Chicago Gun Ban Goes to The Supreme Court

Oral arguments began today to decide whether the Second Amendment applies to the states. The plaintiff, Otis McDonald, sums up his case:

"There's more guns coming into this city than the police can take away from them. So if I've got a gun, and if others have guns in their homes to protect themselves, then that's one thing that police would have to worry about less." "It makes me feel like the city cares more for the thugs than they do me, and I'm the one paying taxes,"

Indeed. No matter how many arcane legal arguments are made, Mr. McDonald understands that his inalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are meaningless without the means to defend them.

In 1982, Chicago imposed the strict gun ordinance to help combat rampant gang and firearm violence that plagued the city.

In court papers, lawyers for the city of Chicago pointed out that 402 of the 412 firearm homicides occurred with the use of handguns in 2008.

Right, and those crimes were committed by criminals who don't give a rip about gun laws. The only thing Chicago's gun laws have succeeded in doing is to prevent law abiding citizens from defending themselves and their community.

Clarence Thomas: How to Read the Constitution

The Wall Street Journal has printed an excerpt of a lecture Justice Clarence Thomas gave to the Manhattan Institute last week. In the the last two paragraphs, Justice Thomas describes the type of jurisprudence we wont be getting with an Obama Supreme Court:

As important as our Constitution is, there is no one accepted way of interpreting it. Indeed, for some commentators, it seems that if they like or prefer a particular policy or conduct, then it must be constitutional; while the policies that they do not prefer or like are unconstitutional. Obviously, this approach cannot be right. But, it certainly is at the center of the process of selecting judges. It goes something like this. If a judge does not think that abortion is best as a matter of policy or personal opinion, then the thought is that he or she will find it unconstitutional; while the judge who thinks it is good policy will find it constitutional. Those who think this way often seem to believe that since this is the way they themselves think, everyone must be doing the same thing. In this sense, legal realism morphs into legal cynicism. Certainly this is no way to run a railroad, not to mention interpret the Constitution. . . .

Let me put it this way; there are really only two ways to interpret the
Constitution -- try to discern as best we can what the framers intended or make it up. No matter how ingenious, imaginative or artfully put, unless interpretive methodologies are tied to the original intent of the framers, they have no more basis in the Constitution than the latest football scores. To be sure, even the most conscientious effort to adhere to the original intent of the framers of our Constitution is flawed, as all methodologies and human institutions are; but at least originalism has the advantage of being legitimate and, I might add, impartial.

Contrast that with the philosophy The One will be employing when he looks for a Supreme Court nominee.

"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's
like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be
poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria
by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Or this:

So this is going to be an important issue. I will look for those judges who have
an outstanding judicial record, who have the intellect, and who hopefully have a
sense of what real-world folks are going through... I think that it’s important
for judges to understand that if a woman is out there trying to raise a family,
trying to support her family, and is being treated unfairly, then the court has
to stand up, if nobody else will. And that’s the kind of judge that I want.

I don't know how Obama calls himself a constitutional lawyer when he doesn't even believe the constitution deserves consideration in the nominating process. His is the vacuous "living constitution" argument that says the constitution should mean different things depending on the zeitgeist of the time or the political preferences of the judge.

But the constitution is a legal document, a contract that was intended to be interpreted within its four corners. If somethings not there, then it's up to the people and their representatives to decide what to do, not nine lawyers handing down decrees from on high. Obama and his leftist allies take the view that the constitution can mean anything, which is to say it means nothing.

Democrats have been trying to circumvent legislatures and the people through judicial fiat for a while and two or three Obama picks will do that for generations. The country will in time become unrecognizable from that which was originally envisioned and The Bill of Rights, Constitution and The Declaration of Independence will be reduced to quaint museum pieces.

Brady Campaign Endorses Obama

The Anti-Second Amendment group, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has endorsed the Obama/Biden ticket.

"Washington, D.C. - Sarah and Jim Brady and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence with its network of Million Mom March Chapters endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President and Senator Joseph Biden for Vice President today, and urged Americans to vote for them. "

This is the same group that decried the Supreme Court's Heller decision that held in part: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."

How radical. At the time the Brady Campaign said: “Our fight to enact sensible gun laws will be undiminished by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Heller case."

What was the "reasonable" law that was struck down? Here's a summary:

"The District of Columbia generally prohibits the possession
of handguns. It is a crime to carry an unregistered
firearm, and the registration of handguns is prohibited. Wholly apart from that prohibition, no person may carry a handgun without a license, but the chief of police may issue licenses for 1-year periods. See District of Columbia law also requires residents to keep their lawfully owned firearms, such as registered long guns, “unloaded and disassembled or bound by a triggerlock or similar device” unless they are located in a place of business or are being used for lawful recreational activities."

In other words, the Brady campaign defines "reasonable" as outlawing an entire class of commonly used self-defense firearms and rendering every other gun useless in an emergency.

There's nothing unusual about this endorsement as Obama dishonestly pays the same lip service to the Second Amendment as Kerry and Gore did during their campaigns. From Obama's Fight the Smears site:

During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen while doing everything he could to protect children — including his own two daughters — from illegal gun violence...

Barack has clearly spelled out his position on guns to Field
& Stream:
“I am very mindful of the fact that sportsmen in America
may have gone hunting with their fathers, their grandfathers, their mothers, their grandmothers, and that this is part of a tradition and a way of life that has to be preserved. And there’s nothing that I will do as president of the United States that will in any way encroach on the ability of sportsmen to continue that tradition.”

Notice his position is that the Second Amendment was written only to protect my right to duck hunt or shoot paper targets. I guess my inalienable rights to Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness are not so inalienable since Obama doesn't believe I have a right to defend them.

Make no mistake. An Obama presidency along with a Democrat congress will be relentless in its attempts to negate the Second Amendment. The Democrat party has always lied about its anti-Second Amendment position because the truth is a political loser. Obama is no different

D.C. Still Trying to Circumvent The Bill of Rights

The District won't go quietly in its attempts to deny citizens their right to defend their right to defend their lives with its wiseass new law in response to the Heller decision.

"Weapons must be unloaded, disassembled or trigger-locked, except when there is a "threat of immediate harm to a person" in the home."

In other words, their complying with Heller by allowing people to keep and bear a handgun in the home for self-defense but not be able to use it unless needed immediately. Then it can be re-assembled and loaded, which renders the weapon virtually useless for self-defense.