Thank you August. Some sense in here for once.

-S

For Immediate Release


Contact: Senator Karen S. Johnson (602-926-3160)
Contact: Alan Korwin (Bloomfield Press – 602-996-4020)

Senator Karen Johnson Praises Lifting of D.C. Gun Ban

Senator Karen S. Johnson applauds the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling today which overturned the D.C. gun ban. Last winter, Johnson signed on to an amicus brief of women state legislators who supported overturning the ban and restoring Second Amendment rights to the residents of the District of Columbia. The case, District of Columbia v. Heller, was brought before the Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. “This is fundamental,” said Johnson. “Everyone has the right to own a handgun and to defend themselves in their home. The D.C. ban was unconstitutional.”

In addition to lifting the ban on possessing handguns, the court decision overturns the requirement that guns kept in the home be unloaded or inoperable at all times, even in cases of self-defense, and rejects every argument posed by the District of Columbia in favor of the ban. “What a fabulous victory!” says Johnson. “This decision spells the death of city bans on handgun owenrship all over the country.”

Many cities besides the District of Columbia ban possession and ownership of handguns – Chicago and New York among them. “I understand that gun rights activists in Illinois are already preparing a legal campaign to overturn the ban in Chicago and other Illinois cities. More power to them! These bans do more harm than good,” said Johnson. “Violent crime typically goes down when people are allowed to defend themselves. Criminals aren’t stupid. They are less likely to commit a violent crime if they think someone can stand up to them. Statistics bear that out.”

The Heller case is expected to be analyzed for decades for its implications and ramifications. “This case will have a far-reaching impact on gun laws throughout the country,” predicted Johnson. “We are waiting for an analysis from our expert, Alan Korwin, of Bloomfield Press, who is preparing a book on the Heller case,” said Johnson. Korwin announced yesterday he would have an initial review of the case ready for release today. “Typically news reports on gun issues have errors, spin, and editorial mixed in with fact and should be taken with at least a grain of skepticism until detailed analysis is available,” said Korwin, who is a national spokesman on gun issues and specializes in publishing books on gun laws and Second Amendment rights. He expects to provide that detailed analysis within a few weeks.

This is also interesting:

-S

Congradz for the American people on this major victory.:up: Cool to see some officials have common senses too.;)

I hate it when I come late to these things. Where to start, where to start?

In case you didn't know it, America's Revolution started when the Governor of Massachussetts sent soldiers to confiscate the contents of a privately owned armory. It was full of cannons and such. That's why the shooting started in the first place. Also, most of the Revolutionary War (and the War of 1812 for that matter), at least the "at sea" part, was fought by privateers - citizens with their own armed ships, granted 'Letters of Marque' by the government, because they had most of the guns. The Second Amendment exists because the citizens didn't want to trust the government with the guns, not the other way around.

At the risk of going off-topic, I have to disagree with these sentiments. All of these are unfair for anyone to mention here, simply because they deserve their own discussions, and I would be glad to discuss them in the proper context.

I will say that all of those are open to debate, if for no other reason than that the Constitution doesn't guarantee ANY rights, to anyone. That was why there was such a strong argument over ratification. James Madison, 'The Father Of The Constitution', didn't want a Bill of Rights at all. He felt that any listing of rights would cause someone down the line to say something like "writing things into the Constitution that don't exist", when, as the Tenth Amendment says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".

The whole point is that the people retain ALL rights, not just the ones you or I like.

As Thomas Jefferson said: "The policy of the American government is to have its citizens free, neither resisting them nor aiding them in their pursuits."

I normally stay out of the GT forum here, but considering my SN, I think I'll make an exception for this thread. :cool:

I think some in this thread have been relying too much on loose speculation in the media about what this ruling means and how far it will go. The Court didn't lay down a standard by which other laws can be judged. We only know two things from this decision: (1) that laws essentially identical to the two struck down in DC will likely suffer the same fate, and (2) what the scope of the 2nd Amendment protection is and is not.

Consider these passages:
[citations omitted]

Sorry, folks, but the Court is saying that the "arms" protected are those in ordinary use by civilians, and it is strongly implied that the M-16 is not such a weapon. Any expectation that NFA34 or similar laws are in danger of being overturned flies in the face of the opinion.

Issues of expectations aside, I find this quite troubling. If not for NFA34, weapons such as the M-16 would be in ordinary use by civilians today. The Court's way of defining "arms" allows the tail to wag the dog. All the government has to do to ban other weapons in the future to target weapons not in ordinary use (perhaps .50cal rifles) or to regulate certain weapons with restrictions such that most people stop using them, making the weapons eligible to be banned.

Possibly, but what defines ordinary use? Would not hunting, or home defense, or shooting competitions, or vermin control, or even backyard target plinking qualify as an ordinary civilian use?

I apologize, the correct term was "common use," not "ordinary use." There is room for interpretation as to what is "common" and what is not, but Justice Scalia has all but declared that the M-16 is not in common use. So the few people that pay the draconian taxes and own them in states that allow them too is apparently not enough to make any of those uses "common" enough for the weapon to be protected.

But then I'd think that any firearm could then suffer the same fate, right down to the old rifled muskets.

All the government has to do to get around the 2nd Amendment is to simply place prohibitive taxes on a particular weapon or class of weapons in order to make their use "uncommon" enough not be protected by the 2nd Amendment?

Yep. Wasn't a very good way to define the term, was it?

Response from Obama, courtesy of Marc Ambinders blog at The Atlantic

That's pretty funny. Obama never saw a gun law he didn't like--including the DC gun ban that was declared unconstitutional. Keep in mind, the reason the Court did not articulate a rule for lower courts to apply in 2nd Amendment cases was because the DC ban would fail under ANY rule. So the only 2nd Amendment Obama believes in is one what is worth exactly nothing.

He's just trying to appear to be a centrist on the issue, despite his extremist record.

Back to the original news item of the thread....

I'm wondering though how this practically plays out? I mean, there are no FFL gun stores in D.C., so not only is there nowhere to buy a new gun, but you can't go to Maryland or Virginia either, since there is no FFL dealer to send it to in order to get it into D.C.? Prior to the ban the ruling stuck down, D.C. also had some of the most stringent restrictions of gun store licensing requirements in the nation, so it may be financially pretty tough to successfully run a gun shop in D.C. And didn't they require a pre-purchase permit or something, like N. Carolina's pistol permits (or maybe I'm confusing that with something else).

I'm just wondering, as I watch these folks on the t.v. news saying how happy they are with the ruling now that they can go out and buy their gun(s) for home defense, but how? Even an ATF agent was quoted in Wall St. Journal as saying he didn't see how they could, not until at least one FFL licensed dealer opens shop within D.C.

Or maybe that will be the first way to do it? Someone gets an FFL but without a physical full service store location and just acts as an agent for purchases made out of D.C.? Or does D.C. have some way to prohibit that (eg. city ordnance precludes operating such a business out of a non-commercial physical store location, or some such local restrictions).

Regardless of the ruling, I'm just pondering how much this actually changes things for people in D.C., from a practical POV (I find D.C. a confusing entity, since it is a city without a state and all).

Since when does one have to buy firearms only in ones home state? I bought a shotgun and a pistol (legally) in Maine while being a resident of Rhode Island though that was 10 years or so ago. Have the laws changed since then?