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Last week’s Supreme Court ruling striking down a Washington, D.C., handgun law on Second Amendment grounds won’t affect gun laws on the books in Jersey City, nor will it deter the city from pushing for a "one gun a month" ordinance, the city’s top attorney said.

"I don’t believe the Supreme Court’s ruling will affect the viability of our local gun ordinances or the one-handgun-per-month state law should it be passed, because the decision permits reasonable regulation by local governments," said City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis.

But the 5-4 court decision is "not without import," Matsikoudis added, since it raises other grounds under which the NRA (National Rifle Association) can challenge local government attempts to stem the proliferation of illegal guns.

The city passed an ordinance that requires residents to report a lost or stolen gun to the police within 48 hours. But Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy’s signature legislation on the issue got shot down when Hudson County Presiding Superior Court Judge Maurice Gallipoli ruled in December 2006 the city couldn’t limit gun purchases to individuals in the city to one gun a month.

The city is appealing the decision and, through Healy’s efforts, a one-gun-a-month law is now wending its way through the state Legislature.

By: Ken Thorbourne, The Jersey Journal

"You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right, and I’m gonna get the guns.”

That passionate outburst occurs at the climax of the 1995 movie, An American President. At that time, gun control was a liberal cause only slightly less sacred than environmentalism or affirmative action.

Learned law professors wrote articles explaining away the Second Amendment: “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.” The professors explained that those words did not safeguard the right to own guns. They safeguarded the right to join the National Guard.

So much for that! On Thursday, the Supreme Court held down an important ruling confirming that the Second Amendment means what it seems to mean: There exists an individual right to own guns. It can be limited in reasonable ways, just as the First Amendment to free speech can be limited.

And how have the bold liberals who once applauded the bold door-to-door promise of fictional president Andrew Shepherd responded?

Here is Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, the committee that confirms all nominees to the Supreme Court:

“In its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court has recognized the personal right to bear arms, guaranteed in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, and expressly held for the first time that our Bill of Rights includes this right among its guarantees of individual liberty and freedom. That is a good thing.”

And here is Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, considered by many a likely Democratic vice presidential choice:

“I concur with today’s landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which emphasizes what so many have long understood: The right to bear arms is a fundamental civil right like the freedoms of speech and to vote. And it’s important that governments at all levels not infringe on those fundamental rights.”

Here finally is presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama:

“I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view …. Today’s decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe.”

Two dramatic developments in American society account for this Democratic swing in favor of gun rights.

The first was the congressional election of 1994. Many Democrats attribute their dramatic losses that year to President Clinton’s gun control legislation. Across the party there grew a new consensus: This issue had to be dropped if the Democrats were to survive as a national party.

The second change facilitated the first. Democrats were exercised about guns in the early 1990s for good reason: the U.S. was suffering a bloodbath of violence as gangs battled for control of the crack cocaine market. At the peak of the violence in 1991, the United States recorded almost 25,000 homicides.

New policing techniques advanced by innovative mayors such as New York’s Rudy Giuliani ended the bloodshed. The number of homicides dropped and dropped and dropped again, falling below 16,000 by 2000. The homicide rate per 100,000 population declined to levels not seen since the early 1960s.

Gun control had always been based on a theory about how best to fight crime — and now that that theory has been exposed as false, and a new and more accurate theory has been put in its place.

Improving public safety made this new gain for civil liberty possible. Unfortunately, this new liberty is also shaping up to be a clear gain for Democrats: Barack Obama cannot now take away your guns even if he wanted to. On this once so divisive issue, the Supreme Court has helped to make Obama’s Democrats … bulletproof.

By: David Frum, The National Post

A landmark decision on gun ownership by the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday thrilled Bucks County gun owners and dealers while gun control advocates claimed that the ruling may help passage of future gun laws.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled that Americans can keep guns at home for self-defense. The ruling, the court’s first and only statement on the meaning of gun rights allowed under the Second Amendment, overturns a 32-year-old Washington, D.C., handgun ban.

Edward Hartzel of Bensalem, who works at Classic Pistol Inc., a gun retailer and shooting range in Southampton, said the court Thursday “set a precedent” for individual rights.

“This isn’t a ruling about criminals; this is a ruling in favor of good, law-abiding people,” Hartzel said.

The Second Amendment states 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,” but the court had not interpreted the amendment since it was ratified in 1791.

“It is a welcome feeling to have been vindicated in court after more than 200 years,” said Daniel Pehrson, founder and president of the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association.

