Maryland State Senator Currie Criticizes D.C. Gun Ban

[308Mike]

From NRA-ILA:

Maryland State Senator Ulysses Currie Criticizes D.C. Gun Ban Ruling

Monday, August 18, 2008

Please Contact Senator Currie Today!

In the Friday, August 15 issue of the Maryland Gazette, beleaguered State Senator Ulysses Currie (D-25) criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban was unconstitutional and still believes that the Second Amendment is NOT an individual right.

The Maryland State Senator was quick to criticize the National Rifle Association’s support for the higher court’s ruling, declaring that he has little doubt that court’s decision will make life more dangerous for Washington, D.C.’s communities already suffering from epidemic gun violence. The Senator also suggests that because the Second Amendment was written more than two centuries ago that we should change the Constitution in order to suit his interpretation and ethics. We wonder if the Senator wants to change any other Amendments to the Bill of Rights not to his liking?

To view the article, please click here.

Please contact Senator Currie TODAY and respectfully voice your opposition to his misguided statements. Contact information can be found below.

Senator Ulysses Currie
Phone: (301) 858-3127, (410) 841-3127, 1-800-492-7122, ext. 3127 (toll free)
E-mail: ulysses.currie@senate.state.md.us
Fax: (301) 858-3733, (410) 841-3733

Read this elected GFW's statements:

Friday, Aug. 15, 2008
Ulysses Currie: Court decision on guns blind to consequences
Ulysses Currie | Commentary

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26 struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year old ban on handgun ownership. I am shocked and outraged at the ease with which the court has turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the reality of handgun violence.

As no other court has done, the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in keeping with the conservative National Rifle Association's interpretation that the amendment gives individuals the right to keep loaded handguns in their homes for protection.

The 1976 D.C. handgun ban was enacted as the nation's capital response to increasing gun violence.

More, if you don't mind getting pissed off reading his crap.

It's NOT the court's job to deal with violent criminals using handguns (there's no such thing as 'handgun violence'), unless he believes they should be legislating from the bench and if so, we don't need Congress and they can all go home - including him!

[Spells]

It's NOT the court's job to deal with violent criminals using handguns (there's no such thing as 'handgun violence'), unless he believes they should be legislating from the bench and if so, we don't need Congress and they can all go home - including him!

I'm not sure I understand your position. Ulysses pretty clearly disagrees with them "legislating from the bench," if he doesn't like them overturning laws that a democratically elected legislature passed.

This is kind of weird, too:

We wonder if the Senator wants to change any other Amendments to the Bill of Rights not to his liking?

Super-illogical, unless they also object to everything except the first 10.

[308Mike]

He CLEARLY DOES want them to legislate from the bench. He wrote the editorial, those are HIS words in the editorial. The CONSTITUTIONALITY of a law has nothing to do with CDC studies, rates of crime with handguns (handguns DO NOT cause crime - PEOPLE do), etc. Yet he states in his editorial:

The court tossed aside evidence from countless studies that show that the greater the gun ownership, the greater the gun violence. Studies show that in Japan, where handgun ownership is extremely tight, there were 0.7 handgun deaths per 100,000 people. In the United States, where handgun ownership is more prevalent, the deaths are 13.47 per 100,000 people.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the states with the highest per capita rate of gun ownership have the highest per capita gun death rates. These states are Louisiana, Alaska, Montana, Tennessee and Alabama. In Louisiana, the household gun ownership rate is 45.6 percent and the gun death rate is 19.04 per 100,000. Conversely, in the states with low household gun ownership rates, the gun deaths are low. Massachusetts has a 12.8 percent rate of household gun ownership and a gun death rate of 3.48 per 100,000.

Just because there are fewer handguns someplace does NOT mean there's less crime (see Britain).

[Spells]

He CLEARLY DOES want them to legislate from the bench. He wrote the editorial, those are HIS words in the editorial. The CONSTITUTIONALITY of a law has nothing to do with CDC studies, rates of crime with handguns (handguns DO NOT cause crime - PEOPLE do), etc.

I don't agree with the guy. But part of the reason, in my opinion, that gun rights advocates often lose the argument in places like where this clown is from is because they debate emotionally and not logically. There are two things I read that say, "Hey, that doesn't make sense."

