Second Amendment

Mayor Mike is coming for your guns, but not even this administration -- and this Congress -- is naive enough to play along. Bloomberg appealed to Congress this week to address what is oddly being called the "terror gap," but which supporters of Second Amendment rights better describe as "secret government lists." The question is this: Should U.S. citizens on terror watch lists be allowed to purchase firearms? The answer from Congress is yes (though the Huffington Post and the New York Times would have you believe it's just Republicans obstructing Bloomberg's "common sense" proposal).

A little more than three years ago, Seung-Hui Cho entered a building at Virginia Tech, chained the doors shut and began shooting. He killed 32 people--the deadliest school shooting in United States history. The tragedy sparked a nationwide review of campus safety measures. Colleges began coordinating with local police to update old and outdated emergency policies. But the shooting also caused many students, dismayed by the poor emergency response by Virginia Tech administrators and police, to start looking toward ensuring their own safety. A movement was born to roll back long-standing handgun bans at colleges, led by the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in McDonald v. Chicago -- the case challenging Chicago's handgun ban. Judging from the transcripts, it looks like a majority of justices favor applying the Second Amendment to the states. SCOTUSblog has an extended analysis of the day's proceedings:

He's perhaps an unlikely plaintiff in a challenge to Chicago's hand gun ban before the Supreme Court this week, but the 76-year-old South Side Democrat says his right to defend himself isn't about party.

"I live and think like a human being, concerned for others as I am myself," he told Fox News.