‘Guns Across America’ protests against stricter gun control held at state capitals across America.

AUSTIN, Texas – Thousands of gun advocates gathered peacefully Saturday at state capitals around the U.S. to rally against stricter limits on firearms, with demonstrators carrying rifles and pistols in some places while those elsewhere settled for waving hand-scrawled signs or screaming themselves hoarse.

 

The size of crowds at each location varied — from dozens of people in South Dakota to 2,000 in New York. Large crowds also turned out in Connecticut, Tennessee and Texas. Some demonstrators in Phoenix and Salem, Ore., came with holstered handguns or rifles on their backs. At the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort, attendees gave a special round of applause for “the ladies that are packin’.”

Guns Across America: Did Supreme Court Get It Right?

by SodaHead Politics Posted June 29, 2010

In 2008, the court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess guns, at least for purposes of self-defense in the home. But the ruling applied only to federal laws, striking down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement for other guns in the District of Columbia. That action spurred gun rights supporters to file a federal lawsuit challenging gun control laws in Chicago and one of its suburbs, Oak Park, Ill., where handguns have been banned for nearly 30 years in one of the last two areas to have outright bans in the country. 

The lower federal courts upheld the two laws, saying that judges were bound by Supreme Court precedent. And while Monday’s decision did not effectively strike down the Chicago area laws, it ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling and left little doubt that the statues would eventually fall. 

Chicago’s Mayor, Richard Daley, angrily said he was disappointed in the ruling and that officials were already working on rewriting the city’s ordinance to meet the court’s gun rights guarantee and protect Chicago residents from gun violence. Through this week, there have been 209 homicides in Chicago so far this year.

Activists promoted the “Guns Across America” rallies primarily through social media. They were being held just after President Barack Obama unveiled a sweeping package of federal gun-control proposals.

“The thing that so angers me, and I think so angers you, is that this president is using children as a human shield to advance a very liberal agenda that will do nothing to protect them,” said state Rep. Steve Toth, referencing last month’s elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Toth, a first-term Republican lawmaker from The Woodlands outside Houston, has introduced legislation banning within Texas any future federal limits on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, though such a measure would violate the U.S. Constitution.

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