Gun permits? We don't need no steenking gun permits.

[ptgustan]

Recycled Poster

LaShawn Barber seems happy to report that the Supreme Court's decision in the Heller case, affirming that the "right to keep and bear arms" is a fundamental personal right. She has a flashing light on her post. Then why does LaShawn go on to state that the poor, infringed upon until this day, denizens of DC, "now need to push for concealed carry laws"? To my ear, this sounds idiotic. They don't need permits. No American citizen needs a permit.
Today's decision means that going armed isn't a privilege, like driving a car on the public roads. Its a fundamental right. You don't need any kind of permit to exercise your right to self defense. The majority opinion gives using a firearm to effect self-defense in the home as an example, but neither the 2nd Amendment nor today's decision limit self defense to the home.

The Second Amendment reads, in pertinent part, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" Its clear to me that to allow prior restraint of a fundamental right, as with a permit system, is unconstitutional. The Second Amendment rights now enjoy the same status as the right to free speech. No prior restraint without a truly compelling state interest.
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I don't need a permit to publish my ideas and views here. I don't need one to provide for my self-defense by bearing arms.
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Update: Commenter Trish at LaShawn Barber's blog reminds us that neither the US Constitution nor the Heller decision grant us the right to keep and bear arms. Our fundamental, inalienable rights come from God, our Constitution only enshrines them.

[ptgustan]

You are right about zero. Its a mighty big number. I know the drill: you need to get a permit to shout your ideas through a bullhorn, for example. The bullhorn law is only on the books because some folks thought it would force otherwise irresponsible cats to be responsible. Like all laws, it is pure 'feel good'. There is no effective 'prior restraint' to carrying weapons with impunity, or to anything else you can think of that responsible, decent folks don't want to do or see done.. Them as will do it, will do it, regardless of any sensible laws or well intentioned 'lines' drawn. Its this truth that makes grown men and women afraid of life itself, and in that fear, willing to surrender their liberties to laws and states in the unfulfillable hope that government can make men good.

I'm a realist. We were only one vote away from having the shrine of the Bill of Rights torn down yesterday. If they had voted the other way, it wouldn't have made one iota of difference to my understanding of my rights and liberties. I don't need a shrine, either. I'm a free man first and foremost. I'll stay that way no matter what.

[wdporter]

I'm with you in principle, but I'm not sure that ZERO gun regulations and ZERO licensing for carrying firearms is necessarily a good idea. There is a line to be drawn, and it's OBVIOUSLY not on the side of banning, but I'm not convinced that ZERO gun laws is where to draw it either.

Also, the fundamental, inalienable rights argument is not extremely Constitutionally sound. This language is much more aligned with the Declaration of Independence. But you're right about the enshrining, and those "inalienable rights" that ARE enshrined in the Constitution should be treated as such, and it's no accident the right to keep and bear arms was the 2nd Amendment, and that should inform its importance.

So you have a right to free speech, religion, assembly, etc....and then you have the right to have the means to defend that right. Amen.