Making sense of the right to carry weapons

The US Supreme Court is to consider Americans’ right to bear arms for the first time in nearly 70 years. It has agreed to rule on whether a ban on handguns by the city of Washington, DC (since 1976) complies with the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will consider D.C v. Heller this term. By agreeing to hear the appeal by the District of Columbia in the Parker/Heller case. If the Supreme Court does not reverse the Court of Appeals’s decision, sensible gun laws could be at risk…from the long-standing machine gun ban…to the Brady criminal background check law…to local and state gun laws like the ones in California and New Jersey banning military-style assault weapons.

It seems that the issue is not so much the Second Ammendment but the implementation of appropriate regulation of lethal weapons. The regular shootings by young people in schools are evidence enough that a lax system has led to widespread ownership of firearms and ambivalence in their use.

See Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence and BBC report.