Those who are confident that Donald Trump can’t be elected President might want to contact Hillary Clinton and advise another one of her well-timed policy position reversals. She has aligned herself with those who want nothing less than to eliminate the right of Americans to own guns and be able to defend themselves, and that means she is spitting into the gale of core American values and culture.

And the Constitution, of course.

A clear-thinking and principled United States District Court judge just condemned a sinister anti-gun law that embodies the anti- Second Amendment animus. Judge Richard J. Leon’s 46-page ruling in United States District Court declared illegal a law that gave the police the discretion to grant concealed-carry licenses only to those with “good reason” to do so, such as a specific and reasonable fear of attack  or other reasons, such as having a job in which they carried large amounts of cash or valuables. A citizen wishing to carry a pistol must demonstrate “a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community as supported by evidence of specific threats or previous attacks that demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life,” the law says.

Wrong. A citizen wishing to carry a gun should only have to show that he or she is a law abiding citizen, and that he or she is trained in gun safety and how to use a firearm.

Judge Leon wrote, “Given the textual and historical evidence, I have little trouble concluding that under its original meaning the Second Amendment protects a right to carry arms for self-defense in public…Given that the Second Amendment’s central purpose is self-defense and that this need arises more frequently in public, it logically follows that the right to carry arms for self-defense in public lies at the very heart of the Second Amendment.”

It also follows that the government deigning to grant the Constitutional right to those few individuals it deems worthy is a direct Second Amendment breach. It is frankly frightening that other judges have ruled differently. If ever citizen has a Constitutionally protected right, a law cannot say that the right only applies to you if the government says so. Laws restricting rights must describe legitimate circumstances that justify the restriction, not presume a restriction on everyone except a sufficiently terrified few. It is up to me to decide whether I need a gun, not D.C.’s police chief. Continue reading →