Everybody’s waiting with bated breath for McDonald on Monday. We shouldn’t forget the anniversary of Heller.
Gene Hoffman had some important reminders today of what Heller brought us.
On this day two years ago, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in DC v. Heller.
I post this to add some perspective. Many gun owners think that progress is too slow or that nothing good is happening. However, 2 years is a really short time to be on the eve of having the Second Amendment apply to the states in McDonald.
Now waiting is certainly frustrating and yes some bad things have happened in legislatures and city/county ordinances but what is often missed are the things that didn’t happen.
* Lots of wives got to keep their husbands guns when their husbands became prohibited.
* DC now has at least 800 legal gun owners so far.
* DC caved when SAF w/ CGF assistance adopted CA’s handgun roster.
* More counties in California moved to virtual shall issue (even more will move after McDonald and all the holdouts after Sykes/Palmer.)
* SF dropped it’s public housing firearms ban.
* Lot’s of people were not prosecuted for legally owned firearms that otherwise would have been.
* The simple threat that appeals would open up 2A issues makes them settle much more quickly and at the initial court level.
* Legislators have to spend a bunch of time claiming that their gun control bill de jour doesn’t violate Heller.
* Heller helps demotivate Dems at the federal level from passing new gun control while creating political air cover for pro-gun Dems and instead they’ve passed park carry, AMTRAK transport, etc.
* Heller significantly moved the public polling against handgun bans and towards pro-gun sentiment.
McDonald next Monday will move all of this a bit further. What has to (and will) happen at the macro level is for two major changes to occur in public opinion. 24 months is a super short time in Federal court timelines!
1. Create the impression that most new gun control laws are unconstitutional and will be struck by the courts if passed. This happened with segregation and it’s going to happen with gun laws too.
2. Remove “gun control” as a knee jerk way for politicians to look like their doing something to combat crime problems. There are very few actually anti-gun politicians. Usually they are using gun control as a crutch to allow them to look tough on crime without doing any hard work whatsoever. When #1 becomes the norm, then those sorts of proposals get laughed at. You can see that happening in Chicago today where gun control sympathetic media members are questioning why Daley keeps pushing to limit guns since it doesn’t work and is unconstitutional.
Happy Heller day everyone!
-Gene
Emphasis mine. I wholeheartedly agree.