PR Newswire - This morning the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the consequential case McDonald v. City of Chicago, in which four Chicago citizens challenged the city's virtual ban on handguns. This decision will have enormous repercussions on the rights of U.S. states and cities to regulate possession of defensive weapons, according to Bill Carns, host of Second Amendment Radio, a nationally syndicated radio show dedicated to Second Amendment protection, and one of the few qualified Five-Weapons Defensive Range Masters in the country.
Carns served as Lead Range Master for the Department of Defense Special Programs Division and is a Department of Defense qualified small arms instructor.
Carns said today's decision upholds the Second Amendment as a fundamental right comparable to the right of free speech.
"Today was a win for all Americans," he said. "This landmark decision guarantees that the public servants we elect into office can never again disarm those who truly hold the ultimate power throughout this great nation--the Citizens of the United States. . . . The decision demonstrates that the integrity of the United States Constitution and the 'inalienable rights' recognized in the Declaration of Independence have not been forgotten by the majority of the honorable Justices on the Supreme Court."
Carns argues that the ban on handgun possession in Chicago during the mid-1980s left roughly 2.9 million disarmed citizens vulnerable to crime, and the incidence of gun murders soared.
"No American should allow their rights to be railroaded and their personal safety jeopardized in the process," he said.
In McDonald, the plaintiffs, including Otis McDonald, an elderly Chicago citizen seeking to protect himself from hoodlums in his neighborhood, filed suit the day after the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that case the Court ruled that Washington, D.C. gun control laws effectively banning possession of handguns violated the Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms for self-defense.
Carns said after Heller, the District of Columbia could not ban possession of handguns at home, and McDonald v. Chicago questioned whether the same restriction applies outside of Federal territories.
Carns sees today's ruling as a powerful statement that the government does not have the ultimate authority to legislate citizens' rights.
Edith Shain, the nurse kissed in the famous World War II Times Square photo died in Los Angeles on Sunday June 20, 2010 California. Ms. Shain was a Registered Nurse, kindergarten teacher, public access cable television producer who became a world famous figure following her participation in the 50th Anniversary of V-J Day in August of 1995.
In August of 1945 she was photographed by famed photographer Alfred Eisenstadt while kissing a jubilant U.S. Sailor in Times Square, in celebration of the end of World War II. Her son Michael Shain described the photo as having captured "an epic moment in American history, one that inspired patriotism, unity, joy and a spontaneous national pride in victoriously ending the war."
