Loading Poll...The Supreme Court Doesn't Hate Jeff Chiplis (GUN CONTROL)
Written by Dr. Lawrence Ervin McCullough
Thursday, 08 July 2010 08:19
Dr. Lawrence Ervin McCullough is the Press Director for The Hall Institute of Public Policy-New Jersey. Dr. McCullough brings a diverse background as a publicist, editor and non-profit management consultant who has spent the last seven years in the Mayor’s Office of Woodbridge Township, NJ, as Public Information Officer and Grants Officer/Special Projects Coordinator..
The Supreme Court Doesn’t Hate Jeff Chiplis. But they’re okay with people having an easier time buying guns to shoot him
Breaking News, America: By a 5-4 vote, U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling in McDonald v. Chicago that will likely prevent your local government from regulating handgun sales and possession.
I need to ask my friend Jeff Chiplis how he feels about that. He got shot twice in the back last month by robbers as he strolled to his favorite music pub in Cleveland, Ohio.
I’ve known Jeff since second grade growing up together on the Westside of Indianapolis, rooming together in college and having him serve as best man at all three of my weddings. I’m fairly positive he’ll have an opinion on this landmark judicial decision.
Though Jeff unwittingly became one of 56,000+ people in the U.S. injured in a gun attack each year, he had the darn good luck to not be among the 13,000+ who die from said attacks. After the muggers left him for dead, the gutsy 58-year old artist and home energy repairman used his bloodied cell phone to call 911. The bullets had hit no truly vital organs, and 10 days after his initial trauma surgery, Jeff walked out of the hospital to the applause of a televised press conference and a waiting stack of ginormous medical bills.
The police are confident they’ll catch Jeff’s attackers. When they do, it’s a safe bet they’ll find that both handguns used in shooting him were obtained illegally without the owners submitting to background checks or any state or municipal restrictions on buying the weapons. An estimated 40% of U.S. domestic gun sales occur in this “secondary market” that bypasses even the minimal laws regulating which of our fellow Americans is privileged to own a deadly weapon for personal “use”.
Of course, it’s not as if the five justices voting to limit state and local gun laws have anything personal against my friend Jeff — even though they’ve just made it easier for individuals like his assailants to take advantage of the already lax gun purchase laws that make Ohio 9th among the states in recovered crime guns originally bought within the state, according to a 2008 report published by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Ohio also ranks 13th in number of crime guns supplied to other states per capita.
Every which way you turn, Ohio’s got guns coming and going… boom-boom Buckeyes!
But those facts failed to faze Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion on behalf of Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Scalia and Roberts. Striving to achieve a balanced and perhaps charitable tone for those who may soon be shot or murdered as a result of the decision, Justice Alito stated that the ruling “limits (but by no means eliminates)” the ability of states and cities to “devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values.”
Let’s ponder these words of judicial wisdom. By “social problems”, may we presume Justice Alito means “thugs using guns to shoot and murder people”? I haven’t been to Cleveland in a while, but perhaps Jeff (having regained the faculty of speech) can hip me to whether the “solution” suggested by Justice Alito – such as striking down laws regulating gun ownership – would suit his town’s needs and values.
If we may presume by “needs and values” we actually mean “not being shot and murdered”.
Naturally, no one expects the Supreme Court to remedy the myriad psycho-social factors that have resulted in some Americans believing it’s perfectly okay to rob and shoot their neighbor. The Court’s task is to interpret what steps the federal Constitution allows our various levels of government to take in trying to establish a civil society. The task of maintaining that civil society is our responsibility… all nearly 310 million of us who don’t wear black robes to work.
But now the Court says Jeff Chiplis can simply buy his own gun, so that the next time he feels threatened, he can threaten back. Strictly speaking, that would be his Constitutional right under the Second Amendment.
Is that Constitutional right helping build a more civil society? Is it addressing the root causes of the social pathology that spurs violent street crime in this country and fuels a continuous wave of war and genocide across the planet? Are we really safer when all of us are armed and potentially dangerous? Is that the definition of “civil society” we’re willing to accept and offer to our children as their American birthright?
Having just celebrated Independence Day — the world-changing day when 56 visionary Americans affirmed their commitment toward building a society based on individual liberty and respect for the common welfare, a true divine paradise on earth — it might be a good time to ask ourselves what we can do individually and collectively to bring to the table the genuine American freedom that’s been slow-cooking for 234 years.
I’m going to start by asking my elected officials here in New Jersey to use more of my tax dollars for better schools and mentoring programs that help children decide they don’t want to grow up wanting to rob and shoot people. And provide funding for true job training opportunities for adults desperate to earn an honest living. And create and enforce laws that strongly penalize people who put guns in the hands of criminals.
