Guns N' Justices: Welcome To The Jungle

        In a contentious split decision (5-4) on Thursday, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the constitution does not permit `` the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home��, according to Justice Anthony Scalia writing for the majority.
        Scalia in affirming the Second Amendment (originally ratified in 1791), which states that a ``well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed�� was quick to point out the decision won't overturn handgun restrictions to the mentally ill, felons, and the bans already in place in government building and schools.
        Ever since the historic decision was handed down, however, the floodgates by pro-gun activists, particularly the National Rifle Association (NRA) have opened up; with plans for legal challenges in Chicago (where ever since 1982, it�s illegal to possess a handgun within city limits) and San Francisco (where those living in public housing are restricted from purchasing hand guns), including a host of other suburbs, threatening similar action.
        The problem so many are having with this decision and the hazy interpretation of the Second Amendment is how the right to bear arms is interpreted by hunters, and law abiding citizens (protecting themselves from assault) with euphoria; and utter fear by others citizens worried that the streets of some our major urban centers might turn into a vignette of Al Pacino�s Scarface.
        In addition to the concern of handgun restrictions being reversed in the District of Columbia, Chicago, and San Francisco, The Brady Campaign website reports, other states, including South Carolina, Tennessee, Nevada, Florida and Louisiana, have ``virtually no laws in place that stop firearm trafficking or prevent dangerous people from gaining easy access to dangerous weapons.''
        I�ll leave it to the legal scholars and the George Will�s of the world to rhapsodize about the brilliance of the Second Amendment in how it preserves our constitutional heritage to own and possess firearms, but for someone like myself who not so long ago had the barrel of a handgun pointing at them on a dimly lit street in downtown Fort Lauderdale, I can only look at the frightening facts about handguns in America, and wonder whether the Supreme Court might have given license to urban warfare.

        Just consider these facts:

� In the book, The Culture of Violence, the authors point out in 1960, only 19 percent of homicides could be traced to handguns; by 1990, the figure leaped to 69 percent.

� The John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, reports firearms are used in more than 30 homicides per day in the United States.

� According to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in 2004, almost eight young people aged 19 and under were killed a day in gun homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings in the United States.

� Also from the Brady Campaign, in 2005, 30,694 people in the United States died from firearm-related deaths � 12,352 were murdered; 17,002 killed themselves; 789 were accidents

� According to the U.S. Department of Justice, of the 10,100, firearm deaths in 2005, 7,543 were committed by handguns, comprising 87.3 percent of homicides

� The U.S. Department of Justice additionally reports in 2005, 55 percent of homicides were committed with handguns, 16 percent with other guns, 14 percent with knives, 5 percent with blunt objects, and 11 percent with other weapons.

� Phillip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig  writing in the 2006 Journal of Policy Analysis and Management report 30,136 Americans died by gunfire in 2003, a statistic which includes homicide, suicide, and accident

� According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, in 2004, firearms were used to murder 56 people in Australia, 184 people in Canada, 73 people in England and Wales, 5 people in New Zealand, and 37 people in Sweden. A small number when you consider in the United States, firearms in the same year were used to murder 11,344

� In a 2005 report issued by the Israeli Police, the incidence of investigations into murders and attempted murders was 2.5 for every 100,000 people; in the Netherlands, by comparison, it was 11.3, Italy was 3.8, France 3.5, Denmark 3.4, Germany 3.0, Switzerland 2.9, and Spain 2.8. Slovakia, the Czech republic, Austria and Greece were lower than Israel (ranging from 2.1 to 2.3), according to Gabriella Blum, Assistant Professor of Law from Harvard University

        Despite the gloomy outlook of handguns and the danger they pose, there has  been significant progress made since President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Kennedy were killed by gunfire.

    Among them:

� The 1968 Gun Control Act outlawed gun purchasers of convicted felons, fugitives, minors, individuals with a history of mental illness, those dishonorably discharged from the military and illegal aliens. In addition, mail-order sales of firearms, such as the rifle acquired by Lee Harvey Oswald have been banned.

� The 1994 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, among other stipulations, requires background checks of prospective buyers, which the latest research shows has denied 3 percent of handguns to potential buyers.

� New Jersey requires potential gun buyers to undergo an extensive background check by the police, including fingerprinting.

� California ranks first in the nation in implementing mandatory background checks on all firearm purchases, through a �one-handgun-a-month� law to prevent bulk purchases from feeding the illegal gun market.
NOTE: To see how your state measures up, refer to the Brady Campaign state-by-state scorecard

� The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) report due to more demanding licensing requirements, the number of federal firearms licenses, has been sliced from 284,000 in 1993 to 109,000 by 2007.

        Whether the Supreme Court interpreted the original intent of the framers correctly or not; it�s safe to assume the logic of their decision, and what impact it will have on individual states, has opened up a new spirited battle between the NRA and the anti-gun activists for years to come.
            -Bill Lucey
            [email protected]

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