Breaking: Supreme Court strikes down D.C. handgun ban

MSNBC, CNN

Today the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Washington, D.C. ban on firearms, issuing a definitive ruling on the meaning of the Second Amendment to the Constitution for the first time in the court's history.

Justice Scalia's opinion written for the majority affirms that the Second Amendment outlines an individual right to keep and bear arms, unrelated to service in a government militia.

The court's ruling still permits what they call reasonable restrictions, such as banning concealed carry, but trigger lock requirements, disassembly requirements, and general bans on weapons ownership are now effectively over, and none too soon.

Civil Rights Making Progress

No, it's not what you think. No, really.

The state assemblies of South Dakota and Arizona are currently considering bills that would make it legal to carry firearms on public university campuses. I expect much whining from the anti-gun lobby in the days to come as the bills go to votes before their respective assembly houses. They'll say how it places our children in danger, how there will be deadly shootings by students who are legally carrying weapons, and other such nonsense.

And it's just that. Nonsense. If someone wants to shoot up the University of South Dakota, then he will attempt to do so. A would-be murderer is already setting out to break one of the most serious crimes on the books; he is not going to care about whether or not a campus is a "gun-free zone."

I don't usually cite other bloggers' work, but as a college professor I feel that Glenn Reynolds has some insight into this particular issue. That op-ed was written in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings. I encourage you to read it; he raised the obvious points, but it's worth seeing.

Here's to these bills passing. University students are legal adults, and if they can show themselves competent to carry a firearm, there's no reason why their college campuses should be any different than the rest of the country.

And to quote Freud:





:p

Washington, D.C. gun ban struck down

I've missed a lot of things that I wanted to post about over the past month or so, but I might as well start here now that I'm back rather than inundate everyone with my take on old news. So instead, here's a story that just broke today.

Washington Compost, text of the court decision. (Warning: 195 kilobyte PDF.)

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (how's that for a mouthful?) overturned the decision of the District Court for D.C. (the full title of which is a similar mouthful) in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia, in which the plaintiffs were denied their Constitutional right to bear firearms by the lower court. The appeals court overturned the district court's decision, declaring Washington, D.C.'s 30 year old, near-total ban on firearms to be unconstitutional.

Unfortunately, the D.C. Circuit covers only Washington itself, not any of the states. (If Chicago's gun ban had been struck down in this manner instead, gun bans would be illegal throughout the entire 7th Circuit, but this covers only the capital city.) I don't really see the point of a circuit court that covers only one city (where do they circulate between? Courthouses on opposite sides of the District?), but there it is. Nobody ever expected government to make sense.

The city is likely to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court, but I don't know whether or not they'll agree to hear it. The Court has more conservative justices now, but to quote a friend of mine, "the Country Club Republicans especially tend to have a certain elegant disdain for the rabble bearing arms." We'll just have to wait this out and see.

In the meantime, I feel like celebrating a little. Party time.