I also agree that the president should weigh in because this is a national issue, not just a New York City issue. Do I think it’s in bad taste to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks? Not in this case, not given the explanation for the mosque by Daisy Khan, Executive Director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, one of the two organizations proposing the project:

It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion. It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum.

…

The time for a center like this has come because Islam is an American religion. We need to take the 9/11 tragedy and turn it into something very positive.

But again, aside from the debate of propriety, they own the land they plan to develop on and they are within the zoning limits of the area. Therefore they have every right to build a mosque there. If we allow others to deny them that right then we lose a little bit more of what it means to be American, something we can’t afford to do.

About 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence, according to federal statistics, in the four months that the Supreme Court debated which clause of the Constitution it would use to subvert Chicago’s entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership. The arguments that led to Monday’s decision undermining Chicago’s law were infuriatingly abstract, but the results will be all too real and bloody.

First I’ll tackle the touchy-feely “sensibility” of Chicago’s ban on handguns. The ban on handguns was ruled unconstitutional. The “sensibility” of the ban was not a factor even argued. The Supreme Court ruled that “the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller.” That seems pretty concrete to me — you want to ban guns, change the Constitution.

Second I’ll tackle the author’s expectation of “real and bloody” results. Washington, D.C. had a similar ban until 2008, when it was overturned by District of Columbia V. Heller. A year after lifting the gun ban in D.C., the murder rate dropped by 25 percent. That’s not very compelling evidence to cry bloody murder after the McDonald ruling lifted Chicago’s ban.

The empirical evidence shows quite the opposite in fact. If you want to increase crime rates, decrease the number of legally-owned guns. After Chicago enacted their ban in 1982, the next ten years saw murders increase by 41 percent; 2.2 times more than the national average for the same period. How does that indicate effective results of gun control or an ensuing blood bath once the ban is lifted? It doesn’t. It indicates that when you prevent citizens from legally protecting themselves you increase crime rates, plain and simple.

McDonald v. Chicago should be regarded as a strong victory for gun rights advocates as well as for constitutionalists and we’ll see in the years to come if there will truly be ‘real and bloody’ results.

Oh, for all those dunderheads who argue the Second Amendment is for militias, not individuals, here is one definition of the word ‘militia’ provided by the New Oxford Dictionary: “all able-bodied civilians eligible by law for military service.”

Stick that in your peace pipe and smoke it.

This is a great step forward for gun rights advocates but more will need to be done. Chicago’s mayor will undoubtedly take a page from DC’s book of impeding legal gun ownership through draconian registration laws and through the use of an intentionally strict and difficult CCW application and renewal processes.

It’ll be interesting to watch this one develop.

The founding fathers did not establish a democracy ruled by the majority, but rather a republic ruled by law. In a true democracy, the elected officials are not held in check by the law. In a republic, the elected officials are themselves ruled by law (though they can change the law by following procedures defined by other laws). Because of this widely-held misconception, those in the majority ipso facto assume it’s their opportunity to assert their will on the people rather than governing within the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution.

To help illustrate my point, below is a quote from Lexrex.com:

The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a Democracy is: Rule by Omnipotent Majority. In a democracy, The Individual, and any group of Individuals composing any Minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of The Majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man.

And this regarding a republic (emphasis mine):

A Republic, on the other hand, has a very different purpose and an entirely different form, or system, of government. Its purpose is to control The Majority strictly, as well as all others among the people, primarily to protect The Individual’s God-given, unalienable rights and therefore for the protection of the rights of The Minority, of all minorities, and the liberties of people in general. The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution–adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment–with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term “the people” means, of course, the electorate.

Because of the common misunderstanding that a democracy is defined simply as ‘representation of the people’ and then the resultant, false deduction that the U.S. is a democracy because we have representation of the people, those who share a common philosophy with the ruling majority believe it’s their right, as a majority, to assert their philosophy. Constitutional process and respect for the law is thrown to the wind for the simple assumption that ‘we are the majority in the government and the majority rules in a democracy.’ Those who share this misunderstanding then become frustrated when their philosophy is resisted based on the rule of law, checks and balances, etc, which are in place to control and restrain the majority and protect the minority from the majority. See, the founding fathers were smart fellows who understood the insatiable appetites of man and so they created a system with the intent on preventing “the tyranny of the legislatures.”

