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This was in the DC Examiner paper today. What do you think?
D.C. gun case attracts gun lovers from Ohio
Harry Jaffe, The Examiner
2008-02-20 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 279 of 8,352
WASHINGTON -
The Supreme Court’s impending review of the District of Columbia’s gun-control laws promises to be historic in many ways. It will be the first time in 70 years that the nation’s highest court will sit in judgment to parse the words in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
Will the court side with the National Rifle Association and most gun-rights groups that argue the Second Amendment grants an individual the right to bear arms?
Will the judges agree with D.C., a handful of states, and the U.S. solicitor general that states have the right to regulate gun ownership, down to D.C.’s restrictive laws that essentially ban handguns?
More than 50 groups filed “amicus” briefs, which are legal arguments in support of one side or another. I have read quite a few. Most were legalistic and statistical in nature; the one that caught my eye was an indictment not of D.C.’s gun laws but of the city’s police department.
It’s a curious legal document for a number of reasons. This brief comes from citizens of Ohio who neither live in D.C. nor do business in our fair town. Yet they purport to know what’s best for us.
The document names two interest groups: first, the Buckeye Firearms Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to defending “the rights of Ohio citizens to use firearms for all legal activities.” Second, the National Council for Investigations and Security Services, a trade group for private security agencies.
Their argument is simple: Because the Metropolitan Police Department has failed to protect residents, the city has no right to ban handguns. Furthermore, they expand the language of the Second Amendment that “must be interpreted as an individual right to keep and bear firearms for defense of self and others.”
It’s the “defense of self and others” that goes beyond the Second Amendment.
And it’s their hyperbolic indictment of the police that undercuts their basic argument.
Before all the camo-clad, gun-crazed zealots train a red dot on my forehead, allow me to explain that I am a card-carrying NRA member; and I am a frequent critic of the local cops.
The brief states: D.C.’s police force “has failed to provide adequate police services to the District of Columbia citizens.”
Agreed, in part. Like most big cities, more than half of D.C. is safe and safely patrolled. Parts are controlled by thugs.
The Ohio folks further state that the MPD displays “corruption, incompetence and outright misfeasance in the operation of the department.”
Agreed, in past tense. The Ohio group relies mostly on decades-old events. “Cronyism,” it says, “thy name is Marion Barry.” Barry has not been mayor since 1996.
If the private security firms have a beef with how the city regulates them, they should take that up with the D.C. Council, not the Supreme Court.
And if the Ohio folks ask locals — or cops — if lifting the gun ban would make their lives more safe, they would hear most say no.
What happens in Ohio should stay in Ohio.
Examiner
D.C. gun case attracts gun lovers from Ohio
Harry Jaffe, The Examiner
2008-02-20 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 279 of 8,352
WASHINGTON -
The Supreme Court’s impending review of the District of Columbia’s gun-control laws promises to be historic in many ways. It will be the first time in 70 years that the nation’s highest court will sit in judgment to parse the words in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
Will the court side with the National Rifle Association and most gun-rights groups that argue the Second Amendment grants an individual the right to bear arms?
Will the judges agree with D.C., a handful of states, and the U.S. solicitor general that states have the right to regulate gun ownership, down to D.C.’s restrictive laws that essentially ban handguns?
More than 50 groups filed “amicus” briefs, which are legal arguments in support of one side or another. I have read quite a few. Most were legalistic and statistical in nature; the one that caught my eye was an indictment not of D.C.’s gun laws but of the city’s police department.
It’s a curious legal document for a number of reasons. This brief comes from citizens of Ohio who neither live in D.C. nor do business in our fair town. Yet they purport to know what’s best for us.
The document names two interest groups: first, the Buckeye Firearms Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to defending “the rights of Ohio citizens to use firearms for all legal activities.” Second, the National Council for Investigations and Security Services, a trade group for private security agencies.
Their argument is simple: Because the Metropolitan Police Department has failed to protect residents, the city has no right to ban handguns. Furthermore, they expand the language of the Second Amendment that “must be interpreted as an individual right to keep and bear firearms for defense of self and others.”
It’s the “defense of self and others” that goes beyond the Second Amendment.
And it’s their hyperbolic indictment of the police that undercuts their basic argument.
Before all the camo-clad, gun-crazed zealots train a red dot on my forehead, allow me to explain that I am a card-carrying NRA member; and I am a frequent critic of the local cops.
The brief states: D.C.’s police force “has failed to provide adequate police services to the District of Columbia citizens.”
Agreed, in part. Like most big cities, more than half of D.C. is safe and safely patrolled. Parts are controlled by thugs.
The Ohio folks further state that the MPD displays “corruption, incompetence and outright misfeasance in the operation of the department.”
Agreed, in past tense. The Ohio group relies mostly on decades-old events. “Cronyism,” it says, “thy name is Marion Barry.” Barry has not been mayor since 1996.
If the private security firms have a beef with how the city regulates them, they should take that up with the D.C. Council, not the Supreme Court.
And if the Ohio folks ask locals — or cops — if lifting the gun ban would make their lives more safe, they would hear most say no.
What happens in Ohio should stay in Ohio.
Examiner
And, he obviously checked out our website. Double good!
But I am pretty darn good with my .45!
