Pro-Parker Editorial...From California: Manteca's Sun Post praises the 
recent ruling that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual RKBA 
and predicts that the case will end up before the Supreme Court because 
it contradicts a 2003 Ninth Circuit ruling. (The latter case was 
Silveira v. Lockyer and I have a stirring quotation from Judge 
Kozinski's dissent in that case posted at 
http://www.spw-duf.info/quotes.html.)

http://sunpost.net/content/view/558/1/
---

NRA-Backed Bill Could Imperil Parker Decision: According to the lead 
lawyer in the DC case, Alan Gura, "If the D.C. gun ban is repealed 
before the appellate process is completed, Parker will be vacated and 
dismissed. It will have no precedential value. Whenever the Supreme 
Court might consider the Second Amendment in the future, it would likely 
be a criminal's case, not the upstanding plaintiffs in the Parker case 
who have been harmed by the DC ban." (I understand that there are 
different interpretations of this issue.)

http://oregonfirearms.org/alertspage/03.31.03%20alert.html
---

Webb, Kennedy And The DC Gun Ban: Joseph Farah is reminded, by the 
recent arrest of an aide to Sen. Jim Webb, of the 1986 arrest of a 
bodyguard to Sen Ted Kennedy, also on DC firearm charges. The two 
incidents point out not only how ridiculous the DC gun ban is but how 
hypocritical some politicians can be in denying self-defense to their 
constituents but exempting themselves from the same laws.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54951
---

NYPD Commissioner Blames Feds: NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly lashed 
out at the feds yesterday over out-of-state gun sales as a cop shot 
during a routine pot bust a day earlier was released from the 
hospital..."We've done pretty much everything that we can do as a city 
to address the gun problem," Kelly said. "We need a national gun-control 
strategy." (Right, let's make the rest of the nation as defenseless as 
the law-abiding residents of NYC. Perhaps we can start by electing a 
former NYC mayor as president.)

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03292007/news/regionalnews/kelly_fires_salvos_in_cop_shoot_regionalnews_erika_martinez_and_lorena_mongelli.htm

Related Article:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/03/29/2007-03-29_hell_be_just_finest_.html
---

Democrats Table Montana Self-Defense Bill: Lawmakers took shots at each 
other Saturday over a proposed gun-rights bill, the day after it was 
tabled by a committee Democrats control...Gary Marbut of the Montana 
Shooting Sports Association said in a telephone interview the bill was 
crucial to clarify that law-abiding people legally can brandish guns to 
defray potential conflicts. He said most Montanans agree.

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/04/01/news/state/54-bill.txt
---

Oops, Wrong Antique Store: Steve Bauer had had enough after two nights 
of someone breaking into his business and stealing antiques. So he armed 
himself with a cola bottle and a .44-caliber Magnum and spent the night 
at work. Soon, Bauer had his man. And a woman...(Note the ricochet from 
attempting to shoot out the tires on the truck. In another jurisdiction, 
Bauer might face charges for those shots.)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-do-it-yourself-cop,0,4253423.story
---

Oops, Wrong House: A 36-year-old burglar in New Mexico erred in 
threatening a 76-year-old homeowner with a knife. The victim fired two 
rounds, scoring with one. The burglar is hospitalized in stable 
condition and will likely be charged with robbery or aggravated burglary.

http://www.kamc28.tv/news/default.asp?mode=shownews&id=2227
---

Oops, Empty Chamber: Of particular note, in this account of a 
Philadelphia DJ who barely survived an encounter with three armed 
robbers, is the fact that he was nearly killed because he carried his 
pistol without a round in the chamber, "Israeli style." (I sometime use 
a phrase, borrowed from my former teaching partner, about settling for 
all the training that comes in the box with the gun. Unfortunately, it 
actually comes down to all the training that the foolish have absorbed 
from movies and TV programs. As to the Israeli doctrine of empty-chamber 
carry, that is one of the negative aspects of the old Faribairn-Sykes 
doctrine.)

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20070402_Urban_Warrior___Police_assurances_on_his_gear_are_music_to_DJs_ears.html
---

Acquittal Prompts Discussion In South Massachusetts: The recent 
acquittal of a homeowner who shot a burglar in the back appears to have 
prompted a local newspaper to look into the community of gun owners and 
shooters on the state's south coast. (No mention is made of the dynamics 
of how the burglar got shot in the back - we know that this can occur 
when an assailant turns after a defender initiates a trigger stroke.)

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070401/NEWS/704010362/1018/OPINION
---

Flight Equals Guilt?: A New York man goes on trial in the shooting of 
another man who was feuding with the defendant's father. The defendant 
claims that he shot the man, who has subsequently died of liver disease, 
after the deceased man walked up to his car and pointed a gun at him. He 
claims that the man was shot as they struggled over the gun. The 
defendant, however, fled the scene and the gun has never been recovered. 
(Fleeing the scene of a self-defense incident tends to imply guilt in 
the eyes of most jurors.)

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703310403
---

How Many Guns Do You Need?: Opinions are like body parts...Ron Beatty 
presents his opinions on basic gun needs for the modern man. (My 
comments on this topic are posted at 
http://www.spw-duf.info/emperor.html#many. My years of teaching have 
shown me that some people who are comfortable shooting .40 S&W and .45 
ACP pistols two-handed may not be comfortable doing so one-handed, in 
some of the close-quarters drills I teach.)

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle411-20070401-06.html
---

Police Magazine Survey: Police Magazine surveyed more than one thousand 
officers on various Second Amendment issues, and the results are a 
slam-dunk for gun owners.  Eighty-eight percent said more gun control 
won't make people any safer.  More than 60 percent of officers said they 
own more than four firearms for their personal use.

http://www.nranews.com/blogarticle.aspx?blogPostId=197
---

Duh!: A village in New York will take bids from FFL's for  the firearms 
formerly used by its own police, now that those duties have been taken 
over by the town police department. Supervisor Howard Phillips said the 
firearms won't end up on the street because they would become available 
only to people with proper licenses. (And other police departments 
normally sell surplus or confiscated firearms to prohibited possessors? 
I've never heard of a single case in which an officer used a magazine or 
speedloader borrowed from a fellow officer during a gunfight.)

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703310400

St. Louis Gears Up For NRA Annual Meeting: Acres and acres of guns are 
coming to St. Louis in mid-April. And they'll be joined by thousands and 
thousands of sportsmen and enthusiasts gathering for the National Rifle 
Association's annual convention. (St. Louis, as I recall, was one of the 
very last jurisdictions to comply with Missouri's law to license 
citizens for CCW.)

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/50AFA823EC6C4EC7862572B00007D9FC?OpenDocument
---

 From Gun Week:

Mar. 9 Parker Decision Could Start Showdown at Constitutional Corral

by Joseph P. Tartaro, Executive Editor
April 1, 2007

For the past 80 or 90 years, a debate has raged in the United States 
about the right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, property, 
community and the nation.

Right before World War I, there was a push to license and register 
handguns inspired, in part by establishment concern about the worldwide 
labor movement and the wave of Eastern and Southern European 
immigration, and in part by the truly rough and tumble days of big city 
politics.

A majority of Americans then believed that the Second Amendment to the 
US Constitution guaranteed them an individual right to keep and bear 
arms, a view that was so universal that it was even taught in schools at 
that time.

But politicians being politicians, they invented ways around that belief 
and justifications for their proposals, which targeted at first only 
"concealable handguns." New York lawmakers, with major newspaper 
support, passed the Sullivan Law in 1911 justifying it by the claiming 
that they were fighting crime committed by immigrants, while they were 
also quietly disarming their political opponents.

After World War I, Prohibition and violent crime associated with it, 
inspired more handgun control laws and restrictions of machineguns and 
sawed off shotguns. Rampant crime was again the justification, but once 
again, the National Firearms Act (NFA) subtly did not entirely ban some 
guns, it merely required their registration and "background check" 
approval by local authorities.

1939 Miller Case

The Second Amendment defense was raised in a key challenge to the NFA, 
Miller vs. US, that was decided by the Supreme Court in 1939. That case 
involved possession of a sawed off shotgun by a man who had been 
convicted of other crimes. By the time the appeal got to the highest 
court, no one argued for the defense or for the individual right 
interpretation. The court decided that in the absence of anyone showing 
that a sawed-off shotgun had any connection to militia service, the NFA 
did not violate the Constitution. That court did not address the 
individual rights issue at all.

But in the years that followed, the anti-gun establishment, including 
lawyers, scholars and policy makers pushed a tortured interpretation of 
the Miller decision. They began selling their "collective right" view 
that the Second Amendment only guarantees states the right to form and 
arm militias.

Textbooks were rewritten on that tortured interpretation and hundreds, 
if not thousands, of other gun laws were passed by Congress, state 
legislatures and municipalities in the years that followed, including 
the Washington, DC, laws of 1976.

