Legalities

I sure hope the court decides it is constitutional for states, counties, cities, or districts to regulate the ownership of firearms whether it be by background check, ownership license, or prohibition. Easy access to handguns in cities kills innocent bystanders and gang members alike.

If I'm not mistaken, the Bush administration allowed the federal assault weapons ban to expire and took no action to renew it. Whatever the stated policy, I have no recollection of the Bush adminstration passing its own assualt weapon ban law since the expiration of the prior law. Come to think of it, there has been very little legislation proposed in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre although we did hear a nice speech and get some nice photo op footage of the President and Laura on campus.

I have no objection to the responsible use of firearms. Likewise, I have no objection to cities like Chicago and Washington DC banning their ownership as a way to secure the safety of the population. If I need a gun to protect myself from the federal government, I'll drive to Virginia and pickup an arsenal.

Sorry to hear Bama took on the chin. So did the Jeffs but no way I make a bet that'll require me to hang a Purple Cow sign in my office.

"...one of the few states where a citizen without a police record can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon."

Jan, I think you need to get out (of DC) more. The last time I checked, over 35 states of the Union allowed some form of concealed carry. I know that my CCW issued by FL (I'm a non-resident) is good in more than 26 states.

And Neal, it was Congress that refused to re-authorize the AW law. Remember, the President proposes (he did say in the 2000 election that if Congress put a bill on his desk, he would sign it), and the Congress disposes.

...Virginia, which not only allows private ownership of handguns, but is one of the few states where a citizen without a police record can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Whaddya mean, "one of the few" such states? I can only think of roughly a dozen states that don't fall into that category. Two states - AK and VT - don't even require a permit to carry concealed.

You wrote, "…but is one of the few states where a citizen without a police record can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon."

The fact: 41 states now authorize citizens to do so. The vast majority of those 41 do so without requiring tremendous effort.

I carry licenses good for 32 states and wish it were 50. I'd feel, and we'd all be, safer.

Drew, actually the total number of states allowing some concealed carry is much higher than that. Nowadays, only two states (IL and WI) prohibit concealed carry entirely. Another 11 (AL, CA, CT, DE, HI, IA, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI) sharply curtail it by issuing permits on a discretionary basis. The rest are shall-issue (except VT, which neither issues nor requires permits, or AK, which issues but does NOT require them).

Neil, you're missing the question.

"I have no objection to cities like Chicago and Washington DC banning their ownership as a way to secure the safety of the population."

This is not a question about whether one supports or doesn't gun control. This is about whether the 2nd amendment guarantees a right to individual gun ownership. To answer the question, one looks to the framer's intent, historical understanding at the time, and the syntax of the amendment.

If the Bill or Rights depended on what you or I "have no objection" to, we'd probably have gutted free speech, free expression (i.e. flag burning), and due process by now. The whole point of the Bill of Rights is that there are rights (perhaps including the right to individual gun ownership) that the majority cannot take away from the minority.

On a different topic altogether, there was a lot of talk after VTech that was very insightful. Many anti-gun activists tried to revive more restrictions on guns. And many pro-gun groups argued that the main problem was the defenseless students.

Note that college campuses (and high schools) are two of the very few places that do not allow legal gun possession. Thus, when a crazy man attacks students they are not allowed to be armed to protect themselves.

I think some smaller schools are considering allowing students with concealed carry permits to carry guns on campus. That would be a change in gun policy based on learning from the VTech massacre.

I feel that when ever the law restricts ownership of a weapon by the average citizen they are playing into trhe hands of the crooks and gangsters. If you make it illegal for the law abiding citizen to be able to arm and defend themselves, only the lawless will have guns.

Law enforcement is incapable of protecting the general public. More and more of the Law Enforcement Community needs to be locked up with the other crooks. Any cop that protects another by ignoring their wrong doing should also go to jail for the maximum sentence of the crime they covered up.

There is a small town in Ga that has an ordinance that says "each citizen must have and be proficient with a handgun". The crime rate there went to the cellar.

Drew is right. Congress voted down Feinstein's 10-year extension to the assault weapon ban 8-90.

