...and uses some absolutely atrocious arguments, to boot...
The last time the Supreme Court directly addressed the provision -- which reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" -- was in 1939, in a case called United States v. Miller. The court said that the Second Amendment's "obvious purpose" is to ensure the effectiveness and continuation of state military forces (the militia mentioned in the amendment), not to provide a private right to own weapons for one's own purposes.
Actually, as I recall it did no such thing; it merely said a sawed-off shotgun was not an appropriate weapon for the Founders' well-regulated militia -- and it further went back to the definition of the militia as "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline" (more here), NOT the National Guard.
For decades, the lower courts followed that pronouncement. They repeatedly rejected claims that the Second Amendment provides a defense against laws regulating gun possession and use that have no connection with service in a state militia. Although gun proponents vigorously insisted that the Second Amendment protects their right to possess and use guns for private purposes, the courts recognized that their view lacks support in its language and history....except, of course, the Founders' views as established repeatedly in their pre-Constitution writings...
...it makes perfect sense to ask that residents who want firearms at home choose something other than handguns.Except, of course, the District doesn't merely ask that, it mandates it by force of blatantly unconstitutional law...
The more handguns a jurisdiction has, the more people die in homicides....once again, as is the gun-banners' wont, NO EVIDENCE to support this...
The handgun ban has saved countless lives...once again, NO EVIDENCE (are you seeing a pattern here?!), in fact, there's a truckload of evidence to the contrary, one piece of which is D.C.'s on-again-off-again title as Murder Capital of the United States...
It is plainly relevant that the District allows residents to possess other perfectly effective firearms, especially given how much more death and misery handguns have caused than those other firearms.
It's also plainly relevant, Mr. Fenty, that the District requires the firearms you allow them to possess to be in such a state that they're about as effective as a butter knife against the criminals breaking down your subjects' doors. And the fact that you fail to mention this is but one thing that makes you painfully unfit for public office.
Lord, but I am glad I live in Texas. If that kind of talk was ever made by a public official here, they'd likely be ridden out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered, and maybe even hung by the neck until dead pour encourager les autres.
Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I can guarantee you more than a few would be thinking it to be the perfect solution...
(via Nicki, Bitter makes a great point too...)
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