Terry Cowgill

From A Gunless Gun Nut …

March 21, 2008 on 9:40 am | In National |

I think as a rule talk radio leaves much to be desired. Too often there is an overemphasis on shouting and preening at the expense of meaningful discourse.

But last night as the March winds threatened to pick my house up and throw it — Dorothy-style — to a distant land, I listened to a Hugh Hewitt podcast on SCOTUS’s recent oral arguments on the 2nd Amendment and the extent to which it does or does not entitle us to own guns. The case is really a test of D.C.’s handgun ban. Click here to listen and here for the transcript.

I think I can safely say it is the best half hour of radio I’ve ever heard. There were audio snippets of Kennedy, Scalia, Stephens and Souter battling it out, each followed by analysis and advocacy from two distinguished law school deans (Erwin Chemerinsky and John Eastman) elaborating succinctly and in layman’s terms.

To top it off, in addition to being a skilled radio host, Hewitt teaches constitutional law and continues to be a practicing attorney. If you’re interested in the Constitution, it doesn’t get any better than this.

There are powerful arguments to be made both ways, but it probably won’t surprise regular readers to know that I remain convinced that gun ownership is one of those occasionally inconvenient rights granted to us by the Bill of Rights. I think the only way to uphold a outright ban on firearms is to repeal the 2nd Amendment:

‘A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. ‘

The argument by gun control advocates has always been that the initial subordinate clause suggests that the absolute right to bear arms is limited to law enforcement and the military — which I think is a dangerous notion that the framers of the Constitution would recoil against.

But as Eastman argues, much of the interpretation boils down to whether you think the militia clause is “descriptive” or “prescriptive.” My sense is that it is merely descriptive since in 1791 the adult male citizenry really was the militia. Furthermore, note that the clause following the comma states in no uncertain terms that it is “the People” whose rights “shall not be infringed” — not the militia.

It has always amused me that so many people who have bumper stickers saying we should “Question Authority” seem content to let the authorities be the sole possessors of firearms.

These are the same authorities who beat Rodney King like a rented mule, filled Amadou Diallo with bullet holes, looted abandoned stores in New Orleans after Katrina and practically brainwashed teenager Peter Reilly into confessing to murdering his mother in Falls Village.

Don’t get me wrong: I think there are limits on gun ownership (such as registration and background checks) that do not unreasonably “infringe” on 2nd Amendment rights. And, of course, there are equally reasonable lines to be drawn regarding citizen ownership of tanks and WMDs, for example.

But to say to a law abiding citizen in crime-ridden D.C. that he may not carry a weapon to defend himself is preposterous. Let’s face it: by the time the police arrive it’s too late. The only alternative is to protect yourself.

P.S. It’s also strange to hear the voices of the SCOTUS justices. It’s so rare that it’s almost creepy. The last time I recall hearing them is Bush v. Gore in 2000. Alito, Roberts, Ginsberg … they’re sort of like Chelsea Clinton — familiar faces without voices.