New York State has a semi-automtic weapons ban similair to the expired federal ban which does not have a sunset clause. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California have one too.

If SJC decides DC cannot prohibit private possession of firearms in the district because gun ownership in the constitution is an individual right rather than the right to arm a militia, what guidance will its decision provide on a state's rights to restrict access to semi-automatic weapons... or will that question be left open?

The argument that students on a college campus would all be safer if they all toted concealed weapons is preposterous on its face. I've seen a lot of irresponsible behavior on college campuses and adding firearms to alchohol at beer bashes is asking for accidental death and bodily damage. What I think does not matter so much. The question will come before the court eventually: Can public or private institutions of higher learning prohibit handgun ownership by students ON CAMPUS. Having said it, I think the challenge will come from the NRA. And the NRA will lose because the prohibition does not prohibit gun ownership by students, it just prohibits it on campus.

Here's another pet peave, policemen should be required to use tasers for defensive purposes only (just like their sidearms) and not to compel behavior.

Let me join xrlq and others in the polite pile-on over

one of the few states where a citizen without a police record can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Again: nope. In the vast majority of states a citizen without a police record can get a permit to carry a concealed handgun. In fact, there are only three states in which a citizen can't: Illinois, Wisconsin, and Vermont -- but in Vermont, no permit is necessary.

In several of the bigger states -- California, New Jersey, New York, for example -- carry permits are issued only at the (almost entirely unfettered) discretion of government officials, but most states, including my own Minnesota, have modern, mainstream, common sense, "shall issue" permit laws.

That's a sweeping change, which has taken place over the last couple of decades, and as our host points out in another context, the dividing lines don't fall neatly on the liberal/conservative spectrum. (In Minnesota, for example, we would not have passed carry reform either time -- we had to do it twice, for reasons too long to go into -- without the votes of liberal Democrat state legislators, although the Republicans did most of the heavy lifting.)

"The argument that students on a college campus would all be safer if they all toted concealed weapons is preposterous on its face. "

True. Which is why that argument is only proposed as a strawman, by those who prefer to keep college campuses as places where only police and criminals "tote" concealed weapons.

I may, at some point in my life, have seen a more graceful correction/update, but I'm not sure when: well done, Ms. G.

I think your 37 number is spot on as the lowest defensible one, and 40 is a reasonable one, although I think you (via the NRA) tend to be a bit generous about what's "reasonable".

I'll agree with on Alabama, certainly (officially, Alabama is "may issue", but it works as "shall issue"); Connecticut and Iowa are more of a mixed bag. It's fairly easy to get a permit in Connecticut, but it's also easy to get it yanked by an officious official, and just this side of impossible to easily get that fixed.

In Iowa, it depends largely on the local sheriff, although the state authorities are pretty liberal about giving permits to out-of-staters with a good argument.

What astounds me is NOT that it took so long for this issue to get to the Supreme Court, but that any of us are foolish enough or dishonest enough to think it REQUIRES a Supreme Court interpretation to confirm that the Bill Of Rights was for the enumeration of The People's rights, not to enumerate the government's powers.

The Bill Of Rights universally enumerates RIGHTS OF CITIZENS, not rights of government.

Does the 1st Amendment's freedom of press protect the government's 'right' to communicate to the public? Does it only protect professional media and not apply to individuals?

In addition, anyone who has ever read any of the founding fathers' writings can clearly see that they intended the right to keep & bear (meaning to hold or carry) arms to apply to the citizenry, NOT a 'standing army' of the state or federal government. The founding fathers universally state that the entire body of the people WERE the militia and that all citizens should be armed as a counterbalance to government controlled armies. It is intended as a check & balance against tyranny from local or federal government - which can't work if you only allow politicians to control arms.

Lastly, there is no mention of 'reasonable' infringements of the right to keep and bear arms. The wording is "SHALL NOT infringe". Putting any political agendas aside, isn't "shall not" pretty darn clear?

Some like to compare it to reasonable infringements of the 1st Amendment, like not shouting FIRE in a theater or committing libel.

This is false reasoning however - proactively causing physical harm to others or committing a criminal attack on another's well being IS a crime because it harms another person; keeping and bearing arms in and of itself does not harm others or infringe on anyone's rights or well being. Only USING arms against another person is equivalent to the yelling fire or libel comparison. Punish the crime, don't infringe guaranteed right.

UT law professor Sanford Levinson's article "The Embarrassing 2nd amendment" is an excellent overview of the individual rights view.

Jeff Snyder's essay "A Nation Of Cowards" is an excellent overview of the philosophy of those who choose to be armed to protect themselves and their loved ones.

Citing the assault weapon ban as an example of "resaonable" gun control is wrong: the choices of which guns to ban was not based on real data (only one of the guns on the list was on the FBI's list of top 10 guns used in the crime) and the bill's original authors admitted to creating the original list by looking at a gun catalog and writing down all the models that "looked scary" to them. That level of effort would have earned a C- in high school government class but because gun control is an emotional issue for many that piece of poorly thought out, pointless legislation accomplished nothing other than to provide a symbolic "win" for the gun control movement.

It was a political ploy that exploited the technical ignorance of the media and the non-gun-owning populace, since most thought (and still think) that fully automatic machine guns were being discussed, not semiautomatic models no different in capability or rate of fire than other action types. A double action .38 special revolver can be fired 6 times a second; so can an AR-15 rifle. Both are a threat in the hands of a homicidal maniac; neither are dangerous in the hands of a law-abiding person with no violent intent. Next time you go to the range, shoot an AR-15 or other formerly 'banned' rifle and you will quickly discover that from the user's perspective, it's no different from anything else that shoots one time for each trigger pull.

Better examples of "reasonable" gun controls would be the Brady background check bill, recently proposed legislation to provide mental health data into the Brady check database, and "shall issue" carry permit laws that require mandatory training and institute a fair system with consistent standards and an appeals process for applicants.

Great article!

"I have no objection to cities like Chicago and Washington DC banning their ownership as a way to secure the safety of the population."

I have an objection. The laws don't work. If handgun bans could "secure the safety of the population" why, a quarter of a century after they were passed, do Chicago and D.C. still have outrageously high crime rates?

"I also clarified that I mean a person without a "criminal record," as opposed to a "police" record."

Most states go further than that, also requiring a clean mental health and drug abuse record, as well as not being delinquent on child support, school loans, etc., and setting age restrictions.

"The argument that students on a college campus would all be safer if they all toted concealed weapons is preposterous on its face. I've seen a lot of irresponsible behavior on college campuses and adding firearms to alcohol at beer bashes is asking for accidental death and bodily damage."

Every time the subject of people and guns comes up anti-gun folks predict doom. Concealed carry will have fender-benders becoming firefights. If airline pilots carry they'll shoot passengers. If the assault rifle ban expires bodies will be stacked like cordwood. If we don't ban .50 caliber rifles they'll shoot down airliners. And (my favorite) if off-duty police carry they'll cost billions in liability. After twenty years and dozens of predictions, the anti-gun folks have been wrong every single time.

Here we're talking about 21 year old students and faculty who have a clean record and concealed handgun training, not "all students." Across the street from campus such people routinely carry without any problem. If I was still a college student, I'd find this argument just as offensive as any stereotype held against any minority.

"If I need a gun to protect myself from the federal government, I'll drive to Virginia and pickup an arsenal."

Nope. It's against Federal law to purchase a handgun outside the state where you reside, and purchase of long guns is restricted to what your home state permits. You'd do much better dealing on the black market, which supplies criminals with all the guns they can carry, despite the law.

Just to clear a little something up. The 2nd amendment doesn't actually grant a right to keep and bear arms, it enumerates that right. The right pre-existed our government. The DC court even recognized that fact. Since the right cannot be given by decree, neither can it be thus removed, it can only be infringed, as our government has effectively done since 1934.

those cities and states that ban firearm ownership have outrageous crime rates, those that do not, not not have high crime rates.
those places that choose to enable criminals have earned the right to not have my business or presence.
i do vote with my wallet, this includes my right to not do business, vacation, or otherwise support their economies.