A Journalistic Lie About Gun Rights

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's June 27th editorial ("A right, but limited"; Please see below) as to the Supreme Court's confirming the rights of individual citizens to keep and bear arms continues that paper's campaign to unreasonably limit (If not destroy) that right.

Although editors have the right to hold that position, I do wonder if they have a like right to publish outright lies in such editorials, TO WIT: The Wisconsin Legislature did NOT have objections to lifting our State Supreme Court's ban on carrying concealed weapons, having twice sent enabling legislation to the Governor who, by his singular vetoes, overturned the will of the People in enacting Article-I, Section-25 of Wisconsin's Constitution and the Legislative Acts which would have enforced-and-enabled that Section by a rational system of licensing adult, sane and law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons.




Editorial: A right, but limited
The Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment ruling Thursday doesn’t mean that everyone should own a gun.
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: June 26, 2008

If Milwaukee’s gun violence demonstrates anything, it is that an individual right to bear arms does not mean that everyone can be trusted with a gun.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court's gun ruling Thursday - in the case of an overly broad ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. - agrees. While spelling out that the Second Amendment provides for an individual right to own a gun for self-defense, the court, in a 5-4 ruling, also acknowledges leeway to enact reasonable restrictions.

Congress and the Wisconsin Legislature must continue crafting legislation that balances gun rights with the public's right to be safe from guns. For instance, by our reading, this ruling does not prevent legislatures from requiring all sales to go through licensed dealers, who are, in turn, required to do background checks to stop felons and others from owning guns. And law enforcement continues to need access to data that will allow it to trace gun ownership.

Moreover, there appears to be nothing in the ruling that would force the state Legislature to reverse its objections to lifting the ban on concealed weapons.

A majority of gun owners - Wisconsin's many hunters, for instance - use their weapons responsibly. Sadly, far too many people use guns in violent crimes. Last year, Milwaukee reported 84 firearm-related homicides, not to mention the hundreds of people who were shot but survived.

This ruling could well prompt challenges to existing gun laws, but we are confident that most reasonable laws will pass constitutional muster. And any future law requiring sales go through licensed dealers will as well.

Yes, the court also held unconstitutional any requirement that shotguns and rifles be kept disassembled, unloaded or fitted with a trigger lock. OK, it follows that if firearms can be kept for self-defense, making them inoperable for that purpose makes no sense. Still, gun owners must be held liable if they negligently allow their guns to be used carelessly.

In the context of safe guns, more efforts should be placed in "smart gun" technology. Such guns, which will not fire unless used by an authorized individual, can reduce the number of accidental shootings.
This ruling makes efforts to curtail gun violence with reasonable restrictions even more important