"This ... decision, which hands the far right a victory it has sought for decades, is a powerful reminder of why voters need to have the Supreme Court firmly in mind when they vote for the president this fall."
Posted on 06/27/2008 5:09:33 AM PDT by Zakeet
Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law.
In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.” The ruling will give gun-rights advocates a powerful new legal tool to try to strike down gun-control laws across the nation.
This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.
There already is a national glut of firearms: estimates run between 193 million and 250 million guns. The harm they do is constantly on heartbreaking display. Thirty-three dead last year in the shootings at Virginia Tech. Six killed this year at Northern Illinois University.
On Wednesday, as the court was getting ready to release its decision, a worker in a Kentucky plastics plant shot his supervisor, four co-workers and himself to death.
Cities and states have tried to stanch the killing with gun-control laws. The District of Columbia, which has one of the nation’s highest crime rates, banned the possession of nearly all handguns and required that other firearms be stored unloaded and disassembled, or bound with a trigger lock.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"This ... decision, which hands the far right a victory it has sought for decades, is a powerful reminder of why voters need to have the Supreme Court firmly in mind when they vote for the president this fall."
Shivering, bed-wetting Chihuahua’s.
No wonder this group are afraid of firearms....
Shoot the messenger comes to mind.
“even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.” “
Liberals thinks that because we don’t have militias anymore, that removes the reasoning behind the right for individuals to bear arms.
They’re stuck on the syntax and willfully ignore the important aspects of gun ownership...the right of the people to not be subjugated by forces foreign or domestic.
Amazing how these dolts who write for the left don't even try to go to the next paragraph before they shoot themselves in the foot (pun intended).
Law-abiding citizens who are unable to defend themselves are easy prey. But the Slimes doesn't realize that.
“In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent...”
They can’t even go ONE sentence into an editorial without lying their asses off.
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves — E.R. Murrow
On this point the NYT is correct although in their feeble mind they don't even recognize the fact that pro-gun people vote too. I hope every person who values their 2nd Amendment right will not be fooled by Obama's rhetoric and see him for the anti-gun zealot he really is.
Hey!
For once I agree with them!
Maybe Conservatives should form a bunch of these private forces and start roaming around -- THEN we could carry guns, right??
The NYT should die of fright if there were militias today.
First of all, a lot more people die in motor vehicles than from guns. So, how come no ban on owning automobiles and trucks?
The press never covers stories about law abiding citizens, who are armed, saving lives by virtue of carrying a weapon legally. This happens every day.
The left’s argument about banning handguns makes as much sense as disbanding police departments to reduce crime; or disbanding fire departments to reduce the occurrence of fires.
Secondly, The Supreme Court situation may not be as dreadful as we think. Two justices, Suter and Ginsburg are making noises about retiring. If Obama wins the White House, he would replace those two liberals with liberals. The result: no change.
However, one never knows what will happen to the Supremes. One might die in office, or become mentally impaired(stroke), or a conservative one might resign unexpectedly.
Lots of permutations.
The “damage” done by guns is insignificant compared to that done by the NYT due to it’s ability to hide behind the 1st ammendment.
Amazing how it never even dawns on the liberal brain (such as it is) that they’re basically advocating that the only people who should have guns is the military and law enforcement.
Their abject ignorance of history is woefully apparent.
Well, bedwetter, the High Priesthood of Secular Humanism has declared this statement to be false. Spin on it.
Ah, but they WANT to subjugate the people by forces domestic... it’s in every policy they propose. This is why they inherently oppose the individual having the right to defend himself.
For a body that portends to be steeped in such tradition and having thorough, almost encyclopaedic knowledge of it, they have conveniently forgotten what a militia was in 1791.
I defy the NYT editorial board to produce one piece of causal proof that more guns in homes exactly equals more deaths. I can provide plenty of evidence of incidents where guns in the home have SAVED lives.
The NYT, as you point out, hides behind the 1st amendment but would rather the 2nd go away entirely.
But even if you disagree with all of this, ask yourself ONE question: What possible reason would the liberals have for wanting to completely disarm the populace??
—PP
Leftists are FASCISTS, so, yes, it does occur to them that only the military and LE should have guns. They flat out say so.
PS, you left out "criminals", who will also always have guns.
That’s an average of 82 people per day so the MSM better quit bitching about Iraq and Afghanistan.
I wonder where the figure 30,000 per year killed by guns comes from.
“PS, you left out “criminals”, who will also always have guns.”
Yup...as I told my gun-control advocate sister not too long ago “Yeah, that assault weapons ban really helped to prevent the Columbine shooters from obtaining one”
Millions have died due to the stupidity of Democrats and Socialists alike. Maybe we should ban their existence!
“What possible reason would the liberals have for wanting to completely disarm the populace??”
That’s a great point to keep in mind.
