I don't often write about legal matters, since my sole legal training consists of three college Con Law classes. Also, most of my friends back east are real, actual government attorneys, and they'd probably be very quick to inform me I'm full of shit.
But I just can't let this go.
For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that individual Americans have the right to own guns for personal use, and struck down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital...
The United States is estimated to have the world's highest civilian gun ownership rate. Gun deaths average 80 a day in the United States, 34 of them homicides, according to Centers for Disease Control data.
The self-proclaimed strict constructionists on the Court ruled that the "well regulated militia" clause of the Second Amendment was meaningless color, or perhaps a typo.
What pisses me off about the gun rights lobby is its focus on the individual, and its willful ignorance of the public. Gun rights aren't like other Constitutional rights. Exercising, say, your First Amendment rights to free speech isn't just about making you feel good; the right to free expression is necessary for democracy to operate.
Conversely, exercising your now-sacrosanct Second Amendment right to own a handgun -- the particular weapon just reviewed by the Court -- may make a law-abiding citizen feel protected against the ocean of unlawful, unregistered guns sloshing around America's streets, but owning that gun renders that citizen and all Americans less safe. Here's why.
We think we're making gun ownership safe for the public with careful regulation, like background checks, licensing, waiting periods, gun show restrictions, and concealed-carry laws. But remember this -- most of the guns used in America's 34 homicides per day, to say nothing of the hundreds of the woundings, armed robberies, and other assaults on public security, began their lives as registered, licensed weapons purchased legally. And then those guns were re-sold, stolen, borrowed, or just used by the legal, passed-all-background-checks owners.
Don't get me wrong -- the particulars of the DC handgun ban were kind of stupid. The idea of a municipality banning an easily concealable weapon that can purchased just over the city limits is rather laughable.
But now the Supreme Court has ruled that illegal guns will stain our streets forever. As of today, our government can't do anything serious about it, lest they change the Constitution, which is near impossible.
That's right -- America's crime and violence problems are now protected by the Founding Fathers. Thank you, Thomas Jefferson!
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