Ulysses Currie: Court decision on guns blind to consequences

As no other court has done, the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in keeping with the conservative National Rifle Association's interpretation that the amendment gives individuals the right to keep loaded handguns in their homes for protection.

The 1976 D.C. handgun ban was enacted as the nation's capital response to increasing gun violence.

This decision erases years of lower court decisions to the contrary on the Second Amendment. It also contradicts the 1939 Supreme Court's decision, which tied gun possession to militia service. The Second Amendment states, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." No court has ever construed the Second Amendment to mean individuals are guaranteed "the right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation," as stated by Justice Antonin Scalia.

The Second Amendment was written more than two centuries ago. The framers of the Constitution allowed for constitutional changes and additions through referendum. They wisely knew that they could not anticipate future national changes that might make constitutional revision and change necessary to maintain the document's relevance to the times. Indeed, the framers could not anticipate ravages of urban crime and poverty or broken families and drug addiction or the interstate flow and glut of illegal handguns.

They could not have anticipated gun dealers who sell guns to shadow purchasers who pass the weapons on to people prohibited from buying guns. In 2000, I sponsored legislation to change the penalty for shadow gun purchases from a misdemeanor to a felony.

We do not need to anticipate these negative changes to our communities. We live with them.

The court tossed aside evidence from countless studies that show that the greater the gun ownership, the greater the gun violence. Studies show that in Japan, where handgun ownership is extremely tight, there were 0.7 handgun deaths per 100,000 people. In the United States, where handgun ownership is more prevalent, the deaths are 13.47 per 100,000 people.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the states with the highest per capita rate of gun ownership have the highest per capita gun death rates. These states are Louisiana, Alaska, Montana, Tennessee and Alabama. In Louisiana, the household gun ownership rate is 45.6 percent and the gun death rate is 19.04 per 100,000. Conversely, in the states with low household gun ownership rates, the gun deaths are low. Massachusetts has a 12.8 percent rate of household gun ownership and a gun death rate of 3.48 per 100,000.

The court made clear that its ruling does not endanger existing more limited gun laws that restrict the carrying of concealed weapons, regulate gun sales, prohibit unusually dangerous firearms or that ban gun possession by felons or the mentally disabled. However, the court has left the door open for gun rights advocates to successfully challenge these more limited gun control laws. The National Rifle Association has lost no time in announcing plans to file lawsuits aimed at striking down more limited gun control laws in various states.

I have little doubt that the court decision will make life more dangerous for communities, already suffering from an epidemic of gun violence. The equation is simple. As Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said, "More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lend to more handgun violence." I couldn't agree more.

Ulysses Currie, a Democrat from Forestville, represents District 25 in the state Senate, where he also serves as chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee.