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Little-Acorn
05-17-2007, 11:10 AM
It's a vexing question for today's liberals. In their battle to maintain the fiction that government "gun control" is legal, they are faced with a difficult choice. Do they fight the limited judicial decision that it's illegal in one small area, and so risk having the truth come out in a national venue? Or do they give up and try to limit their loss to that one small area, for the sake of their agenda of infringing on the rights of all Americans to have a say in their own fate?

This is not a good time to be a modern liberal.

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http://thehill.com/op-eds/consider-whats-next-for-the-second-amendment-2007-05-15.html

Consider what’s next for the Second Amendment

By Robert A. Levy
May 16, 2007

Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has the Second Amendment in his crosshairs. He faces a crucial choice over the next 90 days with major implications for residents in D.C. and across the country: Should the city ask the Supreme Court to review Parker v. District of Columbia, a March 9 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals that said D.C.’s handgun ban is unconstitutional? On May 8, the city lost round two when the appellate court declined to re-hear the case. That leaves the Supremes as the court of last resort.

Sounds like a no-brainer. After all, the city has nothing to lose. If the Supreme Court overrules the appellate court, the mayor will be off the hook. He can continue peddling his fantasy world in which the city’s handgun ban protects Washingtonians from gun violence. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court affirms the lower court decision, D.C. will be no worse off than it would have been if it hadn’t asked for review. The handgun ban, as it now stands, will be history.

Why, then, is there any question about seeking review? Well, because politics and legal stratagems often play a role. On the political front, the argument will go like this: The last thing the mayor’s Democratic friends want is a gun control case percolating at the Supreme Court, with a decision likely in the heat of the ’08 campaign. Gun control is a losing issue for Democrats and red meat for Republicans. Accordingly, the mayor will be advised, take your medicine, change D.C.’s gun laws and keep Parker out of the Supreme Court. One would hope — if one were a D.C. resident who supported the handgun ban — that such blandishments would fall on deaf ears. The mayor is supposed to represent the city, not the pols running the ’08 campaign. We’ll soon see.

Then there’s the legal strategy argument: No doubt some anti-gun groups will urge the mayor not to seek Supreme Court review because D.C. might lose. And if D.C. lost, the repercussions for gun control regulations nationwide could be historic. Because of the tightly balanced cast of justices, and their unknown views on the Second Amendment, there’s a real risk for both sides. Still, the obligation of D.C.’s mayor is to defend the constitutionality of the District’s laws, not to engage in strategic lawyering because of concerns outside of Washington. What would the mayor’s constituents — we are told by D.C. officials that a large majority favor the current ban — say if Mayor Fenty opted to rein in the District’s gun laws without a Supreme Court fight because interests in New York, California, Illinois and Massachusetts were at stake?

Indeed, if the mayor wants to consider what he perceives as the national interest, then he should consider this: No matter what D.C. does legislatively about its gun ban, unless the Supreme Court overturns Parker, the District will be the best venue to challenge federal gun laws, regardless where they are applied. The federal government lives in D.C., and that’s where citizens will seek redress — taking advantage of the holding in Parker — whenever federal laws trample on gun owners’ rights in any of the states.

Understandably, because I’m co-counsel to the plaintiffs in Parker, the mayor might be reluctant to accept my advice on this matter. But here’s the interesting sidebar: The question whether to seek Supreme Court review is one subject where the city’s interests and the Parker plaintiffs’ interests converge. For the mayor, it’s a no-lose proposition. Either he wins at the Supreme Court or he faces the same music that he’d face without court review. For the plaintiffs, it’s always been their ultimate goal to have the high court weigh in, for the first time since 1939, on this threshold Second Amendment dispute: Does the right to keep and bear arms belong to us as individuals, or does the Constitution merely recognize the collective right of states to arm the members of their militias?

So, Mr. Mayor, it’s time to do the right thing. The citizens of D.C. — indeed, all Americans — deserve a foursquare pronouncement from the nation’s highest court on the real meaning of the Second Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court is, and rightly should be, the final word on that question. Let’s give the court an opportunity to rule, and give the rest of us the benefit of the court’s collective judgment on a debate that concerns millions of Americans.

Little-Acorn
05-17-2007, 11:28 AM
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has the Second Amendment in his crosshairs.

I have one disagreement with the article. Actually, the Second Amendment has the Mayor in ITS crosshairs.