“I wonder where the figure 30,000 per year killed by guns comes from.”
Same place where the “US killed 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians” came from?
The NYT, confusing the guns with the perps for decades.
But they are wrong, even from a grammatical/syntax stand-point.
In the 2nd Amendment, the “militia” statement is part of a DEPENDENT clause. It is, therefore, not capable of standing on its own as a sentence.
The “right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” statement is contained within an INDEPENDENT clause - that is, it has meaning as a complete sentence, even when standing by itself.
Grammatically speaking, dependent clauses do NOT control the meaning of independent clauses when they appear in they same sentence. They may clarify or enhance the independent clause, but the independent clause controls the overall meaning/intent of the sentence as a whole.
Thus, the right to keep and bear arms is NOT in any way dependent on service in a militia and it never has been.
.....I wonder where the figure 30,000 per year killed by guns comes from.....
Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington, Atlanta, Cleveland, Buffalo, Newark ad infinitum. The number is largely feral urban criminals
This implies that 30,000 Americans are randomly murdered by strangers with firearms each year.
In reality just under 20,000 out of those 30,000 firearm deaths are deliberate suicides.
Out of the remaining 10,000 something like 6,000 are gang and drug related deaths involving individuals who are not innocent bystanders walking to school or shopping at the mall.
Of the remaining 4,000 something like 3,000 are people murdering a relative or a spouse or a significant other - again, not a random killing of a mall shopper or factory worker on the line or a child walking to school.
30,000 people do not die each year in the way the NYT describes - perhaps 500-750 do.
That's why it is a big deal in the newspapers: it is not news in Baltimore or Philadelphia when a drugdealer murders another drugdealer in a territorial or monetary dispute - that describes most murders in those cities. When a stray bullet kills a child walking to school it is front page news because it is a rare occurrence.
This would be great news. Where did you hear this?
So....we have an amendment which allows our military to carry weapons?!!
Well, that is good news.
If this imbecile ever lived in a crime ridden urban area, as I have, he be singing a different tune.
Liberals love to wage tyranny over others from the comfort of their country estates.
According to the FBI's statistics, of the USA's approximately 15-16,000 homicides per year, 67% are committed with a firearm.
Of America's approximately 32,000 suicides each year, 80% are men of whom 60% use a firearm and 20% are women of whom 30% use a firearm.
There are also some accidental deaths due to firearms each year as well as a a number of killings in self-defense.
The figure is roughly 30,000 - what is misleading is not the number in the editorial but the description of the circumstances.
More than half of these are suicides, a fact which the NYSlimes would never lead an interested but unknowing reader to learn.
Confusing the grammar, they are.
Bingo. And people wonder why I view the Dinosaur Media Death Watch threads with glee. Your post is why.
In 2005, of all children 1 to 4 years old who died, almost 30% died from drowning.
When are we going to ban swimming pools?
“I wonder where the figure 30,000 per year killed by guns comes from.”
It comes from every firearms related death, including suicides and justifiable homicide.
On Obama in particular (From Robert Novak’s piece earlier this year, “Obama’s Gun Dance”):
“Obama’s dance on gun rights is part of his evolution from a radical young state legislator a few years ago. He was recorded in a 1996 questionnaire as advocating a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns (a position since disavowed). He was on the board of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, which takes an aggressive gun control position, and in 2000 considered becoming its full-time president. In 2006, he voted with an 84 to 16 majority (and against Clinton) to prohibit confiscation of firearms during an emergency, but that is his only pro-gun vote in Springfield or Washington. The National Rifle Association (NRA) grades him (and Clinton) at ‘F.’”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/obamas_gun_dance.html
The 2nd Amendment is not about service in a militia. The 2nd Amendment is about the conditions that must exist for a militia to be possible, and that PRE-condition is a population of individuals who are already armed. Sort of hard to conceive a well regulated militia with individuals with Yo-Yos and Frisbees.
Right after we rid ourselves of 5-gallon buckets, the “gateway drowner.”
“However, one never knows what will happen to the Supremes. One might die in office, or become mentally impaired(stroke), or a conservative one might resign unexpectedly.”
Pelican Brief stuff. Possible, though.
Their 30,000 number is basically correct. What they fail to mention is that on average 55% of those deaths are suicides. They leave that part out in order to give the impression that we live in the Wild West.
Souter has expressed in interviews that he has no intention of dying in office - he wants to retire and do some writing.
John Paul Stevens is 88, but relatively healthy and has indicated that they will have to carry his body out of the courtroom. He won't admit it out loud, but he is gunning for two records. If he lives to 91 in office he will be the oldest justice to ever serve, and if he lives to 92 in office he will have served longer than any justice in history.
“Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year”
Contrasted with the 1.3 million babies aborted every year.
Yet that’s quite alright with the NYT.
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