Furthermore, calling the U.S. form of government a “democratic republic” is redundant, because by definition, a republic is “a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.”

The woman with whom I began the conversation on Twitter has openly proclaimed her support of “the hallowed halls of Democracy [sic]“. However, with such false beliefs it’s fair to say she’d be better off gaining a clearer understanding of the concepts she’s using in an attempt to effectively communicate her opinion.

Use this link to see the entire conversation. The “show conversation” link on that page does a decent, but somewhat inaccurate chronological ordering of the tweets to form a conversational flow.

What’s interesting to note is that throughout the exchange she asserts her party loyalty and projects that onto me as if I too was towing a party line. I hadn’t at any point declared “a side” and instead tried to argue my position, my concepts, and ultimately my philosophy, which is itself independent of any one political party’s philosophy.

I should also remember that it’s nearly impossible to have a meaningful debate on a medium that restricts responses to 140 characters.

At the age of 15, Monica Sanders answered her phone to learn that her friend had been fatally shot in the stomach by another female teen, leaving behind a 4-month old daughter.

“It still shocks me to this day,” said Sanders, now 18. “It’s insane that a teenager could get a gun.”

The senseless act of violence prompted Sanders to join Hands Without Guns, a violence-prevention group that joined a crowd of local voices Monday on the eve of arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court about whether to strike down Chicago’s longstanding hand-gun ban.

The article has a significant anti-gun bent. There are more paragraphs extolling the virtues of banning guns than paragraphs arguing against such a ban. The opening story quoted above is classic propaganda — we don’t know how the gun was obtained. It could have been brought in from out of state for all we know. The thought of a motherless child pulls at our heart strings and emotionally charges our opinion of the debate, well before the facts are laid out and debated (if you can even call the article a debate of the issues).

As I’ve said before; “gun control” is nothing more than a restriction on law-abiding citizens. Those who would use a firearm to break the law, demonstrate by that very fact that laws against gun use do not pertain to them. Therefore, by aggressively controlling gun ownership, you primarily affect law-abiding citizens, not criminals.

Gun control advocates don’t want you to hear that. They’d rather you hear a story about some poor teen mother who got gunned down by another teen and blame it on guns rather than blame it on the shooter.

The District of Columbia’s murder rate plummeted by an astounding 25 percent last year, much faster than for the US as a whole or for similarly sized cities. If you had asked Chicago’s Mayor Daley, that wasn’t supposed to happen. The Supreme Court’s 2008 decision to strike down DC’s handgun ban and gunlock requirements should have lead to a surge in murders, with Wild West shootouts.

Compare those results to these:

The forthcoming third edition of More Guns, Less Crime shows that in the 17 years after its ban on new handguns went into effect, there are only two years where Chicago’s murder rate was as low as it was in 1982. Chicago’s murder rate fell relative to other largest [sic] 50 largest cities prior to the ban and rose relative to them afterwards. For example, Chicago’s murder rate went from equalling the average for those other cities in 1982, to exceeding their average murder rate by 32 percent in 1992 and by 68 percent in 2002. There is no year after the ban that Chicago’s murder rate fared as well relative to other cities as it did in 1982.

The empirical evidence supports gun ownership either way you look at it; restrict lawful gun ownership and you increase crime, relax lawful gun ownership and you decrease crime.

I also found a decent analysis by Josh Blackman, of Chicago’s Respondent Brief in McDonald v. Chicago here. Some of his more accessible and salient points:

Because guns lead to violence, in order to promote liberty, the states must be able to ban guns. To eliminate the states ability to ban gun [sic] actually decreases liberty. This is a very curious definition of liberty. Under this interpretation, in order for some people to be free from violence, others need to be forcibly disarmed and denied of their liberty.

[...]

…their reliance on Federalism to justify the ban is questionable. While the states can, and should be, laboratories to experiment, legislatures are still bound by the Constitution as a floor.

A state cannot act as a laboratory by infringing a person’s freedom from unreasonable search and seizure because the person is dangerous. No more should a state be able to deny a person’s right to self-defense because it could be “dangerous.” The Federalism argument just seems rather weak.

[...]

A right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures should mean the same thing in Chicago as it does in Cheboygan. The Second Amendment should receive the same treatment.

