Last week the supreme court agreed to decide the case; District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290. Dick Anthony Heller, 65, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun
at his home – about a mile from the court – for protection. The laws in question in the case do not “merely regulate the possession of firearms,” Heller said. Instead, they “amount to a complete prohibition of the possession of all functional firearms within the home.” Washington, D.C. has had a ban on handgun ownership since 1976, 31 years and counting. The main issue is whether as I believe, and gun proponents believe, is that the second Amendment protects the individual right to to own guns. Or as gun control advocates try to claim it is only so we can have state militias. I believe that everyone should have the right to own a gun for personal protection. Once we make guns illegal the only ones to have them other than the government will be the criminals. I do believe in regulations that disallow certain persons from owning dangerous weapons. We have plenty of laws on the books that are supposed to protect us from these people but are usually only enforced after a crime.
This is going to be a very important decision for the District of Columbia and possibly many others. Though forty four states have gun right provisions in their state constitutions. This will be perhaps the most important and in-depth examination of our constitutional right to bear arms in nearly seventy years.
I grew up around guns. There was always at least one in the house and we, even as children knew we were not to touch them. Many times I can remember visiting homes and the shot gun would be by the door or close at hand standing up behind a chair for easy retrieval. By time I was a teenager I owned my very first gun. A single shot 12 gauge shotgun. With it I would go hunting squirrels, rabbits, fowl and deer. Oft times alone and other times with members of my family. Plus the turkey shoots that used to be around everywhere. I can’t ever remember actually winning a turkey but us boys carried home many a ham and side of bacon we had won. My children both grew up with a gun in the house at all times but they knew never to touch or play with one. A gun is merely a tool, albeit a very dangerous one that must be respected at all times. And treated as if it were loaded at all times. As an unloaded gun is a dangerous thing to assume. That is how most accidents occur. Someone gets shot and they say “I thought it was unloaded”. Never ever assume something like that. Always go on the assumption that it is loaded until you know otherwise and even then guns are not play toys. If we had ever been caught playing with a gun we would have a hard time sitting for a few days or as my pop would tell me “your ass is grass, and I am the lawn mower”. So we grew up with a healthy respect for guns as well as a love of outdoors. Even though I have not hunted in years since I suffered a severe shoulder injury that still makes it tender to shoot any long gun that has kick to it, I still love the outdoors and believe that hunting helps and not destroys. As long as you limit the taking of animals to leave “seed” stock. After all the lord placed us here to “husband” the animals, fish and fowl. Not to wipe them all out.
THE BEAUTY OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS THAT IT WILL NOT BE NEEDED UNTIL THEY TRY TO TAKE IT.” –Thomas Jefferson