BACK STORY: THE SECOND AMENDMENT CASE

WILLIAM G. MERKEL, HISTORY COOPERATIVE On April 2, 1806, Joseph Varnum, then a six-term Republican Congressman from Massachusetts and major general in the Commonwealth's militia, presented a report from the "committee instructed to inquire what measures are necessary to be adopted to complete the arming of the militia of the United States" to the House of Representatives. . . In the report itself, Varnum's committee informed Congress that, by the laws of the United States, each citizen enrolled in the militia is put under obligations to provide himself with a good musket or rifle, and all the other military equipments prescribed by law. From the best estimate which the committee have been able to form, there is upwards of 250,000 fire arms and rifles in the hands of the militia, which have, a few instances excepted, been provided by, and are the property of, the individuals who hold them. . .

The committee went on to say that the number of stands of public arms in the arsenals of the various states had not been ascertained, that there were about 120,000 fire arms fit for use and 12,000 in need of repair in the magazines of the United States. . .

JOHN R. LOTT, JR. AND MAXIM LOTT, FOX NEWS - The [DC] ban went into effect in early 1977, but since it started there is only one year (1985) when D.C.'s murder rate fell below what it was in 1976. But the murder rate also rose dramatically relative to other cities. In the 29 years we have data after the ban, D.C.'s murder rate ranked first or second among the largest 50 cities for 15 years. In another four years, it ranked fourth. . .

Neither have bans worked in other countries. Gun crime in England and Wales increased 340 percent in the seven years since their 1998 ban. Ireland banned handguns and center fire rifles in 1972 and murder rates soared - the post-ban murder rate average has been 144 percent higher than pre-ban.

ADAM LIPTAK, NY TIMES, 2007 - Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, said he had come to believe that the Second Amendment protected an individual right. "My conclusion came as something of a surprise to me, and an unwelcome surprise," Professor Tribe said. "I have always supported as a matter of policy very comprehensive gun control."

Several other leading liberal constitutional scholars, notably Akhil Reed Amar at Yale and Sanford Levinson at the University of Texas, are in broad agreement favoring an individual rights interpretation. Their work has in a remarkably short time upended the conventional understanding of the Second Amendment, and it set the stage for the Parker decision.

The earlier consensus, the law professors said in interviews, reflected received wisdom and political preferences rather than a serious consideration of the amendment's text, history and place in the structure of the Constitution. "The standard liberal position," Professor Levinson said, "is that the Second Amendment is basically just read out of the Constitution.". . .

PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - Gun prohibition has much the same effect as drug or alcohol prohibition. It would increase the price but not limit the availability of guns for those who really want them. One of the effects, for example, of banning cigarettes in prisons is to create a booming trade in contraband tobacco.

- Since 1993 the U.S. handgun murder rate has decreased 48 percent while the number of privately owned handguns in America has increased by more than 20 million

- Culture is a far more important factor in violence that gun ownership. There are more guns per-capita in Maine than in any other state save possibly Alaska. About 50,000 Mainers have permits to carry concealed weapons. Yet Maine has a crime rate one-third below the national average. Maine has one or two fatal gun accidents a year, lower than the death rate for snowmobiling or boating. These figures -- which reflect those of certain high gun-ownership countries such as Sweden, Norway and Switzerland -- suggest that the culture of a society affects the problems caused by guns more than the guns themselves. Introduce guns to an inherently violent community and you'll get more violence. Introduce guns to an inherently lawful society and the crime rate drops. In 2004 the South, on the other hand, had a murder rate 57% higher than the Northeast.

- Forty-six percent of all those dying of gunshots in 1997 were between the ages of 15 and 34. Presumably guns work mechanically the same way for this age group as they do for others, thus something other that safety would appear to be involved.

- Treating gun laws as a national issue exacerbates cultural conflict, such as those between rural and urban, east and west, wealthy and not so well off. Telling rural Westerners to get rid of their guns is like telling urban blacks to stop reading African-American books.

- John R. Lott has pointed out that "less than one out every thousand times people use guns defensively is the attacker killed. Ninety-eight percent of the time, simply being able to brandish a gun is sufficient to cause a criminal to break off an attack and the two percent of the time when guns are fired, the vast majority of those are warning shots. It's something like less than one-half-of-one percent of the time is the gun fired in the direction of the attacker. Even when they do hit, woundings are much more frequent than times when the attacker is killed."

