In another 5-4 opinion, the SCOTUS ruled in McDonald v. City of Chicago that the Second Amendment applies to all Americans and cannot be interfered with by state or local ordinance, regardless of the “common sense” of the local laws.
by Michael Naragon
UPDATE (12:44pm): You can find the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision here.
The decision is obviously a victory for gun rights advocates, but it is not necessarily the end of the discussion. If the composition of the Court changes, the decision could easily be overturned. For the moment, however, those, like me, who are in favor of the Constitutional right to own firearms can breathe a sigh of relief.
Statement by Wayne LaPierre Executive Vice President, National Rifle Association Regarding U.S. Supreme Court Decision McDonald v. City of Chicago
Today marks a great moment in American history. This is a landmark decision. It is a vindication for the great majority of American citizens who have always believed the Second Amendment was an individual right and freedom worth defending.
The Supreme Court said what a majority of the American public believes. The people who wrote the Second Amendment said it was an individual right, and the Court has now confirmed what our founding fathers wrote and intended. The Second Amendment — as every citizen’s constitutional right — is now a real part of American Constitutional law.
But, Supreme Court decisions have to lead to actual consequences or the whole premise of American constitutional authority collapses. Individual freedom must mean you can actually experience it. An incorporated freedom has to be a real freedom.
The intent of the founding fathers — and the Supreme Court — was to provide access. Words must have meaning.
The Supreme Court has now said the Second Amendment is an individual freedom for all. And that must have meaning. This decision must provide relief to law-abiding citizens who are deprived of their Second Amendment rights.
I’m a practical guy. I don’t want to win on philosophy and lose on freedom. The end question is, can law-abiding men and women go out and buy and own a firearm? Today the Supreme Court said yes – anywhere they live!
This decision cannot lead to different measures of freedom, depending on what part of the country you live in. City by city, person by person, this decision must be more than a philosophical victory. An individual right is no right at all if individuals can’t access it. Proof of Heller and McDonald will be law abiding citizens, one by one, purchasing and owning firearms.
The NRA will work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges, defiant city councils, or cynical politicians who seek to pervert, reverse, or nullify the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable, or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way.
What good is a right without the gun? What good is the right if you can’t buy one? Or keep one in your home? Or protect your family with one?
Here’s a piece of paper – protect yourself. That’s no right at all!
Victory is when law abiding men and women can get up, go out, and buy and own a firearm. This is a monumental day. But NRA will not rest until every law-abiding American citizen is able to exercise the individual right to buy and own a firearm for self defense or any other lawful purpose.
This is a BIG A victory for home grown terrorists all over the nation.
The supreme court has made it even easier for home grown terrorists to kill Americans
Now they can walk into a local gun shop in any city in our nation, purchase all the guns and ammunition they want, practice to their hearts content and be ready for the BIG day.
Bombs are unpredictable. They can often fail. Just ask Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who tried to blow up an American airliner with a bomb hidden in his underwear. Or ask Connecticut resident Faisal Shahzad whose crudely home made bombs failed to detonate in Times Square
Handguns, on the other hand, are designed to work every time…even for someone with very little training in their use. Just ask Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood and wounded 30 using a semi automatic pistol he purchased legally at a civilian gun store. He was well known to be sympathic to terrorist causes but with the NRA protecting the rights of “suspected terrorists” like Hasan there’s nothing much you can do except ask him if you can show him other weapons he might like to buy.
This is a big victory for home grown terrorists. Now everything they do up until they pull the trigger and kill Americans is totally LEGAL
Your definition of “home-grown” is a bit muddled, and your examples don’t really produce any sort of cohesive argument. The Second Amendment protects the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. It doesn’t protect the rights of terrorists, foreign or domestic, to carry explosives, in underwear, SUVs, or other places. You try to bridge the gap between the “Fruit of the Loom” bomber and Shazad to Malik Hasan, who was in the military and would obviously have access to weapons, regardless of the Supreme Court’s ruling today. The NRA has far less to do with Hasan’s case than do those in the military who glazed over Hasan’s obvious and publicized radical beliefs and yet allowed him to remain in the military, with access to those he killed. The only tie between these three cases is the fact that they were Islamofascists, not that they were “home-grown” or that they had protection from the Second Amendment. Even with all the state restrictions in place, these three were able to gain access to firearms. The bad guys will retain that access, regardless of what the states do to restrict it (for example, see the recent British taxi driver case). The McDonald ruling simply insures that a state or municipality will not be able to restrict me, as a law-abiding citizen, from gaining access to the means to protect myself from such men as you mention. If you would like to live in a society that restricts the rights of self-protection in favor of some sort of false security, feel free to move to England, the Netherlands, or some other country where Muslim extremists are still able to kill those who cross them without fear of retribution.
Pingback: World Wide News Flash
Pingback: 2nd Amendment
Pingback: All Around the World News
Pingback: 2nd Amendment - Ardub
Pingback: 2nd Amendment | Ifdny