Second Amendment

WASHINGTON -- It used to be that the effectiveness of a strong lobby was measured by its ability to work its will behind the scenes, without the general public seeing the footprints. But that certainly doesn't describe the National Rifle Association (NRA) this year.The organization has been on the defensive ever since the Oklahoma City bombing and the consequent spotlight on armed militias, from which the NRA has tried to separate itself in the public mind. Stories about its finances and internal power struggles also have abounded.

Now that our troops in Somalia are helping to clear the gunmen from the streets of Mogadishu, can't we Americans here at home do something to lift the gun terror from our schools, playgrounds, parking lots, malls, post offices, housing projects, highways and the grim reaches of our cities where the police must risk their lives to uphold the law?Of course we can. What we have to do now is to free ourselves from one of the great hoaxes of the 20th century.This mighty country stands paralyzed in the face of an ever-spreading plague of guns.

CHANTILLY, Va. -- Melinda Gierisch is under siege. First, CBS needs footage of her at target practice. A conservative Internet site wants to chat about a new pro-gun group. So do two separate French television crews. As she races to meet a deadline at work, her phone won't stop ringing with reporters hoping to talk about why she packs a pistol. All this media, all these deadlines, all this attention. It's stressing her out. She heads for the firing range. "I've got to blow off some steam," she says, before squeezing off a few rounds.

In March, for the first time in the nation's history, a federal appeals court struck down a gun-control law on Second Amendment grounds. Only a few decades ago, the decision would have been unimaginable. There used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists - thanks largely to the work over the past 20 years of several leading liberal law professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns.

WESTMINSTER - They came in the early morning yesterday, solemnly pledged their allegiance to the flag, and as the sun began to peek through clouds they sang of dawn's early light, of gleaming twilights and of America's freedom. Then they awarded guns to two elderly men. About 30 people were there, on the grounds of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 467, for the Carroll County Republican Central Committee's second raffle for firearms. Mired in much controversy over the wisdom of a political organization handing out firearms, about 2,000 tickets were sold at $5 apiece, according to Scott Hollenbeck, a spokesman for the committee.

WASHINGTON -- For years, Dick Heller lived across the street from a crime-ridden public housing project where the top drug dealer marked the close of business every morning at 2 o'clock by emptying his 9 mm pistol into the air. Tucked in bed below the windowsill of his brick rowhouse in Southeast Washington, Heller tried to assure himself that the brick walls would protect him as he slept.

When the U.S. Supreme Court declared a portion of the Brady Bill unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment last year, Justice Clarence Thomas concurred, but questioned whether the federal handgun law might also run afoul of the Second Amendment, a question the court had not been asked to decide."

Last month, I received emails from two people I know but who don't know each other: one a close friend and Second Amendment supporter, and the other a regular reader who sends me news items she believes the "liberal media" are willfully suppressing. Each sent me a story link about recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchases of huge stockpiles of ammunition, including hollow-point bullets. A Forbes.com column penned by Larry Bell, replete with conspiratorial overtones, suggested that the Obama administration is up-arming itself while trying to disarm the citizenry.

Washington. Two staggering facts about today's America are the carnage that is a consequence of virtually uncontrolled private ownership of guns, and Americans' toleration of that carnage.Class, not racial, bias explains toleration of scandals such as this: More teen-age males die from gun-fire than from all natural causes combined, and a black male teen-ager is 11 times more likely than a white counterpart to be killed by a bullet.If sons of the confident, assertive, articulate middle class, regardless of race, were dying in such epidemic numbers, gun control would be considered a national imperative.

Anne Arundel County Executive Laura Neuman said Tuesday that she'll sign a bill legalizing the use of Tasers and stun guns in the county. The County Council passed the bill on a 4-3 vote Monday night. Previously, only police officers could use the devices in Anne Arundel. In a statement, Neuman said she thinks Tasers are a "lawful option for self-protection" under the Second Amendment. She also drew on her experience as a rape survivor, and said she hoped people might be able to use Tasers in self-defense.