Historical ramifications aside, one of the most interesting results of the Supreme Court finding the DC gun ban unconstitutional (if they do), would be to see what happens to the horrific crime rates that now exist in the city.

So far we've had a city full of irrresponsible criminals who don't give a rat's ass about the gun ban, preying on mostly law-abiding people who do obey it. So the criminals have had little to fear in terms of getting injured or killed by an unwilling victim. The result has been some of the highest crime rates in the nation.

If the gun ban is found unconstitutional by the Supremes and tossed out, residents will then be able to stop relying solely on the cops for protection - a theory that has manifestly failed - and try a different theory. They will be able to defend themselves if they choose to do so. They will once again have the right to buy a gun, and the responsibility of careful and safe usage of a potentially deadly weapon.

Will the murder rate, home-invasion rate, carjacking rate, assault rate, and rape frequency go up, or down, when the gun ban is tossed out? Will the introduction of weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens, produce more "OK Corral" style gunfights as those citizens behave irresponsibly with their weapons? Or will they be mostly responsible and careful... while the criminals start coming to the conclusion that they are now taking more risks by assaulting victims who now may be armed...and so they decide to ply their trade elsewhere, or not at all?

Joe Steel
05-17-2007, 01:53 PM
The Mayor should just ignore the ruling.

The DC Court has no police power and can't enforce it. Congress has authority over the District of Columbia. If the Mayor doesn't enforce what clearly is a biased and politically motivated decision, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would have to make a decision on the issue. It would have to wait for more important things

5stringJeff
05-17-2007, 10:08 PM
The Mayor should just ignore the ruling.

The DC Court has no police power and can't enforce it. Congress has authority over the District of Columbia. If the Mayor doesn't enforce what clearly is a biased and politically motivated decision, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would have to make a decision on the issue. It would have to wait for more important things

If the mayor can just ignore an apeals court ruling, should DC citizens just be able to ignore the gun ban in the first place?

Hobbit
05-17-2007, 10:15 PM
The Mayor should just ignore the ruling.

The DC Court has no police power and can't enforce it. Congress has authority over the District of Columbia. If the Mayor doesn't enforce what clearly is a biased and politically motivated decision, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would have to make a decision on the issue. It would have to wait for more important things

Nobody is outside the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This law should never have been passed, as it grossly violates the Constitution, which, once again, is the supreme law of the land, and cannot be overriden by any means short of changing it.

Joe Steel
05-18-2007, 06:29 AM
If the mayor can just ignore an apeals court ruling, should DC citizens just be able to ignore the gun ban in the first place?

They can try. Then they can explain their "individual" rights to the police.

Joe Steel
05-18-2007, 06:32 AM
Nobody is outside the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This law should never have been passed, as it grossly violates the Constitution, which, once again, is the supreme law of the land, and cannot be overriden by any means short of changing it.

In your dreams, perhaps. In the real world laws are only as good as the enforcement. As long as no one can stop DC from enforcing the old law, the changes may as well not exist.

5stringJeff
05-18-2007, 10:44 AM
They can try. Then they can explain their "individual" rights to the police.

How fascist of you. :rolleyes:

Hobbit
05-18-2007, 11:02 AM
In your dreams, perhaps. In the real world laws are only as good as the enforcement. As long as no one can stop DC from enforcing the old law, the changes may as well not exist.

Only in your pathetic, wet dreams. The court very well does have the power to stop them from enforcing the old laws. If anybody in DC is arrested under this law after it is officially overturned, the arresting police, their superiors, and the district attorney can (and will) all be arrested for false arrest and unlawful imprisonment. The cops will lose their badges and pensions and the DA will get disbarred for prosecutorial misconduct. You can't just enforce a non-existant law, especially when doing so thumbs your nose at the SCOTUS.

Joe Steel
05-18-2007, 01:05 PM
Only in your pathetic, wet dreams. The court very well does have the power to stop them from enforcing the old laws. If anybody in DC is arrested under this law after it is officially overturned, the arresting police, their superiors, and the district attorney can (and will) all be arrested for false arrest and unlawful imprisonment. The cops will lose their badges and pensions and the DA will get disbarred for prosecutorial misconduct. You can't just enforce a non-existant law, especially when doing so thumbs your nose at the SCOTUS.

Who will arrest them?

Hobbit
05-18-2007, 02:13 PM
Who will arrest them?

Well, seeing as how it's on federal land and it is a government defying the Constitution, I'd say either the FBI or the Army.