Word: handgun
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...biggest surprise from the Supreme Court term that just ended: Barack Obama hearts the Roberts Court. At the end of June, the Democratic candidate praised Justice Antonin Scalia's 5-4 decision striking down the Washington ban on handgun possession, a ruling that recognizes the right to bear arms as an individual right. Two weeks earlier, from the other side of the ideological spectrum, Obama praised Justice Anthony Kennedy's 5-4 decision allowing enemy combatants to challenge their detentions in federal courts, a rebuke to the Bush Administration's policies toward Guantánamo detainees. Obama's only major quarrel...
...Supreme Court's 5-4 decision overturning Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban is the biggest gun rights ruling since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. The Court had not waded into this divisive issue since 1939, when it declared, "We cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear" arms. But on Thursday the Court broke its silence to do just that, ruling for the first time that the Constitution confers an individual right to gun ownership beyond providing for "a well regulated Militia," as the amendment states. The Constitution does not permit "the absolute...
...control advocates say the ruling's focus on gun bans safeguards reasonable gun restrictions from the flurry of litigation it will undoubtedly trigger. "The Court's decision indicated regulation of guns, as opposed to the banning of handguns, is entirely permissible," says Dennis Henigan, vice president for law and policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "The ruling gives a constitutional green light to a wide range of gun restrictions." Scalia said the Court's decision "should not be taken to cast doubt" on many existing restrictions against gun possession, including handgun possession by felons and the mentally...
...issue in the present case, District of Columbia v. Heller, was the city's ban prohibiting ownership of handguns that were unregistered as of 1976 - a statute that, by effectively nullifying possession, ranks among the nation's stiffest. Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard, filed suit against the district after it denied him permission to register, and thereby keep, a handgun intended for self-defense within his home. A D.C. federal appeals court supported Heller on the grounds that the city's ban violated his Second Amendment rights. (See pictures of an ammunition plant...
...desk would completely contort relationships—everything would be tinged with a faint hint of menace and paranoia. Although the stringent criteria for gun ownership are supposed to weed out the irresponsible or deranged, we must remember that Seung-Hui Cho obtained his handgun in a perfectly legal manner...