Supreme Court To Chicago On Gun Control: Go To Heller!

Abstract

Gun Control. For or against, you are going to have a fight on your hands. But where is this fight to take place? Is it going to be on the village greens of Lexington and Concord? On the fields of Gettysburg? The dirt streets of Tombstone, leading on down to the O.K. Corral? Maybe at the base of the walls of the Alamo, down in San Antonio. Possibly on the campus of Kent State, or even at the now reserved setting of a school board meeting in Columbine. There are some mean streets in Ourtown, U.S.A. From New York City, to Washington D.C., and on to Chicago, where historic mob gun battles took place in the Capone Prohibition days, guns continue to blaze away. But what to do about it? Should we outlaw guns altogether? Or, as the saying goes, if we outlaw guns, will only outlaws have guns? Do we listen to Michael Moore, or the N.R.A.? Where can we find some common ground, and, maybe some answers? The United States Supreme Court has already heard oral arguments on the City Of Chicago’s ban on handguns, and its decision is imminent. What will be the outcome, and where will the Court go to seek a majority, if not a consensus? The answer may be a not so long look back, to the Court’s decision in District Of Columbia v. Heller (1), decided in June of 2008.