Meanwhile, other political shifts and events cast their own shadows over 
the right to keep and bear arms. Many lesser court decisions upheld 
various challenges to local and state laws. However, on Mar. 9 a 
three-judge panel of the US Appellate Court for the District of Columbia 
sent shockwaves through the establishment and their partners in the 
general media by overturning major provisions of the DC gun law in a 2-1 
decision in Parker vs. District of Columbia. The court's decision also 
said the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to keep and 
bear arms. (See related news story on Pages 1 and 2 of this issue.)

The majority opinion was written by Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman. 
In his 58-page opinion, Silberman thoroughly reviewed the whole debate 
over what the Second Amendment guaranteed, citing many earlier court 
decisions, including Miller (1939) and citing much of the recent 
scholarship by leading law professors like Laurence Tribe and Sanford 
Levinson.

Establishment Shocked

For the first time, a federal court had overturned a local gun control 
law, but like the 2001 5th Circuit Emerson decision it did not prevent 
reasonable restrictions on keeping or bearing guns.

So shocked was the establishment media that few even reported news of 
this historic decision, and many had not done so for almost two weeks 
after the decision was issued. Others however, were quick to print 
commentaries, usually following an anti-gun line.

Of the broadcast network evening news shows, on Mar. 9, NBC Nightly News 
was the only one to cover the "history-making" federal court ruling 
striking down Washington, DC's, restrictive gun control laws. While 
anchor Brian Williams made the story his show's lead item, correspondent 
Pete Williams called it "the most important gun control ruling in 70 
years." Meanwhile, CBS Evening News and ABC's World News ignored the 
story entirely.

Veteran court reporter Tony Mauro, writing in Legal Times on Mar. 12, 
quoted a Cato Institute source with saying: "The issue has been teed up 
by Judge Silberman in such a way that no honest court can avoid dealing 
with it head-on." Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute, which supported the 
challenge to the DC ordinances, but did not fund it, continued "He has 
cut through all the fog surrounding the Second Amendment."

As this issue goes to press, it appears likely that DC government 
officials are likely to at least seek an en banc review of the ruling by 
the whole DC appellate court.

If en banc review fails, the District would then face the decision of 
whether to appeal to the Supreme Court, which, with its new composition, 
Mauro noted, might be more eager to take up the issue than previous 
courts. If the city appeals and the court agrees to take the case, it 
could land on the high court's agenda in mid-2008, a presidential 
election year, Mauro said.

Even if the high court rules in favor of an individual right, it would 
not spell the end of all gun regulation. As even Silberman points out, 
the high court has allowed reasonable restrictions of other individual 
rights such as freedom of speech. But such a decision could trigger 
litigation over a range of laws, including those that make criminal 
penalties more serious if they involve possession of firearms. The court 
challenges to gun laws could go on for years.

The Parker case now returns to the district court level, where, 
according to Silberman's ruling, the judge must issue an injunction 
against the enforcement of the provisions that have been struck down.

Commentaries

In the meanwhile, authors of books on both sides of the gun debate as 
well as newspaper columnists started generating commentaries of their 
own. Needless to say, the anti-gun side was quick to condemn the decision.

The New York Times said "The court relied on a constitutional 
interpretation that has been rejected by nine federal appeals courts 
around the nation. The decision was the first from a federal appeals 
court to hold a gun-control law unconstitutional on the ground that the 
Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals, as opposed to a 
collective right of state militias.

Linda Singer, the District of Columbia's acting attorney general, said 
the decision was "a huge setback."

The anti-gun organizations were quick to label the decision "judicial 
activism at its absolute worst," something they had previously 
supported, and predicted that if the DC law was negated, the guns laws 
of every city and state would follow and "blood would run in the streets."

What about appeals?

If the city does ask for an en banc review of the decision, there is no 
guarantee that the court will agree to that request. If the city appeals 
the decision to the Supreme Court, the high court can decide not to 
review the decision as well, an outcome which will mean that the DC law 
is overturned and another federal appeals court circuit will be on 
record as ruling that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual 
right to keep and bear arms.

On the other hand, this court's decision in Parker vs. District of 
Columbia could be overturned.

Either way, it looks like a showdown is coming at the Constitutional Corral.

This article is provided free by GunWeek.com. For more great gun news, 
subscribe to our print edition.

-- 
Stephen P. Wenger

Firearm safety - It's a matter 
for education, not legislation.

http://www.spw-duf.info