Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: D.C. Gun Ban Appeal Could Change National Policy , 09/12/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec07/gunlaw_9-12.html

Initiating Questions:

1. If you wanted to go out and buy a gun, could you? What are the laws regarding gun ownership?

2 What is the Second Amendment? What does it say?

3. What is the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in deciding laws?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What issue has the District of Columbia asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider?

Washington, D.C. is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the city's handgun ban is legal, setting the stage for a showdown over gun control law in America.

Washington, D.C. filed a petition in September asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court's decision to strike down the city's ban on handgun ownership.

2. What is the specific law in question?

The 30-year-old law in question makes it illegal to posses a handgun inside the city but allows citizens to own shotguns or rifles. Most of the shootings in the city are committed with handguns.

3. How did the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rule on the D.C. handgun ban? On what did it base its conclusions?

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in March 2007 ruled the ban violates the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which states: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The appeals judges decided in a 2-1 vote that the Second Amendment "protects an individual right to keep and bear arms" and "once it is determined -- as we have done -- that handguns are 'arms' referred to in the Second Amendment, it is not open to the District to ban them."

4. Explain the difference between the "individual" interpretation of the Second Amendment and the "collective" interpretation. Why is this issue so significant?

A decision would clarify whether the Second Amendment protects private gun ownership (the "individual" interpretation) or only imparts a civic right related to maintaining state militias (the "collective" interpretation).

It also would be the first time the highest court in the land considers an important gun rights case since 1939, according to the Washington Post.

5. Explain the positions of gun control advocates and gun rights advocates. How might a decision impact each group's viewpoint?

Gun control advocates want the government to be able to regulate weapons to protect innocent people, while gun rights proponents argue that the Second Amendment guarantees citizens a right to own weapons, primarily so that they can protect themselves.

If the Supreme Court sides with Washington, D.C. and upholds the handgun ban, it would validate the legal arguments of the gun control camp.

If the court sides with the appeals court and declares the D.C. ban unconstitutional, it could become difficult, but not impossible, for the government to regulate ownership and use of guns, according to the Legal Times.

6. How might the makeup of the Supreme Court impact this case?

President Bush recently replaced the conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the more moderate Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with two solidly conservative justices: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

The court now has four conservative-leaning justices and four liberal-leaning justices, with Justice Anthony Kennedy straddling the middle.

This new lineup gives conservative judicial decisions, like the D.C. court of appeals' overturning of the handgun ban, a greater chance of becoming the law of the land.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Pretend you are a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Research the specific D.C. law and arguments both for and against the handgun ban. What do you think? How would you decide this case? In which camp does your opinion fall?

2. What are the gun laws in your city or state? How do they compare to the D.C. law?

3. Looking to the history of the United States, why do you think the issue of gun control is so important to so many Americans? Cite specific historical references in your answer.

4. What is the international perspective on this issue? Where are there similar debates over gun ownership?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.