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The Supreme Court ruling on gun laws last Thursday created media frenzy. Editorials, columnists, anchors and pundits predicted it would result in an American Armageddon. According to the major media outlets in the nation, innocent lives will be lost, the Supreme Court justices have joined forces with city criminals and life as we’ve known it is over. Who knew upholding the Constitution would have such disastrous effects?

WASHINGTON -- A 13-year-old boy was killed, seven people shot and a person stabbed within minutes of each other in a spate of violence in the Trinidad section of NE shortly after midnight Saturday. Police said between midnight and four in the morning a person was also stabbed and another shot citywide. DC Police Inspector Rodney Parks says the shootings appear to have taken place in connection with three attempted robberies. Police are looking for a gold or metallic colored car, possibly a Dodge Intrepid, spotted at each crime scene. The police have no suspects in custody at this time....

The Washington D.C. City Council has created so many hoops for handgun owners to jump through before they can exercise their Second Amendment rights, they may require legal counsel just to identify what the hoops are.  This sorry state of affairs is much to the satisfaction of The Washington Post, which called for just such an obstructionist policy in an editorial.  At least one of those hoops is illegal, according to the Supreme Court, but a Post news story spun that fact as the opinion of “opponents of the handgun ban.”  Is editorial policy coloring the news?The Washington Post is...

. For decades the Second Amendment might as well have been called the Second-Class Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court spent the late 20th century expansively interpreting the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth amendments, not to mention unenumerated rights ranging from travel to sexual privacy. But not until last month did the court hold that the Second Amendment means what it says: that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." What took so long? I put the question to Alan Gura, the 37-year-old wunderkind lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in District of Columbia...

WASHINGTON -- Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that overturned Washington's strict 32-year-old handgun ban, announced his candidacy on Thursday for the U.S. House of Representatives. Heller, 66, is seeking the seat currently held by Eleanor Holmes Norton. He is gathering signatures to run on the ballot as a libertarian candidate. Heller, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same Capitol Hill neighborhood as the court. "Mr. Heller's challenge to Ms. Norton is welcomed in the spirit of debate, and as...

It shouldn't have come as a surprise that the District of Columbia can and will continue to all but completely disarm its law-abiding citizens after the Supreme Court ruled otherwise. After all, this is the same D.C. that was home to the most restrictive firearms laws in the country - until the Court struck them down. The same D.C. that banned the law-abiding citizens from possessing any handgun. The same D.C. that forced its law-abiding citizens to keep the few firearms they could possess both unloaded and disassembled or locked at all times. And the same D.C. that has disarmed...

Twice convicted of felonies, James Francis Barton Jr. faces charges of violating a federal law barring felons from owning guns after police found seven pistols, three shotguns, and five rifles at his home south of Pittsburgh. As a defense, Barton and several other defendants in federal gun cases argue that last month's Supreme Court ruling allows them to keep loaded handguns at home for self-defense.

[...] But we're burying the real news here. It seems that Heller may not have brought his gun with him to register, but he was armed with a load of candidate petitions, Duggan said. Seems that Heller is planning to run for the House seat currently held by Eleanor Holmes Norton. Heller is seeking signatures to be on the ballot as a libertarian candidate. A man identifiying himself as J. Bradley Jansen, who said he was Heller's campaign manager, said Heller must get 3,000 signatures and has until the end of August to collect them.

Orin's and David Kopel's posts below discuss whether Heller recognized a constitutional right to self-defense. I'm inclined to say the answer is yes, for the following reasons: 1. Heller recognized a right to keep and bear arms in self-defense, which logically presupposes some legal right to self-defense. Why would the Constitution let you keep an object for a certain purpose, when all use of the object for that purpose could be outlawed? 2. Heller often talks of a "right to self-defense" in contexts that suggest it is of constitutional statute, e.g., "That of the nine state constitutional protections for the...

Mayor Adrian Fenty and his feisty attorney general, Peter Nickles, stood on the steps of the Wilson Building this week ostensibly to announce how the District will comply with the Supreme Court's rejection of Washington's ban on handguns. But really, they were delivering very much the opposite message: With only the narrowest of exceptions, we're sticking with our gun ban. Don't like it? Sue us.