I’m going to start with just those three things, which I know we as a freedom-loving nation can achieve in every corner of our great democracy — if we’re truly serious about this Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness concept.
That way when Jeff Chiplis comes to visit me in Woodbridge, he won’t feel as if he needs to pack a bazooka in his suitcase.
It’s the least I can do for somebody who’s put up with being my best friend all these years. And wants to keep on living to tell about it.
Breaking News, America: By a 5-4 vote, U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling in McDonald v. Chicago that will likely prevent your local government from regulating handgun sales and possession.
I need to ask my friend Jeff Chiplis how he feels about that. He got shot twice in the back last month by robbers as he strolled to his favorite music pub in Cleveland, Ohio.
I’ve known Jeff since second grade growing up together on the Westside of Indianapolis, rooming together in college and having him serve as best man at all three of my weddings. I’m fairly positive he’ll have an opinion on this landmark judicial decision.
Though Jeff unwittingly became one of 56,000+ people in the U.S. injured in a gun attack each year, he had the darn good luck to not be among the 13,000+ who die from said attacks. After the muggers left him for dead, the gutsy 58-year old artist and home energy repairman used his bloodied cell phone to call 911. The bullets had hit no truly vital organs, and 10 days after his initial trauma surgery, Jeff walked out of the hospital to the applause of a televised press conference and a waiting stack of ginormous medical bills.
The police are confident they’ll catch Jeff’s attackers. When they do, it’s a safe bet they’ll find that both handguns used in shooting him were obtained illegally without the owners submitting to background checks or any state or municipal restrictions on buying the weapons. An estimated 40% of U.S. domestic gun sales occur in this “secondary market” that bypasses even the minimal laws regulating which of our fellow Americans is privileged to own a deadly weapon for personal “use”.
Of course, it’s not as if the five justices voting to limit state and local gun laws have anything personal against my friend Jeff — even though they’ve just made it easier for individuals like his assailants to take advantage of the already lax gun purchase laws that make Ohio 9th among the states in recovered crime guns originally bought within the state, according to a 2008 report published by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Ohio also ranks 13th in number of crime guns supplied to other states per capita.
Every which way you turn, Ohio’s got guns coming and going… boom-boom Buckeyes!
But those facts failed to faze Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion on behalf of Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Scalia and Roberts. Striving to achieve a balanced and perhaps charitable tone for those who may soon be shot or murdered as a result of the decision, Justice Alito stated that the ruling “limits (but by no means eliminates)” the ability of states and cities to “devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values.”
Let’s ponder these words of judicial wisdom. By “social problems”, may we presume Justice Alito means “thugs using guns to shoot and murder people”? I haven’t been to Cleveland in a while, but perhaps Jeff (having regained the faculty of speech) can hip me to whether the “solution” suggested by Justice Alito – such as striking down laws regulating gun ownership – would suit his town’s needs and values.
If we may presume by “needs and values” we actually mean “not being shot and murdered”.
Naturally, no one expects the Supreme Court to remedy the myriad psycho-social factors that have resulted in some Americans believing it’s perfectly okay to rob and shoot their neighbor. The Court’s task is to interpret what steps the federal Constitution allows our various levels of government to take in trying to establish a civil society. The task of maintaining that civil society is our responsibility… all nearly 310 million of us who don’t wear black robes to work.
But now the Court says Jeff Chiplis can simply buy his own gun, so that the next time he feels threatened, he can threaten back. Strictly speaking, that would be his Constitutional right under the Second Amendment.
Is that Constitutional right helping build a more civil society? Is it addressing the root causes of the social pathology that spurs violent street crime in this country and fuels a continuous wave of war and genocide across the planet? Are we really safer when all of us are armed and potentially dangerous? Is that the definition of “civil society” we’re willing to accept and offer to our children as their American birthright?
Having just celebrated Independence Day — the world-changing day when 56 visionary Americans affirmed their commitment toward building a society based on individual liberty and respect for the common welfare, a true divine paradise on earth — it might be a good time to ask ourselves what we can do individually and collectively to bring to the table the genuine American freedom that’s been slow-cooking for 234 years.
I’m going to start by asking my elected officials here in New Jersey to use more of my tax dollars for better schools and mentoring programs that help children decide they don’t want to grow up wanting to rob and shoot people. And provide funding for true job training opportunities for adults desperate to earn an honest living. And create and enforce laws that strongly penalize people who put guns in the hands of criminals.
I’m going to start with just those three things, which I know we as a freedom-loving nation can achieve in every corner of our great democracy — if we’re truly serious about this Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness concept.
That way when Jeff Chiplis comes to visit me in Woodbridge, he won’t feel as if he needs to pack a bazooka in his suitcase.
It’s the least I can do for somebody who’s put up with being my best friend all these years. And wants to keep on living to tell about it.