Today’s decision by the Supreme Court that the District of Columbia’s virtual ban on handguns violates the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is being hailed as a victory for gun owners.
But Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, was quick to see a silver lining. Although he had not yet read the decision, he told a press conference that he believes the court endorsed the group’s advocacy of “reasonable regulation,”
“My first understanding from the briefing that I got is no, it will not” have a serious impact on the city’s extensive gun regulations, Bloomberg said. New York City did file a brief supporting the D.C. law.
Some believe New York City’s gun law could be challenged, however. Many guns laws will probably stand up “under the ruling, which appears to permit licensing laws, bans on possession by felons or the mentally ill and prohibitions against carrying concealed weapons or guns in schools or government buildings,” according to Adam Liptak of the Times. But he quotes one of the winning lawyers in the case, Robert Levy, as saying “There is likely to be quite a flood of litigation to try to flesh out precisely what regulations are to be permitted and which ones are not. The challenges are likely to be in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Detroit.”
Patrick Brophy, lawyer for the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, said his organization would be examining the ruling and how it might affect New York. “As long as a licensing system is not administered in an arbitrary and capricious way, that may be entirely permissible,” he told the Daily News. But, he continued, New York’s licensing system could faces challenges on the basis of the relatively high fees and the six-month wait for a license.
Almost as soon as the ruling came down, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association sued Chicago and its mayor in an effort to overturn that city’s handgun ban, the Chicago Tribune reports. Certainly Bloomberg’s counterpart in Chicago, Richard Daley, was nowhere near as sanguine as Bloomberg about the Supreme Court’s decision.
Calling the ruling, “very frightening,” Daley said, “Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society. … If they [the Supreme Court] think that’s the answer, then they’re greatly mistaken. Then why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun, and we’ll settle it in the streets if that’s they’re thinking. … The rest of the world is laughing at us.”
By Gail Robinson on June 26, 2008, 5:10 pm
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