June 27th, 2008

In what has become the typical 5-4 split on the Supreme Court–with 4 conservatives on the good side, 4 liberals on the bad side, and Justice Kennedy swinging in the middle, SCOTUS struck down the D.C. ban on the legal possession of handguns for self-defense. Score one for the good guys! (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080627/D91I48C82.html)

I hope someone is keeping tally on the D.C. crime rate. If it goes up, watch for headlines, prime time specials, and rallies for new gun laws. If the crime rate goes down, watch for no media coverage. I’m betting on a plunging crime rate as Joe Average D.C. Citizen starts packing a weapon to ward off the already-armed reprobates.

One can only hope that the next Court sees a few more conservatives who just may determine there is no “right to privacy” in the Constitution and overturn Roe V. Wade. One can always dream, no?

Tags: CRIME RATE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, GUNS, SCOTUS, SECOND AMENDMENT

I also have to say that the picture in question has NOTHING to do with the subject of the post.

I know little about “hand-gun” lore and safety, but if it is anything like the training I had with rifles there is one golden rule.

Never play with a rifle (subst. gun).

A five or six year old play-wrestling with an adult for possession of a (hopefully unloaded) gun, with at least one finger of his left hand inside the trigger guard… YIKES!!

I truly hope that he is lucky enough to live to an old age.

Regardless of whether one is “really okay” with concealment, this opinion clearly lays a legal ground work for conceal carry to protected by the 2nd Amendment.

“First, the word “bear” in this context is simply a more formal synonym for ‘carry’, i.e., ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The Oxford Endlish Dictionary and the original Webster’s list the primary meaning of “bear” as “to support” or “to carry.” [citation omitted] Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary-which the Supreme Court often relies upon to ascertain the founding-era understanding of text…is in accord. The first three defintions for “bear” are “to carry as a burden,” “to convey or carry,” and to “carry as mark of authority. [citation ommitted]…It is equally evident from a survey of late eighteenth-and early ninteenth-century state constitutional provisions that the public understanding of “bear Arms” also encompassed the carry of arems for privated purposes such as self-defense.”

Again, this opinion goes as far as ANY in restoring a basic constitutional liberty to We The People. If someone wants to go the grocery store packing heat, that is their RIGHT and ALL statistic show that conceal-carry states have less violent crime rights that the nanny-states.