The right decision

The Second Amendment of the Constitution, as it applies to Americans' ownership of guns, has always been a subject of widely varying interpretations, but it's hard to argue with the Supreme Court's decision Thursday that killed a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. Do-gooders and grandstanders can talk all they want about the need to get handguns off the streets, but the absolute fact of the matter is that only law-abiding citizens lose their guns when such a law is imposed. Do you really think that the thugs who rule the streets in some D.C. neighborhoods and parts of most other big American cities are going to surrender their (often stolen) guns so that they can comply with a law? Get real. In his dissent Thursday, Justice Stephen Breyer said, "In my view, there simply is no untouchable, constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas." Of course not. People should just cower in their homes, waiting for some crackhead to break in, kill them and steal all their stuff. Now, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is suggesting a plan to require people to register their handguns. Again, this is something that law-abiding people should not be subjected to, and it seems unlikely to me that members of the low-life scum segment of D.C. are going to show up at the police station, saying, "Yes, officer, I would like to register this handgun that I stole in a burglary last month." It may be trite, but there's a lot of truth to the saying, "When guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns."