This week, John R. Lott, Jr. of the Crime Prevention Research Center debates John E. Rosenthal of Stop Handgun Violence on whether individual gun ownership is actually at issue in this election. We hope you enjoy this timely exchange.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek opinion editor.
He’s right. Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has promised to use executive orders to ban guns, and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has promised to make former Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) his gun czar.
It is well-settled law that private firearm ownership is a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, in the 2008 Supreme Court case of D.C. v. Heller, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the 5-4 Court majority that “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Scalia further stated that these limitations allow states to enact reasonable gun laws regarding the sale and ownership of firearms in order to reduce gun access to legally prohibited individuals, such as felons, domestic abusers, terrorists, adjudicated mentally ill individuals and children—and to do so without trampling anyone’s constitutional rights. Consequently, enacting gun safety laws, such as universal background checks, military-style assault weapon and large-capacity magazine bans, police discretion for licensing and consumer safety manufacturing regulations have been considered reasonable and legal by the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as lower state and federal courts.
