Charlotte, NC –-(Ammoland.com)- This week, the Wednesday Journal unintentionally gave flawless advice to the Second Amendment’s supporters about who to vote for in this year’s presidential election, and why.
The little newspaper hails from Oak Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that banned handgun sales in 1977. For the record, from 1977 to 1984, Oak Park’s murder rate rose 58 percent, while nationally, the murder rate of suburban jurisdictions dropped 13 percent. So, in 1984, Oak Park’s local officials did what all ideologues do when their judgment proves flawed: they doubled down, banning handgun possession altogether.
In 2010, the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald v. Chicago, which built upon its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, struck down Oak Park’s ban along with Chicago’s. And that’s what brought the Wednesday Journal’s editorial writer to the subject of the presidential election, if indirectly.
“The moment will come again when it is right for Oak Park to join a wider battle to eliminate the scourge of handgun violence in our country,” the editorial said. But “[t]he highest court in the land, now tucked neatly in the pocket of the NRA, is not going to allow any substantive handgun restrictions. . . . We need to wait for, and work for, the tide to turn, for new Supreme Court members to arrive.”
We thank the Wednesday Journal for reminding us that in November, Americans will be voting for whether they want a Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution honestly or one dominated by ideologues who view the nation’s founding document as an obstacle to moving —as the new Obama-Biden slogan-with-a-history says – “Forward.”
About NRA-ILA
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
