High Noon for the 2nd Amendment?
Think anything will be resolved
this year?
The Parade of Horribles, otherwise known as the battle over the Second Amendment, begins anew today when the Justices of the United States Supreme Court hear oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller, the first major gun case to come along since the month Hitler seized Czechoslovakia before World War II.
We find ourselves at this poignant moment - a gun rights showdown during an election year - thanks to a fellow named Richard Heller, who so far has successfully challenged the District of Columbia’s broad gun control regulations. Heller, a security guard, wants the right to take his firearm home with him after a long day at the office. DC currently bans the possession of firearms-as well as other restrictions upon gun possession - as part of an effort to curtail the District’s high gun violence rate.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that DC’s ban is an unconstitutional infringement upon an individual (not collective, militia-y) right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. So, for gun rights advocates, the Parade of Horribles unfolds this way: the Justices find a way uphold and thus strengthen DC’s ban, which prompts gun control advocates to push for similar ordinances and legislation across the nation. Pretty soon, the fear goes, every jurisdiction prohibits the possession of firearms in the home.
Gun control advocates offer their own dire forecast. In their worst fears, the Supreme Court strikes down the DC ban using a legal standard that opens the door to subsequent challenges to gun control regulations all over the country. Pretty soon, there are no federal gun restrictions and those on the state level are legally dubious. Pretty soon, this fear goes, everyone is packing everywhere. This is the drama the Supreme Court gets-and deserves-for not addressing the merits of the Second Amendment since 1939.
No kidding. And opportunism will rule.
Posted: Tue - March 18, 2008 at 11:02 AM