Sacramento joins battle against suit attacking Chicago gun controls

[spin]

Published: Monday, Dec. 28, 2009

The city of Sacramento regulates handguns and ammunition, and the City Council is willing to go to court to continue that role.

It voted recently to join other cities arguing in support of the city of Chicago, whose gun control ordinance is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

***snip***

Sacramento's brief – in conjunction with other cities – is expected to argue that state and local governments are exercising one of their core police powers by regulating possession and use of firearms.

Other cities invited to join in the friend of the court brief include Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Trenton, N.J.

***snip***

McCarty said that if the Supreme Court decision goes "in the wrong direction, it could threaten the ability of cities like Sacramento to do exactly what we're doing, and that is making our streets safer."
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2423529.html

[paulsby]

1. it's not a police power

to violate the constitution

i would hope (but not expect) most people to understand this.

even if gun control made the "streets safer", you can't make the streets safer by violating the constitution

i can think of tons of things that would make the streets safer, none of which would be constitutional

not that i believe for a second that gun control DOES make the streets safer

[bossy22]

2. sorry to tell these guys

but it probably will go in the "wrong direction" for them....i dont think many people who follow the SCOTUS really think chicago's ban has a chance

[taurus145]

3. Just another group of idiots who think

the Constitution only matters when they want it to.

[slackmaster]

4. Sacramento's gun control ordinances are illegal and would not stand a court challenge

All that is needed is someone with standing and the ability to finance a lawsuit.

[spin]

5. The problem with "gun control" is that we impose it on honest citizens...

criminals, by definition, do not obey laws. They support gun control as it makes their occupations safer.

If we focused our efforts on taking guns from criminals, we could actually accomplish something. All too often when a criminal is caught carrying a firearm, the charge is plea bargained away.

Plea bargaining is a process whereby the defense attorney negotiates with the district attorney to obtain the best possible plea for his client. Occasionally, the judge may be involved in the plea negotiation by speaking to the attorneys in an "in chambers" conference. The typical result of the plea bargain is an agreement for you to plead guilty to a particular charge or set of charges in exchange for a set of terms, such as agreeing to receive a specific sentence or reduced charges in exchange for information about others who may be involved in the incident.

Plea bargains are often good, but of course some are not. You NEVER have to accept an offered plea bargain. Even after entering a plea, you can sometimes make a motion to withdraw the plea and go forward with the defense of your case.

This process may include charging the defendant with a lesser charge, or agreeing to a lesser punishment for the same charge. Sometimes, the prosecution will drop counts in exchange for something they value.

For example, if a defendant is charged with felony assault and carrying a concealed weapon, a plea bargain may result in the prosecution agreeing to drop the concealed weapon charge and lower the felony assault to a misdemeanor assault in exchange for a guilty plea, which makes their job easier than if you pleaded not guilty and took the case to trial. emphasis added
http://www.uniteddefensegroup.com/understanding_plea_ba...

So the individual in the example above gets a light charge and walks through the revolving door of justice. Eventually, he murders someone when committing a crime. The gun grabbers get upset and scream for more gun control against honest citizens. More "feel good" laws are considered or passed. Incrementally the RKBA is eroded away with little effect on the crime rate.

Obviously the average honest citizen is not the problem. When you use a fire extinguisher to put out a fire, you don't point it at the flames - you point it at the base of the fire. Why then do we focus gun control on people who are not the problem? I can think of several reasons:

1) Politicians hope that the "feel good" laws will draw votes from an emotional "liberal" base.

2) Politicians also realize that severe sentences for a criminal caught carrying an illegal weapon involve expensive court time and even more expensive jail time. Our prisons are full of non violent offenders incarcerated for crimes such as illegal use of drugs.

TYPE OF OFFENSE (Sentenced Pop. Only) - Federal Prisoners

Drug Offenses 59.6%

Robbery 9.8%

Property Offenses 5.5%

Extortion, Fraud, Bribery 6.8%

Violent Offenses 2.7%

Firearms, Explosives, Arson 8.6%

White Collar 1.0%

Immigration 2.8%

Courts or Corrections 0.8%

National Security 0.1%

Continuing Criminal Enterprise 0.8%

Miscellaneous 1.5%

http://druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/library/basicfax17.htm emphasis added

Upon entering the new millennium, our nation has endured the most punishing years in our people's history. More people began a prison or a jail term in the United States in the last 20 years than any other decades on record. There are now over two million incarcerated in the country often called "The Land of the Free."

It is no secret that punitive drug laws fuel this terrible rush to imprisonment. By studying drug law convictions over the past twenty years, researchers have produced alarming figures. The number of people sent to jail or prison for drug law violations increased more than tenfold. One in four prisoners in the United States is serving time for a drug law violation. In the federal system, these people make up 55% of the prison population.
http://www.november.org/thewall/wall/wall.html

3) Some politicians have little understanding of the issue and firmly believe that they can disarm this country through small incremental steps. These politicians may well be well meaning and trying to accomplish a noble task, but they are sadly uninformed and naive.

4)Some politicians firmly believe that the average citizen, especially "those people" are not capable of responsibly owning firearms. They see gun control as a method of controlling minorities and preserving power for the more "intelligent" and deserving class mainly composed of rich and influential members of society. Gun control has racist roots.

5) Some politicians serve corporate masters who fear that eventually the unwashed underclass will eventually wise up to the fact that this is a country of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation. (Witness the heathcare debate.) Better that this underclass has little or no access to firearms.

Gun control should focus on illegal firearms in the hands of criminals. Certain drugs should be legalized and profits and taxes from their sales should be directed toward drug rehab. Drug gangs should be targeted as terrorist organizations (which they are).

It's not rocket science people. The average gun owner is not a serious danger by any means. He owns his firearms not because of a fetish, but because they are useful tools for hunting, target shooting and self defense. This country started in the bloodshed of a revolutionary war and the fact that our citizens can own firearms is a very liberal and progressive idea that has survived through our history. The fact that there are 300 million firearms in this country is a deterrent to the rich and wealthy and the corporations they run from treating us as mere slaves or serfs in a feudal form of government where only the knights and the privileged are armed.

Still the big corporations get their way. They just have to be a little more subtle. Again, look at the healthcare debate. We pay twice as much for inferior healthcare then most other leading nations. Expect to pay three times as much in the future.

[Euromutt]

6. Haven't they heard of pre-emption statutes?

Leaving aside constitutional issues, at both the federal and state level, states like California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin have preemption statutes. Even in the event that the SCOTUS rules that the 14th and 2nd Amendments do not prohibit local governments from imposing gun control ordinances, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Seattle and Milwaukee would still be prohibited from doing so by state law. That makes all the blather about local authority just that: blather; they already don't have that authority, which means that in this case, they're just pissing in the wind.