1. SCOTUS overturned the D.C. handgun ban, which was popular (right or wrong) among D.C. residents and put in place by legislators (people who legislate from the legislature) as what they considered a reasonable restriction that a community has a right to have*. SCOTUS said they can't have that law. Currie criticized the decision. He clearly would have preferred a decision that didn't change laws that had been in place for quite a while. So saying he wanted them to "legislate from the bench" seems off when you're talking about him being pissed a law that's been in place for 30+ years gets changed by judges.

2. The NRA-ILA says they wonder what other Amendments Currie takes issue with. Well, nearly everyone thinks other changes to Bill of Rights were pretty good, and you hear a lot of people from the pro-gun rights party advocating other changes (marriage, abortion). Suggesting that somebody may want to see other changes, and that those changes must therefore be bad, is ridiculous and besides the point.

I think Currie is wrong. I think the people who supported the ban are wrong. But I also know that some of the politically charged arguments used by the people in the right are just as emotional as those on the left, and that tends to lead towards people just conforming with whatever popular opinion is where they live.

*I'm assuming in this sentence that we are past the "What part of 'Shall not be infringed' do you not understand' argument." Other similarly phrased Amendments have since had restrictions and exceptions taken and they aren't controversial.

[Rod]

Spells, let's see if I can inject some sense here. Just because a municipality passes a law, that does NOT make the law legal or constitutional. The senator's argument rejects the idea that the supreme court's interpretation of the law (which is their job) is right or correct, he does not use Constitutional arguments but studies. He cherry picks from these studies also so that his view is supported. Other studies have shown that gun laws DON'T work.

Judicial activism is MAKING law from the bench. One of the most egregious examples of this is the flawed doctrine of separation of church and state which is NOT what the Constitution says.

[Spells]

Spells, let's see if I can inject some sense here. Just because a municipality passes a law, that does NOT make the law legal or constitutional.

Legal and constitutional are not the same thing. Laws are legal by definition. The DC gun ban was legal. It was a law passed by lawmakers, people were arrested for violating it, the judicial branch tried and convicted breakers of that law. For 30+ years people went to jail because owning a handgun in D.C. was clearly illegal.

I agree it wasn't constitutional.

Judicial activism is MAKING law from the bench.

No it isn't, and there's no such thing as a judges "making law," unless you're talking about case law precedent, which happens every time a decision is rendered. Judicial activism typically refers to overturning laws as unconstitutional (e.g., Roe v. Wade, Heller v. D.C.), overturning precedent, or ruling against a preferred interpretation of the Constitution. It usually means a judge overturned a law you didn't want overturned.

One of the most egregious examples of this is the flawed doctrine of separation of church and state which is NOT what the Constitution says.

People have been arguing about that since they wrote it. I'm inclined to go with Thomas Jefferson's opinion.

[chrisb]

You mean the letter he wrote to one church, which has been missued since then?

[Spells]

My last on this religious change of subject.

You mean the letter he wrote to one church, which has been missued since then?

No I don't, though that is one of the most unambiguous examples of what he thought. And LOL @ "misused."

We can ignore what he said and look just at examples of behavior. E.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

It's OK to disagree with Thomas Jefferson, but pretending he would have believed in anything other than a wall of separation between church and state does not square with the facts, or his exact unambiguous words, or his behavior. It would be more reasonable just to say "Jefferson was wrong," since plenty of his contemporaries certainly thought exactly that.

[chrisb]

My last on this religious change of subject.

You mean the letter he wrote to one church, which has been missued since then?

No I don't, though that is one of the most unambiguous examples of what he thought. And LOL @ "misused."

Yep, I had a typo. I thought we were past this whole spelling nazi thing.

We can ignore what he said and look just at examples of behavior. E.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

What that has to do with his feelings on the subject at hand is a bit mystifying.

It's OK to disagree with Thomas Jefferson, but pretending he would have believed in anything other than a wall of separation between church and state does not square with the facts, or his exact unambiguous words, or his behavior. It would be more reasonable just to say "Jefferson was wrong," since plenty of his contemporaries certainly thought exactly that.

Somehow I doubt he would have freaked if a school choir sang "Silent Night".

Anyway, Currie is a gun-grabbing asshole, that should be tarred and feathered post haste.

[Spells]

You mean the letter he wrote to one church, which has been missued since then?

No I don't, though that is one of the most unambiguous examples of what he thought. And LOL @ "misused."

Yep, I had a typo. I thought we were past this whole spelling nazi thing.

I was referring to choice of words, not spelling.