posted March 09, 2007 02:46 PM            

In a 2-1 decision, the judges held that the activities protected by the Second Amendment "are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued intermittent enrollment in the militia."

A lower-court judge told six city residents in 2004 that they did not have a constitutional right to own handguns. The plaintiffs include residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want guns for protection.

posted March 10, 2007 12:31 PM            

When was the last time you remember good news out of Washington?

Yet, that's just what we got yesterday in an amazingly and uncharacteristically common-sense decision by a federal appeals court.

The 2-1 opinion not only overturned the District of Columbia's onerous 30-year-old handgun ban, it did so for the right reason – the Second Amendment!

Pinch me, I'm afraid I'm dreaming.

Imagine someone in Washington – judges, no less – actually paying attention to what the Constitution has to say.

The judges found the protections of the Second Amendment "are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued intermittent enrollment in the militia."

The judges also ruled as unconstitutional the city's requirement that registered firearms be kept unloaded, disassembled and under trigger lock.

"The (Second) Amendment does not protect 'the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms,' but rather 'the right of the people,'" the judges found.

Even the dissenting judge in this case, Judge Karen Henderson, did not disagree with the substance of the constitutional argument. Her minority opinion contended the Second Amendment didn't apply to the District of Columbia because it is not a state.

The ruling represents one of the most forceful defenses of the Second Amendment in any recent federal court case.

"Again, we point out that if the competent drafters of the Second Amendment had meant the right to be limited to the protection of state militias, it is hard to imagine that they would have chosen the language they did," the majority opinion stated. "We therefore take it as an expression of the drafters' view that the people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms, and that the preservation of the militia was the right's most salient political benefit – and thus the most appropriate to express in a political document."

They said it!

In fact, if there is any doubt about the plain-spoken English of the Second Amendment, there are plenty of other plain-spoken writings of the founders to explain exactly what their intent was. Here are some examples:

James Madison: "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. A well-regulated Militia, composed of the people trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."

Samuel Adams: "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."

Thomas Paine: "Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property ... horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."

George Mason: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."

George Washington: "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty teeth. A free people ought to be armed. When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour."

Thomas Jefferson: "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. ... The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Alexander Hamilton: "The best we can hope for, concerning the people at large, is that they be properly armed."

posted March 12, 2007 12:56 PM            

So often we see our politicians get bogged down in some sort of "Bill of Rights" gimmick. Hillary Clinton has proposed a G.I. Bill of Rights. There's a Passenger's Bill of Rights, a Home Buyer Bill of Rights, a Miscarriage Bill of Rights, a Car Buyer Bill of Rights, and the list goes on.

Political hacks tend to get so bogged down in Bill of Rights widgetry that they forget about the actual Bill of Rights, though I'm certain that somewhere there's a politician working on a Bill of Rights for people who think they have the right to ignore the Bill of Rights. (This is known in some circles as the "Congressional Oath of Office.")

Once in a while, it's nice to see one government entity or another recognize the original Bill of Rights. This time the rare occurrence took place in a federal appeals court.

Washington, D.C., has had a ban on private ownership of handguns for 30 years, but that is no more. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the city cannot prevent people from keeping handguns in their homes. The story of a federal court embracing the Constitution made big news, in no small part due to its rarity. Until last week, "Federal court upholds 2nd Amendment" was a headline I thought we'd never again see – right up there with "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosts bar mitzvah."

This ruling will no doubt be challenged again and again. Because of this, it's worth looking at whether or not the gun ban worked in the first place.

During the decades-long period when private ownership of handguns had been banned in D.C., the murder rate rose – reaching a high point in 1991, when 80 of every 100,000 D.C. residents was murdered. The operative lesson to be culled from the gun-ban data is that that criminals tend to not participate in rigid adherence to laws.

The rate of violent crime also went up dramatically, and reached its highest points after the gun ban took effect. This must leave liberals, who design all their grand ideas in a vacuum, scratching their heads in between dodging all the bullets.

In 1977, the population of Washington, D.C., was 690,000. In 2005, the population was 550,521. I'm still trying to figure out how many of those 139,000-plus people fled, and how many were murdered as a result of being saved by the gun ban.

