Rep. Murphy praises Supreme Court decision on gun rights
The US Supreme Court today struck down a quarter-century old ban on handguns in the city of Chicago — where 29 people were shot and three people killed by guns in just the last few days.
Advocates of gun control have decried the decision as a misreading of the Constitution and an unwarranted intervention into local governance.
Gun rights advocates, including Rep. Scott Murphy (D-Glens Falls), have praised the 5-4 Supreme Court vote as an affirmation of the 2nd Amendment.
Here’s Rep. Murphy’s statement, issued today:
“I commend the United States Supreme Court for protecting our constitutional right to bear arms. I was honored to lend my voice to this case by signing an Amicus Brief because the government does not have the right to violate the 2nd Amendment and strip American citizens of this critical freedom. This landmark decision will further strengthen the constitutional precedent and protect our rights from unjust laws for years to come.”
Well I think the evidence itself some of which you just posted; shows that the gun ban is not working.
The supreme court has spoken. It is not really open for debate anymore. This shows why the decisions regarding Elena Kagan that are going on today are so important. These 9 Americans make some pretty important decisions.
Here I think they made the right one. But I am sure many, including 4 justices, feel it was the wrong one.
I’ve grown fairly ambivalent about this issue over time.
However, as this court recently proved to us… settled law is anything but closed to debate.
Gun bans don’t work, simple as that. Most gun laws are fairly ineffective, otherwise we wouldn’t have the level of gun crime we do. The sad part is that there are a lot of people that shouldn’t have a sharp stick, much less a gun. But there are few legal ways to pre-judge a persons chances of committing a crime of violence. So, those that choose to have the right to defend themselves. Common sense.
I agree with Bret, crazy as that may seem.
But I also have to point out that guns don’t make you more free or more safe. Just look at Afghanistan; everyone has an AK-47 there.
I’ll also point out that gun bans work just fine in most countries in the world.
I’m not suggesting that the idea makes any sense here, practically speaking or within the framework of our culture or Constitution.
But as a point of fact, America’s approach is the outlier among Western (and Eastern) developed democracies.
As a consequence, we also have far more handgun deaths than other nations — a rate that’s almost twice as high.
(Again, I’m just stating facts — not advocating a position. Our son Nicholas got his first practice rifle, a .22, at age 10.)
–Brian, NCPR
As long as this or any government is armed, so too should its citizens be armed.
Brian, not arguing, but WHERE has a gun ban “worked fine”? Australias violent crime rate went though the roof after their latest gun control ploy went into effect, Washington DC has, or had, a near total gun ban and one of the highest crime rates in the country. Britain has very restrictive laws and a high crime rate. Switzerland, until recently, had most homes containing a full auto military battle rifle as they have compulsory service there. They had a very low crime rate and violent crime rate.
I don’t think the numbers add up in your favor. Lately knife attacks seem to be the “new fad”. Shall we outlaw all knives next? Sorry, it doesn’t work. I don’t believe in forcing people to keep guns or even to allow them in their homes, but disarming people by law just creates a larger pool of potential victims of violent crime. Nations where gun ownership is extremely restricted, Mexico for instance, tend to have very high crime rates.
What you need is criminal control, not gun control. If anyone wants to argue that guns kill then why aren’t we outlawing automobiles, bicycles, sports, swimming pools, tobacco, electricity, etc., etc., etc.? It’s a TOOL.
I think it’s more complicated than you suggest, factually and morally.
Homicide is the 15th leading cause of death in the US, with handguns contributing a big chunk of those fatalities.
That’s much higher than in most other developed countries.
(Even if you accept, for example, that Great Britain underreporters handgun violence — as gun advocates say — their statistics are positively rosy compared to ours.)
Add in accidental deaths from handguns and the situation is even more ambiguous.
Again, I’m not advocating a change in our gun laws — merely pointing out that the choices we make have real-world consequences.
This isn’t just an abstract philosophical thing — and guns aren’t bicycles.
Handgun violence is especially epidemic among minority groups, blacks and Hispanics.
That’s why urban areas like Washington DC, New York, and Chicago have attempted to limit handgun access — not because they’re fighting a philosophical abstraction but because they’re trying to save lives and restore safety to embattled neighborhoods.
On Constitutional grounds, their approach has been deemed illegal by the Supreme Court.
Fair enough.
But as more people die, it’s necessary to keep thinking honestly about the consequences of our choices and our laws.
–Brian, NCPR
I think we are just a violent society; the tools of violence are not necessarily what are causing the murders although easy access to illegal weapons handguns in particular certainly is a problem. I don’t know why we murder more than we did 40 years ago or why are more violent than many other industrialized countries I think it is indeed a complex question that gun laws one way or the other are not going to solve.
Biran Mann,
Washingotn DC’s high crime rate strongly suggest hand gun bans may actually increase homcides. Criminals don’t obey gun control laws. I think it’s highly questionable to assume to gun bans will reduce crime.
