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In welcome news this morning, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the potentially far-reaching Second Amendment case of “McDonald vs. City of Chicago.” At issue is whether last year’s historic Heller vs. District of Columbia decision affirming the individual right to bear arms also applies to state law, a doctrine known as “incorporation.” The Court said it will hear the case this coming January or February.

But the case also presents opportunities to expand all civil liberties, not just Second Amendment rights. As Doug Kendall of the progressive think tank, the Constitutional Accountability Center, noted in their recent brief supporting McDonald:

“McDonald v. City of Chicago is about more than guns: it is about whether the Court will restore the precise constitutional text that requires states to honor the fundamental rights of all Americans.”

Background:

In the 2008 Heller decision, the Supreme Court unequivocally affirmed the civil right of citizens to keep loaded handguns “at the ready” in their homes. However, the ruling specifically said that their decision applied only to federal, not state law.

Writing for the majority in favor of Second Amendment rights, Justice Scalia said:

“It held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms and that the city’s [Washington, D.C.] total ban on handguns, as well as its requirement that firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional even when necessary for self-defense, violated that right.”

The McDonald case has the potential to solidify the Heller ruling and, hopefully, strike down once and for all restrictive state or city ordinances that amount to total handgun bans, as well as laws that insist that handguns must be stored in a “nonfunctional” state, e.g. in a safe or with trigger locks in place. (Note: If you have kids around the house, use common sense about the relative risks of home invasion vs. curious young hands.)

All five of the justices who supported last year’s Heller decision are still serving, with the addition of Justice Sonya Sotomayor (recently appointed by President Obama) whom we expect to join with the majority in applying the Second Amendment rights and protections to the states.

Arbitrary and Capricious

Chicago’s handgun ban was instituted in early 80s during the anti-gun sentiment following the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Local feelings about the law are mixed, but there is no evidence that the law’s intent of lowering violent crime has worked in any way. Chicago residents face up to a year in jail as well as fines for mere possession of a handgun.

However, like most gun prohibitions, the law has not been uniformly or equitably enforced, as was shown in 1994 when Illinois state senator Rickey Hendon, representing west Chicago, reported a handgun stolen from a burglary but was not prosecuted for owning it. This is clear evidence that enforcement of the ban is both “arbitrary and capricious” (see below). We suspect lawyers arguing the case will find more instances of inequity without having to look very hard.

Earlier this year, gun rights activists became especially concerned after another far-reaching gun control bill, The Blair Holt Bill, was introduced to a chilly reception in Congress by Chicago Congressman, Bobby Rush. Rush’s bill included conditions for gun ownership, such as a requirement that guns be disassembled while not in use, that would be unconstitutional if the Heller decision is applied to the states.

Modest Change

If the Supreme Court determines that citizens of all states have the same inalienable rights to self-defense and firearms ownership, it will not result in a complete overhaul of all state restrictions. In the Heller ruling, the Supreme Court listed a number of permissible restrictions which it seemed to leave up to local jurisdictions to decide for themselves.

Quoting from the Heller decision, these restrictions include the following:

• “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill”
• “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
• “concealed weapons prohibitions”
• “the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons”

The Heller decision also upholds governments’ right to require registration or licensing:

“Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.”

 While the court does not require any of these listed restrictions, in the tradition of federalism it leaves the door open to local sentiment and control within specified bounds as long as they are well short of de jure or de facto bans. This is in line with the emerging policy of the Obama administration, which favors federalism and local control in matters of firearms policy. AHSA believes this approach is in the best tradition of our federal system; but we would also argue that state-level pre-emption laws that apply a single legal standard throughout a state are better than a patchwork of confusing and draconian local laws that make criminals out of law-abiding citizens who innocently cross unmarked or unposted boundaries.

Our bet is that the Supreme Court will rule on the side of gun owners and of the original intent of the founders of our republic by incorporating the Second Amendment to apply to all jurisdictions. If you have an FFL in the Chicago area, you can expect some new customers come this spring.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi

So what have you done for gun rights lately?

Chances are you’ll answer that you sent money, wrote a letter to your local paper or contacted your Congressional representative. If you’re especially energetic, maybe you staffed your political party’s booth at the state fair or handed out voter registration forms at your local gun show.

I hope you did some or all of these things, because grass-roots political activism is an essential component in the preservation of democracy and civil rights. But the best thing you can do to protect gun rights is even simpler: take a novice shooting. Actually getting more people to own guns and to participate in appropriate firearms-related activities will do more for us in the long run because grass-roots political activism will always take a back seat to grass-roots cultural activism.

