DC Ponders "Plan B" If Supremes Reject Gun Ban: D.C. officials said yesterday a decision by the Supreme Court to strike down the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns would force them to revamp the city's stringent gun-control statutes..."At one point, you're just completely focused on winning the case, and on the second point the 'Plan B' is quite obvious," said D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a Democrat who along with Mr. Gray will attend the hearing. "Any time you lose any type of ruling on any piece of legislation, you have to make the legislation adapt to whatever the ruling is." http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080318/METRO/28520006/1004 Related Commentary: ...D.C. residents should resist the more fevered predictions of mayhem in the event that District law is overturned. The court is not ruling on the wisdom of background checks, the prohibition of arms possession by dangerous persons or restrictions on certain very dangerous types of arms. The court would merely be ruling that a municipality may not strip its law-abiding citizens of an inalienable right. Since 1976, this law also has served to deprive those citizens of appreciable means of self defense while murderers and other criminals simply disobey. The Supreme Court must step in to protect their rights. http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080318/EDITORIAL/368316387/1013 A Glimpse at the Other Side: ...A longtime constitutional law professor at Duke University, Dellinger is known as a folksy, liberal-leaning academic who would love to engage in a lofty philosophical debate over what the framers meant: Is the right to bear arms reserved for individuals or just a "well regulated" militia? But he knows the case could be won on a more prosaic point. One of the city's three arguments is that its law, which allows shotguns, is reasonable no matter how the justices feel on the first question. "What I don't want to happen is for someone to say, 'The best historical argument ever offered to the court was Walter Dellinger's losing argument,' " said Dellinger, who has a 13-5 record in cases before the high court. "The academic and constitutional debate is fine, but our job is not to win a historical debate. It is to get our client's law upheld." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/17/ST2008031702809.html?hpid=topnews Which Arguments Will Hit the Mark?: ..Much may turn on whether the justices get into dueling ideas about the amendment's roots in early American history. Both sides emphasize that the amendment's meaning lies in how it came to be, but they choose different periods to make their case. Gun advocates lean on the Colonial period, offering a stirring, profoundly radical story about how the aggrieved American colonists created "extralegal" militias and fought hard against the British authorities' efforts to suppress those armed civilians. Given that these militias were "critical" to the success of the Revolution, the original plaintiffs in the case say it's essential that Americans today have the right to take up arms once more should their government fall into tyrannical ways. Oh no, cries the D.C. government - the Second Amendment cannot be an invitation to treason. Rather, the city argues that the amendment refers to the post-revolutionary militias, when states sought to establish their authority and put down private rebellions, with the help of citizens... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031702674.html?hpid=topnews John Lott on the Impact of the Heller Decision: ...No one expects the court to completely end gun control any more than the First Amendment's "Congress shall make no laws" has prevented the passage of campaign-finance regulations. But a lot is at stake today before the Supreme Court. If D.C.'s handgun ban is upheld, the Second Amendment will hold little practical meaning. Even if the ban is struck down, the decision will likely only rule out the most extreme of regulations: a complete ban on handguns. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTFkYjI1NmJhYzgwOTQ1YWIxODcxMDhlZWRlM2RmMTQ= Well, If You Don't Have a Bill of Rights of Your Own...: Article from Britain leads off with, "The controversial law that permits US citizens to carry guns may be about to change." (If the Second Amendment is truly the law that permits US citizens to carry guns, why are permits required and why is it impossible to get them in some jurisdictions?) http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1309661,00.html --- Trojan-Horse Group Gets More Publicity: ...The American Hunters and Shooters Association is the latest organization to try to dethrone the NRA as chief spokesman for people who care about guns. The association positions itself as an NRA alternative, a group that likes guns and those who shoot them but believes the NRA is too absolutist, especially when it comes to opposing almost any curb on the right to bear arms. "The NRA is extreme," says Ray Schoenke, the former Washington Redskins lineman and failed Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland who is president of the American Hunters and Shooters Association... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031702579.html --- Judge Invalidates Kentucky CCW Citizenship Requirement: A federal judge has stopped enforcement of a Kentucky law barring non-citizens from carrying concealed deadly weapons. U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell said the law is written too broadly and violates the rights of attorney Alexander M. Say, a British national who has lived in Kentucky for 15 years...The sheriff's department and state police would have to approve Say's license application. Say argued that no federal law requires U.S. citizenship for people to be licensed to purchase, carry, transport or carry a concealed deadly weapon, and neither should state law. http://www.wlky.com/news/15603980/detail.html --- Parking-Lot-Storage Bill Smolders in Florida: ...Last week a watered-down version of the bill that would allow only employees with concealed weapons permits to carry their guns to work passed out of a House committee, a sign that House leadership may be tiring of the issue and trying to find a compromise. The original bill allowed any employee to bring guns on property and the new version continues to allow customers and invitees without concealed weapons permits to carry a gun in their vehicle even if the company prohibits firearms. The bill is scheduled to be heard in a Senate committee on Tuesday. Republican leaders, torn between two of their most faithful lobbies, may be trying to fast-track a bill that ultimately will leave neither side satisfied... http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/columnists/orl-cfbkassab1708mar17,0,6918432.column --- Proposed L.A. Ordinance Would Mandate Jail Time for Guns Near Schools: ...The ordinance would require a minimum sentence of 90 days in jail for anyone found with an unlicensed gun within 1,000 feet of a school, including preschools and day-care centers...According to current law, it is a crime to possess a gun in a school zone. Although the law is used to make arrests, jail time is not mandatory and left to the discretion of judges. "The problem is [the current] law doesn't have any teeth in it," Weiss said. "We are going to create an absolute zero-tolerance zone around these schools." (What is an "unlicensed gun" in a county where it is virtually impossible to get a CWP? Would this ordinance violate state preemption of regulation of deadly weapons?) http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-safe18mar18,1,1293385.story --- Lucky Miss: Police fired a shot at a man in his home Monday morning believing he was an intruder with a gun. The 61-year-old man was not hit, and no one else was injured in the incident that took place at 8:30 a.m. near 107th Avenue and Indian School Road, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department...When police entered the house, they found an unharmed man who did not respond to their commands, Hill said. They mistook him for the intruder when he reached in his jacket and began to pull out a dark-colored wallet, which at least one officer believed was a gun... http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0317abrk-maryvaleshot.html --- Nevada Sheriff Reins in Re-Enactors: History re-enactors posing as Old West gunslingers here need to follow some modern rules, the sheriff says: Guns and alcohol don't mix. A Storey County ordinance prohibits alcohol consumption by history re-enactors wearing a gun, but Sheriff Jim Miller said he's going to increase enforcement of the ordinance because some people have abused it...The weapon must be holstered and must remain empty of all ammunition at all times, unless someone is directly participating in a scheduled event. A group called the Virginia City Outlaws performs gunfights in an outdoor theater during the summer. (Nevada is an open-carry state.) http://www.azstarnet.com/news/230137 -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .