It’s kind of sad to me that we’re all rather dumbstruck that a federal circuit court actually ruled that the constitution means what it plainly says to anyone with a basic grasp of the language. It would be nice if this wasn’t such, I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise and a shock, it should be expected.
But in a world where judges view that they should increasingly defer to the legislative bodies, and where conservatives rally against “judicial activism” (at least the activism they don’t like), and liberals think that the commerce clause should mean Congress has the power to legislate against assault, I guess we have to take the occasional acts of sanity from the federal courts with the celebratory tone that such rare and welcome acts justly warrant.
The best part about it, of course, is the reaction of DC Mayor Adrian Fenty. He says that the ruling “flies in the face of laws that have helped decrease gun violence” (see the story at FoxNews), nevermind that his city’s some of the highest crime rates in the country. All those laws aren’t doing much to decrease gun violence.
Everything I’ve ever read says violent crime in DC is now far worse. That is pretty unbelievable to say something like that.