WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- The National Rifle Association says it doesn't plan to rest on its laurels after its historic victory in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The NRA came out a big winner in McDonald vs. Chicago, which the Supreme Court decided June 28. The challenge to two Illinois gun bans was financed in part by the Illinois State Rifle Association, the state affiliate of the NRA.
Two years earlier, in District of Columbia vs. Heller, a narrow high court majority ruled 5-4 that an individual had a Second Amendment right to possess firearms, at least in federal enclaves.
In McDonald, the Supreme Court for the first time recognized an individual's right to possess a firearm, particularly for self-defense in the home, across the nation, despite handgun possession bans in Chicago and one of its suburb.
So where does the NRA go from here?
"Back to Chicago," NRA Public Affairs Director Andrew Arulanandam said. "Four days after the historic McDonald decision, Mayor (Richard) Daley and the Chicago City Council came right out and put more draconian restrictions on firearms and self-defense. We have a similar situation that occurred in D.C. after the Heller decision."
"The simple fact is we have politicians in this country who believe that their authority supersedes that of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... The arrogance of these mayors is certainly not lost on the American public," Arulanandam said in a telephone interview.
He said the estimated 20,000 firearms laws in the United States will not disappear -- many contain "behavioral restrictions, something the NRA has already supported. For anyone to assert that this court's decision will gut 20,000 gun laws in America -- that's a very wrong and irresponsible statement."
What about the contention the McDonald decision addresses only self-defense in the home?
"From a realistic standpoint, crime does not occur just when people are in their homes," Arulanandam said. "The sad reality is that we are reminded daily that crime does occur outside the home ... in the car ... picking up dry cleaning, eating in a restaurant, walking down the street. ... We think it is reasonable to allow law-abiding people to have an effective means of defending themselves and their loved ones should they choose to."
Arulanandam said the NRA's legal and other efforts are far from over. "Anywhere we can bring some sanity into the process, anywhere we can enhance the right of law-abiding people to defend themselves … you can bet the NRA will go there and try to correct that injustice."
Arulanandam's comments echoed a joint statement by NRA executives Wayne LaPierre and Chris W. Cox issued immediately after the McDonald decision. The statement said: "The NRA will work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges, defiant city councils or cynical politicians who seek to pervert, reverse or nullify the Supreme Court's McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way."
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence had its own -- somewhat different -- take on the Supreme Court ruling. "The (Supreme) Court rejected the gun lobby's 'any gun, for anybody, anywhere' agenda," the group said on its Web site. The decision "again recognized that the Second Amendment allows for reasonable restrictions on firearms, including who can have them and under what conditions, where they can be taken, and what types of firearms are permissible."
Talk about putting the best face on something.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center and the Brady Campaign, issued a statement saying after the 2008 Supreme Court decision in Heller recognizing an individual's right to bear arms in federal enclaves, "at least 240 legal challenges have been brought to existing gun laws, nearly all of which have been summarily dismissed. There is nothing in (the McDonald) decision that should prevent any state or local government from successfully defending, maintaining or passing, sensible, strong gun laws."
So what did the June 28 ruling in McDonald vs. Chicago actually mean? One thing is certain: For the first time, the Supreme Court said individuals across the country, as opposed to members of a state militia, have the right to keep and bear arms.
The text of the Second Amendment says, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
An Angus Reid Public Opinion Poll indicates 81 percent of Americans agree that text means individuals have the right to keep and bear arms, while only 9 percent disagree. About 46 percent say they want stricter firearm laws and 29 percent would keep existing laws.
About 68 percent said they think every eligible American should have access to handguns, but 67 percent say only police should have access to semi-automatic weapons. Nearly half, 47 percent say, citizens should get a permit to carry a concealed weapon if they meet existing criteria.
The online poll was conducted June-27, before McDonald vs. Chicago was decided by the Supreme Court. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Back to the courts: For much of the country's history, the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, was believed to apply solely to the federal government. Only in relatively modern 14th Amendment jurisprudence, beginning in the late 19th century, have the first 10 constitutional amendments occasionally been applied to the states.
The June 28 McDonald vs. Chicago 5-4 decision recognized individuals have a constitutional right to possess firearms -- at least for protection in the home -- across the nation.
In the new ruling, the justices used the 14th Amendment, as the guarantor of the Bill of Rights, as a bridge to enforcing the Second Amendment on the states themselves. The ruling said in part, "The 14th Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the states."
A plurality of four justices concluded the 14h Amendment's "due process" guarantee "incorporates" the individual's right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.
Sounds fairly broad. But at least one dissenter, retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, indicated he thought the ruling was narrow. "Thankfully, the Second Amendment right identified in (the District of Columbia decision) and its newly minted 14th Amendment analogue are limited, at least for now, to the home," Stevens said.
Despite the ruling -- whatever it ultimately means -- the fight over gun control laws appears far from over.
Chicago, one of the losing parties in the McDonald case, defiantly enacted a series of new restrictions that may or may not survive future court challenge.
The new law requires handgun owners to attend a training class, get a three-year $100 city permit and register those weapons at $15 apiece, the Chicago Tribune reported. Only one new handgun can be registered each month.
And though the weapons are allowed in homes, they are not allowed in garages, on front porches or in yards, and only one handgun can be kept ready to fire, the Tribune said. Gun stores are banned within the city limits.
Even gun-friendly West Virginia has restrictions.
In the state capital of Charleston, city officials said they didn't expect local laws to be affected by the Supreme Court decision.
One Charleston ordinance bans guns in City Hall and on city property while a second requires a three-day waiting period for buying a gun and purchasers cannot buy more than one a month.
City Council President Tom Lane told The Charleston Gazette handgun dealers also are required to have a license allowing them to sell weapons.
Lane said the restrictions are from a 1993 ordinance approved by the Charleston City Council 14-12. Lane sponsored and drafted the ordinance.
The 1993 law was designed to end a bustling drugs-for-guns market in Charleston in the 1980s and 1990s, the Gazette reported. Big city drug dealers were coming to Charleston and buying large numbers of cheap handguns for resale in the big cities.
"You could come down to Charleston, buy a gun for $25 or $50 and sell it in New York for $500," Lane told the newspaper; sometimes drug dealers would trade cheap big city drugs for cheap West Virginia guns.
Lane told the Gazette the two Supreme Court rulings still allow local governments to enact "reasonable" restrictions on guns.
"The next round will be cases that will test what is reasonable," he said.
