The Gun (and Money) Show

The NY Times editorial page on yesterday's Supreme Court decision on guns:

About 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence, according to federal statistics, in the four months that the Supreme Court debated which clause of the Constitution it would use to subvert Chicago’s entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership. The arguments that led to Monday’s decision undermining Chicago’s law were infuriatingly abstract, but the results will be all too real and bloody.

And on the other side, from the Orange County Register:

We also believe the nation's founders would find Justice Stevens wrong in his contention that the ruling creates "a new liberty right." Those former colonists had just come through a bloody Revolutionary War sparked when British troops were sent to Lexington and Concord, Mass., to confiscate Americans' firearms.

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government," Thomas Jefferson wrote. "The beauty of the Second Amendment," Mr. Jefferson also noted, "is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

For some perspective, this from opensecrets.org:

The National Rifle Association itself spent $515,000 lobbying the federal government during the first three months of 2010.

Gun control groups generally give far less in campaign contributions than their pro-gun opponents. Since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, gun rights groups have dominated the gun control groups in campaign contributions, giving 135 times more in contributions -- about $684,000.

And for some more perspective:
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