The Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the City of Chicago’s ban on handguns, a case that will test the reach of the Second Amendment.

In last year’s historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court ruled that: “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.” 

That ruling shattered years of anti-gun revisionist history and misinformation that claimed the Second Amendment protected a “collective” right of the states to maintain something like the National Guard.

Heller, though, was limited in scope only to Washington, D.C., a federal enclave.  The Court did not address the issue of whether states or localities can prohibit the right to keep and bear arms, or if the Second Amendment was “incorporated” to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court will consider this question in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, a suit filed immediately after the Heller decision.  A lower court and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the city, setting the stage for Supreme Court consideration.

The spotlight is sure to focus brightly on new Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  In a case before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in January, 2009, Judge Sotomayor ruled that the Second Amendment did not apply to the states. 

When questioned during her confirmation hearings, Sotomayor argued that she was only following Supreme Court precedent, to which she was bound.  Well, now that she is on the Supreme Court, her hands are no longer tied. 

Will she now rule that the Second Amendment should not, unlike many other rights in the Bill of Rights, be incorporated to the states through the Privileges or Immunities Clause or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Also during her confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Sotomayor was asked a straightforward question by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

“Do you believe,” the Senator asked, “that I personally have a right to self-defense?”

This did not seem to be a particularly difficult question.  Sen. Coburn didn’t even ask about defending himself with a firearm.  He only asked if Americans have a basic right to self-protection.  Her answer?  “That’s sort of an abstract question.”

In fact, it’s hard to imagine a less abstract question.  The right to keep and bear arms is afforded special protection in the Constitution precisely because it is a fundamental right. 

It is a right that predates the Constitution because the Founders wrote the Bill of Rights not to create new rights, but to protect old ones -- our “unalienable” rights -- among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

John Dickison, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Pennsylvania, explained an unalienable right this way: it is something “Which God gave to you and which no inferior power has a right to take away.” 

And so, if our right to life is a natural right, then the right to self-protection necessarily follows from it.  And self-protection, be it protection from individual criminals or a criminal government, was, to the Founders, synonymous with the right to bear arms.

Interestingly, the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted in great part specifically to protect the gun rights of freed slaves.  After the Civil War, many states passed laws to disarm blacks who were former slaves, such as Mississippi’s post-war law: No freedman “shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition.”

Proponents of the Fourteenth Amendment argued that the amendment was necessary, in part, to stop the disarming of the freedmen -- lest they be little better off than before emancipation. 

One hundred years later, in the 1960s, the Deacons for Defense armed themselves and often successfully defended themselves in areas where civil rights were still not adequately protected and blacks were targets of violence. 

If the right to keep and bear arms is found not to be a “fundamental” right, people in places like Chicago and New York City will find themselves on a 21st century plantation, treated more like subjects than citizens.

An amendment to end the complete gun prohibition on Amtrak trains passed overwhelmingly Wednesday in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 68-30. 

Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) offered the amendment to allow law-abiding gun owners to safely and legally transport firearms when they travel on Amtrak.  

Current Amtrak regulations prohibit firearms in both checked and carry-on baggage. Sportsmen who wish to use an Amtrak train for a hunting trip, therefore, cannot include a shotgun even in their checked luggage. Likewise, travelers who have a permit to carry a concealed firearm cannot include a self-defense firearm in their checked luggage, even if they are allowed to carry in both the states of origin and destination. 

But if such travelers were to take the trip by air, they could check a gun onto the aircraft by simply declaring the firearm and transporting it in a prescribed manner.

Of course, very few people use Amtrak -- and many question why that entity receives any tax payer money.   Regardless, a transportation entity that receives billions of federal taxpayer dollars should not be allowed to prevent law-abiding citizens from hunting or defending themselves when they travel on vacation or personal business.  

Sen. Wicker’s amendment prohibits any federal taxpayer funding of Amtrak if it does not allow gun owners to transport firearms on trains in a manner similar to that of airlines. Under this amendment, travelers would be able to transport a firearm from Amtrak stations that accept checked baggage as long as the firearm is declared and carried in a hard-sided, locked container.

“Americans should not have their Second Amendment rights restricted for any reason, particularly if they choose to travel on America’s federally subsidized rail line,” said Sen. Wicker.

The amendment was attached to the 2010 Transportation-Housing & Urban Development Appropriations bill and must now be reconciled with the House-passed bill, which does not contain the Wicker amendment.  A similar amendment passed the Senate in April as part of the budget bill, but was ultimately stripped out by a House-Senate conference committee.

