I wrote a piece yesterday where I compared the Brady Bunch’s report on the states with the most restrictive gun laws to the statistics on gun related fatalities. You can read about it here. I specifically mention that, while DC was not in the Brady’ Bunch’s list, it was both the most restrictive in terms of gun laws as well as the most dangerous in terms of gun related deaths. Well today Kay Baily Hutchinson penned an excellent piece in the Dallas Morning News which pretty much makes the same point.

In 1976, the Washington City Council passed the nation’s toughest gun control law, banning handguns completely and requiring rifles and shotguns to be registered, stored unloaded and locked or disassembled.

The D.C. murder rate was declining before this law; in the next 15 years it jumped 200 percent.

Not only that but, as of 2003, DC ranked the worst in the nation in gun deaths - scoring a whopping 26.9 deaths per 100,000 residents; a full 7 1/2 points above its nearest competitor. A shining testament to the effectiveness of gun control laws a real poster child for the Brady Bunch.

Next month, for the first time since 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the issue of Second Amendment rights when it hears arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller. The court’s decision will have major implications for all Americans.

I have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court with my colleague Jon Tester from Montana – along with Vice President Dick Cheney as president of the Senate, 53 other U.S. senators and 250 members of the House – for the respondent, who simply wishes to exercise his constitutional right to protect himself. It has the most congressional signatures on any amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

When the Supreme Court hears this case in March it will be a make or break time for gun owners. Do we have the right to defend ourselves or will we be forced to rely on the governments ever increasing power in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, even our places of worship? Can we really expect that power in the hands of politicians to be wielded in our favor?

We have a right of self defense and the Second Amendment was put in place in the anticipation that we may even need to defend ourselves from our own government.

Lets just hope it doesn’t come to that.