Posted on 06/25/2008 10:09:19 AM PDT by Havok
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on whether Washington, D.C.'s decades-old handgun ban is constitutional.
It's been nearly 70 years since the high court has heard a firearms case that tests the scope of the Second Amendment. The outcome of this one, D.C. v. Heller, will have extraordinary implications —- not just for the District, but for the ability of cities to respond effectively to gun violence.
If more evidence is needed that the stakes could not be higher, a steady drumbeat of headlines is supplying it. In the first few days of March alone, just before the justices heard oral argument in the case, three kids were killed and five more wounded in Chicago. And in West Palm Beach, Fla., a gunman killed an off-duty firefighter and wounded five others before turning his gun on himself.
Elected officials and law enforcement in those areas have a lot riding on the court's decision. The case stems from a lower-court ruling that D.C.'s ban violated the Constitution. Breaking with decades of Supreme Court precedent and hundreds of lower-court decisions, a federal appeals court held for the first time that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms not related to service in a "well-regulated militia."
If the justices agree with the lower court's ruling, cities and states throughout the country may face challenge after challenge to the constitutionality of firearm regulations enacted to protect the public and prosecute criminals. And city attorneys may find themselves spending as much time fighting lawsuits as they do fighting crime.
Those resource-draining challenges would come at an inconvenient time. Gun violence is a national crisis, but one that disproportionately affects those of us who live in urban areas. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 340,000 homicides were committed in large American cities between 1976 and 2005. About 64 percent of those homicides involved firearms.
Very often, it's our first responders who pay the harshest price. In the decades between 1976 and 2006, more than 2,251 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty —- more them 90 percent of them by firearms.
The problems are obvious —- and they do have solutions, some of which are already being implemented around the nation. A decision from on high that limited our authority to craft local solutions would be yet another tragedy. Different gun laws make sense in different areas. Community leaders are plainly in the best position to determine the policies needed to curb the crime, fear and disorder that gun violence creates in each city —- not a special interest lobby and gun industry more concerned about dollars than lives.
It's the nation's mayors who get the call from police when a shooting occurs. It's the local leaders who comfort the families of gunshot victims, who walk with police and residents on the neighborhood beat, who meet with block watch groups and who grapple with the demanding budget ramifications of violent crime. For those very reasons, policies affecting guns and community safety historically have been —- and should be —- made at the local level.
And when communities have the authority to enact regulations that respond to local needs, they're often aggressive and successful. New York City has experienced a dramatic decline in crimes involving firearms after tailoring creative local regulation to curb gun violence. The city of Oakland, Calif., prohibits firearms dealers from selling ultra-compact (and easily concealable) handguns. Washington, D.C.'s handgun restrictions have led to one of the lowest suicide rates in the nation. And Chicago, like the District, bans the possession of handguns.
For the sake and the safety of all Americans, let's hope the Supreme Court will allow local leaders and law enforcement the tools they need to do their jobs.
> Shirley Franklin is mayor of Atlanta. Contributing to this column were: Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee; Manuel A. Diaz, mayor of Miami; Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco; Greg Nickels, mayor of Seattle; and Douglas H. Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J.
I hear that. The way these cases are turning out it looks like the US is about to burn.
Good think I got all my security squared away.
There is only one way to interpret her views. She supports the right of criminals to not be challenged while committing a crime.
The Constitution wasn’t written to protect the cities, or their treasuries.
Notice how they have to use 29 years of numbers to pump them up. Why do they use 1976? This is when a lot of gun laws started to show up in the USA. All this shows is that gun laws increase crimes and murder because the victims could not defend themselves.
So this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gun laws increased murder rates, which are used as a reason for more stringent gun laws.
Politicians gain NOTHING from a problem solved.
This false connection was a cover story in TIME magazine about 25 years ago. It was the last time I picked up a copy of TIME.
Mr. Volk does some awesome work. Always to the point too...
I agree. I’m adding more of his work to my collection NOW. Dial-up users will hate me for this....eventually. :-)
Yep, I am not optimistic either. I consider it a bad omen that the Supreme’s ruling has been put off for another day. It's my guess that the split is 4 to 4 with the gadfly Kennedy's vote still up in the air and there's probably some sort of compromise being concocted. It's hard to believe that he is a Reagan appointment. But anyway, I am afraid we are at the Mercy of Justice Kennedy...
The right of a criminal shall not be infringed while committing a crime.
However, I do tend to agree with this part of the article,
"And city attorneys may find themselves spending as much time fighting lawsuits as they do fighting crime."
I might even pay for some of the legal fees myself.
Semper Fi
An Old Man
Hmm...yeah, I remember this sort of story from the time when certain states were considering “shall-issue” CCW permits. “Blood in the streets,” “wild west,” “OK Corral,” “road rage carnage,” etc, etc - good grief, I could write their own copy for them in my sleep. And it never happened.
Not quite. The sign states that "work makes you free".
Only in the biased liberal journalist's little mind are headlines written by the same now "evidence".
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