Cathy Barlow, owner of Choice Firearms in Bristol Township, said the court’s ruling would end “ridiculous” gun bans and other laws that she said do nothing to stop gun violence.

“Let’s put it this way: Criminals are going to get their hands on guns whether they’re banned or not,” Barlow said.

Joe Grace, the executive director of CeaseFirePA, a Pennsylvania organization pushing for several gun control measures, said the Supreme Court’s decision would help pass “reasonable” gun control laws. The decision means that groups, particularly the National Rifle Association, no longer would be able to hide behind “bumper sticker slogans” using scare tactics to convince people to oppose gun control measures, Grace said.

“The court made it very clear that the right under the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” Grace said. “All rights have to be balanced with responsibilities.”

Handgun ownership seems to be on the rise slightly in Bucks County, law enforcement officials and gun dealers said Thursday. About 5,000 Bucks residents per year typically apply for a concealed weapons permit, according to Deputy John Kirkpatrick with the firearms unit of the Bucks County Sheriff’s Department. About 5,300 people applied for that handgun permit in 2007, and 2,242 have applied through May of this year, he said.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said gun-control opponents have argued that new gun laws could lead to government gun confiscation, but in light of the court’s decision that claim would be irrelevant.

“Now that the court has struck down the district’s ban on handguns, while making it clear that the Constitution allows for reasonable restrictions on access to dangerous weapons, this "slippery slope’ argument is gone,” Helmke said in a statement.

In the court’s decision, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that “some measures regulating handguns” were acceptable but an “absolute prohibition of handguns” is unconstitutional. Scalia said some gun control laws, such as a ban on the sale of firearms to felons or the mentally ill, are legal.

In a speech from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens said that gun control decisions should be made by legislatures.

“This court should stay out of that political thicket,” Stevens said.

By: Brian Scheid, The Intelligencer

City’s Restrictions Described as ‘Good Target’ for Suit

If gun enthusiasts are victorious this month when the Supreme Court declares what rights exist under the Second Amendment, their next target may be New York City’s strict gun control laws.

The US Supreme Court at Washington, DC on June 18, 2008.

The federal high court may issue its historic decision on gun rights as early as today, and certainly by no later than month’s end.

Obtaining a gun license in New York City is now a lengthy and costly endeavor. In the span of a decade, a New Yorker with a licensed handgun at home will pay more than $1,000 in fees.

Some of the obstacles facing prospective gun owners in the city may change if the Supreme Court rules that individuals have a constitutional right to keep a gun for protection.

"If there is an individual right, then bureaucratic discretion in permitting and registering guns is going to be minimized," a lawyer who financed the case currently before the Supreme Court, Robert Levy, said, adding that "you cannot allow bureaucrats the option of denying people constitutional rights."

The Supreme Court’s ruling is highly anticipated because the Supreme Court has said little in its history about whether the Second Amendment protects individual gun ownership or just the right of states to organize militia units.

The Second Amendment case before the nine is a legal challenge to Washington, D.C.’s gun control laws. Washington has a near-complete ban on handguns and requires that shotguns and rifles be disassembled or fixed with a trigger lock when kept at home.

The bent of the questions the justices asked at oral argument in March left little doubt among legal experts that a majority will recognize an individual right to own guns. It’s possible that a ruling that strikes down Washington’s federal law could have no effect on municipal gun control laws elsewhere. The Second Amendment, the Supreme Court could decide, poses a limit on the gun control enacted by the federal government, but not on a state’s power to police guns. But that is a remote possibility, given that the judges have read the equal protection clause to restrict the states from violating rights enshrined in other amendments to the federal constitution.

Mayor Bloomberg has emerged as a foe of the gun industry. In the name of public safety he has pressed lawsuits against firearm manufacturers and sellers across the East Coast. The city’s gun control laws have not changed dramatically during his administration.

Mayor Bloomberg’s criminal justice coordinator, John Feinblatt, said that the decision from the Supreme Court will "not in any way" force a change to New York’s laws.

"If the court finds, as most people predict it will, that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to gun ownership," Mr. Feinblatt said, "that will not have an effect on reasonable regulations."

Still, both sides on the debate over municipal gun control expect the ruling from Washington to set off an unprecedented wave of litigation over gun control nationwide.

"I think the real risk here is not what the court will say," Mr. Feinblatt said. "The risk here is that, after years of criticizing litigation, the gun lobby will get in the litigation business and become litigation-happy."

The lawyer who argued against Washington’s ban before the Supreme Court, Alan Gura, said: "I do expect there will be other litigation."

He added: "There are going to be some gun laws that will not survive, and others that do."

Mr. Levy, speaking from his home in Asheville, N.C., said he had no plans to organize a suit challenging New York’s laws, as he had done in Washington. Still, Mr. Levy, who is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said gun control restrictions in New York would make a good target for a lawsuit.

He described New York’s gun control laws as being less restrictive than those in Washington or Chicago, "but worse than just about everybody else."

Getting a handgun license in New York is time-consuming and expensive. The general counsel to the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Patrick Brophy, said that shepherding an application for a gun license often requires four trips to police headquarters and a six-month time wait.

Gun rights proponents interviewed cited two items in New York’s gun control laws that would be especially vulnerable to legal challenge depending on the Supreme Court’s ruling. One is a requirement that firearms generally be kept inoperable when not being handled. The other is a licensing fee of $340 that New Yorkers must pay every three years in order to keep a handgun at home or at a business.

"Does it constitute an infringement of an individual right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to charge a citizen $340 every three years for exercising that right?" Mr. Brophy asked, adding that he believed it was an infringement. "You can’t tax a right out of existence and call it a user fee," he said.

Mr. Feinblatt said that the licensing fee didn’t raise an issue.

"Nobody who pays the fee likes to pay the fee, but there isn’t a constitutional right not to have a fee," he said.

By: Joseph Goldstein, The New York Sun

Letter writer Ellen ("Too easy to get weapons," May 22) is beyond confused. As she sings like a left-winged canary the glorious tune of Measure AB2062, her lack of knowledge and delusions bring her to ground level.

She refers to ammunition as weapons (a delusion, kinda like Hillary thinking she was under sniper fire). I’m not sure which planet she lives on, but here on Earth ammunition is not a weapon, just like gasoline is not an engine. The two items work in tandem to produce a result, but apart and separate they are useless.

As for her statement that "there is currently no regulatory control over the deadly ammunition that fuels gun violence," well, it’s just another fine example of why people who are uninformed about an issue shouldn’t just regurgitate the rhetoric they’ve been hearing without checking out the facts. It is a fact that federal law prohibits possession of ammunition by convicted felons, unlawful users of a controlled substance, anyone subject to a domestic violence restraining order, fugitives from justice, illegal aliens, people with a dishonorable discharge from the military, and those adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution. Every dealer knows this, it is their job to check this out before making a sale - whether the sale happens at a gun show or a sporting goods store, they are bound by the same laws.

The quote she used from RAND reporting that "guns and ammunition possessed by felons and others prohibited from owning weapons are more likely to be used in violent crime than weapons bought by people with no criminal histories," is almost hysterical, like duh, ya think! It is also another example that current gun control laws do not provide the level of protection that society was promised they would.

Criminals will always have guns and ammo, that’s why it’s really called "gun control" - it is aimed at controlling the law-abiding citizen who wishes to purchase guns and ammo. I ask you all to take your mind out of the box for a minute - notice the government didn’t call it crime control? Why? They know they will never be able to control crime, sad but true, couple that with the fact that they are unable to control violent criminals having guns and ammo and the whole thing is just joke.

For all of you who think that simply adding more and more "gun control" laws will someday, someway make us safer, I suggest that you all move to the same planet Ms. Faden lives on - maybe it works out there. The reality is the only thing passing AB2062 will accomplish is that I, and other law-abiding citizens will now have to pay a $35 fee for a card to be able to purchase ammo (add this to the $35 card I have to have to purchase a handgun), pay a $3 transaction fee for every ammo purchase, and make sure the government has my name, driver’s license number, quantity of ammo, type of ammo, caliber of ammo, and right thumbprint to be submitted to the DOJ, and I will no longer be able to purchase ammo via Internet or mail.

Bottom line here folks, this legislation helps makes the government database for firearms ownership even larger, will do absolutely nothing to prevent more violent crime, and give the government even more money to waste on whatever they choose to. I digress, for those of you who still don’t get it, it is illegal for felons to purchase ammo already, if this passes, it will still be illegal for them, they will still go through the channels that they go through now to get it, and the only people this will affect is myself and millions of other law-abiding citizens.

One does not have to look far to see where other countries who started this whole gun control/registration routine have ended up: Disarmed. Those of you on the far left laugh now and seem happy, but societal disarmament is the first freedom to go, without that the rest will follow.

Support the Constitution, support your freedoms, even those freedoms you wish not to express, for without them the rest will crumble. Will your grandchildren be free? Do you want them to be? Then act like it.

By: Lori Gill, Vallejo Times

WASHINGTON — One momentous case down, another equally historic decision to go.

The Supreme Court returns to the bench today with 17 cases still unresolved, including its first-ever comprehensive look at the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

For more than 30 years, the District of Columbia has had the nation’s strictest gun-control law — a ban on having handguns at home for self-defense. Challengers say that violates the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.

The case is widely expected to be a victory for supporters of gun rights. Top officials of a national gun control organization said this week that they expect the handgun ban to be struck down, but they are hopeful other gun regulations will survive.

The nine justices, none of whom has ever ruled directly on the amendment’s meaning, will consider a part of the Bill of Rights that has existed without a definitive interpretation for more than 200 years.

"This may be one of the only cases in our lifetime when the Supreme Court is going to be interpreting the meaning of an important provision of the Constitution unencumbered by precedent,” said Randy E. Barnett, a constitutional scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The dispute over gun rights poses several important questions. Although the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, the court has never definitively said what it means to have a right to keep and bear arms. The justices also could indicate whether, even with a strong statement in support of gun rights, Washington’s handgun ban and other gun control laws can be upheld.

The outcome could finally settle the question of whether the 27-word amendment, with its odd structure and antiquated punctuation, provides an individual right to gun ownership or simply pertains to militia service.

The amendment says 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." All but one of the circuits that have considered the issue interpreted it as providing a gun-ownership right related only to military service.

The Supreme Court’s endorsement of an individual right would be a monumental change in federal jurisprudence, but perhaps not surprising. Even a small but growing group of liberal constitutional scholars — "against my political instincts," in the words of Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe — have endorsed the individual-right view.

"The case has been structured so that they have to confront the threshold question," said Robert A. Levy, the wealthy libertarian lawyer who has spent five years and his own money to bring District of Columbia v. Heller to the Supreme Court. "I think they have to come to grips with that."

Challengers to Washington’s ban — security guard Dick Anthony Heller is the named party in the suit — say the measure has been an abysmal failure at cutting crime or stanching the city’s homicide rate, and a success only in depriving the law-abiding of a ready weapon for protection. The District contends that banning handguns is a logical decision in an urban setting, where more guns would result in more killings.

The city’s lawyers argue that the Second Amendment does not provide an individual right and that, even if it does, the amendment is not implicated by legislation that concerns only the District of Columbia.

Last week, the court delivered the biggest opinion of the term to date with its ruling, sharply contested by the dissenting justices, that guarantees some constitutional rights to foreign terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 5-4 decision, which Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for his four more liberal colleagues, was the first case this term that broke along ideological lines.

The conservative-liberal split was seen frequently last term, including in cases that limited abortion rights, reined in voluntary school desegregation plans and made it harder to sue for pay discrimination.

By: Associated Press

Acknowledging that public opinion is against them and that a loss in the Supreme Court of the United States is likely eminent, gun control groups are regrouping and preparing to try new tactics to accomplish their unpopular goals.

"We’ve lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means," campaign president Paul Helmke told ABC News. "Seventy-five percent of the public thinks it’s an individual right. Why are we arguing a theory anymore? We are concerned about what we can do practically." He later went on to say, "We’re expecting D.C. to lose the case, but this could be good from the standpoint of the political-legislative side."

The bears as a somber reminder to gun owners that with every victory comes a new battle. Now that banning firearms seems to be, for now anyway, a lost cause, gun control groups plan to work instead on restricting ownership through other means.

"Universal background checks don’t affect the right of self-defense in the home. Banning a super dangerous class of weapons, like assault weapons, also would not adversely affect the right of self-defense in the home," said Brady Campaign Attorney Dennis Henigan. "Curbing large volume sales doesn’t affect self-defense in the home."

While some pro-gun advocates fear this may lead to a push to confine guns and self-defense only to the home, others believe this points to a new trend of redefining entire classes of firearms as "assault weapons." This could lead to new restrictions eventually culminating in only single shot shotguns as the only remaining legal firearms using the logic that since the bans are not total bans, they are still constitutional.

Another possible tactic is to try to claim that the D.C. v. Heller case only applies to the District of Columbia as a federal enclave, and that states are free to enact their own restrictions.

They are also holding out hope for support from the presidency next year. Democrat Barack Obama has a history of favoring gun control schemes and is their candidate of choice. However, they are clinging to Republican John McCain’s past support for closing the (non-existent) "the gun-show loophole" as a sign that he may be receptive to their goals.

Regardless of the tactics used, we must never rest in our vigilance in protecting the jewel of liberty that is the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Fortunately, it would appear that 75% of Americans are on our side.

By: Daniel White