A real right for every American

By Wayne LaPierre

If anyone is confused about the meaning of Monday's ruling on the Second Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court, all he has to do is look at Tuesday's newspaper.

On the same morning the court ruled that every law-abiding American has a fundamental, individual right to own a gun, a maintenance man was walking by his apartment complex in Washington's Maryland suburbs. He spotted a man attacking an innocent woman and, as a caring citizen, intervened. That's when the criminal turned on the maintenance man, forced him at gunpoint into his apartment and fired at him. Fortunately, he missed. Even more fortunate, the maintenance man was able to retrieve his own firearm and return fire, fatally wounding the intruder.

One woman, interviewed later, called the man a hero. A law enforcement officer summed up the scene, saying, "The victim... had a weapon inside the home that he used to shoot the suspect. We believe that the victim had every right to defend himself."

Every right.

By incorporating the Second Amendment to apply to state and local governments, the court affirmed what most Americans have long believed - that lawful citizens, wherever they live, have the fundamental right to own a firearm to protect themselves and their families. Second Amendment rights are as fundamental as those of the First Amendment and, as Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. noted in the majority opinion of the court, "... a provision of the Bill of Rights that is fundamental from an American perspective applies equally to the federal government and the states."

It is a landmark decision. The Second Amendment right of every citizen is now a real part of American constitutional law.

But it must be more than a philosophical victory for individual rights. Supreme Court decisions must lead to actual consequences. Otherwise, the entire premise of American constitutional authority is rendered meaningless.

The court's decision must be real, practical and experienced by any and every law-abiding American who seeks to buy and own a firearm. The court cannot be ignored, and its ruling must provide relief to those who have been deprived of their Second Amendment freedom.

The constitutional freedom intended by the Founding Fathers and confirmed by the highest court in the land is realized only when law-abiding men and women can get up, go out and buy and own a firearm.

The National Rifle Association will work to ensure that this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges, defiant city councils or cynical politicians who seek to reverse or nullify the court's decision through a blizzard of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical way.

No regulation can be deemed "reasonable" if it prevents or restricts the ability of a lawful American citizen to experience a constitutional freedom.

Imagine being tested, or having to leap through a labyrinth of government red tape, just to exercise the constitutional right to attend church and worship... or, as once was the case, being forced to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test before being allowed to exercise the right to vote.

These restrictions are no more "reasonable" than those that would prevent Americans from exercising their fundamental Second Amendment rights.

And every elected official who has sworn on the Bible to uphold and defend the United States Constitution must defend the Second Amendment as ardently as the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Every citizen has every right afforded under the Second Amendment. The court confirmed it, Americans agree with it, and it is a fundamental right that must be accessible to all law-abiding Americans, wherever they live.

Wayne LaPierre is executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.