The Supreme Court announced today that it would l decide whether the Constitution grants individuals the right to keep guns in their homes for private use, plunging the justices headlong into a divisive and long-running debate over how to interpret the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”The New York Times
The issue has long been undecided and both sides of it have constantly fought for their stand. The last case was some 70 years ago and the Court limited it using the word militia as the key to its decision, declaring that an individual did not have a right to keep arms.
The Constitution has one statement - 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. Amendment II.
Does it mean that the States have the right to have militias who are armed or can people directly arm themselves as part of militia. The Second Amendment does lay itself open to both interpretation.
The case itself comes from a resident of Washington D.C. who believes that she has the right to own a gun for protection while the city has banned ownership. She believes that she has the right to safeguard herself and her family from the high rate of crime in the District.
Of course, the issue has been greatly complicated by two things. The Constitution uses the word States. This case is not from a state. It's from the District of Columbia. Hairsplitting, but a big distinction. The other complication is broader - emotion.
Police Departments, especially, want guns controlled for not only their own protection but the general citizenry itself. Here in Chicago, not a week goes by that another child is shot and killed. Most of the weapons used are not legally purchased or registered. The vast majority of the killings are done by other children. This same things happens in all major cities.
The National Rifle Association is on the opposite side. They want no control of guns. They use the reason that hunting is a sport that is enjoyed by many and, if guns were outlawed, then the sport would die. Of course, just the name of the organization limits in what it believes. Hunting is done with rifles. The organization has never supported using Uzis or 9 mm Lugers for hunting game. They even state that it would be unfair to the game. Yet, they do not want any restrictions, using the argument that when you ban one kind of gun it is only one step away from outlawing them all.
So, SCOTUS will now decide by sometime next summer. The decision has to finally be made. The interpretation has to come about concerning the Second Amendment. This problem is not. The problem is the Court that is hearing the case.
This is not the Court that should consider the issue of gun ownership. It is too ideologically stacked. It is the exact thing that the neoconservatives and the Bush/Cheney administration have been working so hard to accomplish. This Court has been politicized. The majority on the Court have an agenda that reflects what the neocons have been working on for 20 some years.
The Court that should be hearing this case, and others like it (for example, a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body) should be a court that has no political agenda, owes no unspoken favors to anyone, or keeps a judicial open mind with no polemics.
The process of government is what might really be at stake here. If the Court cannot deal with this case in an open mind, the Right, again, has weakened the Constitution.
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