already armed to the teeth.
4. Menlo Bob | June 26th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I like this phrasing of Scalia’s majority opinion.
“But if “bear arms” means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add “for the purpose of killing game.”
5. Bookworm | June 26th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
No way does this decision this take gun control OFF the table as an election issue — any more than Roe took abortion “off the table” as a political issue. If anything it will make it an even hotter issue.
The one-vote margin on both the gun decision and the child rape case decision will also make the future composition of the Court more of a front-burner issue in the presidential election.
SCOTUS has decided that gun ownership is a constitutional right residing with the individual. Now the question becomes how much can that right be restricted and for what reasons — and those questions will take many more years to resolve completely. Those questions are still coming up on abortion and the death penalty 30 + years later and I imagine it will be the same with the gun issue.
I agree with the ruling simply on the grounds that people have a natural right to defend themselves unless there is a compelling reason to take that right away from them (e.g. a criminal record, mental instability).
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