On June 26, the last day of the 2007-2008 term, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed a lower-court ruling striking down a 33-year-old handgun ban in the nation's capital. District of Columbia v. Heller was the first Second Amendment case that the court has heard in 70 years and represents the first time the court has ever addressed the question of whether the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms for private purposes. In a recent interview with NationalJournal.com's Mary Gilbert, Adam Winkler, professor of law at University of California, Los Angeles, discussed the historical context...

The Supreme Court may have confirmed that Americans have the right to own guns for protection, but the gun debate is hardly over. The District of Columbia, whose handgun ban was struck down by the Supreme Court, is still planning on banning most handguns. And the court decision has spurred the media into overdrive to paint guns as dangerous to their owners. No one who has taken even a quick glance at the crime data can seriously argue that the D.C. gun ban lowered murder or violent crime rates. The concerns being raised are not the threat from criminals, but...

It's been barely three weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Second Amendment, tossing the District of Columbia's strict ban on handgun ownership as an unconstitutional infringement on the individual right to bear arms. As you'd expect, D.C. officials have been busy little bureaucrats since then, trying to figure out a way to get around the high court's decision. On Monday, the D.C. council announced emergency legislation designed to update the gun ban. As expected, it's a joke. Instead of simply acknowledging that individuals have a right to own handguns in the district, the legislation would still require that...

"It appears that the city does not yet understand the decision and order of the Supreme Court," said Heller, a 66-year-old a security guard. "An applicant must fill out registration forms, submit fingerprints and pass a written firearm-proficiency test, while police ballistics experts test-fire the revolver. The revolver will then be returned to the owner, but he or she cannot legally use the weapon, even for self-defense, until notified that the registration has been approved. "

WASHINGTON -- The plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that overturned Washington's strict 32-year-old handgun ban was among the first people to arrive at police headquarters to try to register his firearm. Dick Heller showed up early Thursday, the first day that the city began registering residents for handguns, but he did not get to complete the registration process. That's because he did not bring the firearm that he wanted to register with him, News4's Megan McGrath reported. Heller has been keeping his gun in Maryland and does not believe the amnesty program for people who have kept guns in...

Heller attempted to register a semi-auto. Turned down. Source not able to be posted here (Gannett)

District Gun Registration Starts Tomorrow D.C. police will start the gun registration process at 7 a.m. tomorrow, when it opens an office at police headquarters at 300 Indiana Ave. NW. It is the start of the 180-day amnesty period in which residents may register handguns they have had illegally, or guns from other states. An officer from the gun unit will meet the applicant at the door and take temporary possession of the gun to ensure safety at headquarters. Officers will tag the gun and run ballistics tests before returning it to the owner. Paperwork indicating that registration is in...

The D.C. Council on Tuesday night approved emergency legislation that will repeal the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns while setting stiff regulations for registering and storing guns inside homes. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill as early as Wednesday, which would allow residents to begin registering guns Thursday. The bill passed unanimously in the 13-member council with minimal discussion, though several council members acknowledged that more work should be done on the legislation, which as an emergency bill will only be in effect for 90 days. "There will be more work to be done,"...

District of Columbia v. Heller was historic, the first Supreme Court decision to clearly hold that the Second Amendment right to arms was an individual one not linked to militia service. But it was historic for another reason: the sheer number of mistakes made in the dissenters' opinions. Given that all four dissenters co-signed the Stevens and Breyer dissenting opinions, this means that the mistakes must have escaped, not only four members of the highest court in the land, but their sixteen research clerks! Case in point: Justice Stevens' dissent claims that he holds true to the Court's earlier, 1939,...

It is equally amusing to think of police officers arriving at the home of some resident who happens to shoot an intruder pressing the homeowner as to how they got the drop on the thief when they had to take the gun out of its case and remove the trigger lock with the criminal being unaware. If the resident explains that the gun was loaded and ready to fire, are they going to be prosecuted for being prepared?

