District Columbia
Posted in Uncategorized on 10/06/2009 07:23 pm by admin
District Columbia
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The Supreme Court's Review of District of Columbia's Gun Ban
Lifting the District of Columbia’s Gun Ban is Wrong!
The Supreme Court Justices should not allow ideology to pale the beauty of the U.S. Constitution by ignoring the context of history and the “will” of the District of Columbia’s “disenfranchised” people. The ongoing Supreme Court arguments and ruling on whether to lift the District’s Gun Ban., a law since 1979, should be a measure of balance and prudence on interpreting the 2nd Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms”.
This historic deliberation must also include a candid review of the mandate and culpability of federal government agencies and the U.S. Congress to effectively manage crime in the Nation’s Capital. Throughout the District, large numbers of residents still exist in some of the most blighted, underserved and impoverished neighborhood conditions in the nation. Interpersonal-gun violence and street carnage are too often linked to the intricate, unresolved problems of illiteracy, under education joblessness, substance abuse and a plethora of untreated psychological health disabilities.
Our society has allowed the handgun to evolve as the most glamorized and desirable weapon of choice for human destruction. The United States leads the world in homicides resulting from handguns, with more than 13,000 deaths (men, women and children) annually.
“We the people” and each of the Supreme Court Justices should not ignore the fact that our nation has been through a period in our history when everyone was allowed to carry a firearm because of the need for self defense. Only through the thoughtful leadership of Town Councils, Sheriffs, U.S. Marshalls and Federal Judges, who created town ordinances that, limited the carrying of firearms, were we able to ultimately control the mindless level of lawlessness that prevailed during that period. The notion of allowing every law-abiding citizen to posses and carry gun is as foolish a proposition today as it was during the era of taming the “Wild West”. And when would residents of the District ever need a militia? We already have volunteer residents who comprise the highly trained National Guard and are who also are serving as members of the U. S. Army that is considered the best in the world.
It would be judicial malfeasance to strike down a law that will quickly result in the proliferation of District based gun stores everywhere, and the addition on more legal guns into a city that is already awash with illegal firearms. For the court, this would be both an unethical and immoral precedent.
Unfortunately, problems of street-level crime and victimization have not been adequately confronted by local and federal authorities because neither has been effective in addressing the pathology of firearm violence. The Supreme Court should realize that when the Founding Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment there wasn’t a firearm in the nation capable of firing more than twice. How firearms and the times have changed!
Obviously, striking down the District’s imperfect Gun Ban is not in anyway reasonable. It would result in the influx of a higher number of guns to be placed in the hands of a larger segment of the city’s population that will only serve to create an even deadlier and volatile mix of illegal and legal firearms. And tragically, it would only accelerate the depreciation in the value of human life that is continuing to plague residents of the District of Columbia!
Tom Blagburn
University of the District of Columbia, Institute for Public Safety & Justice
Former Director, Community Policing, Metropolitan Police Department (Ret)
6935 33rd Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20015
Washington, D.C. 20015
(202) 537-1118
About the Author
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