Published: March 19, 2008 6:00 a.m.


Leading gun-control activist, ex-mayor ‘amazed' by debate
<H5 id=author>By Sylvia A. Smith</H5><H6 id=bylinecredit>Washington editor</H6>WASHININGTON – Watching nine Supreme Court justices and three lawyers in verbal pingpong over a city’s ban on handguns was “fascinating as theater, fascinating as history, fascinating as a policy question,” former Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke said Tuesday.

Helmke, now the president of the nation’s largest advocacy group for gun restrictions, sat in on the oral arguments over whether the 32-year-old ban on handguns in the District of Columbia is constitutional.

The organization he heads – the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence – is rooting for the justices to rule in favor of the handgun ban. But Helmke said the tenor of the questions from the eight justices who spoke suggested they were leaning toward a decision that would find the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to own a gun.

But Helmke said there’s room for the justices to find that there’s a right to own a gun but also a right for a city to ban ownership of some kinds of firearms.

The gun case was Helmke’s first time as an observer to a Supreme Court argument, which has rituals familiar to court-watchers but startling to people more familiar with TV’s “Law & Order.”

For instance, cases are almost always limited to one hour, although occasionally – such as in the District of Columbia handgun case – the time is set for 75 minutes. Even so, the argument ran 23 minutes longer than it was allotted.

Also, the justices routinely interrupt the lawyers, sometimes allowing them to only begin their arguments before starting to pepper them with questions.

Helmke said he was struck by “how broad-ranging the discussion was. ... They’re just constantly jumping around, asking questions and going from what the English Bill of Rights was in the 1600s to how many seconds does it take to disable a trigger lock and can you do this at 3 in the morning. Amazing.”

Helmke was one of a handful of people guaranteed a seat in the crowded courtroom. About 100 seats are reserved for people who want to watch the proceedings, and they are fitted snugly into seats that face the raised dais, where the justices sit in black robes.

As a lawyer, Helmke said, he tried to picture how he’d answer the questions the justices were lobbing at the lawyers.

“Some I thought I could do better, and others I was certainly glad I was watching and not participating,” he said.
http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dl...EWS03/803190332