Brian, let’s be accurate when we quote statistics- exactly where did that statistic come from and what criteria were used? It was discovered a few years back that FBI statistics in gun crime included police shootings, suicides, accidental discharges, etc. But when we read the stat’s we see nothing about that.
I’m not disputing the terrible toll gun and other violence play in our society. I’m just noting that not all is as it appears at first.
One more thing. Handgun bans may work in other countries, but they are unlikely to work here. There already about 300 million guns in existance in the US. Will they all disappear if we ban guns?
Scratchy –
No, obviously, unless something hugely significant happens to shift this paradigm, guns are here to stay.
I think this is one reason why the Democratic Party has largely folded its tent on this issue – they think it’s a non-starter legally, politically and in practical terms.
But again, one of the things worth noting is that debates like this don’t happen in an abstract, political-philosophical vacuum.
As you say, our society is armed with 300 million firearms, many of them designed incredibly for the single purpose of killing other people.
Will there come a moment when we have cause to regret (or at least question anew) that situation?
I think that’s very possible. But developments this week in Washington — politically and legally — suggest that that’s a debate for another day.
–Brian, NCPR
The problem with any degree of banning guns is the idea that passing this or that law or banning this or that thing will make a perceived/presumed problem suddenly go away.
It hasn’t worked with so called “illegal drugs” and it never worked with prohibition.
The best you could hope for if all guns (including rifles and shotguns) were banned and confiscated, would be to cut down the number of people who commit suicide with a gun and a few accidental shootings.
Being a resourceful people, we would still have knives and poison to kill people, plus we can always resort to beating someone to death. Let’s not forget drowning. That always works. And then there is fire.
So the question remains. How would you prefer to be murdered?
To me the more basic question is why are all those other amendments sacred, but not the 2nd? What exactly is it the government wants to do that requires them passing laws to disarm law abiding citizens?
Even when I agree with you guys I have to disagree…I know, big surprise.
I think the Supreme Court actually got it wrong on guns. It seems to me like an activist ruling by conservative justices. I think the Right has gotten themselves twisted into a knot trying to prove that the 2nd amendment gives an unlimited personal right to bear arms and that that was the original intent of the Framers.
First let me say that I think original intent is important to consider but it is not the Holy Grail. The Founders could not have imagined the technological and social changes that have taken place since they wrote the Constitution and that some accommodation must be made for change.
I know you’ll disagree.
I’m no lawyer but when I went to school we still diagramed sentences and when a sentence has a clause about a militia that clearly modifies the main idea of the sentence.
All that said, I believe that firearms have an appropriate use in our society and that most people should be allowed to own guns for a variety of purposes or because they just like to collect them. There is a limit to your right to bear arms, though, and everyone knows it. You can’t own a nuke. You can’t even own a hand grenade. Hardly anyone disputes that.
So if your argument is that we need to have guns to protect ourselves from an over-reaching government that does have nukes, and grenades, and missiles…that just doesn’t fly.
There are places that have real problems with hand gun violence. Police officers get killed regularly by nuts who should not own weapons. There must be some middle ground on this. I don’t know where it is, but we aren’t anywhere near it.
One problem of course is easy access to illegal guns and we should toughen our laws against illegal ownership of guns and enforcement of those laws and think about why they are so easy to obtain.
In these places that have really strict gun control or gun bans like D.C. or Chicago or even the Bay Area (city of peace and love has a bunch of murder go figure), the problem in those places is the illegal guns not the legal guns. If you lifted those bans or made gun control less strict most of the crime committed in those communities by criminals would STILL be committed using illegal weapons.
Knuck, actually the original intent does cover military weapons. Is it practical in todays atmosphere? No, but “the people” means the whole of the population in every other area of the BoR. If “the people” have the right of peaceful assembly that doesn’t mean just certain people. But, not to worry. The fix is already in. All they have to do is make the permit process so incredibly expensive that only the very wealthy can afford it. And of course “reasonable restriction” is included in the late decisions. So having to have a permit, registration, a record book for every round bought and expended, a very large and expensive gun safe, insurance, training courses, etc., all that can be considered “reasonable”.
Unless a giant dose of common sense hits the USA we might just as well go dig out grandpas muzzle loader. That’ll be about all that’s allowed.
Well we can make our own guns just like we can make our own booze, if push comes to shove.
NRA endorsed Murphy for supporting the 2nd Amend…they were wrong.
Read how he really feels —
http://thedailystar.com/localnews/x1699976541/Murphy-focuses-on-economic-development-at-Daily-Star-meeting
“Gun ownership is a rural versus urban issue “ & “It’s not the same as handguns in the city” ??? THE NRA SHOULD PULL THEIR ENDORSEMENT NOW.
Murphy doesn’t get it – the 2nd Amendment doesn’t say that Handguns can be banned in the City — but Rifles &Shotguns should be allowed only for “Rural America” .
This proves that if there was another Federal anti Gun Bill that dealt with Handgun ownership, he would back it.
The NRA backed the wrong person