The best action a gun rights activist can take is to introduce new shooters to guns and gun culture.

Let me explain. The first time you visited a gun range, it’s unlikely that you gently lowered the smoking weapon, wiped a tear and then remarked to yourself, “Today I am no longer a subject; I am a citizen. I have taken up the essential tools that define my humanity—the tools for hunting and self-defense—these tools, which are my birthright and which forever separate the shepherd from the sheep and the prisoner from the free.” (Cue sunset and Dvorak’s ninth symphony . . . ) If that was your reaction, you are probably in Congress by now. Congratulations. More likely your reaction was something akin to “wow,” “cool,” or “Hey, that hurt!”

I don’t mean to make light of lofty sentiments—I share and strongly believe them. The recent murders of peaceful street protesters in Iran by that country’s government and its state-sanctioned paramilitaries proved that the old adage about never bringing a knife to a gunfight applies to revolutions as well as to home owners. So yes, the Second Amendment is the cornerstone of our democracy. But the attitudes that make the Second Amendment meaningful are cultural and social, not merely political. Culturally people must want to own guns or the right to do so is meaningless, and ultimately endangered.

The Second Amendment (and yes, democracy) will remain safe only as long as gun owners constitute a strong percentage of Americans. People who actually own and use guns are the best ones to understand policy discussions about them. And there is strength in numbers. The assault weapons ban would never have seen the light of day if the general public understood the distinctions between semi- and fully-automatic weapons. Shooters do. Non-shooters might grasp the explanation, but have no visceral understanding of it to inform their opinions. Politicians who own guns are the ones who’ve learned firsthand what is involved in safe storage, legal transportation, licensing (where required) and effective usage of their firearms. And they are the ones least likely to pass new restrictions against their own property and civil rights.

It is always the duty of citizens in a democracy to educate their peers and the next generation. As a gun owners, this means first sharing your cultural knowledge as a bridge to sharing your political knowledge: Take someone shooting. Talk to your anti-gun co-worker or neighbor and offer to pay their range fee if they come with you. Join a youth mentoring program and take a child to a hunter-safety course. Be patient; be polite; be sane. Don’t rave about black helicopters; denounce the fringe that does. The image of the gun owner as a positive force in society is in your hands—take care of it, share it, and most of all, grow it.

This past weekend I had my own chance to “walk the walk.” Over the years I’ve introduced quite a number of people to shooting, and many of them have decided to become gun owners. On Saturday, my friend Donny Adair of the African American Hunting Association and I put together a “new shooters day” at our local skeet range. The turn-out was pretty good—thirteen in all, including three children and seven or eight participants who had never fired a gun before in their lives. The club range master was on hand to explain safety and the functioning of various shotguns. We didn’t talk politics; we just tried to bust clays. Turns out about half of the new shooters came away “hooked.” A couple talked about joining the club, getting a shotgun (the gateway drug to gun ownership), taking lessons, bringing friends, and in short, taking their first steps toward understanding the history, culture and responsibilities of gun culture. Even if these folks ultimately don’t make it back to the range they gained valuable experience and saw firsthand that the guns didn’t fire until they were picked up, loaded, aimed and the triggers pulled (unless they left the safety on.) Not a bad perspective to learn.

As a Second Amendment activist, I’ll take a new shooter over a letter to my Congressman any day.

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Recently my local paper carried the familiar headline of an accidental shooting. The tragedy involved two teenage roommates, one of whom allegedly shot the other in the head with a newly purchased shotgun he was fooling around with while the victim slept on the couch. As skeptical as experienced gun handlers might be of the odds of “accidentally” shooting someone in the head, if you’ve spent time with novices you know how often such events are narrowly avoided.

In addition to the shotgun, a police search of the apartment discovered the victim, eighteen years of age, owned a handgun from which the serial numbers were scratched off. Again, all too typical. A couple kids get curious about guns, and promptly buy them by whatever means available, including an apparently black market purchase. What caught my interest in this story was a comment by the victim’s father, who said:

“My only real regret is not knowing about their interest in getting [a gun]. I wish I would have known . . . I just don’t think a lot of people understand the volatility of a weapon, how easy it is for the thing to go off or how volatile, or how irreversible it is. It’s sad that it takes a tragedy like this to learn that lesson.”

With the utmost respect for this aggrieved father, it doesn’t take a tragedy to learn this lesson. The statistics are readily available. For 2006, the Center for Disease Control lists 642 accidental firearms death in the United States. 102 of these victims were minors. This is far lower than the exaggerated rate of “8 children a day” claimed by some anti-gun organizations, but that’s little solace to the families of the victims. These statistics are only for fatalities, not the other damaged lives.

