US gun lobby mobilises after court ruling
Weekend Australian, Page: 13. Saturday, 28 June, 2008
The National Rifle Association has vowed to challenge handgun restrictions across the country, after the US Supreme Court ruled that the American constitution guarantees the right to keep handguns in the home.
The 5-4 decision handed down late on Thursday ends a debate about the Second Amendment’s 18th-century language while opening new battles over the politically charged issues of guns, crime and violence.
The ruling strikes down perhaps the nation’s toughest gun law, a 1976 District of Columbia ordinance that effectively bans handguns and requires rifles to be disassembled or disabled by trigger locks in the home.
But it stopped short of invalidating other local, state and federal gun regulations. The court also declined to hand legislators a blueprint for permissible gun regulations, acknowledging the contours of the Second Amendment right will have to be mapped in litigation over coming years.
The NRA said it would file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs against handgun restrictions on the basis of Thursday’s ruling. It claims laws such as those in Washington DC prevent people from defending themselves in crime-ridden inner-city districts.
But DC Mayor Adrian Fenty said, “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence.” Among the issues the court left to future litigation was whether the government can restrict other kinds of firearms besides handguns, specifically assault weapons, which have been the focus of numerous legislative battles at the state and federal level.
Both presidential candidates immediately embraced the opinion.
“Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today’s ruling recognises that gun ownership is a fundamental right sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly,” Republican John McCain said.
Democratic rival Barack Obama was more restrained.
He said he “always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms” and that the protection “is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe”.
The case hung on the interpretation of the Second Amendment, which grants citizens the right to carry arms.
In more than 200 years, the Supreme Court has never ruled decisively on the subject Elsewhere, cities with tough gun laws seized on the decision’s focus on Washington. Because it only concerned the District of Columbia, the ruling “does not apply to state and local governments”, said Benna Solomon, a deputy corporation counsel for Chicago.
Chicago has one of the strictest gun regulations. City officials said they were expecting a challenge but would continue to enforce its handgun ban until ordered by a court to cease.
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