Charlotte Observer:VPC Talks

[Gunnerpalace]

Wow

Should Supreme Court uphold gun-control law?
YES: Constitution, legal precedent, results support D.C.'s ban
KRISTEN RAND
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Sometime next year the Supreme Court will decide whether the District of Columbia's 30-year-old handgun ban is constitutional under the Second Amendment. The court should uphold the District's law banning handgun possession by its residents for both constitutional and public safety reasons.

The overwhelming historical evidence and weight of judicial precedent support the position that the Second Amendment was intended and designed to protect a militia-based right.

The amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms only within the context of the constitutionally mandated militia, thus guaranteeing states armed militias to provide for their own security.

There is also strong scholarship to support the argument that James Madison wrote the amendment primarily to allay Southern fears that Congress would undermine the slave system by disarming the militia -- thereby denying the Southern states an effective means of slave control. Under this longstanding interpretation, the District's handgun ban would survive.

The second reason the court should uphold the District's handgun ban is that it has saved countless lives and repealing it will certainly result in increased gun death and injury.

Washington has the lowest suicide rate in the nation. With guns in only 5 percent of its homes, the District has not only the lowest firearm suicide rate in the country but also the lowest overall suicide rate.

Instead of facing repeal, D.C.'s laws should be a model for the nation. How is it possible to think that Americans are free when they must fear being gunned down at their local mall, church, school or workplace because most of the U.S. refuses to implement effective gun laws?

The most recent installment of "I can't believe it could happen here" saw innocent holiday shoppers running for cover when a troubled teenager opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle inside an Omaha, Neb., shopping mall, killing eight and wounding five.

Proof that strong gun laws work is found in Great Britain and Australia. In response to a mass shooting of 16 schoolchildren and their teacher in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, Great Britain enacted a handgun ban not unlike the District's.

Since the ban's implementation, Great Britain has not experienced another mass shooting. Moreover, the British Home Office reports that "there were 50 homicides involving firearms in 2005-06, down 36 percent from 78 on the previous year and the lowest recorded since 1998-99."

Likewise, after 112 people were killed in 11 mass shootings in a decade, Australia collected and destroyed 700,000 firearms determined to be designed to kill many people quickly. Australia has not seen another mass shooting while its firearm homicide and firearm suicide rates have declined.

The Supreme Court should uphold the District's landmark gun law. It is hard to fathom that the founders intended the Second Amendment to prohibit the implementation of laws that work to "ensure domestic tranquility" and "promote the general welfare," two chief purposes for which the Constitution was conceived.

Kristen Rand is legislative director of the Violence Policy Center (www.vpc.org).

Can I get some rebuttals on these "claims"?
The link http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/418785.html

 

[RLsnow]

"Australia has not seen another mass shooting while its firearm homicide and firearm suicide rates have declined."

i hear crime rate has gone up...

 

[Lucky]

There you go, if you own guns you support slavery. You horrible people.

It does have connotations, maybe that aspect of gun-control laws should receive EVEN MORE publicity. IE gun control began to keep black men disarmed.

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

Washington has the lowest suicide rate in the nation. With guns in only 5 percent of its homes, the District has not only the lowest firearm suicide rate in the country but also the lowest overall suicide rate.

Wow, that must be the safest place in the country...except for the highest murder rate part she left out.

How is it possible to think that Americans are free when they must fear being gunned down at their local mall, church, school or workplace because most of the U.S. refuses to implement effective gun laws?

How is it possible to talk about freedom and increased restrictions in the same breath? And whoever said freedom meant safety? See my sig.

Kristen Rand is legislative director of the Violence Policy Center

At least at the end they give you the punchline that explains the whole thing

 

[gc70]

And the counterpoint in the Charlotte Observer:

NO: Gun controls strip citizens of right to protect selves, family
BRADFORD WILES
McClatchy-Tribune News Service

The Supreme Court recently agreed to rule on the specific meaning of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, "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."

Many gun-control advocates claim this grants a "collective" right, giving the government the authority to regulate the militia, such as the National Guard, and does not grant an "individual" right to gun ownership. The position that the Second Amendment only guarantees a collective right is wholly incorrect, especially when one examines the rest of the Bill of Rights.

The Founders chose the words "the people"; the same as in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth amendments. Constitutional scholars agree that there is absolutely no doubt these restrictions on government were designed to protect individuals.

Justice Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Court of Appeals regarding the case under appeal to the Supreme Court noted in his majority opinion that the Founders were perfectly capable of distinguishing "the people" from "the states" and did so in the Tenth Amendment.

Had the drafters wanted to acknowledge the right to keep and bear arms for anyone other than individuals, they would have undoubtedly written that it is the right of "the militia" to keep and bear arms. With wisdom and conviction, they did not. It is also important to note the mindset of the Framers when they were drafting the Constitution. The Founders would never have given the right to keep and bear arms to the very government, i.e., the National Guard, from whom they were protecting "the people" throughout the entire Bill of Rights. Their mindset was clear, rights exist without government interference, and the Constitution protects individuals from the government. What greater protection can there be than the right to keep and bear arms?

Opponents have argued that the Founders could never have envisioned modern weapons, and thus the Second Amendment is outdated. Applying that logic, the government should be free to read your e-mail, listen to your phone conversations, and bug your home, as the Fourth Amendment was also drafted more than 200 years ago and thus must be outdated because the Founders couldn't have envisioned modern communication.

By virtue of the ban, only criminals have guns. Law-abiding citizens, the ones who brought this case against the District, are left defenseless against criminals. The police do everything they can, but they cannot be everywhere at once.

Law-abiding citizens deserve the Supreme Court's recognition of their inherent right to self-defense with a gun, without infringement. Without the ability to protect my life, my other rights to peaceably assemble, be secure in my person, house, papers and effects, and any other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are in jeopardy.

The Second Amendment protects all of these. The Supreme Court should come to the reasonable conclusion that the intent, spirit and language of the Founders convey an individual right, and thus strike down D.C.'s strict gun ban.

Bradford Wiles is a graduate student at Virginia Tech.

 

[General Geoff]

owned

 

[Standing Wolf]

The overwhelming historical evidence and weight of judicial precedent support the position that the Second Amendment was intended and designed to protect a militia-based right.

Goebbels would be so proud!

 

[Robert Hairless]

The First Amendment obviously was intended and designed to protect only the right of the people to speak to each other in person, not by broadcasting and not with artificial amplification. Those means were unknown at the time so they could not have been intended and therefore are not encompassed by the First Amendment right to free speech.

For the same reasons the First Amendment right to a free press absolutely does not cover the McClatchy-Tribune News Service or any McClatchy newspaper. It was intended and designed to protect newspapers printed on a hand press in relatively few copies, which is the only kind of press the framers of the Constitution could have known. It most certainly does not cover any of the McClatchy web sites: they are not produced by any kind of printing press.

It's time for the McClatchy family and CEO Gary Pruitt to stop abusing the U.S. Constitution by claiming protection for their struggling newspaper empire that it doesn't have.

Besides, the First Amendment only prohibits Congress from making laws with respect to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Any state, county, or city should be allowed to do it.

Furthermore, the First Amendment doesn't protect any rights for people in the militia because it doesn't name the militia the way the Second Amendment does. The militia doesn't have any rights other than what the Second Amendment says.

 

[Deavis]

owned

Hardly. For a logical approach, fine, but as a rebuttal to the VPC piece it falls flat. While it may garner support here among the choir, it is not the right set of arguments to make in the newspaper to soccer moms and their ilk. If he wanted to actually do something useful in the paper he should have thoroughly discredited the other author by giving evidence that all her statements were false and/or misleading. Preaching the masses about the Founder's intent is a sure way to put them to sleep, notice how quickly the VPC article moves past facts into emotional rhetoric. There is no shame in fighting fire with fire and then dropping a few teaser facts. We have a serious problem with effective presentation within the gun community. He may be right, except for the National Guard reference, but that is of little importance in politics and persuasion.

 

[ServiceSoon]

Crime up down under.

Rebuttal for above claim.

Australian Institute of Criminology
Australia's national crime and criminal justice research agency
US Justice Department international report on burglary rate.

 

[gc70]

but as a rebuttal to the VPC piece it falls flat

The Wiles article was not a rebuttal. Wiles and Rand wrote pro and con opinion pieces that were published on the same date.

 

[The Cavalry]

Here's data through 2004 showing the true effect of disarming the law-abiding...like the VPC says, "Proof that strong gun laws work is found in Great Britain and Australia."

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi115.html

 

[scout26]

Congress would undermine the slave system by disarming the militia -- thereby denying the Southern states an effective means of slave control. Under this longstanding interpretation, the District's handgun ban would survive

I think this passage reveals the VPC's mindset:

If you have no guns you are slave, we cannot let the slaves have guns.

 

[Deavis]

The Wiles article was not a rebuttal.

In that case I should correct my statement. His pro piece falls flat as selling Heller positively to the non-gun community. Either way, it is not the way we should frame articles appearing with, against, or in rebuttal to VPC or Brady articles. We should take the fight onto their turf and play it up a bit. Forget always trying to be reasonable, use the statistics against them like they try to do to us. Emotion drives people, logic constrains them. Use the first to get them to the second, there is no shame in that.