Guns In the Streets

The Supreme Court has said there is a right to bear arms. I'm cool with that. They specifically talked about handguns - "you can hold it on the attacker and dial the phone for help."

The NRA is all excited. Perhaps this will get them to loose that paranoia that the government is coming in the middle of the night to take their guns.

I am not sure that gun legislation advocates should be too up in arms. The court did not say that you have unfettered access to them. They focused on shotguns and handguns for the most part. They didn't come out and say "Oh and everyone is entitled to a machine gun." And isn't that the real issue?

Guns are fine. I think that you should be able to have one to protect yourself. What is important is to keep them out of the hands of the proverbial "bad guys." I'll be honest - I am not sure how this impacts waiting periods. I have no problem with a week long waiting period, or however long it takes to do a comprehensive background check to make sure the buyer is a real, law abiding citizen. It really isn't about an arbitrary time period as much as it is about the verification. If you could come up with a system that scanned a fingerprint, checked every database and did all the checking instantly, then there would be no need for a waiting period.

This is certainly a big indicator as to how the Supreme Court is moving these days. The Second Amendment was last discussed by them in the 1930's. They were willing to over-turn standing law. Interestingly enough, yesterday they said that you can't kill a child rapist. I suspect this kind of pissed off conservatives.