• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

On Monday June 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in McDonald v. Chicago that the city’s 28-year old handgun ban was unconstitutional. The decision comes just three weeks after Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis announced that Chicago’s murder rate through the first half of 2010 was higher than at the same point last year. This decision by the high court applies nationwide the 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller that there is a Second Amendment right to keep a handgun in your home for self-defense. The Second Amendment says, “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.” The 5-4 Supreme Court decision explicitly applied that sentence to handgun possession in the home. But the ruling does not prevent local and state laws restricting who can possess handguns and where they can be taken. However, the gun rights lobby is eager to repeal those laws which it feels infringe upon the 2nd Amendment. Herb Titus, counsel for Gun Owners of America says the first priority for the gun lobby will be to challenge laws banning gun ownership for those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. This despite evidence that access to firearms increases intimate-partner deaths five times compared to incidents where no guns are present. Gun violence in America claims 30,000 lives per year, and states with the most lax gun laws and highest rates of gun ownership lead the nation in gun deaths.

GUEST: Jonathan Lowy, Senior Attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Find out more at www.bradycenter.org.