Captain Ginger,

Sorry if a discussion of the rights that some of us support is so annoying to you. Feel free to require everyone to think just like you, and act like YOU want them to.

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Constitutional Legal Scholars Acclaim Federal Court's Overturning of D.C. Gun Ban



    WASHINGTON, March 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On March 9, a federal
appeals court in the District of Columbia has overturned the 31-year-old
ban on keeping handguns in homes in the nation's capital city, ruling that
the ban is unconstitutional. The panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit became the nation's first federal appeals court to
overturn a gun-control law by declaring that the Second Amendment grants a
person the right to possess firearms.
    Two Independent Institute research fellows were involved in the
plaintiffs' case.
    "The Founders' true intent of the Second Amendment is vindicated by the
U.S. Court of Appeals in Parker v. D.C. (2007)," said constitutional legal
scholar Stephen Halbrook. "Rejecting the perverse 'collective rights' view
that this Bill of Rights guarantee protects governmental units rather than
persons, the Court squarely holds that law-abiding individuals have the
right to keep and bear arms, and thus that D.C.'s ban on possession of
handguns even in the home is unconstitutional." Halbrook, who has written
extensively about the second amendment, is the author of the Independent
Institute's forthcoming book, The Founders' Second Amendment, which is
being published by Stanford University Press.
    In addition, Independent Institute Research Fellow Don B. Kates, Jr.
notes that, "The Founders of this nation strongly endorsed the right to
arms; as Thomas Paine put it, 'arms like laws discourage and keep the
invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order in the world....' The D.C.
Circuit court opinion effectuates that constitutional tradition."
    "Based on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, this
ground-breaking ruling overturns one of the longest-running and most
restrictive gun bans in the U.S.," said David Theroux, President of the
Independent Institute. "Washington, D.C., has led the nation with the
highest murder rate for most every year of this ban's existence. The
federal court's decision upholding the individual's right to self-defense
should be applauded by all those who care about the civil liberty
protections of the Bill of Rights."