Gun rights dodge a bullet

The Augusta ChronicleIt hasn’t been very often in recent decades that Americans could truly say we are a little freer today than we were yesterday. The trend, sadly, has been in the opposite direction.The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week that gun bans anywhere in the country are unconstitutional happily defies that trend. We really are freer today because of that ruling.The frightening aspect of the McDonald v. Chicago ruling, however, is that it came via a perilously narrow 5-4 majority: Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.That our fundamental Second Amendment right to bear arms for our own self-defense is that much in question and hanging by that thin a thread should alarm us all — particularly as this president continues to reload the Supreme Court with liberal true believers for at least another generation.Mr. Obama’s first Supreme Court pick, Sotomayor, has turned out to be every bit as liberal as many of us feared; there’s no reason to believe current nominee Elena Kagan will be any different.The undeniable truth is, gun bans don’t work. The evidence is incontrovertible. Otherwise, the District of Columbia, with some of the strictest gun laws in the land, should have been the safest place in the country until its ban was overturned by the high court in 2008. Instead, it was among the most dangerous.Same with Chicago: On a recent weekend, 52 people were shot, eight dead. So far this year, Chicago has witnessed over 200 homicides. Chicago-area lawmakers John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford earlier this year pleaded for National Guard troops to secure the city.How’s that gun control thing working out?It’s not rocket science. If you ban law-abiding citizens from owning guns for protection of life, limb and castle, all you have done is disarm the innocents. Criminals, by definition, don’t follow the law, and will arm themselves regardless.Believing in the power of gun bans is accepting the fairy tale that prohibitions against carrying bombs onto airliners will be followed by terrorists.It is also quite telling that the case the high court just decided was brought by an inner-city homeowner tired of getting his home broken into and the intimidation of armed gangs.The Chicago gun ban essentially disarmed him instead of the thugs.That four educated, erudite U.S. Supreme Court justices can’t see the legal and moral harm in that is disturbing.Thank goodness they were outvoted.Barely.