I know there are folks around here who disagree, but ever since last spring’s ruling in the D.C. “gun rights” case, I have been convinced that those who wish to turn back the more extreme instances of gun control will rue the day they invited the Supreme Court to do this work for them. And that’s if they “win.”

Now comes a truly farcical turn in the story. Robert Barnes reports in the Washington Post that a majority of the members of each house of Congress have put their signatures to an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to affirm last year’s D.C. Circuit ruling. Our gun-friendly solons demand that the Court pay “due deference” to the view expressed (on occasion–let’s not exaggerate) by Congress, “a co-equal branch of government,” that the Second Amendment embodies a “personal right to possess firearms.”

Um, guys? That co-equal branch called the Congress has a plenary power of legislation over the District of Columbia, and could at any time pass an act nullifying the D.C. gun ban. Oh, home rule, you say? Well, you have now assembled majorities in both houses claiming to believe that this particular instance of D.C. home rule is in violation of the Constitution. Abrogating home rule, which you gave in the first place, shouldn’t prick your consciences too much in this instance. If you have the majorities, how hard is it to do your own damned work under the Constitution, rather than ask the Supreme Court to clean up your mess?

Only a reflexive belief in government by judiciary wherever constitutional issues are concerned can account for this trip through the looking glass.