Some have even said that your odds of getting killed in Washington, D.C., are greater than if you went traipsing through Iraq. True, that's comparing an entire country to one concentrated urban area, but let's take into account that Iraq is a nation that has no past recognition of civil and human rights – which has led to a murderous track record. Juxtapose this with Washington, D.C., an area completely controlled by American liberals who have applied their version of a civil and human rights nirvana – which has led to a murderous track record. "Intent" aside, evil regimes run amok, and do-gooder liberals run amok can yield similar results.

If there's one thing we can be certain of, it's this: Gun bans don't work. Not only that, they're unconstitutional. Not that this seems to matter to people who believe that we can pick and choose which constitutional rights make sense, and which don't.

Picking and choosing which freedoms are "necessary" and which ones can be done away with is a slope so slippery that it should have a ski lodge built next to it. The Constitution is an "all or nothing" document, but, sadly, there are still those who believe it's possible to rip out the foundation of a home without having the roof fall down.

Doesn't it seem to be the case that gun bans are almost always proposed by politicians, vacuous dunderheaded Hollywood actors and cellulite-brained daytime talk-show hosts like Rosie O'Donnell who employ armed bodyguards? They want you to believe they care deeply about your well-being, but the only point their actions convey is that their rear end is worth saving, and yours isn't.

posted April 04, 2007 05:57 PM            

His name is Charles.

Her name was Clara.

Was. Past tense.

The first and last time Charles saw Clara alive, she was being dragged by her hair through the CNN Center in Atlanta. Clara's tormentor ordered Charles out of the way, and instead of standing his ground to defend an obviously distressed woman, he obeyed the thug's order and let them pass.

Charles' choice was to go in search of a guard instead of personally coming to the woman's aid, and the tragic result is that Clara is now dead.

Going to find "help" turned out to be no help at all.

Could Charles have saved Clara? It's possible he could not. Perhaps Charles would have also been a victim. We can never be sure.

What we do know is that Charles obeyed a thug – refused to defend the defenseless – and two people are now dead.

What would you have done?

What would I have done?

There was a time when a majority of American men would almost surely have come to Clara's aid. They believed in an ethic that said, "Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter." (Proverbs 24:11)

It was a day when men, recognizing the reality of evil, carried weapons that enabled them to stand in the gap for those being unjustly tormented and threatened. Virtually any man on the street could come to the aid of a victim like Clara.

That was then; this is now.

Charles is probably a good, law-abiding citizen of modern America. Therefore he knows all too well he cannot carry a weapon to defend people like Clara without asking permission of the government.

Long past are the days of George Tucker, a man wounded twice in America's Revolutionary War, who wrote: The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever … the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

Or again, William Rawle, appointed as a U.S. attorney by President George Washington: "No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction, be conceived to give the Congress a power to disarm the people. A flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if, in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either [state or federal government] should attempt it, [the Second] Amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."

Most Americans today probably couldn't even imagine living when the laws in Virginia made men subject to prosecution for NOT carrying their weapons with them at all times, even (gasp!) being specifically mandated to bring them to church!

Yes, we're a long way from those days, and I wonder if perhaps we've so lost the ability to govern ourselves that we deserve to be helpless in the face of evil.

Yet, as soon as I write that, I come back to a simple truth: Clara didn't deserve to die. She had a perfect right to expect someone – anyone – with a sense of decency and courage to come to her aid in time of need.

Charles did not. No one else did.

We don't have to guess what George Tucker, William Rawle and the other Founding Fathers would say about our "gun control" laws that restrain only the law-abiding.

All we have to do is read their writings.

posted April 05, 2007 04:04 PM            

DC became open season for thugs... like shooting fish in a barrel.

Ironically, states that allow concealed weapon permits and DON'T ban guns, end up having a VERY low number of crimes commited by gun toting criminals... hmmm.... guess the whole concept of an average citizen being able to shoot back scares the crap out of thugs.

Yay for DC and the appeals court.

posted April 05, 2007 05:06 PM            

They polled inmates regarding how likely they would be to commit a crime based on whether or not the victim was armed.

They asked, "how likely are you to commit the crime you were incarcerated for if you knew:"

The victim was most definitely not armed
The victim was likely not armed
The victim was likely armed
The victim has a desert eagle sticking out of his pants (ok, my paraprase there lol)

Overwhelmingly, criminals reported that they would not commit a crime against someone armed or even likely armed.

Apparently, criminals don't want to get shot either...