Self-Defense & Violence Prevention Blog

Newstandardnews.com reports:

On the basis of Second Amendment protections, a US appeals court has struck down Washington, DC’s ban on owning most handguns. The case will likely to go to the Supreme Court, which would address the scope of the amendment for the first time in nearly 70 years. If the ruling is upheld there, it would not likely end the many laws regulating gun ownership but could cast doubt on measures affecting law-abiding residents. The court also ruled unconstitutional the DC requirement that registered guns be kept unloaded, disassembled and trigger-locked.

In ruling on the D.C. gun ban case, the majority opinion of the Circuit Court held as follows:

“To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Anti-federalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.”

In many cases, I think many persons are better off without guns. Granted, in the hands of a trained professional with common sense, guns can be the best self-defense. Regardless, I support freedom, and that includes the right for innocent people (i.e. people who have not offensively hurt anyone else) to choose how to defend themselves. Even if owning a gun is a mistake, freedom means that people have the right to make that mistake. If a person offensively hurts another person, then that first person belongs in jail regardless of whether or not they used a gun to do the harm. Insofar as a person does not offensively harm another person, then I say let that person do what they wish.

In the name of freedom, stop the enforcement of victimless “crimes” such as gun-ownership, drug possession, and prostitution. Also, by stopping the enforcement of victimless crimes, we can put our saved resources towards the agreeable goal of stopping victimizers such as murderers, rapists, and thieves.

What do you think?