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APPEALS COURT RULING HUGH  In early March, one of the most anti-gun courts in the country ruled in favor of the 2nd Amendment-declaring the Washington, D.C. gun ban unconstitutional, and much, much more.   Two big rulings:  The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Second Amendment is an individual right and concluded that the District of Columbia’s ban on guns in the home is unconstitutional.   According to the majority opinion, “In sum, the phrase ‘the right of the people,’ when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual.  This proposition is true even though ‘the people’ at the time of the founding was not as inclusive a concept as ‘the people’ today.”   Furthermore, the majority opinion said, “To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.  That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad).  In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militias.  The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Anti-federalist opponents.  The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty.  Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.”   In its ruling, the Court also rejected the argument that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia, which has had a gun ban on the books for decades, because it is not a state.  The majority opinion concludes that the D.C. prohibition on gun ownership in the home, “amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense.  As such, we hold it unconstitutional.”   The ruling is the second time a federal circuit court has upheld the individual nature of the Second Amendment is recent years.  In 2001, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously found in the case of U.S. v. Emerson that, “All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans….”   However, other federal courts have disagreed with these rulings, and Supreme Court precedent on the question is thin.   Perhaps these irregularities in rulings will lead to definitive Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, not a collective one, as the amendment’s language clearly intends.   Article found in “Gun-test” the consumer resource for the serious shooter Vol. XIX, No.4 Todd Woodard

Did You Know

From “NRA-ILA Alert Email”   “Data released by the FBI on Monday showed that in 2005, the nation’s total violent crime rate was 38% lower than in 1991, when violent crime hit an all-time high.  Rates of the individual categories of violent crime were also much lower in 2005 than in 1991.  Murder was 43% lower, rape 25% lower, and aggravated assault 33% lower.”  The FBI’s report came on the heels of a Bureau of Justice Statistics crime survey that found that violent crime was lower in 2005 than anytime in the survey’s 32-year history.   “Defying the anti-gunners’ claim that more guns means more crime, from 1991-2005 the number of privately owned guns increased by more than 70 million.”   “The news media often characterize violent crime as a primarily gun-oriented problem, but the FBI’s report showed that only one in every four violent crimes in 2005 was committed with a gun.  In 2005, as in previous years, most violent crimes were robberies and aggravated assaults, most of which were committed with knives or bare hands.”

  PA NEWS

Firearm Reciprocity Reaches 11 States   The Office of Attorney General has completed reciprocity agreements with the states of South Dakota.  There are now a total of 11 states that have reciprocal agreements with Pennsylvania to mutually recognize their licenses to carry firearms:  Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.   In addition to the above, the following states will recognize any out of state resident with a valid concealed weapons permit from their home state:  Idaho, Indiana, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah.  In addition to having the actual permit you must have photo ID while carrying the weapon.  Note that although these states recognize our license to carry permit, their residents may not carry a firearm concealed while in Pennsylvania as we do not have a reciprocity agreement with their state.   To obtain the most recent information concerning firearm reciprocity, go to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s web site at www.attorneygeneral.gov and select” criminal law,” then “firearm reciprocity” from the drop down prompt.