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McCain & Cheney Buddy Up On Handgun Ownership |
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For the first time in 70 years, the Supreme Court is hearing a case regarding the Second Amendment. The District of Columbia is appealing a decision by a lower court to strike down its ban on handguns, in a case that may have ramifications countrywide.
From the Chicago Tribune’s The Plank:
Sen. John McCain, who is traveling overseas this week as part of an Armed Services congressional delegation, issued a statement calling District of Columbia v. Heller “a landmark case for all Americans who believe as I do that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. 
Like Vice President Cheney, McCain has joined in an amicus brief contending that the “clear intent of our Founding Fathers†is to allow individuals the right to keep firearms.
Alarmingly, the new conservative Supreme Court looks poised to agree, for the first time ever, that the Second Amendment protects individuals’ rights to bear arms for personal use, not simply civilians collective right to bear arms as part of a militia. The Court will also be hearing arguments on the degree to which government can restrict gun ownership, in addition to the nature of the Second Amendment’s intention.
Both Democratic frontrunners have stated they defend the Second Amendment, and an individual’s right to bear arms, but they think the government should do more to restrict their availability.
Check out the SCOTUS blog for more analysis on the case’s implications, as well as to listen to oral arguments.
I fear I will never grasp this country’s obsession with guns. Even on the “left,” I find many that insist it is his or her god-given, constitutionally protected right to own guns. . . many guns, if so desired. . . and keep and use them any old way he or she pleases. I put up a couple of posts after the VA Tech massacre last year, asking if just maybe we could at least agree on some limits to gun ownership–safety, licensing, limits on clips and ammo, real basic stuff–and I was floored by the reception I got from “my” echo chamber. How dare I, was the basic tone, with the sound of black helicopters in the background–it was as if I were condemning them to death at the hand of a brutal attacker, or sentencing them to a life under some jackbooted paramilitary dictatorship.
We make people take tests to get licenses for cars, and place all kinds of restrictions on how you can drive. Cars actually have purpose other than occasionally inflicting harm, but guns? Guns are for killing. You’d think that their ownership and use could be, shall we say, “well regulated.”