Supreme Decision Due on D.C. Handgun Ban

The Supreme Court’s D.C. gun-ban ruling is due soon.

Dave Kopel writes,

The Brady Campaign’s preemptive announcement of defeat in District of Columbia v. Heller contains an interesting bit of spin:

But given that McCain stood by his support for closing “the gun-show loophole” during a recent speech to the N.R.A., the Brady Campaign president hopes that new gun restrictions can make headway regardless of who wins in November.

“For John McCain to be the political candidate of the NRA shows how things have changed,” Helmke said.

Plus ca “change,” plus c’est la meme chose. In 2000, the NRA endorsed Texas Governor George W. Bush, who supported a similar provision regarding gun shows. Accordingly, the NRA’s endorsement of McCain is not good evidence that gun control is more popular in 2008 than it was in 2000.

Of course, in my book this speaks well neither of McCain nor of the NRA.

But the important part is that the Brady Campaign expects to lose. ABC reports:

The nation’s leading gun control group filed a “friend of the court” brief back in January defending the gun ban in Washington, D.C. But with the Supreme Court poised to hand down a potentially landmark decision in the case, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence fully expects to lose.

“We’ve lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means,” campaign president Paul Helmke told ABC News. “Seventy-five percent of the public thinks it’s an individual right. Why are we arguing a theory anymore? We are concerned about what we can do practically.”

In other words, the goal of the Brady Campaign now is to restrict the “individual right” to own a gun as severely as possible.