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Right to self defense affirmed by Supreme Court

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Right to self defense affirmed by Supreme Court
Posted: Sat 03 Jul , 2010 6:27 pm
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Times are actually going well for those who believe in the right to self defense. First, in Washington DC, it is affirmed that residents actually have a right to defend themselves. Now, in Chicago, the second city of gun prohibition, the supreme court has ruled that residents there also have a right to defend themselves.

Supreme Court: Handgun Ban Unconstitutional

It seems that the court believes the second amendment means what it says.

Otis McDonald makes a very sympathetic individual. An elderly man, all he wanted was the ability to defend himself after being victimized by crime. Mayor Daley, who has police bodyguards, didn't understand why someone would feel unsafe in Chicago.

Fortunately for Chicagoans before this Supreme court ruling, if you use an illegal gun in self defense, you cannot be charged with a crime for violating local gun laws. In theory. There was a law passed by the Illinois state government that says you cannot, but that may not stop an ambitious city DA trying to curry favor with Daley. Obama would have prosecuted Chicago man for defending himself with handgun.

The law says that if the gun is actually used in self defense, while the police can take it the individual cannot be charged with a crime. State legislator Obama voted against it. Governor Blagojevich vetoed it. The state legislature overturned the veto, and state legislator Obama voted against it.

So, it seems that self defense is a right, and that Daley and Obama are wrong.

The Daley dilemma: what to say when it turns out that "guns is the answer"?
Quote:
Mayor Daley is seated squarely on the bayonet of a dilemma. On the one hand, his city's total ban on the possession of handguns is tottering like a fighter rocked by body blows. The ban has been battered by growing opposition from grassroots groups of gun owners, but perhaps more by the bitter disillusionment of average citizens and police officers who have watched it fail to curb Chicago's shameful gang violence or trim its humiliating murder rate for nearly three decades.

On the other hand, there's just not much he can do about the coming Supreme Court decision that everyone, including him, expects to put the Chicago gun ban on the canvas. He has more power over Chicago's violence addiction, but not much--and no options that don't cost a lot of money the city has spent on other things (hey, hired truck scams and Olympic boondoggles ain't free, you know!) or cost Mayor Daley the support of groups he needs to hold his power together.

When it comes to the case of the elderly, otherwise law-abiding American veteran who apparently concluded that he had a moral duty to break Mayor Daley's law in order to protect his family from Chicago's criminals, Daley has lots of options. The problem is, from his point of view, that none of them are very good options:

The Daley Mea Culpa:

Mayor Daley could simply say, "We thought we were keeping Chicagoans safe, but it's clear now that infringing the right to keep and bear arms has done more harm than good in Chicago, so it's time to find a better way." This option is largely theoretical, because it would require Daley to admit that he's been wrong for years. If he could do that, he wouldn't be Daley.

The Daley Law and Order, CAGE Episode:

Mayor Daley could stand by the law he says keeps Chicago safe and peaceful. His police have already confiscated the home defender's firearm; all he has to do now is to insist that the defender also be charged and prosecuted for violating Chicago's gun ban. But the Mayor seems to be asking himself an important question: Then what? Most likely is that the home defender is not subject to prosecution, because the Illinois legislature overcame vetoes and votes from Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama years ago to protect Illinois residents who are caught violating local gun ordinances when they use their firearms in lawful self-defense. But even if the prosecution goes forward, there are only two possible outcomes: the defender is acquitted, or the defender is convicted, possibly in a plea bargain settlement. If the defender is acquitted despite incontrovertible proof that he violated the law, as seems likely, it means that a Cook County jury chose to nullify the Chicago gun ban by refusing to punish a man for saving his family from a home invader. If the home defender is convicted, the public backlash could conceivably be the final push that removes Daley from office. There's also one more problem with a prosecution: the trial, if there was one, would likely take place after the Supreme Court issues its decision in McDonald v. Chicago. Daley would be accepting all the political risk with little chance that there would be a reward. No, prosecution is out, despite how useless and pointless that makes Chicago's gun ban look.

The Patented Daley Mumbling Sidestep(tm):

Daley's favorite defense, the Patented DMS(tm) allows the press and punditry to focus on the fun topic of "Look how dumb Da Mare is!" and feel superior with little effort, while taking their minds off uncomfortable, less fun topics like "What, exactly, gives the Mayor of Chicago the right to destroy the lives of his citizens if they decide to defend themselves?" The best part is the simplicity and ease of the Patented DMS(tm); all Daley has to do is get red in the face, alternate mumbling with ranting, and say things that make no sense. Soon most people have forgotten that they wanted answers and are simply enjoying the show. Occasionally, the Patented DMS(tm) can go wrong if too much actual information is expressed in the sound bite; for instance, when Daley threatened to put a rifle and bayonet "up (the) butt" of the Chicago Reader's Mick Dumke. Far too specific, far too understandable, and the Mayor paid a price for that one (but astute readers will notice that the price paid was of the "Look how dumb Da Mare is!" variety, which still stole some thunder from Dumke's actual question about whether the Chicago gun ban has been proven ineffective by nearly 30 years of complete failure.) A much better example of the Patented DMS was Daley's answer when asked whether the home defender would be prosecuted for owning the gun that he used to save himself, his wife and his grandson from the predator who broke into their home with his own gun:
Quote:
I understand the situation and I understand. What I'm saying is all of us have to understand that guns is not the answer to problems we see in homes and on the streets of America. It's just has simple as that.
As the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner pointed out last week, the sheer breathtaking gall of this response is enough to make anyone do a double-take, and that's the key to the Patented DMS(tm). To state that the answer to the problem "How do I save my family from the armed intruder who just shot at me in my own home?" is not something like "Fight back any way you can, but preferably with your own firearm" is some unfathomable mix of dishonest and foolish. But repeat yourself like some stuttering idiot, throw in some brutal grammatical mistakes, and you can hope that enough people will be distracted--and you can keep dancing for another day.
Looking the case over, I am once again impressed with Justice Thomas. His written opinions have been, over the course of his Supreme Court career, exceptionally intelligent.

He wrote a separate concurrence, in which he took the rest of the majority to the woodshed for overturning Chicago's ban in entirely the wrong way. Instead of relying on the "Due Process Clause" of the 14th amendment, he relied on the "Privileges or Immunities Clause". It is a much stronger argument, and a much more logically and constitutionally sound argument. He hasn't impressed me this much since his separate dissent in Gonzales V. Raich.

He explored the racist roots of gun control. It is fitting that the person doing so was the black member of the Supreme Court, since that is how gun control started in the first place.

The African-American Second Amendment
Quote:
Clarence Thomas – standing alone in a concurring opinion – took the most fascinating position in the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decision this week.

It has to be one of the blackest writings ever to come out of the court, including anything authored by Thurgood Marshall. In arguing that gun ownership is “essential to the preservation of liberty,” Thomas dwells on the long and horrifying history of white massacres of unarmed or poorly armed African Americans in the South, especially after Reconstruction fell apart following the Civil War.

Thomas particularly execrates the United States v. Cruikshank decision of 1876, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal First Amendment and Second Amendment didn’t protect citizens against actions of state and local governments.

The context is important: The case arose from the infamous Colfax Massacre, in which more than 100 blacks were killed by a white militia after they tried to guard the local courthouse against a takeover by pro-slavery Democrats.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Right to self defense affirmed by Supreme Court
Posted: Tue 06 Jul , 2010 12:28 am
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
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Interesting, CG.

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