Gun Rights

A special edition Mini-14 rifle will be produced in 2008 to raise money for the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.

John R. Lott, Jr. wrote last week, 'The Supreme Court's decision Thursday affirming that people have a right to own guns evoked all sorts of reactions....' He then went on to write about one of these reactions:

Dan Schnur, writing in the New York Times online 'Campaign Stops' column, took a broad view of what Heller means for the upcoming presidential election: Partisans on both sides will argue about whether Mr. Obama's equivocation represents a clarification or a reversal of his previous statements on the subject. But the truth is that it doesn't matter. …

Marie Cocco, a writer for the Washington Post Writer's Group, tried to undercut the value of Heller by castigating gun-rights advocates for pushing their rights before the court, and in local jurisdictions: The gun lobby already has filed suit against municipalities that have laws similar to the one struck down in the District of Columbia. Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association's executive vice president, told me that licensing and permitting systems, such as the one long…

In the end, the court settled a matter that had been ruled by sensibilities. When fashionable people can afford to hire security guards or live in gated communities, they tend to think of self-defense as a neurotic obsession of the gauche and overwrought. They don't think they need handguns, therefore no one needs handguns. They are undeterred by research that shows that their gun bans don't reduce crime, because it only matters that they mean well.

The AP has reported that in Atlanta, gun-rights advocates are saying a new Georgia state law allows visitors to carry firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. City officials in charge of the airport declared it a 'gun free zone' when the new law took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation. …

The Washington Post has reported that gun shops in suburban Maryland and Virginia felt an immediate impact from the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that the District's handgun ban is unconstitutional. City leaders said it would take about three weeks to iron out which kinds of guns will be legal and how the registration process will work.

The National Rifle Association lost no time challenging the Illinois' city of Evanston's handgun ban in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's June 26 decision upholding individual rights of gun owners.

…Here's a sampling of reactions to the D.C. V. Heller decision handed down Thursday.

More than five years after six Washington, D.C. residents challenged the city's 32-year-old ban on all functional firearms in the home, the Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller that the law is unconstitutional.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court rediscovered the Second Amendment. More than five years after six Washington, D.C. residents challenged the city’s 32-year-old ban on all functional firearms in the home, the Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller that the law is unconstitutional.

fundamental, individual civil right,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “For six decades, anti-gun rights extremists have engaged in a monumental fraud that has been unfortunately perpetuated by activist judges who erroneously insisted that the right to keep and bear arms applies only to service in a militia.