After high court's gun decision, what's next?

THE U.S. Supreme Court last month announced its landmark Second Amendment ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, declaring unconstitutional the D.C. handgun ban and prohibition against having a functional, unlocked firearm in the home for possible immediate self-defense need.

The 5-4 ruling saw Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito in the majority, with liberal Justices Stevens, Bryer, Ginsburg and Souter dissenting.

Thus were vindicated the many years of dedicated efforts by millions of American gun owners, under the determined leadership of the National Rifle Association, Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, and countless state and local gun owner groups across the nation, to oppose and revoke the unconstitutional assaults on our Second Amendment right to arms.

Thus also were discredited many political, Hollywood and other leading anti-gun zealots, including former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Sens. Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer; a host of actors, including Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Rod Steiger, Carol Burnett, Warren Beatty, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Mel Brooks, Robin Williams, James Caan, Richard Dreyfus, Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Gene Wilder and many others.

Besides major anti-Second Amendment miscreants like the Brady Center Against Handgun Violence, Million Mom March and U.S. Conference of Mayors, other discredited anti-handgun groups have included the ACLU (self-annointed defender of civil liberties that would destroy the most important civil liberty, the one that protects all the others), AARP (that arbitrarily adopted its anti-handgun policy without polling its membership), YWCA, National PTA,National Education Association, Common Cause, Ann Landers, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, U.S. Catholic Conference, and (ecumenically) United Methodist Church, United Presbyterian Church (USA) and others.

In writing the court's ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia marshalled an astonishingly broad array of historical and legal documentation conclusively confirming that both the intent of the founders and the understanding of the populace, both before, and to a century and a half after the Second Amendment's ratification, were to secure for individuals the protection of the right to arms for personal defense and that of the state, unrelated to any requirement for militia service.

Even more astonishing was the considerable wrongheadedness in Justice John Paul Stevens? strained dissenting arguments, as, apparently desperate to defend his personal anti-gun beliefs, he eschewed grammar, logic, historical and legal documentation, and even common sense in a dissent seemingly bordering on the hysterical.

Now, NRA and related organizations are moving forward with lawsuits to overturn those local laws that so egregiously infringe our confirmed individual constitutional arms rights.

Targets include handgun bans in Morton Grove, Chicago and other localities, as well the NRA suit to overturn San Francisco's prohibition of firearm possession by residents in public housing.

As NRA moves forward to correct those past wrongs, perhaps it's also time not to seek retribution and restitution on behalf of the stockholders of the many major industrial firms that contributed so much company (stockholder) money to organizations trying to destroy our - and their - stockholders' right to arms.

Simple justice should require that they help right the wrongs their contributions assisted by contributing generously to support NRA's lawsuits to restore Americans' constitutional gun rights.

Fielding Greaves of San Rafael is a freelance writer, a retired military intelligence officer and a life member of NRA for half a century.

Most excellent. I like the comment by “CCW4ME2
Winter Park, FL” ...

To better understand the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution it is helpful to consider how almost every reasonable person would interpret this amendment if it did not involve something which is considered controversial or politically incorrect by some and idolized by others. Arms in the possession of ordinary citizens meet both criteria. Let’s, for the sake of argument, suppose that the Second Amendment dealt with books, not arms or weapons, and read like this: “A well educated electorate, being necessary to the maintenance of a free State, the right of the people to own and read books, shall not be infringed.” Does anyone really believe that liberals would claim that only people who were eligible to vote should be allowed to buy and read books? Or that a person should have to have voted in the last election before the government would permit him or her to buy a book? Would the importation of books be banned if they did not meet an “educational purpose” test? Would some States limit citizens to buying “one book a month”? Would inflammatory “assault books” be banned in California?

Emotion in Reading:

The meaning of the Second Amendment becomes quite clear if one removes the emotional “gun” issue. Let’s restate the 2nd in another context:

A well educated electorate, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed.

If this were the law, would only educated people have the right to keep books? Or, would only the voting electorate be allowed to read? Of course not. All the people would have the right to keep and read books, and the state would benefit by having a more educated electorate.

There is NO requirement to be a member of a Militia to have the RIGHT to keep and bear arms. However, the more people who DO, the better the security of the state.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right.[Nunn vs. State, 1 Ga.(1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846)]

Targets include handgun bans in Morton Grove, Chicago and other localities, as well the NRA suit to overturn San Francisco's prohibition of firearm possession by residents in public housing.

The NRA should file TWO suits against Chicago. As it was they (Mayor Richie Daley, King-Chi) who started the 100% firearm ban in Public Housing. And it was Chicago's law that withstood the court challenges (up to appellate court, 7th Circuit) which opened the door for SF. Then again, maybe when SF's Public Housing firearm ban goes down so does Chicago's and the NRA saves some money? (I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night.)

But I'd just like to see Daley (City of Chicago) sued as much and often as possible over his gun laws. He's not one to go along with court decisions he doesn't like and has already vowed to fight the Heller decision (how, I have no idea). And any city that has 36 pages, in size two font, of Firearms Laws and requires Cap Pistols to be registered with the cops deserves every lawsuit that can be dreamed up.

And those 36 pages are in addition to the IL Laws, County Laws and all Federal laws. The guy is a fascist. [No wonder he got beat up every week at De LaSalle H.S. (fact)]

It may be 39 pages of laws. Been a while since I looked at them for reference.

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