D.C. v. Heller: Gun Bans Found To Be Unconstitutional (Again)
By John Longenecker (06/29/08)
The Supreme Court of The United States announced that it was overturning the Washington, D.C. Gun Ban and affirming lower court’s ruling against D.C. But does this affect gun laws around the country? It should, as 80 Million gun owners invoke the law while handfuls of officials were found to break it.
The Supreme Court's ruling that the D.C. Gun Ban is unconstitutional is another victory for all of America, and it furnishes a new and updated roadmap of guidance for more Liberty in America for all. For All.
I call attention to the particular defiance of law which brought it all this far to begin with. And again, and again, and again . . .
Following the adverse ruling handed the District Of Columbia earlier by its very own District Court in 2007 that its ban was in fact unconstitutional, Mayor Adrian Fenty exhibited a pattern and practice of trustees, employers and campuses nearly everywhere when he announced repeatedly that he would ignore the Appeal Court ruling against him and appeal to the Supremes. Alright, now he's lost that one, too! Meanwhile, His Honor exhibits his utter defiance of the law, as is done across the nation, e.g. the Virginia Tech Gun Ban Policy. That pattern and practice is a three-fold disrespect for law wherever it resides:
1. It breaks the law by infringing on the rights of individuals, a right which shall not be infringed. (Militia in framing-era terms has been found to mean what the Founders said it means: individuals, since the National Guard was not imagined and created for another 130 years following the signing of the Constitution). Individuals today are officially recognized as Militia by U.S. Code.
2. Individuals are forced to choose between felony and funeral in electing to either carry weapons and risk expulsion and criminal prosecutionfor being armed, or to otherwise take their chances with thugs and play the odds of not being targeted. Individuals in this quandary are forced into suing for protection of their rights, which is costly, time consuming and vexing to the supreme authority of the nation, the Citizen. This is the part the Supremes remind The District Of Columbia and others of by their ruling: Gun Bans Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL. And for a reason: the Citizen is supreme authority, not Trustees. College campuses, call your office.
3. The pattern and practice of this kind of defiance of the law which is affirmed by the Supremes then re-emerges in the Trustees' being handed yet another adverse decision over the years (as in the ruling that the San Francisco Gun Ban's being reversed twice in 24 years) and then defying that. Now the entire nation is put on notice: Gun bans are unconstitutional, and our fear is that further defiance of even this ruling will continue. Lawsuits are already being filed in anticipation of just that: defiance of the law.
And so our work has just begun, since it is the Trustees who live by such a pattern of defiance, forcing their constituents to sue for their rights, then defying the latest ruling handed down just for them.
Will the pattern and practice continue? Probably. 80 Million gun owners – all adults – have patiently waited for decades and have observed the law (such as it was) and applied due process for protection of their rights. Finally, the ruling comes down that the drones who inflict gun bans have been operating outside the law, and outside due process, cheating citizens out of self-defense.
But then, we could be surprised by shopping malls, college campuses, airports, public buildings administrators, and even workplace who want to part of this, and who understand that banning guns is very much against the Constitution of the United States. The armed citizen is in the public interest. Bans are against it. Some locales will announce they want no part of this un-American practice now that a gun ban is found to be Unconstititional.. again.
If students, workers and patrons have to sue all over again for protection of their rights, this time they have the Supremes' decision of today as the authority. It might just be that the majority of Americans in American Business, public buildings and Education recognize the social responsibility not to defy the law, but to affirm it and affirm concealed carry on their premises because they cannot ban guns. Perhaps the majority of Americans respect the law of the land enough to take down those "No guns allowed" signs from both windows and policy booklets. It's the law, and being more consumer-friendly is good for business. In a lot of states where open-carry is common, patrons hardly even notice a customer carrying a hosltered gun - a fact understated by the media.
80 Million gun owners have waited patiently and obeyed the law, invoking due process. In fact this ruling will likely bring to light a great many more truths too long ignored by the mainstream media.
Congratulations to the Team who won this victory. Well done. Well done.
Congratulations to us all. It is a fabulous statement as to who really are the law and order people.
Could we see safe streets in the major cities now?
That would be good, very good, for the country.
Longenecker's latest book is Safe Streets In The Nationwide Concealed Carry Of Handguns [Special Edition, Hardcover] available an all booksellers.
(Printer friendly version) Email: John Longenecker
