Say Hello to Messrs. Smith & Wesson

I mentioned last month that Melissa and I took an introductory pistol class at Blue Ridge Arsenal and were considering buying a gun for home/personal protection (and, as a secondary purpose, to actively utilize our Second Amendment rights). Now that those rights have been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court, we figured it was time. We dropped by the aforementioned Blue Ridge Arsenal on Friday, only to learn that they didn’t carry revolvers except when they are traded in used . . . oops. They recommended Virginia Arms in Manassas, which was closed already so we stopped by Saturday morning.

After looking at a few options, we settled on a Smith & Wesson Model 620 revolver (which was actually quite a bit cheaper than the list-price on S&W’s web site). It’s a 7-shot .357 magnum, which is also capable of firing the less-powerful (and less-expensive) .38 special rounds. We also picked up the requisite accessories—ammo, holster, cleaning equipment, speedloader, snap caps (for loading/unloading practice and dry firing), etc. Because we had a friend over yesterday we didn’t make it out to the range to try it out, but we’ll be doing that later this afternoon. Fun stuff!

So, if you were planning to rob or kill me any time soon, you should bear in mind that you will now need to contend with return fire.

Springing Into Action

The pastor of our church is a trained and certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), which is pretty cool if you ask me. After church this morning, I and several other churchgoers gathered for a Staff-Parish Relations Committee meeting (we’re sorta like the church’s HR department). Afterward, as we were headed out to our cars, we heard a God-awful crash from the nearby intersection of Fairfax County Parkway and Franklin Farm Road.

Almost before it even registered with me that I had just heard a car accident, Pastor Rob was in his car heading over to check it out. I ran over myself on the off-chance that I could render some useful assistance (I couldn’t—Rob already had it well under control—but I did get to answer Rob’s cell phone for him while he was occupied, lol!).

A woman in a Jeep Grand Cherokee making a left turn from Franklin Farm Road onto the Parkway had been t-boned by Toyota Corolla going straight on Franklin Farm in the opposite direction. Both drivers gave conflicting reports to the police—the woman in the Jeep said she had a green arrow, while the man in the Toyota claimed he had a green light. No witnesses who actually saw the accident bothered to stop, so I couldn’t tell you who was lying. The man in the Toyota had a minor burn on his arm from the airbag deployment, but he was otherwise just fine. The woman in the Jeep seemed to be pretty much okay too, but I think they took her to the hospital to be sure (I’m not sure about this, since I left before they did).

COFUMC—’08 Annual Conference Report

For the fifth time, I had the honor of representing this congregation as one of your lay delegates to the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. The conference—which is an annual gathering of United Methodist clergy and laity from throughout the conference for mission, worship, policy-making, administration, and fellowship—was held in Roanoke from June 15th through the 18th. It was presided over by our bishop, Bishop Charlene Kammerer.

Following up on last year’s theme of ‘Let’s Get Growing’, which put a focus on making disciples of Jesus Christ and establishing 250 new faith communities over the next 30 years, this year’s Annual Conference theme was ‘More Young People’. It is an unfortunate fact that Methodism in Virginia is being affected by a trend that is also affecting the broader Christian movement in the United States: the average age of our congregations is going up, and the number of youth and young adults participating in church life is dropping.

But you wouldn’t have known it at Annual Conference.

Shall Not Be Infringed . . .

There are times when a victory can be nearly as disheartening as a defeat. I felt this way in May when the United Methodist Church’s General Conference voted to uphold the status quo—with which I generally agree—in regard to the church’s stance on homosexuality. My ‘side’, if you can call it that, won. But it concerned me greatly (and still does) that, on an issue about which the Biblical teaching is crystal clear, 45 percent of the delegates at the conference voted to change the text to something ambiguous that made no moral statement whatsoever.

I feel very similarly about the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller upholding the right to keep and bear arms. While I don’t think the ruling went quite far enough and it leaves many forms of gun control I consider unconstitutional intact, I generally agree with the sentiments of the decision and think it is a definite, concrete step in the right direction. What concerns me is not the actual outcome, but rather—like the UMC decision on homosexuality—how close we came to losing. Only five of the nine justices (about 56 percent) interpreted the words “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” to mean . . . well . . . ”the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Supreme Court Strikes Down DC Gun Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling upholding the individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, striking down the Washington, DC, handgun ban that has been in effect since 1976 and potentially affecting other such bans across the country.

The Court stated unequivocally in its 5-4 ruling that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals, not just a formal militia, the right to own weapons and use them for self defense in the home and for other legal purposes. The court did not, however, find the right to bear arms to be unlimited. States and jurisdictions are still permitted to regulate gun sales, to limit the carrying of concealed weapons, to require licensing or other legal restriction on ownership of firearms, to prohibit carrying weapons in sensitive buildings like schools and courthouses, and limit gun ownership by felons and the mentally retarded.

From the ruling:

Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

Read on for additional excerpts from the text of the ruling (PDF link).

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.