Monthly Archives: June 2008

Here’s a handy pamphlet [pdf] that helps residents of the District of Columbia understand the effects of the Heller decision.  They plan to begin allowing registrations on July 17th.

The parent website is inaccessible, so I can’t verify any of the specifics of the regulation.  Although there are numerous and strident statements about safe storage, there appears to be no legal requirement to lock guns or keep them unloaded.

They are making the process as hard as possible, while staying within the requirements of the ruling.  Applicants must:

• Be 21 years of age
• Be a DC resident
• Provide two passport pictures
• Submit fingerprints
• Pay $48.00
• Complete a “notarized firearms eligibility statement,” and
• Pass a 20-question multiple-choice test.

Oh, and the office is only open 7:00am-3:00pm during the week.  Of all the impediments they’ve set up, however, the worst are the last two.

There were two dissenting opinions in the Heller case, authored by Stevens and Breyer.  Stevens takes the tack that the 2nd Amendment does not, and was never intended to, protect the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. He argues fervently that history suggests a militia-oriented power, rather than a right.

Of course, this flies in the face of innumerable sources, several of which are illuminated by Scalia.

Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.”

I’ll post more later, but here’s the gist of it.  The Supreme Court has found that the 2nd Amendment does, in fact, guarantee an individual right to own firearms.  The decision was 5-4, with notable dissent.  Regulations, including registration and licensing, are permitted, and overall, the waters are a bit murky.

The decision is available here [pdf].

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

p 54

Scalia wrote the majority opinion, supported by Thomas, Kennedy, Roberts and Alito.

Held:
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. 

Seems like everybody’s got a petition these days.

I ask that you halt consideration of all pending judicial nominees from the Bush Administration who are hostile to reasonable gun control laws until a new president is sworn in next January. The American people don’t need any more Second Amendment extremists from this lame-duck president.

The left is running scared because it looks as if one of their sacred cows is about to be taken away.  Screaming for stricter gun control is their way of “raising awareness,” “doing something for the children,” or even, “making a difference.”  Once they’ve vented their spleen and chanted their slogans (preferably in a medium where all their friends can see them doing it), they can go back to their neighborhood coffee house, listen to not-too-weird jazz, and bask in the satisfaction of having been a “part of something important.”

Essentially, it’s a way of looking concerned without having to actually do anything. 

Continued...