Mark Souder and Second Amendment Silliness

In most parts of the country, most people probably didn't pay much attention to this item. Indiana congressman Mark Souder has taken it upon himself to protect citizens of the District of Columbia from City Council's desire to allow handgun possession only with restrictions. The city wants to require registration, wants to ban certain kinds of weapons, and wants to require that guns kept in the home must be disabled except when there's a reasonable fear that they're needed for self-defense. "Their intent is basically to try to get around the court ruling," says Souder, and so his proposed emergency legislation would strike all of DC's gun restrictions.

As it happens, the Supreme Court opinion grants that there's no unfettered right to own guns. Just what the constitutionally acceptable limits might be is something that will get hammered out in court cases over the years. So why the need for an act of congress?

Souder offers a bizarre and, frankly, offensive justification. According to him, the proposed new DC gun laws deprive people of their civil rights. The regulations proposed by the Council "would be like certain so-called Jim Crow laws in the South," says Souder. "If you try to deprive people of their civil rights, and there is no other way to do it, then legislation is necessary." (You can hear the sound bite here .) I rather suspect that the majority black citizenry of Washington doesn't see sins against the "right" to have a loaded, unlocked, unregistered 30-round firearm in one's home as being in the same category as the old Jim Crow laws.

In any case, one wonders: perhaps the Council's proposals will pass constitutional muster; perhaps they won't. It's a certainty that they'll be challenged and that the courts will weigh in to settle the matter of just how far this "civil right" extends. The idea that legislation is "necessary" at this point doesn't have much to be said for it. But speaking of civil rights -- Souder clearly has no problem at all following in the fine old tradition of substituting Congress's judgment for the judgment of DC's own elected representatives, even though the citizens of the District don't have voting right in Congress, and even though Congress couldn't get away with anything similar if it were South Bend in the cross-hairs.