The Sounds Of Silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence.

Yesterday, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rendered an important decision regarding the Second Amendment. In the case of Ezell v. Chicago, the 7th Circuit came down squarely on the side of the Second Amendment and remanded the case back to the District Court for the issuance of a preliminary injunction against the city’s ban on shooting ranges. While the Chicago City Council changed the law to allow ranges at about the same time as the 7th Circuit issued their opinion, it will now will have to conform to the Court’s ruling.

On July 1st, the Brady Campaign issued a report called Hollow Victory? which would have you believe that the Federal courts were rejecting the challenges to gun laws based upon the Heller decision. Their release on the report states that it concludes:

courts continue to protect our communities from gun violence by rejecting lawsuits brought by gun criminals and the gun lobby seeking to strike down common-sense gun laws that protect public safety and stop gun violence, and that for the gun lobby, Heller remains nothing more than a “hollow victory.”

Given this, you might have a reasonable expectation that the Brady Campaign might have something to say about the 7th Circuit’s ruling in Ezell. You would be wrong. Checking their website, their Twitter feed, and Facebook page, they have nothing – absolutely nothing – to say about Judge Syke’s opinion. It is like the Simon and Garfunkel tune says, the sounds of silence.

The Brady Campaign is not the only gun prohibitionist game in town so I decided to check out some of the other groups.

From the Violence Policy Center webpage, Twitter feed, and Facebook page – nothing.

From the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence webpage, Twitter feed, and Facebook page – nothing.

Surely the Legal Coalition Against Violence (LCAV) would have something to say about the ruling as the courts are their bailiwick. Nope, nothing, nada.

You can be sure that if the decision had been gone against Rhonda Ezell and her co-plaintiffs including the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association, they would have had something to say about it. They would have been issuing press releases and giving interviews to their favorite pet journalists.

As it was, the gun prohibitionist groups did not “disturb the sound of silence”.