Home > The Barr Code > Archives > 2008 > March > 24
Monday, March 24, 2008
Supreme Court hopefully will strike D.C. gun ban
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, the U. S. Supreme heard oral arguments in a case that last year found the 32-year gun ban in the District of Columbia unconstitutional. Despite the fact that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the ‘right to keep and bear arms’ has been a part of our Constitution for 217 years and has given rise to innumerable court cases during those many decades, this is the very first time the High Court has directly confronted the meaning and scope of the Amendment.
The lower, federal appeals court found the Amendment does guarantee the right of an individual person to possess a firearm, and that the Washington, D.C. ban on handguns amounted to an impermissibly restrictive limitation of that right. While most Members of the U.S. House and Senate joined in briefs to the Supreme Court asking it to agree with the appeals court on both findings, the Bush Administration strangely asked the Supreme Court justices to send the decision back to the lower court to reconsider precisely how the D. C. ban should be interpreted. The Bush Justice Department took this disappointing stance because it feared a precedent that might make it more difficult for it and future administrations to enforce the wide range of existing federal gun laws.
Despite this waffling by the Administration (with which even Vice President Cheney disagreed on the record), it appears the Court will likely find D.C.gun ban, which disarms the citizenry in one of the country’s most violence-prone cities, unconstitutional because it effectively abrogates an individual’s right to own a firearm for self-defense. If the Court does not do so, we’ll have the Bush Administration to thank.