- A Justice Department stud, conducted from 1993-1995 tracked 4,000 boys and girls aged 6 to 15 in Denver, Pittsburgh, and Rochester, NY. According to the study:

Children who get guns from their parents don't commit gun crimes (0%), while children who get illegal guns are very likely to do so (21%).

Children who get guns from parents are less likely to commit any kind of street crime (14%) than children who have no gun in the house (24%) and are dramatically less likely to do so than children who acquire an illegal gun (74%).

Children who get guns from parents are less likely to use drugs (13%) than children who get illegal guns (41%).

"Boys who own legal firearms have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use [than boys who get illegal guns] and are even slightly less delinquent than non-owners of guns," the study reported.

RECOVERED HISTORY "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, 1776

. . . "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe." - Noah Webster, 1787. . . "What is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." - George Mason, 1788. . . "The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams, 1788. . . "The militia is our ultimate

PROGRESSIVE REVIEW The Columbine killers violated at least 17 existing state and federal weapons control laws.

In a city like Washington, the only people actually affected by a gun ban are law abiders. The others get their guns anyway.

In 2002, Charlie Reese of the Orlando Sentinel reported: "A new survey involving 34,000 people in 17 industrialized countries published by the Dutch Ministry of Justice shows [that] the nations that report the highest percentage of crime victims are those that have virtually banned private gun ownership. In descending order they are Australia, England and Wales, Scotland, Finland, Northern Ireland, France and the Netherlands. The United States ranks eighth out of 17."

In DC, home of the gun ban in dispute, the school system spent a lot of money for metal detectors, cameras and security officers. But between 1997 and 2001, according to the Washington Times:

- Assaults with deadly weapons shot up from 66 to 127.

- Simple assaults in the school system rose from 384 to 475.

- The number of children caught bringing concealed weapons to schools swelled from 329 to 423.

- Robberies rose from 18 to 35.

- Threats against students and staff increased from 156 to 225.

The number of incidents reported to the school system are as bad or worse than those of school systems with twice the number of students, all in a city with a handgun ban.

STEPHEN HALBROOK, AUTHOR OF TARGET SWITZERLAND - In World War II, the Swiss had defenses no other country had. Let's begin with the rifle in every home combined with the Alpine terrain. When the German Kaiser asked in 1912 what the quarter of a million Swiss militiamen would do if invaded by a half million German soldiers, a Swiss replied: "Shoot twice and go home." Switzerland also had a decentralized, direct democracy which could not be surrendered to a foreign enemy by a political elite. Some governments surrendered to Hitler without resistance based on the decision of a king or dictator; this was institutionally impossible in Switzerland. If an ordinary Swiss citizen was told that the Federal President--a relatively powerless official--had surrendered the country, the citizen might not even know the president's name, and would have held any "surrender" order in contempt.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Swiss feared an invasion and began military preparations like no other European nation. On Hitler's 1938 "Anchluss" or annexation of Austria, the Swiss Parliament declared that the Swiss were prepared to defend themselves "to the last drop of their blood."

When the Fuehrer attacked Poland in 1939, General Guisan ordered the citizen army to resist any attack to the last cartridge. After Denmark and Norway fell in 1940, Guisan and the Federal Council gave the order to the populace: aggressively attack invaders; act on your own initiative; regard any surrender broadcast or announcement as enemy propaganda; resist to the end. This was published as a message to the Swiss and a warning to the Germans; surrender was impossible, even if ordered by the government, for the prior order mandated that it be treated as an enemy lie. . .

WASHINGTON TIMES, 2006 - Figures released by the Treasury Department show that retail sales of firearms and ammunition rose almost 3 percent in 2005. All told, 4.7 million new guns were sold during this past year. Yet government figures and independent statistics reveal that firearms crimes, suicides and accidental fatalities, including among youth, all trend downward. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the estimated number of privately owned firearms in the U.S. now stands at more than 290 million, while American households with at least one firearm is estimated at nearly 110 million.