By Roger McKinney

rmckinney@joplinglobe.com

Gun-rights advocates on Thursday hailed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming the right of individuals to own guns.

The 5-4 ruling was the first time the high court had interpreted the Second Amendment since it was ratified in 1791. The court struck down the District of Columbia’s total ban on handguns.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

Scalia wrote in his majority opinion that the District of Columbia was left with a variety of tools, including some handgun regulation, for combating gun violence.

Among those who were pleased with the ruling was Brandon Spaugy, owner of Brandon’s Gun Trading Co. in Joplin.

“The thing is, it’s constitutional,” Spaugy said. “What actually makes me unhappy is that they would bring it up for re-evaluation.”

He said he thinks gun-control advocates were hoping that the Supreme Court would find a way to erode rights of gun ownership.

State officials in Missouri were quick to praise the ruling. Attorney General Jay Nixon noted in a news release that he and 30 other attorneys general filed a brief with the Supreme Court urging it to adopt the position that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to own guns.

“Today the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed what we in Missouri have long held as a mainstream value: that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms,” Nixon said in the statement. He said he supports measures to ensure that criminals don’t get guns, but that it is important to protect gun rights secured by the Founding Fathers.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt also praised the ruling.

“Today’s decision is a blow to those groups and liberal politicians who oppose gun rights and who seek to sabotage the Second Amendment rights of Missourians and all Americans,” Blunt said in a statement.

Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts said he is taking a matter-of-fact position on the ruling.

“When you’re talking about a constitutional issue, whatever the Supreme Court decides, that’s the law of the land and that’s what I support,” Roberts said.

Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said he thinks the Supreme Court made the correct decision.

“I’ve always been for citizens to keep and bear arms,” Copeland said. He said the Missouri law allowing concealed handguns hasn’t resulted in a single negative incident.

“The crooks and thieves get guns anyway,” he said. “I think it’s certainly the right of the good people who follow the laws to protect themselves.”

Randomly asked by the Globe for her opinion was Tracie Hudson, formerly of Goodman and now of Waynesboro, Pa., a few hours from Washington, D.C. Hudson, who was at Northpark Mall on Thursday, said she agrees with the Supreme Court decision, but she doesn’t think it’s a black-and-white issue.

“I am kind of in the middle, because a family that feels they need protection, they should be allowed to own a gun, something small and simple,” Hudson said. “But I am against having, like, a lot of guns and things that are fully automatic. That I would be against. So I wouldn’t want to ban guns, but they definitely need restrictions on them.”

Hudson said she owns a .22-caliber pistol that she bought for self-protection when she lived in Goodman. She said it makes her feel safer.

The ruling is not being praised universally.

“This is an instance of right-wing judicial activism,” said Paul Zagorski, a political science professor at Pittsburg (Kan.) State University. “The court isn’t supposed to make policy. They’re supposed to interpret the law and the Constitution.”

He said the court disregarded the opening clause of the Second Amendment, which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”

“If it had no meaning, the framers could have put in any other clause,” Zagorski said. “The detachment of the first clause and the second clause seems strained. It creates a strange way to read the amendment.”

He said that by allowing continued regulation, the court also disregarded the second clause, which reads: “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“I also think the court has read the Second Amendment in a way that is historically illiterate,” Zagorski said. “It pays very little attention to the reason for the Second Amendment in the first place. The militia was a big issue.”

He said the conservatives on the Supreme Court, who claim to be strict constructionists about the Constitution, are having it both ways by following that until the Constitution is in opposition to conservative principles.

Zagorski was asked how the Supreme Court managed to avoid ruling on the issue for more than 200 years.

“They’ve found a way, I think, to allow the local and state courts to do what they want without trying to weigh in on a fundamental issue,” Zagorski said. “That’s often what courts will try to do.”

Staff writer Dustin Shipman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.





Second Amendment



“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”