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Supreme Court Gun Ruling Doesn’t Block Proposed Controls
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| Contributor | WesternDem |
| Last Edited | WesternDem Dec 18, 2012 01:42pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | ADAM LIPTAK |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Tuesday, December 18, 2012 07:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | WASHINGTON — Despite the sweeping language of a 2008 Supreme Court decision that struck down parts of the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control law, the decision appears perfectly consistent with many of the policy options being discussed after the shootings in Newtown, Conn.
Legal expert say, the decision in the case, District of Columbia v. Heller, has been of mainly symbolic importance so far. There have been more than 500 challenges to gun laws and gun prosecutions since Heller was decided, and vanishingly few of them have succeeded.
The courts have upheld federal laws banning gun ownership by people convicted of felonies and some misdemeanors, by illegal immigrants and by drug addicts. They have upheld laws making it illegal to carry guns near schools or in post offices. They have upheld laws concerning unregistered weapons. And they have upheld laws banning machine guns and sawed-off shotguns.
Nor does Heller impose any major hurdles to many of the most common legislative proposals in the wake of the Newtown shootings, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles and the author of “Gun Fight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.” Among the responses that Heller allows, he said, are better background checks, enhanced mental health reporting and a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips. |
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