For accidents like this one, the cause isn’t malice. It’s ignorance. Regardless of your stance on guns, a few facts cannot be denied: the country is filled with guns, popular culture celebrates violence, and most if not all people will encounter guns in some way in the course of their lives. Less of a fact but a statement I’d stand by is that guns are "cool;" young males in particular are drawn to them like moths to a flame. Even without the Hollywood hype and myths about guns enhancing masculinity, kids are still going to want them. In the case above, the unfortunate thing is that no one appears to have prepared these young men for their first encounter with weapons. This amounts to the same “abstinence only” approach to sex ed that most of my fellow progressives rightly decry as a dangerously ineffective program that relies on misinformation and scare tactics instead of providing information that can save a life or prevent pregnancies.

“Abstinence only” sex education has been an abysmal failure in education. Rather than educating the young and the hormonal about risks and effective protections against those risks, abstinence only education relies on shame and fear to fight off the combined influence of moonlight, daddy’s car keys and hot summer nights by the lake. Unsurprisingly to those with knowledge of human sexuality, the approach doesn’t work. A 2006 study revealed that 95% of Americans have had premarital sex. (Yes, that’s nine-ty-five or 19 out of 20 of us, if you prefer.) My guess is those are higher rates than children admit to their parents (or parents to the children), but these rates appear to have been consistent at least since the 1950s (grandma!) When you put the prevalence of this behavior in the same room with a “See no evil, hear no evil” education program, the results are predictable: studies show the rates of unprotected sexual activity for teens in abstinence-only programs match rates for teens who get no sex education at all!

As a parent, I want my schools to do better than that in protecting my kids from AIDS and other life-altering consequences of risky behavior. Yes, protecting minors and other young people from the physical and emotional dangers of precocious sexual activity is part of a parent’s responsibility. But that gives little security regarding their peer group. I can talk with my own children, but I can’t sit down with my neighbor’s kids to give them “the talk” they need to get from their own folks.

When most people inevitably have their first encounter with sex, they aren’t expected to be experts the first time out of the gate. But with guns, you had better be. For the sake of yourself and those around you (like a roommate on the couch) you need to be an expert in safe handling from the very first time you pick one up without supervision.

Denying children direct knowledge and experience with firearms promotes a dangerous ignorance. It means that instead of learning from their parents, some kids are learning about gun safety from the worst source possible: each other. Gun avoidance programs are a good start for younger children. Especially for a kid with no family experience with firearms, the best thing to do with a gun they find is of course to leave it alone and call for an adult. Who can argue with that? But these programs are generally aimed at younger kids. When kids get older, the fascination with all things dangerous will lead some to guns, regardless of their guardians’ wishes. As the report cited above about abstinence-only sex ed says, “Peer support may be protective but erodes sharply during the teen years.” You can say the same thing about “eroding” fear of guns: a second grader is likely to call an adult; a ninth grader—or his friends—is more likely to think “cool” and pick it up.

While this may seem counter-intuitive to some; I would posit that the more likely a kid is to want a gun, the more important it is he knows how to handle one. This belief shared by my friend Donny Adair, who mentors at-risk youths in hunting safety and ethics in the African American Hunting Association. The young men Donny mentors learn firsthand from an adult what a gun can do, and are taught to see through the hollow machismo often attached to firearms by those with low self-image.

Unfortunately, such approaches are not universal. Public schools and many youth organizations that used to teach marksmanship and gun handling no longer do so, or face declining enrollment in their programs. As a result, respect for guns, knowledge about the positive role of guns in society, and even respect for the lives misuse use of a gun will alter are decidedly lacking for far too many of our youths. This is especially so for those who come from families with the “abstinence only” approach to raising these young people.

We of course live in a world where many activities can be fatal; including unprotected sex, swimming pools, alcohol, reckless driving and other highlights of the Hollywood lifestyle. We must talk to our children about these risks, and we need to talk to them about guns, too. Moreover, we need to teach them how to handle a tool most are likely to pick up at some point in their lives. And we need our schools to make sure everyone’s children get the same message. As parents, ask your schools what they are doing to teach older students about safe gun handling, as well as avoidance. Take your children to the range, even if you aren’t a regular shooter yourself. Have “the talk” about guns.

As with other aspects of growing up, realize your child is someday going to need to know how to pick up their tools without you being there to guide them.