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But then, maybe the problem is we’ve never technically declared war. According to testimony by Alberto Gonzales back in 2006:

There was not a war declaration, either in connection with Al Qaida or in Iraq. It was an authorization to use military force. I only want to clarify that, because there are implications. Obviously, when you talk about a war declaration, you’re possibly talking about affecting treaties, diplomatic relations. And so there is a distinction in law and in practice. And we’re not talking about a war declaration. This is an authorization only to use military force.

Good luck Mr. Kucinich.

I do believe that part of the drive towards gun control is fear of a popular uprising. If the U.S. had gun laws and a gun culture similar to Switzerland, would we have a government hell-bent on spending our money so carelessly, as they are doing now? If 6 – 10% of the U.S. population owned government-issued rifles, as is the case in Switzerland, would the government have given the 2000 Presidency to Bush, against the popular vote? Don’t get me wrong, I can’t imagine the heap-O-shit we’d be in if He-Who-Created-The-Internet was in charge on 9/11. However, my point is the country indicated our desires in the popular vote and we expected the Electoral College to vote our desires on our behalf and they did not.

The population of Switzerland is roughly 7.7 million people. The population of Metropolitan Chicago is roughly 9.8 million people. The number of killings or attempted killings involving a firearm in Switzerland in 2006 is 34. The number of gun-related homicides in Chicago in 2006 is over 300. Does that indicate any level of success in controlling gun-related violence through restricting or outright denying lawful gun ownership?

“The key to freedom is the ability to be able to defend yourself and if you don’t have the tools to do that you are at the mercy of whoever wants to put you away.”

Get Involved

• Tweet your support
  
• Follow me @RickShawMan on Twitter
  
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Contact the Administration and your representatives

• Use the USA.gov website to identify and contact your elected officials and let them know where you stand on gun control and the Second Amendment.
  
• You can also use 2gov to deliver emails and tweets to your elected representatives.

Support lobbyists

Membership fees allow the lobbyists to act as your gun rights advocate.

• Join the National Rifle Association
  
• Join the Gun Owners of America
  

1. Punish – to the maximum extent of the law – criminals who possess, use, and traffic in illegal guns.
2. Target and hold accountable irresponsible gun dealers who break the law by knowingly selling guns to straw purchasers.
3. Oppose all federal efforts to restrict cities’ right to access, use, and share trace data that is so essential to effective enforcement, or to interfere with the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to combat illegal gun trafficking.
4. Work to develop and use technologies that aid in the detection and tracing of illegal guns.
5. Support all local state and federal legislation that targets illegal guns; coordinate legislative, enforcement, and litigation strategies; and share information and best practices.
6. Invite other cities to join us in this new national effort.

That’s all well and good, but the problem is that the group too often targets the rights of law-abiding gun owners. A prime example is MAIG’s opposition to H.R. 197: National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2009, which would allow individuals who have legally obtained a concealed carry permit in one state to carry concealed in another state. Specifically, Mayor Bloomberg stated “This bill would frustrate the efforts of nation’s police and encourage the activities of illegal gun traffickers. I encourage our elected leaders in Washington to swiftly defeat this bill.” This statement is, first and foremost, misleading and second it’s based on faulty logic.

If an individual has obtained a concealed carry permit in one state, he has intentionally gone through a legal, documented process to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Criminals are far less likely to go through a legal, documented process in order to carry lawfully in order to rob a convenient store or a bank. Furthermore, those who buy hand guns to carry legally are far more likely to go out of their way to also ensure the weapon they purchase and carry concealed was obtained legally. Therefore it could be countered that by increasing legally-obtained concealed carry permits, you decrease the number of illegally-obtained firearms and you also increase the amount of trace data available to law enforcement.

It’s also worth noting that an increase in issued driver’s licenses doesn’t increase the number of stolen cars each year. Just because there is a larger market for cars (more licensed drivers) doesn’t mean there is a larger market for illegal (stolen) cars.

I can appreciate and respect a mayor’s responsibility to maintain the safety of their citizens. However, in MAIG’s statement that mayors “are duty-bound to do everything in our power to protect our residents, especially our children, from harm” I see a huge potential for infringement on individual rights to lawfully own and carry a concealed weapon and in MAIG’s actions they have demonstrated that is exactly their intent.

MAIG has 386 mayors from 40 states. Mayor Allan Kauffman from Goshen Indiana is one of the latest to join, to the dismay of some of his residents. You can see if your mayor is a member here.