Cities will pay a heavy price if handgun ban is overturned (BARF ALERT)

ajc.com ^ | 06/23/08 | Shirley Franklin

[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.

[oldenuff2no]

Maggot is right!! If the collective socialist maggots had not been tearing away at our constitutional right to bear arms for the last 60 years then this would not be necessary. But they did and now we are going to reclaim this right.
I can only put this into the same context as the slavery issue. It took a long time to rid our nation of the tentacles of slavery which was wrongly imposed upon our nation. Sniffing out each and every trace of those abhorrent laws did cause some pain and did cause our nation to reorganize and reassess it's values. If we go with this ladies pathetic thinking then we would have had minorities running wild in the streets and taking over sane society. This did not happen. Minorities are now a very valued part of our society and true equality is much closer at hand.
When our second amendment rights are restored to us there will be changes but violent crime committed with a rock, knife, or a gun will still be illegal and will still be punished. This maggot lady author is full of hate and scare tactics. Her PC BS is not true and the current statistics of states that have liberal and open carry prove her wrong at each and every claim.
As usual truth and fact have nothing to do with the socialist's democrat statements or platform in this country. This author is a liar, plain and simple. She is predicting the future on nonexistent self developed fictional data. In the absence of any data to support her claim she is preaching fear, hate, and PC BS.

[geezerwheezer]

This asshat mayor of Atlanta, where they can’t even protect judges and clerks in their freaking courthouse nor prosecute the dude that killed them, wants me to listen to her same-o same-o B.S. about handguns? Hey Shirley, get your head out of your dumba$$ and get a clue on what’s really needed in Atlanta. Maybe if you hired smarter cops AND maybe if you prosecuted criminals the crime rate might fall. What a complete dolt she is.

[murron]

Kennedy was the replacement that Reagan put up after Bork wasn’t confirmed.

[hiredhand]

I updated the collection and stuck it on my about page. I'd put it here but too many people bitch and complain about the graphics and how long they take to load. Never mind that the graphics are optimized for the web and that they could turn off graphics, or disable loading graphics from the only site on this planet that I use. I've already had my weekly allotment of bitching and complaining and it's ONLY Wednesday. :-) So just look at my about page. :-)

[pabianice]

Gun-grabbing is a cult and Liberalism is a mental desease.

[Dick Bachert]

I believe everyone in the world knows that — including me — but thanks anyway.

It was a bit of sardonic humor.

[absalom01]

Gun violence is a national crisis, but one that disproportionately affects those of us who live in urban areas.

Translation: "Urban" teenagers are shooting each other, a lot. We liberals don't really care about them so we need to change the subject....I know, let's take guns away from 50 year old cowboys! They're probably all Republicans, anyway. That's the ticket!

[VeniVidiVici]

D.C. has one of the lowest suicide rates in the country

Considering D.C. is overwhelmingly black and that whites outpace blacks 2-1 in the suicide department, this is a misleading "factoid" at best.

Shirley's reaching. She should really address why D.C. and Atlanta have such high crime and murder rates.

[Christian4Bush]

Good photo. And from what I can see, definitely Not Guilty.

[DuncanWaring]

Got the picture of the #4 Enfield?

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[hiredhand]

Yup! ...several! I’ll post them. :-)

[hiredhand]

Here it is. I've got some different ones around here somewhere. Was this the one?

[Nachoman]

There isn’t a gun violence crisis in this country. There is a lack of shooting back crisis.

[DuncanWaring]

This one:

[AdaGray]

This is one relly stupid woman. I guess the criminals in DC don’t have guns now but they will if the ban is overturned? What an idiot!

[hiredhand]

Wow...that DOES look like ours, except for the rear sight. I don’t think I ever had that photo. :-)

[Shooter 2.5]

Also post #2.

[Shooter 2.5]

I think that’s the only picture he has ever created that I have a problem with. Most people have a natural habit of reading all of the top line first and then the bottom line. It’s a little confusing. He could correct it by coloring the different sentences.

[The Pack Knight]

"Decades of Supreme Court precedent?" Lets see, there's Miller, and... and....

And what's more, they can rule the DC ban unconstitutional without overturning Miller. She's talking out her fourth point of contact.