The District, rebuffed by the Supreme Court last month in a landmark decision on its 32-year-old gun ban, could soon be headed back to court over a new gun law that could take effect as early as Wednesday. The D.C. Council will vote Tuesday on emergency legislation that will require handgun owners to keep their weapons disassembled or under lock and key in what gun rights advocates see as direct defiance of the Supreme Court ruling. That ruling said the District could not bar residents from "rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."...

The fallacy of gun registration By Charles Bloomer web posted July 14, 2008 One of the gun grabbers' favorite "common sense" gun control measures is gun registration. As with other gun control schemes, the anti-gun crowd never considers whether or not the particular "common sense" law actually does anything constructive. In actuality, the "common sense" gun laws are grossly deficient in common sense. Last week on WTOP radio's "Ask the Chief" program, Washington, DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier inadvertently admitted that the District's gun registration program was a failure. According to the Chief, "Honestly, there are thousands of handguns that...

We may be able to measure the life of the District of Columbia's newly proposed handgun law with a stopwatch. Unveiled today by Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Council members, this measure is lawsuit bait that makes a mockery of the Supreme Court's landmark District of Columbia v. Heller (PDF file) on June 26 by imposing maximum inconvenience on law-abiding D.C. residents who want to own firearms. In striking down the District's previous handgun ban, the Court ruled that "the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful...

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia Council planned to vote Tuesday on emergency legislation to allow handguns, but only if they are used for self-defense in the home and carry fewer than 12 rounds of ammunition. (snip) The nation's capital would still require all legal firearms — including handguns, rifles and shotguns — to be kept in the home unloaded and disassembled, or equipped with trigger locks.

District residents will be able to keep a handgun in the home for self-defense but that right would be limited to the home and not outside it, city leaders said today, announcing new gun regulations in response to the Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down the city's handgun ban. Gun owners will have to pass vision and written tests, provide a photo with their application to register a gun, and submit their weapon for ballistics testing. Guns will also still require trigger locks. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and interim Attorney General Peter J. Nickles announced the regulations alongside D.C....

When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last year to hear a Second Amendment challenge to Washington D.C.’s ban on handguns, gun rights groups called it a step towards challenging California’s gun laws. Last week, the court overturned the D.C. ban. But gun control groups and others say the court’s ruling was too narrow to overturn any state laws. Meanwhile, some in the gun-rights movement are urging people to be careful about what lawsuits they file in the wake of Heller vs. D.C. One thing no one contests is that the June 26 ruling in Heller vs. D.C. was a major...

By Leah HopeCHICAGO (WLS) -- Proponents of gun rights gathered in the Loop Friday to push legislation legalizing concealed weapons in Illinois. Among the speakers at the rally was a Texas state representative whose parents were among 23 people gunned down at Luby's cafeteria in 1991. Recent rallies at the Thompson Center have been demands for gun control laws following fatal shootings of Chicago children. Thursday, the plaza was full again, but the message was from those demanding the right to bear arms.

We just got back from the Heller rally in downtown Chicago and let me say these are some happy people. I’d estimate the crowd at between 200-300 (and I suck at estimating crowds!) Folks of every size, shape, color and religion were jubilant with the recent Heller decision and looking forward to being able to carry a handgun as a law abiding citizen of Chicago. Here are some photos… The crowd! The NRA folks were disappointed at the turn out, all I can say is for Chicago, on a Friday afternoon a crowd of this size was damn near miraculous!...

I had given the speech and was taking questions from the audience - always easier than giving a speech. A man asked me if I had any ideas about how to achieve a rational system of gun control in this country. My answer surprised me. "No," I told him. "I've given up on gun control. That battle is over. We've lost. I no longer think it's an achievable goal and if I were a politician I wouldn't lose an election over it." The audience, a liberal group, was properly aghast. That answer was so unlike me. I've been writing a...

WASHINGTON - The question isn't whether you'll be able to get a District permit to own a handgun. The question is: Will you be able to get a gun? District residents will be able to start applying for permits to keep a handgun in the home as early as July 17, according to the District's acting Attorney General Peter Nickles. But until a gun store opens in the city, anyone who wants to buy a gun is going to have a tough time. Since there are no gun stores in the District of Columbia, residents wishing to own a gun...

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...

The District's gun ban had prohibited residents from registering handguns and keeping them in the city. Immediately after the ban was imposed in 1976, the homicide rate dropped and it has leveled off in recent years, after peaking in 1991. The District government appears to be headed for disaster as it prepares to craft policies to regulate handgun registration and licensing in response to the Supreme Court's decision declaring unconstitutional the city's absolute ban. A hearing last week clearly showed that most members on the D.C. City Council want regulations tailored to discourage, to the point of infringement, the ownership...

Guns and Health Jeffrey M. Drazen, M.D., Stephen Morrissey, Ph.D., and Gregory D. Curfman, M.D. The Supreme Court has launched the country on a risky epidemiologic experiment. The announcement by the Court last month of its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller,1 which struck down a ban on handgun ownership in the nation's capital, has set the stage for legal challenges to gun regulation in other major American cities. Such challenges have already been introduced in Chicago and San Francisco. If there is a widespread loosening of gun regulations, we will learn over the next few years — in...

With the recent Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment in the Heller vs. District of Columbia case, it seems like a good time to collect my thoughts on guns, crime, self-protection and human behavior. I am a faithful National Rifle Association member, and I own a legal, properly stored handgun. In fact, it has engraved on the barrel "Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty." It was a gift from my wife during the Bi-Centennial celebration in 1976. And during the month that we celebrate Independence Day, our nation is trying to reconcile the wisdom of our Founding...

"Repeal the Second Amendment," The Chicago Tribune editorialized. "The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die," said The New York Times. "[The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms only in relation to service in a state militia." added The Washington Post. Those are a few of many editorial expressions of disgust from the mainstream media over the Supreme Court's ruling that when the Bill of Rights says that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," it includes the right to possess guns for self-defense, and...

Walt Disney World fired a security guard on Monday after he protested the company's decision not to allow people with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their cars on Disney property. Disney terminated Edwin Sotomayor, 36, of Orlando for violating three Disney employee policies, essentially for failing to cooperate with an internal investigation, said spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. Sotomayor vowed to continue his fight. At issue is Florida's new law that allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep firearms in their vehicles in employee parking lots. Disney advised its employees late last month that the theme-park resort is exempt...

WASHINGTON - As the District prepares to begin accepting applications for handgun permits, police are having a tough time finding tens of thousands of handguns already registered in the city. "Honestly, there are thousands of handguns that were registered in the city and I don't know whether those handguns are still in the city," says D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. About 41,000 handguns are already registered in D.C., and more than 36,000 of those guns are owned by residents who registered prior to the 1976 ban. On WTOP's Ask the Chief program, Lanier says police don't know where the 36,000...

Comment on to previous post points out at p.2 of the Stevens dissent he refers to NFA and US v. Miller: "Upholding a conviction under that Act, this Court held that..." Same mistake the 9th Circus made years ago and had to issue a new opinion, since Miller was never convicted -- commentators noted this was pretty suggestive the court hadn't bothered to read Miller before citing it. First thing you look for in reading a case is what happened below, and what the Court do to that. Very first thing. I'd add that at 41 he refers to: "In...

Whatever side of the Second Amendment controversy you may be on, the clear winner in District of Columbia v. Heller (striking down a Washington, D.C., ban on hand guns) was intentionalism, the thesis that a text means what its author or authors intend. The text in dispute is 27 words long, and it is cited in the opening pages of each of the three opinions: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” None of the words in this sentence is...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's repeal of the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., may be a boon for a segment of the firearms industry whose last major windfall might have been in the heyday of the Dirty Harry movies: those who make and sell revolvers. The court ruled that a blanket ban on handguns is unconstitutional, but D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and other Washington officials want to keep in place a prohibition on semiautomatic handguns — those in which a bullet clip is inserted into the gun's grip. Such a ban would continue to outlaw 9-mm and other popular...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's repeal of the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., may be a boon for a segment of the firearms industry whose last major windfall might have been in the heyday of the Dirty Harry movies: those who make and sell revolvers. The court ruled that a blanket ban on handguns is unconstitutional, but D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and other Washington officials want to keep in place a prohibition on semiautomatic handguns — those in which a bullet clip is inserted into the gun's grip.

