IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD.  QUOTE THAT – AT 7:32 P.M. ET:  At least that's what you would think, listening to some liberals vent over today's Supreme Court decision extending rights under the Second Amendment – the right to keep and bear arms, expressed as an individual right – to all 50 states.

Some 44 states also have their own equivalent of the Second Amendment, and it's pretty clear that each of us is protected under that amendment.  But you'd never know it from some of the hysterical reaction to the high court's decision.  Mayor Daley of Chicago, who's been unhinged recently, still can't get the hinges back in place.  The Supreme Court decision was specifically aimed at a Chicago gun-ban ordinance.

As expected, Mayor Daley and Chicago's City Council are circling the wagons to defend against an unfavorable decision by the Supreme Court concerning the city's gun ban.

Daley said the city would have in place a new ordinance aimed at making it difficult to purchase and own a gun in Chicago.

"We'll publicly propose a new ordinance very soon," Daley said at an afternoon press conference concerning the gun ban.

"As a city we must continue to stand up ..and fight for a ban on assault weapons .. as well as a crackdown on gun shops," Daley said. "We are a country of laws not a nation of guns."

COMMENT:  Chicago is one of the most violent cities in the United States, and a great deal of the violence occurs in President Obama's old neighborhood.  You'd think the mayor would be more concerned about that, and not about preventing law-abiding gun owners from defending themselves in their own homes.

New York has tackled violent crime quite successfully.  Maybe the mayor of Chicago can take a few lessons.

As a gun owner, I take the subject of guns seriously.  I don't think either side in the gun-control debate has all the wisdom.  And glib slogans, on either side, are no answer either.  That having been said, it's perfectly obvious that changing the culture of certain neighborhods and areas would do far more to reduce gun deaths than any law.  And I'm convinced that much of the advocacy for gun control is based more on trying to avoid tough discussion about culture than on any conviction that laws would do any good.  Politicians act like politicians.  Blame the gun, not the voter.

When I visit a well-run range, I'm always amazed at the attention paid to safety.  I know of no other sport or competititon where safety officers are actually in charge.  And then we turn around and give a driver's license to a 17-year-old, based on a ten-minute driving test at 20 miles an hour, and turn him loose on city streets.  Something of a contradiction there. 

June 28, 2010