Will Gun Owners Be A "Cheap Date" For The GOP?: While focusing on Mitt
Romney's current woes regarding his "lifelong career as a hunter," this
commentary really asks a broader question - will gun-owning voters be
taken in by sudden conversions to the RKBA?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55102
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Utah Students Form Gun Club: Protecting their right to own and operate
firearms, students gathered together Thursday, March 28, at Chili's
restaurant to discuss plans to form a new gun club at USU. Brandon
Stoker a regional field representative for the Leadership Institute came
from Idaho to help organize the club here...Stoker placed fliers around
campus advertising the dinner at Chili's and enticing students to come
with a box of free ammunition...
http://media.www.utahstatesman.com/media/storage/paper243/news/2007/04/09/Features/Students.Seek.To.Protect.Second.Amendment.Rights.With.Gun.Club-2830184.shtml
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Oops, Wrong Store: A Minnesota woman who pretended to have a gun while
trying to rob a convenience store on St. Paul's East Side was shot by
the store owner's pregnant wife. A family member identified the clerk as
Susana Khalil. She does not normally tend the Super USA store, owned by
her husband Joseph Khalil. But her husband's cousin, George Elbassar,
says Joseph ran out to do an errand Saturday evening, leaving Susana and
their 2-year-old daughter on their own...
http://www.kare11.com/news/ts_article.aspx?storyid=250475
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More Armed Feds: Aside from Constitutional issues (not discussed),
article reveals the procedure by which investigators for the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission obtained authorization to carry firearms, with no
statutory basis. (Arguably, this means that the pool of federal agents
authorized to carry firearms on airline flights has increased by about 30.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17949763/
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Attention, Arizonans: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently
released a management plan for Ironwood Forest National Monument that
proposes to ban all recreational shooting in the 128,000-acre
forest...BLM has already held 3 public meetings to introduce these plans
and allow the public the opportunity to comment. BLM will be holding 2
more meetings this week in Sells and Tucson. Your attendance at these
upcoming meetings is crucial!
http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?id=2861
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What A Handgun Ban Didn't Do For DC: A reporter for The Philadelphia
Inquirer looks at the failure of the DC gun ban and asks whether
Philadelphia would really benefit from enhanced local restriction on the
RKBA. Of note is this sentence: "Asked to compare D.C. and Philadelphia,
which has no handgun law, Webster said in an interview that city-based
laws may not be very effective unless they are backed by statewide or
federal legislation."
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20070409_What_a_handgun_ban_didnt_do_for_D_C_.html
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From Gun Week:
Pro-Gunners Face Dilemma In Parker v. District of Columbia
by Joseph P. Tartaro, Executive Editor
April 10, 2007
I have been editing Gun Week for over 25 years and had contributed to
this newspaper, and several other gun magazines and even law journals,
for many years before that. I think my active involvement in firearms
civil rights activism goes back to the 1960s. I profess to be a writer,
maybe even a journalist, but not a lawyer.
During all those years, there have been many individuals, convinced that
the Second Amendment guarantees every law-abiding citizen an individual
right to keep and bear arms, who have downplayed the role of political
activism and public education by pro-gun individuals and organizations
by suggesting the most simplistic of solutions.
"Why not solve the whole problem once and for all by taking a case to
the Supreme Court? Let the court tell the politicians that their gun
laws are unconstitutional," they advise.
Of course that is even more simplistic than in sounds.
Many of the people who believe in the individual right to keep and bear
arms grew up and were educated in an earlier era when that view was
almost universal, even taught in schools. But times and the ways people
look at ideas have changed, and changed dramatically.
How the media, the public, lawmakers and the courts view fundamental
questions of human rights is amazingly different. And elected officials,
scholars and the courts were largely trained in a different worldview.
Without debating the intricacies of the abortion issue, let's examine
some of its history, as an example of change. Years ago, people might
only speak of terminating a pregnancy in hushed whispers behind closed
doors; today the subject of abortion is one of the most divisive
political issues of our times. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision provided a
thunderclap of change which is still being argued. However, all of the
nuances of that decision are still being sorted out and are likely to
remain unsettled for years to come. The courts must resolve peripheral
questions, such as parental notification, late term abortions, and so on.
Roe v. Wade may have legalized abortion, but it was not a total reversal
of past rulings and traditions, and there are shadings to that issue
which will be decided in years and courts to come.
I mention all of this because we may have finally arrived at a similar
watershed point in the battle for the individual right to keep and bear
arms. And let me remind readers that there are two parts to that
question of rights; the "keep" and the "bear" are separate issues. Even
plenty of people who believe in their right to arms split when it comes
to those questions which is why it has been so difficult in recent years
to get right-to-carry laws passed even in states that have a long
tradition of keeping and using arms for recreation and defense.
