Looking at longer articles on the Supreme Court's decision to hear the appeal in District of Columbia v. Heller, I came across this curious, yet significant, detail.

The justices chose their own wording for what they want to decide in the new case, District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290. The question they posed is whether the provisions of the statute “violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.”

Now this could be a very significant in a couple of ways. On the one hand, it appears to be a very broad approach to the issue of how far the Second Amendment goes in protecting an individual right to keep and bear arms. However, it could also be provide a cloak for limiting the case to the specific status of Washington, DC only as a federal enclave not a part of any state. I'm inclined to believe that the court will examine and decide based upon the former, not the latter, but there is always the possibility of again "sidestepping" the bigger issue until a similar suit comes out of a state.

Secondly, I'm disturbed by this quote from the city's mayor, which potentially shows a contempt for the Constitution virtually unknown in American history.

"It's the will of the people of the District of Columbia that has to be respected," Fenty said at a news conference with D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer and several D.C. Council members. "We should have the right to make our own decisions."

Were the District of Columbia a state, I'd have to call that a states rights argument. Indeed, it is rather similar to those arguments made by defenders of racial segregation, in that it appears to put majority rule above rights guaranteed by the Constitution. That argument was wrong in Mississippi in 1957, and it is wrong in the nation's capital in 2007. What's more, I'm sure Mayor Fenty knows that in his heart of hearts -- after all, he would not make that argument, for example, with regard to any of the rest of the Bill of Rights because he would be laughed out of court.

And then there is this original rationale for the law, one that is so absurd on its face that I cannot believe that it met the laugh test at the time it was adopted.

Washington banned handguns in 1976, saying it was designed to reduce violent crime in the nation's capital.

The City Council that adopted the ban said it was justified because "handguns have no legitimate use in the purely urban environment of the District of Columbia."

Excuse me? Self-defense is not a legitimate use of a handgun? Heck, last time I visited the city every cop was carrying a handgun -- proof positive that the city itself does not believe the stated rationale for the handgun ban.

Of course, as I noted in my earlier post, the best course of action would be for the Supreme Court to construe the phrase "the right of the people" in precisely the way it does in cases involving other provisions of the Bill of Rights where it is used.

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Posted by: Greg at 01:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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