Below The Beltway

The Washington Post has an interesting article this morning about the tough choice that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty faces over how to deal with the Parker v. D.C gun case:

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty must make a risky choice about the District’s gun ban: defend it before the Supreme Court or write new, looser laws governing how city residents can keep guns in their homes.

As he wades into a high-stakes debate over the Second Amendment, the new mayor of the nation’s capital faces the possibility that the city could lose the case and undercut decades of hard-fought gun-control legislation across the country.

Gun-control advocates are quietly acknowledging that Fenty (D) is in a difficult spot. Across the country, many of them and their attorneys have been meeting in conference rooms to analyze the potential damage that could be done nationwide if the D.C. law falls apart. Some fear that an adverse Supreme Court ruling could lead to more gun lobby challenges and the collapse of tough gun regulations in New York, Chicago and Detroit. Other potential casualties include federal laws that require background checks for gun buyers or ban the manufacture of machine guns for civilian use.

“Making the right choice is going to be a very difficult decision,” said Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the D.C. based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “Despite all the rhetoric about ‘We’re taking this all the way to the Supreme Court,’ you have to really think this one through. Everyone is cognizant of the fact that this is probably the high-water mark for Second Amendment cases.

There’s been much discussion about the risks to the gun rights movement of a Supreme Court appeal in this case, but the risks for the other side are just as high, if not greater. An adverse ruling in the Supreme Court could put gun control laws all across the country in jeopardy.Though that would not be a bad thing.