by The Supreme Court, by a narrow 5-4 margin, has decided that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution means what it says.
In a 5-to-4 decision, the majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, held for the first time that the Constitution provides an individual right to bear arms, such as for self-defense, rather than a right that applies only to a state militia.
Seems blindingly obvious, yet to liberals the sentence "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." has a different meaning, one that would, as is to be expected from them, bring gun ownership even more under the regulatory authority of the government.
Even when the left gets something right they get it wrong, as Colbert King does in the WaPo. King admits the truth by saying that it’s criminals who use guns the wrong way and they don’t give a damn about the law – shocker! Even so he tries to worm around to an anti-gun stance:
There’s one group of District residents absolutely unfazed by today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling shooting down the District’s strict handgun ban: the dudes who have been blowing away their fellow citizens with abandon since the law was put on the books 32 years ago.
Operating under the notion that it’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, our shooters long ago decided not to wait for the high court’s thoughts on the matter. They simply arrogated to themselves the right to keep and bear arms and, with that right, license to shoot and kill, with impunity, whatever and whenever the evil spirits moved them.
…
So now it has come to pass that D.C. residents can keep handguns, as well as rifles and shotguns, in their homes. A well armed, informal militia we shall be — ready to fire back in self-defense at the shooters who believed they had the right to their guns all along.
Flush with victory, a giddy National Rifle Association has announced its intention to file lawsuits in other jurisdictions with tough handgun laws. For starters, the NRA has taken aim at San Francisco and Chicago. See what we have unleashed, D.C.?
America, more body bags, please.
It’s undeniable that guns cause far too many accidental shootings in this country. Most of these are, of course, preventable, although doing so would place a burden of expense and management on gun owners that these individuals haven’t been willing to accept. A trigger-lock rule ought to be in place in every home, certainly, though at citizens’ own discretion.
The NY Times editors disagrees, naturally:
Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law.
…
This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.
Unfortunately for their argument, the Times’ statistics don’t separate victims of crime from accidental shootings. The Times goes on to list incidents of gun violence to support its maniacal hatred of guns and the people who own them, blithely ignoring the fact that it’s criminals who commit these acts, the same ones the King acknowledges have no respect for gun-control laws.
But Scalia and the majority are in the right by saying that Americans’ right to choose to own a weapon or not, at their individual discretion, trumps the desire of government to mandate the disarming of the civilian population.
What Megan McCardle has to say about women and guns transcends the woman’s issue she portrays it as and defines the true nature of our right to bear arms against enemies, foreign and domestic:
…guns are the only weapon that equalizes strength between attacker and attacked. It’s the only time when men’s greater speed, strength, and longer reach make no difference; if you pull the trigger first, you win.
I am all for strengthening the social contract (and law enforcement) so that fewer men commit rape, assault, or robbery. But until human nature has improved so radically that grievous bodily harm has passed from living memory, I don’t understand why more feminists don’t push for widespread gun ownership.
That applies to the rest of us as well, obviously.
