IS GUN CONTROL DEAD?

If you get a chance, please read this terrific article on Huffington Post about the future of gun control, by Dennis Henigan, — VP of The Brady Center.

At first glance it seemed like a defeat for the Left with the recent Supreme Court ruling, McDonald v. Chicago.  Five of the nine Justices affirmed their earlier decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which declared that the Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantees that the right to bear arms includes the individual’s right to own weapons.

Across the country there are gun laws that are more restrictive than the federal law.  So the nation is left to wonder if these two Supreme Court rulings will lead to local laws being struck down.   The truth, as always, is in the detail.

Justice Alito,  in his written opinion, actually affirms the Constitutionality of many of these gun laws — the rights of local governments to regulate the sale of guns, as well as laws that restrict guns in sensitive places and laws that ban concealed weapons.

Henigan suggests that these two rulings from the high court may actually make it easier politically for the Left to get some practical restrictions on guns.  The reason?  Well, the scare-tactics used for decades by the NRA — “Dems are going to ban handguns!” and “Dems are going to confiscate your guns!” — can no longer be used by the Right as  big scary possibilities.  Henigan thinks that with these high court decisions the Right will no longer have this issue as an excuse to prevent any common sense gun regulation from being enacted.

Gun control opponents have long-held that if government is empowered to conduct background checks, license and register guns, enact some restrictions on the number of guns purchased within a short-time period, and even ban assault weapons (which police departments across the country want) that it would lead to the proverbial slippery slope and the banning of handguns.  They claimed that ANY gun regulation laws would (in a domino effect) lead to a loss of individual gun ownership.  Well, that excuse is now taken away from the Right by their conservative Supreme Court which has said, loud and clear, that Americans have a Constitutionally guaranteed right to own guns as individuals.

Now what will be their excuse?  How lame will the NRA look if they continue to oppose safety lock requirements on handguns so that children can’t find Daddy’s gun and kill himself or another child accidentally?

Maybe this IS an opportunity for common sense gun regulation!