The “God Not Guns” coalition is predictably upset about the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning the Washington, D.C., handgun ban. “It will embolden adherents of GUNdamentalism in their belief in the inerrancy of the 2nd Amendment,” intoned the Rev. Nancy Smith, coalition founder and chief. “Gundamentalism is a religious movement without spiritual grounding. Rather, it is rooted in the sale and promotion of violence.”

Afghanis Get It, Too Bad Anti-Gun Elitists Don’t: NRA To Target Chicago + Neighboring Suburban Hand Gun Bans, After Supreme Court Ruling Commentary by Bill Zettler * According to the Associated Press, June 27, 2008, "The number of civilians killed in fighting between insurgents and security forces in Afghanistan has soared by two-thirds in the first half of this year, to almost 700 people, a senior U.N. official said Sunday." We have all seen pictures on TV of Afghan citizens walking the streets with AK-47's draped over their shoulders. And who can forget the Afghan weddings where hundreds of shots...

I read an article in the LA Times today about the difficulty of Washington, D.C. residents obtaining firearms (Guns still elusive for D.C. residents). There were at least two major errors in the story, which is not unusual for an LA Times article that has anything to do with guns. First, the article claims that there is a Federal law that prevents the transportation of guns across state lines “the federal ban on the transport of firearms across state lines”. There is no such ban. In fact, federal law *guarantees* that people can transport firearms across state lines, in the...

The Second Amendment provides that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the plain language of the amendment recognizes a personal right, belonging to “the people,” to possess firearms. The court rejected arguments that the Second Amendment simply permits the states to form, arm and maintain their own militias or the modern National Guard. Heller arose out of the district’s complete ban on possession of usable handguns in the...

When Barack Obama asks us to believe in one of his changes, it is never quite clear whether the rubes to be fooled are the Great Unwashed who agree with the Flop or the naifs who agreed with the Flip. The eternal question always is, "who are the rubes"? Well, in what is obviously a gust-busting turn, the editors of the New York Times are beginning to worry that they are the rubes. In this morning's lead editorial ("New and Not Improved"), they detail and denounce many of Obama's post-Hillary pivots to the center. As their irritation builds, I'm thinking...

The American Civil Liberties is getting blasted on its own blog site for holding onto the belief that the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishes a collective right for militias to have weapons, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the right applies to individuals. "Sorry ACLU you lost me," wrote SuperNaut. "I just took the money I had slated to re-up my lapsed ACLU membership and used it to re-up my NRA membership." Hundreds of comments have been posted in just the first few days of July, almost uniformly condemning the ACLU's explanation of its position on...

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." That's the operative clause of the Second Amendment - nearly erased from the Constitution in 1939 by a muddled and confusing Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Miller. Last week, apparently embarrassed by seven decades without a coherent explanation of the right celebrated during the Framing era as "the true palladium of liberty," the court rediscovered the Second Amendment. More than five years after six Washington, D.C. residents challenged the city's 32-year-old ban on all functional firearms in the home, the court held in District...

So, we’ve been getting a lot of comments about the ACLU’s stance on the Second Amendment. For those of you who didn’t catch our response in the blog comments, here it is again: The ACLU interprets the Second Amendment as a collective right. Therefore, we disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller. While the decision is a significant and historic reinterpretation of the right to keep and bear arms, the decision leaves many important questions unanswered that will have to be resolved in future litigation, including what regulations are permissible, and which weapons are embraced by the...

In some ways, the Supreme Court term that just ended seems muddled: disturbing, highly conservative rulings on subjects like voting rights and gun control, along with important defenses of basic liberties in other areas, including the rights of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The key to understanding the term lies in the fragility of the court’s center. Some of the most important decisions came on 5-to-4 votes — a stark reminder that the court is just one justice away from solidifying a far-right majority that would do great damage to the Constitution and the rights of ordinary Americans. The Supreme...