...and you can read it here. A few choice snippets:
I'm just a layman, and a clearly biased one at that, but that has to be the most thorough dismantling of an opponent's case that I've ever seen. And we're not just talking about Fenty and his minions in Washington either. The anti-gunners from sea to shining sea always bring up the point that we as citizens don't need guns, that the police will protect us, but they have never once addressed the judicial precedent -- set by more than a few cases -- that says that citizens are not entitled to individual police protection and indeed have no legal recourse when said police fail to provide said protection. I don't know how the plaintiffs in this case chose Gura & Possessky to represent them in this pivotal battle, but it's plainly obvious to me that they struck solid gold. And I think that if the Supreme Court doesn't take the case, and rule that the Second Amendment is an individual right -- as the Founding Fathers so obviously indicated it to be in their other writings -- it'll be the clearest indication yet that the court has yielded too much to the socialist forces who want our great country to follow all of the failed models of government across the pond and through history, not to mention a cowardly move on their part. It's long past time for this issue to be settled and for us all to regain our rights, once and for all.
The court of appeals explained that allowing individuals to possess only non-functional firearms inside their home is tantamount to prohibiting such
weapons outright. "As appellants accurately point out, § 7-2507.02 would reduce a pistol to a useless hunk of ‘metal and springs.'"...
The city's handgun ban is not rendered constitutional simply because the city claims (mistakenly) to refrain from violating the Constitution in other ways, e.g., by not banning rifles and shotguns. The court of appeals aptly described that argument as "frivolous." Pet. App. at 53a. By Petitioner's logic, the city could ban the practice of religions it believes foment a disproportionate level of violence so long as it "allowed" an array of other religious practices that still satisfy spiritual needs. ...
The rights secured by the Second Amendment are not negated by the various policy preferences masquerading as social science in Petitioners' brief.
The city is not required to approve of the freedoms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The city is not required to believe such rights are efficient or well-advised, or contribute to the formation of a wholesome society. The city is required only to obey the Constitution.
There is not one individual right secured by the Constitution that cannot be challenged in some manner on policy grounds. The fact that some may think those values unwise, or even unsafe, does not mean they may simply be ignored. Indeed, the whole point of enshrining certain rights in a constitution is to ensure that the liberties they protect not be subject to competing, evolving – and often, as in this case, misinformed – policy views of government officials.
And if policy benefits could be invoked to ignore constitutional provisions delegating power to the government, this Court would soon be asked to adjudicate the existence of everything from the postal monopoly to the income tax.
Petitioners' opinions of the normative policy choices reflected in the Constitution, as ratified and still operable today, are irrelevant. Whatever a court of social science might say about the city’s firearms prohibitions, this is a court of law. ...
Petitioners correctly note that the Second Amendment "does not require the District to stand by while its citizens die." Pet. at 30 (emphasis added). Yet the city consistently fights to secure its right to stand by while its citizens are victimized by crime.
For example, the city has successfully defended its right to "stand by while its citizens" are raped, kidnapped from their homes, and further abused. Warren
30 v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). The city has likewise successfully defended its right to "stand by" in the face of the worst urban rioting in our nation’s history. Westminster Investing Co. v. G.C. Murphy Co., 434 F.2d 521 (D.C. Cir. 1970).
The city has even defended its right to "stand by while its citizens die" when the perpetrator is a police officer. Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. 1983) (en banc). Indeed, the city has asserted its right to "stand by while its citizens die" in the course of volunteering their assistance to the police. Butera v. District of Columbia, 235 F.3d 637 (D.C. Cir. 2001).
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