{"id":13190,"date":"2008-06-26T10:52:18","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T17:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/06\/26\/gun-uncontrol.html"},"modified":"2008-06-26T10:52:18","modified_gmt":"2008-06-26T17:52:18","slug":"gun_uncontrol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/26\/gun_uncontrol.html","title":{"rendered":"Gun Uncontrol"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Supreme Court ruled today in District of Columbia v. Heller<\/em><\/a> that DC’s banning of guns in the home and requirements that all guns must be unloaded\/disassembled or trigger locked except for those at a business is unconstitutional. In so doing, the 5-4 majority said that it found the Second Amendment to be not just about militias, but about an individual right of self-defense.<\/p>\n

Remember that, btw, the next time the conservatives on the court — or their supporters — whine about “penumbras” and expansion of rights beyond what’s in the text. While there is historical basis for the argument that individual self-defense in the home was on the mind of the Framers when they wrote the Second Amendment, that’s not what they actually wrote; indeed, the Second Amendment is the only one that comes to mind which actually gives a rationale for the rights it recognizes, and what it talks about is not personal self-defense in the home.<\/p>\n

I don’t necessarily mind that extension of personal rights (see below), but I find it ironic that the conservative court members were willing to do just that when it served a pet cause of theirs, but condemn it when it comes to more “liberal” causes.<\/p>\n

Now, that’s the rationale — what about the result?<\/p>\n

I will confess to being of mixed minds on this, dating back to my old debating days in high school (one year was on legal reforms, and gun control was a hot topic pro-and-con). Guns in the home are very dangerous, no doubt about it, especially given the negligence in safety that some yahoos treat them with. A cursory review of the headlines describing kids shooting themselves or each other with the loaded gun they found in Daddy’s nightstand is proof of that.<\/p>\n

By the same token, there are a lot of other unsafe things we keep around the house, even though there are sometimes tragedies with kids from those, too. Deciding that nobody can have something just because some people can’t keep it safely is not a good thing in my opinion.<\/p>\n

I would rather have a society without personal gun ownership — but part of that is a society that doesn’t need <\/em>personal gun ownership, and it’s not clear that we have that. If I feel that I need a gun in my house for personal safety, I’m not sure it’s right (let alone correct) to tell me I don’t and forbid me from doing so. <\/p>\n

As BD notes<\/a>, this opens up all sorts of challenges to other gun laws — though given the basis of personal self-defense, and the areas in which the SCOTUS majority did suggest that gun ownership could be regulated in some fashion, I don’t think the NRA will be very successful in arguing that we should be able to build machine-gun nests in our front yard. I hope.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court ruled today in District of Columbia v. Heller that DC’s banning of guns in the home and requirements that all guns must be unloaded\/disassembled or trigger…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12408,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/11\/the_marriage_game.html","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":0},"title":"The Marriage Game","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 11-May-08 8:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Michigan's voters\u00a0passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage \"or similar union for any purpose.\" Because of that, the state supreme court has now ruled that no public agency can...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132902,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/22\/gun-ownership-rights-are-not-absolute.html","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":1},"title":"Gun ownership rights are not absolute","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 22-Feb-17 9:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"A federal appeals court has ruled that Maryland's laws banning \"assault weapons\" and large-capacity magazines was constitutional, opining that such weapons go beyond the Heller decision freedom of arms for self-defense, and that such restrictions were within the sphere of representative government to enact.\"Assault weapon\" tends to have a very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130820,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/07\/why-whomever-ends-up-on-the-supreme-court-wont-affect-guns.html","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":2},"title":"Why whomever ends up on the Supreme Court won't affect guns","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Jun-16 11:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"TL;DR: A conservative wouldn't change the balance Scalia provided, and a liberal wouild recognize that Heller hasn't actually changed things all that much (but that overturning it might lead to proposals for a beefed-up constitutional amendment that would). Why the Supreme Court Won't Impact Gun Rights or the Second Amendment\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32610,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/23\/concealed-carry-not-a-constitutional-right.html","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":3},"title":"Concealed Carry not a constitutional right?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 23-Feb-13 3:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Makes sense to me, though the federal courts have been quite inconsistent about it (and an appeals court just ruled that blanket banning of it was unconstitutional).Reshared post from +The Denver Post\"We conclude that the carrying of concealed firearms is not protected by the Second Amendment . . .\" Justice\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132883,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/18\/doctors-in-florida-can-legally-ask-their-patients-about-guns-in-the-home.html","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":4},"title":"Doctors in Florida can legally ask their patients about guns in the home","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 18-Feb-17 6:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A federal appeals court en banc has overturned most of the provisions of a Florida law that forbade doctors from asking patients about guns in the home and discussing the health and safety ramifications thereof -- ruling that a clear First Amendment restriction was not warranted by vague allegations of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13534,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/19\/will_of_the_people.html","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":5},"title":"Will of the People","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Nov-08 6:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The California Supreme Court has agreed to take up three lawsuits against the just-passed Proposition 8, which overturned a Supreme Court ruling finding that equal protection under the law required...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}