The proverbial "Can of Worms" is now OPEN...

That's right, friends and neighbors... I am making a post about the upcoming Supreme Court case to review the DC Gun Ban as unconstitutional.

For our lurker readers out there, a bit of background on this Bund topic...

When the issue first arose within our circle, I was still a firm believer in the "collective" aspect of the 2nd Amendments protection. I felt that the 2nd Amendment guaranteed the right of the "people" to keep and bear arms through the existence of a well regulated militia, for the security of the state. This is a common interpretation of the Amendment, and one shared by literally millions of Americans.

It goes without saying that F Ryan did not see my side of the argument.

The upcoming US Supreme Court review of the DC Gun Ban has been all over talk radio (at least when I am listening), and it has thus been on my mind a whole lot lately. One program in particular has been polling people on the street in the DC/Arlington areas, asking what they feel the 2nd Amendment means. This "man on the street" interview has shown me just how ignorant the nation as a whole, and myself only a few short years ago, really is. I am making this post to explain my position and why I think this is an important case for the USSC.

After Ryan and I had our (probably numerous) arguments over the "collective" versus "individual" aspect of the protections afforded by the 2nd Amendment, I determined to research the question to better arm myself in my defense of the "collective" nature I was convinced was correct. Needless to say, all I did was convince myself that I was wrong.

The biggest factor in this "Loyolan" conversion was the fact that since 1920, no fewer than 16 Supreme Court decisions had determined that "...a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..." -Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981). If the cops and police of the country have no direct OR general duty to the individual... then who does? If even the GOVERNMENT isn't answerable to the individual in matters of safety and protection... then who is? If no Federal, State, county or municipal authority can be held responsible for the safety and protection of an individual... then I have to believe that the primary provider for that safety and protection must be the individual himself, right?

Other factors in my change of mind came from the fact that the Founding Fathers used the same words and phrases in the other 9 Amendments as they did in the 2nd, and that includes the Amendments that DO specify individual rights, as opposed to collective public rights (the IV, V, and VI for example). Extra-Constitutional works such as the Federalist Papers and letters and correspondence from Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin also point to intention of individual protection under the 2nd Amendment, leaving no room for doubt, in my mind, that the 2nd Amendment DOES guaranty the Right of the individual to Keep and Bear arms for the defense of his person, family and property, thus insuring the security of the State by his own hands.

Since the news of the Court's review of the DC Gun Ban, I have heard MOUNTAINS of statistics about crime and violence in the US since the end of WWII (which seems to be a popular demarcation in the historic time-line of this issue... don't ask me why). These facts and stats come from both sides of the issue, seemingly equally, to be quite frank. So I chose to investigate these facts (as I did the original question), but chose to take only US Federal statistics as "usable" to remove or reduce the chance of the word "BIASED" entering into the equation. I can think of no more bureaucratic institution than the US Government, and nothing makes for arbitrary objectivity like a good bureaucracy.

One of the issues that I felt was an important factor in my former "collective" mind-set was the number of accidental shootings in the US. With organizations like the NRA so vocally defending the right of the individual to keep firearms in the home or on the person as a self defense measure, surely the rate of accidental deaths due to handguns and firearms must be reflected, right?

Here's the FACTS as presented by the US Federal government:

• Eight times as many children die from "non-gun" violent acts than from gun crimes. (BATF, 06)
• 83% of homicides to children age 13 and under were committed without a gun. (BATF, '04)
• In 2001, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence released the figure that "each day in America, 13 children are killed by guns". This "fact" is based on the US Treasury and Justice Dept. report of 1999 that 68% of all gun murders in this country are perpetrated on 18-20 year old victims, and more than 40% of those committing these crimes are ALSO 18-20 years old. The fact that at no time in the last 65 years has it been legal for anyone under the age of 21 to purchase or carry a firearm is completely disregarded by the Brady Campaign. (FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, '05)
• Since 1960, more than 22,000 NEW gun control laws have been passed at a city, state and federal level in this country, yet at no point since 1960 has the number of gun-related crimes FALLEN to pre-1960 levels, and in only 4 of those 47 years has it ever fallen PERIOD. (BATF '02)
• 90% of ALL violent crime in the US does not involve guns AT ALL, and 77% of the remaining crimes are committed with guns obtained illegally, meaning the gun-control laws never came into play. (BATF '07)
• MOST STAGGERING OF ALL... since 1995, every year in the US a legally obtained and registered gun is used in personal defense against criminals 2.5 MILLION times. That's 6,500 people a day defending themselves with a firearm from a crime. Of those 2.5 million acts of defense, the gun is actually FIRED less than 1% of the time. (2005, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology)

If these facts are to be understood in the context of such Supreme Court decisions as Warren v District of Columbia (1981), then I fail to see how ANY interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that denies the individual the right to keep and bear arms for self defense can have any reasonable weight with a rational person.

Anyway... just my thoughts.