By Jordy Yager

A Virginia-based gun rights group has taken issue with the Democrat-led healthcare proposals, saying that the proposed plans could strip citizens of their rights to own a gun.

The Gun Owners of America group, which boasts more than 300,000 members, has been warning its ranks that the proposed healthcare legislation would compile the information of Americans into a government database. The group says that by using this data, the government could deem a citizen “medically unfit” to carry a gun.

“All of the proposals that we’re aware of would handle people’s health data that way,” said Larry Pratt, executive director of the group.

“And then you end up having a gazillion people lose their gun rights because of some medical record that someone doesn’t like, where they say, ‘Oh, that might be a danger to their self or others.’ No trial, no due process, just gone.”

The group also objects to Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius, saying that she is prone to restrict gun rights.

“It wouldn’t be any problem for her to drag up some old discredited study from the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and say, ‘Guns are contagious and they’re a public health menace. This is another reason for someone to pay a surtax on their insurance because they’re causing all of that trouble in the emergency room,'” Pratt said. “That means that we have a dog in this fight.”

But Paul Helmke, president of the gun control group Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Pratt has the wrong linkage between gun rights and healthcare.

“One of the burdens on our healthcare system are the 70,000 to 80,000 people that suffer gunshot wounds every year and survive, ending up in wheelchairs, or showing up in emergency rooms without insurance after being shot. There is a connection [between healthcare and gun rights] but it’s not the connection that Larry Pratt is talking about. We as a society are paying a large portion of the cost for this gun violence.”

While Pratt said he has not expressly asked his group’s membership to brandish their firearms at political forums, he fully supports the demonstrators who were seen earlier this week with their licensed guns protesting outside the Phoenix convention center where Presdent Barack Obama was speaking.

Pratt said it helps draw attention to their objections of the healthcare bill and that it could help spur the public to not be shocked when citizens are seen carrying legal firearms in public.

“I think it’s been helpful,” Pratt said. “These fellas hit the jackpot with national publicity. Hopefully a discussion [will result] that will make it plain that good gun control is when a cop or a citizen has their gun in their holster. Just as we’d typically be unalarmed to see a cop with a piece on his hip, we shouldn’t have any different reaction to anybody else. A cop is just us with a uniform.”

But Helmke, a former mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., says that the presence of guns makes attendees at these forums nervous and it stifles political debate.

“Our system of government is built on a robust system of public debate and how much are you going to argue with a guy that’s carrying a gun?” Helmke said. “It’s a level of intimidation, a level of bullying that is inappropriate in our public discourse. You worry enough about people carrying signs on sticks; well, guns are a whole new level of escalation. It endangers people at these events.” 

© 2009 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp

Vote NO on Sotomayor!
-- GOA to weigh this vote heavily in end-of-year rating

August 4, 2009

Dear Senator:

I am writing to urge you to consider this: voting for the Second Amendment is a lot more important than voting in favor of a Latina for Supreme Court.

My wife was born in Latin America and came to this country legally.  Later, she decided to become an American citizen because she believes in the principles underlying the Constitution of this country. 

She is disgusted with the campaign that would have you vote for Judge Sonia Sotomayor because the judge is an Hispanic.  Hispanics do not vote as a bloc.  It is offensive to suggest that they do.  Those promoting Sotomayor have too often resorted to that kind of insulting rhetoric.

Gun Owners of America will rate a vote against Sotomayor as a vote FOR the Constitution of the United States which you swore to uphold -- a document which she has voted to disregard on numerous occasions. 

Conversely, a vote for Sonia Sotomayor will be seen as a preference for ethnic identity over the rule of law.

That is why your vote will be so heavily weighted by Gun Owners of America. 

Sincerely,
Larry Pratt
Executive Director

The U.S. Senate came two votes short of passing a concealed carry reciprocity provision introduced by Republican Senators John Thune (SD) and David Vitter (R-LA).  The language would have allowed people who are authorized to carry in their home states to carry their firearms in other states, as well.  Even though the Thune amendment garnered more than a majority (58-39), a parliamentary maneuver required 60 votes to pass the measure. 

The Heller decision affirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. The Thune/Vitter amendment will simply protect the right of citizens to carry firearms outside of their home state without violating the rights of the other states. Thus, the reciprocity language protects the principle of federalism while also protecting the Second Amendment rights of America’s lawful gun owners.

It was disappointing to fall two votes short on this amendment,” said GOA’s Executive Driector Larry Pratt.  “Constitutionally protected rights, including the right to self-defense, should not become null and void at the state line.”