Gun Rights Group Fights to Arm Abusers

The Supreme Court has ruled that the 2nd Amendment individual right to own a gun (as they ruled two years ago) applies to the states as well as the federal government via the 14th Amendment. Now, one of the first laws gun rights advocates said they want to challenge is the federal law that says anyone convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor can’t own a gun. Of all the laws they think should go, the gun rights advocates are most concerned about arming abusive husbands? Of course they are. From NPR:

TOTENBERG: Herb Titus of the Gun Owners of America sees things differently. The first priority of his group right now, he says, is to invalidate a federal law that bans the sale of guns to anyone convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor.

Mr. TITUS: I believe that the prohibition against people who’ve been convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence will probably be the area of litigation down the road.

It speaks volumes that a gun rights group wants to arm men who’ve beaten their wives. Of course, it also shows their absolute stupidity. Yesterday’s ruling dealt with state regulations. The ban on ownership of guns by abusive assholes is a federal law. Not to mention that that federal law was UPHELD by the Supreme Court in United States v. Hayes AFTER they held in 2008 that the right to bear arms was an individual right.

Gun Rights advocates think yesterday’s decision opens the door to have the Supreme Court reconsider the federal law. Why? Because….. uh…… why again? Yesterday’s decision does nothing to alter the legal landscape in terms of the federal law keeping guns out of the hands of abusers. In fact, in the Hayes decision in 2009 the Supreme Court, while not addressing the right to bear arms, specifically found that the law should be broadly interpreted because states often convicted abusers under battery laws, not domestic abuse laws. The Court held that if the federal law was strictly interpreted it would be dead in nearly two-thirds of the states. Hell, even Roberts, in writing a dissenting opinion, didn’t bring up an individual’s rights to bear arms. Can you imagine if the Supreme Court had ruled that the individual right to bear arms applied to the states by throwing out a domestic violence law? They may be out of touch in an ivory tower but they’re not that tone deaf.

I know I’m a crazy women’s lib, pro-choice Republican attorney white woman (really) but what the f*** is going on these days? What kind of a world do we live in where a man dressed up as a gun rights advocate touting the desire to overturn laws that protect domestic violence vicitms gets all of the press? This country needs an enema!