Over the past 30 or 40 years some people cringed whenever the idea of
bringing a gun rights case before the Supreme Court was mentioned. In
fact, many strategists argued against such a course, believing that the
judges were more disposed to a collective right theory, or even one that
has not been advanced before.
Some argued that more liberal courts of recent times that were disposed
to abandon the original intent of the Founding Fathers would be
dangerous arbiters of the Second Amendment's meaning.
Others counseled that we should wait for a generation of change on the
Supreme Court as presidents more to their liking appointed more judges
mindful of original intent and hostile to change. The fallacy to that
argument is that both conservative and liberal presidents have been
surprised when their judicial nominees turned out to hold views that
were different than supposed.
With all of that said as preamble, I'd like to add a few comments of my
own regarding the Parker v. DC decision and the likelihood that it will
become a major Supreme Court gun case, as reported in Dave Workman's report.
As is suggested by Workman's article and the people he interviewed
before writing it, the Parker case may be a turning point in the
struggle for the right to keep and bear arms. It must be remembered,
however, that the Parker case focuses on the question of "keeping arms"
in one's home or business, not "bearing" arms on the streets of
Washington, DC, or anywhere else.
If it goes to the Supreme Court, and the court upholds the Mar. 9 ruling
by the three-judge panel in the DC appellate court, it will not spell
the end of all gun control laws. That decision, like the earlier 5th
Circuit Emerson decision left room for some limitations on firearms
possession and use while upholding an individual right to possess them.
The anti-gunners has been tearing their hair out and screaming that the
world of gun control will come to an end if the Supreme Court upholds
the Parker decision. As usual, they are predicting nothing short of the
end of civilization as we know it if the decision is upheld.
Some pro-gunners are almost as extreme in their fear of what would
happen if the court overturns Parker, something I find hard to believe
given the careful preparation of the case, the upstanding nature of the
plaintiffs, and the scholarship woven into the Parker decision.
Sooner or later, it is inevitable that one or more Second Amendment
cases will be accepted by the Supreme Court, no matter what the pro-gun
and anti-gun leaders and their strategists say. I believe that Parker
should be that case. As I mentioned, it is a case about the right to
keep arms in one's home. Later, there may be cases that address the
question of bearing arms outside the home.
Better now the Parker case than the one involving drug dealers,
terrorists, bank robbers, and rapists--all of whom frequently raise the
Second Amendment in their defenses.
As Parker case attorney Alan Gura told Workman during his interview, "If
not this case, which case?"
And as NRA President Sandy Froman, who is an attorney in Arizona, noted
to Workman if any gun law was going to be challenged on Second Amendment
grounds, the District's gun ban is "just about the best law that could
be challenged."
"It is not only an unwise law, but an unconstitutional law," she said.
"How can you say that someone can't own a gun in their own home for
self-defense? We've seen that the gun ban is a total failure...This is a
good way to challenge the law, with great plaintiffs. The attorneys have
done a good job on this case."
There are some big flies in the ointment leading to a Supreme Couirt
ruling on Parker. The flies are pro-gun flies, or as the Washington
media likes to say these days "neo-pro-gun."
The flies came with good intent, but they now pose a threat to the
Parker ruling. They are the Senate and House bills that have been filed
by friendly pro-gun lawmakers at the urging of pro-gun groups like the
National Rifle Association.
Unfortunately, if those bills designed to wipe out the District of
Columbia's anti-gun ordinances pass before the Supreme Court has chosen
a course regarding the Parker case, they could destroy the fine, even
landmark decision, written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman. While these
bills offer some promise for some gunowners, they are totally
unnecessary. If Parker is upheld, the legislation would be pointless.
In the unlikely event that the Supreme Court hears and overturns the
Parker decision, there will be plenty of time to respond legislatively.
Further, if the Supremes review and uphold the Parker decision, it will
have a lasting national impact for years to come. It will provide a well
protected fortress from which we can campaign for more changes and more
favorable decisions on gun laws.
If the Supreme Court decides not to review Parker because Congress
passed the Hutchinson or Souder bills giving DC residents a carry law
rendering the Parker decision moot, we will be faced with a continuation
of the same old battle, with the prospect that an anti-gun Congress,
where an anti-gun president, and an anti-gun Washington, DC, council
could change the laws back again, or even make them worse.
This article is provided free by GunWeek.com.
For more great gun news, subscribe to our print edition.
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
