Not only did there appear to be a division in the ranks of the Supreme Court during oral arguments in the case of McDonald v. Chicago this week, but the aftermath revealed that newspaper editorial boards are also split on whether Chicago’s handgun ban should be struck down or affirmed.
Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, which filed the case now before the Supreme Court in partnership with the Illinois State Rifle Association and four Chicago residents, is not surprised at the divisiveness in the press. He is encouraged, however, that a number of newspapers appear to have discovered that the First Amendment is followed by the Second Amendment, and that both are of equal importance to individual rights and liberties.
Otis McDonald, 76, an Army vet who lives in a high-crime area of Chicago, thinks the Constitution gives him the right to bear arms to protect himself and his wife as he protected his country. We think so too.—Investors Business Daily
Naturally, the Chicago Sun-Times thinks the handgun ban should remain, arguing that striking it down will bring more guns flooding into the city, resulting in more violent crime. However, the newspaper cannot possibly claim that the city has been any safer with the ban than it was prior to adoption of the handgun prohibition in 1982, because that would be a bald-faced lie, and they know it.
Researcher John Lott wrote about that a few days ago for Fox News, and Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman likewise reported that after the ban was adopted, the Windy City murder rate spiked an alarming 41 percent. Al Capone would have been proud!
The Supreme Court is wrestling with a major case questioning whether Chicago’s handgun ban violates the Second Amendment, but 69% of Americans say city governments do not have the right to prevent citizens from owning such guns.A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 25% of adults think city governments do have that right.
The vehemently anti-gun Philadelphia Inquirer pandered hysteria about a Supreme Court ruling that would incorporate the Second Amendment to the states. The newspaper’s editorial page gasped, “Assuming that the court is willing to overturn century-old legal precedent to apply its ruling outside the nation’s capital, it will be embarking on a social and legal experiment that's likely to play out across the chalk outlines on many cities' mean streets.”
In the decade after () outlawed handguns, murders jumped by 41 percent, compared with an 18 percent rise in the entire Chicago United States .—Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman
On the other hand, Investors Business Daily said “Otis McDonald…thinks the Constitution gives him the right to bear arms to protect himself and his wife as he protected his country. We think so too.”
Likewise, the Leaf Chronicle in Clarksville, TN believes that Americans “always have had a constitutional right to possess guns, and local and state governments should be much more limited than they have in the past in the limitations they can place on those rights.”
The bottom line is that Americans always have had a constitutional right to possess guns, and local and state governments should be much more limited than they have in the past in the limitations they can place on those rights.—Clarksville Leaf Chronicle
The Chronicle in Augusta, GA believes it is “just silly” to ban handguns for law-abiding citizens, quoting an Associated Press story that noted one of the plaintiffs, a former police officer, has argued that “the only people ‘hurt by the city’s handgun ban are those obeying it’.”
With no small amount of irony, Rasmussen Reports this week released results of a telephone survey that revealed 69 percent of Americans support the SAF notion that cities do not have the right to ban handguns. Only 25 percent of those polled think cities have the authority to ban guns.
Visit with the Gun Rights Examiners
Atlanta: Ed Stone
Austin: Howard Nemerov
Boston: Ron Bokleman
Charlotte: Paul Valone
Cheyenne: Anthony Bouchard
Chicago: Don Gwinn
Cleveland: Daniel White
DC: Mike Stollenwerk
Denver: Dan Bidstrup
Fort Smith: Steve D. Jones
Grand Rapids: Skip Coryel
Knoxville: Liston Matthews
Los Angeles: John Longenecker
Minneapolis: John Pierce
National: David Codrea
Phoenix: Douglas Little
Pittsburgh: Dan Campbell
Seattle: Dave Workman
St. Louis: Kurt Hofmann
Tucson: Chris Woodard
Wisconsin: Gene German
And Don’t forget to visit:
Comments
Why are those those older Fourteenth Amendment's always confusing in Illinois?
Shown best in the older city state's Charter of Medina, 633 C.E.
(14) A believer shall not slay a believer for the sake of an unbeliever, nor shall he aid an unbeliever against a believer.
Nationally Americans are in favor by a margin of 3 to 1 and more of the right to bear arms meaning guns of choice and to the policy of open carry in our society. What part of this doesn't the government or the courts understand. the world screams we are a gun violent nation but far fewer are killed in this nation every year by guns than in many other nations with less weapons. Switzerland practically has one rifle per household and has had since before Nazi Germany. And who did Hitler leave alone? Why didn't the Japanese attack the west coast in WWII? they were led to believe every American had a gun and would fight. How many nations have banned guns since 1900 and how many of those had genocide within their borders? Words on a piece of paper are worth nothing unless you have the force to back them up. The constitution and billof Rights are only words and paper. Who will defend them if you won't? Live not visit outside the U.S. See how much you appreciate those documents. Good luck!
"far fewer are killed in this nation every year by guns than in many other nations with less weapons"
This country has the highest death and injury by firearm rate of any modern, democratic society. Comparing our firearm violence rate to that of, e.g., Third World societies where firearms are legally harder to possess but where poverty and poor internal policing (or proximity to a country like the US with flowing firearms) make it a simple matter for the criminal to get and use them is dishonest. Compare us to other countries that are developmentally, politically, and socially like us and we are at the BOTTOM in protecting citizens from firearm risk. And the clear reason is that we have a politically powerful moronic minority (including Scalia, Roberts, and the rest of the Bush rightwingers on the SC) who do not care about those people who are injured and die. Why? Because of some fairy tale about God giving people the right to own murder weapons.
Liars with guns?
And Mr. Heller's school district? Gideon v Wainwright, Mr. Kennedys Favorite.
But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet...
Judges VI, 34
Eighteenth-century American governments
recognized handguns as militia arms not only due to
their military utility, but also owing to the deep roots
of civilian handgun ownership from the dawn of the
Nation’s settlement. Thirteen percent of firearms
listed in the Plymouth Colony’s probate records from
the 1670s were pistols, “and 54.5 percent of lead
projectiles recovered from Plymouth Colony digs were
48
pistol ammunition.” Clayton Cramer and Joseph
Olson, Pistols, Crime, and Public Safety in Early
America, WILLAMETTE L. REV.
Two weeks before the Boston Tea Party, John Andrews
observed “ ’twould puzzle any person to purchase a
pair of pistols in town, as they are all bought
up, with a full determination to repell force by force.”
Letter of December 1, 1773
"that just 25% of adults think city governments do have that right. "
Governments do not have rights, people have rights, governments have rules and limitations. End of story.
The continual assault on the constitution is criminal, they have no business even looking at it without a constitutional convention. These traitors need to be deported to a more "secure" environment apparently....or just hung from a post for treason.
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