Posted on 11/21/2008 3:27:03 PM PST by stan_sipple
Earlier this year, Eric Holder--along with Janet Reno and several other former officials from the Clinton Department of Justice--co-signed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller. The brief was filed in support of DC's ban on all handguns, and ban on the use of any firearm for self-defense in the home. The brief argued that the Second Amendment is a "collective" right, not an individual one, and asserted that belief in the collective right had been the consistent policy of the U.S. Department of Justice since the FDR administration. A brief filed by some other former DOJ officials (including several Attorneys General, and Stuart Gerson, who was Acting Attorney General until Janet Reno was confirmed)took issue with the Reno-Holder brief's characterization of DOJ's viewpoint.
But at the least, the Reno-Holder brief accurately expressed the position of the Department of Justice when Janet Reno was Attorney General and Eric Holder was Deputy Attorney General. At the oral argument before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson, the Assistant U.S. Attorney told the panel that the Second Amendment was no barrier to gun confiscation, not even of the confiscation of guns from on-duty National Guardsmen.
As Deputy Attorney General, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control. He advocated federal licensing of handgun owners, a three day waiting period on handgun sales, rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month, banning possession of handguns and so-called "assault weapons" (cosmetically incorrect guns) by anyone under age of 21, a gun show restriction bill that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for trivial offenses (e.g., giving your son an heirloom handgun for Christmas, if he were two weeks shy of his 21st birthday). He also promoted the factoid that "Every day that goes by, about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence"--a statistic is true only if one counts 18-year-old gangsters who shoot each other as "children."(Sources: Holder testimony before House Judiciary Committee, Subcommitee on Crime, May 27,1999; Holder Weekly Briefing, May 20, 2000. One of the bills that Holder endorsed is detailed in my 1999 Issue Paper "Unfair and Unconstitutional.")
After 9/11, he penned a Washington Post op-ed, "Keeping Guns Away From Terrorists" arguing that a new law should give "the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale." He also stated that prospective gun buyers should be checked against the secret "watch lists" compiled by various government entities. (In an Issue Paper on the watch list proposal, I quote a FBI spokesman stating that there is no cause to deny gun ownership to someone simply because she is on the FBI list.)
After the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the D.C. handgun ban and self-defense ban were unconstitutional in 2007, Holder complained that the decision "opens the door to more people having more access to guns and putting guns on the streets."
Holder played a key role in the gunpoint, night-time kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez. The pretext for the paramilitary invasion of the six-year-old's home was that someone in his family might have been licensed to carry a handgun under Florida law. Although a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo showed a federal agent dressed like a soldier and pointing a machine gun at the man who was holding the terrified child, Holder claimed that Gonzalez "was not taken at the point of a gun" and that the federal agents whom Holder had sent to capture Gonzalez had acted "very sensitively." If Mr. Holder believes that breaking down a door with a battering ram, pointing guns at children (not just Elian), and yelling "Get down, get down, we'll shoot" is example of acting "very sensitively," his judgment about the responsible use of firearms is not as acute as would be desirable for a cabinet officer who would be in charge of thousands and thousands of armed federal agents, many of them paramilitary agents with machine guns
So much for our gun rights.
Molon labe, statist punk.
How many guns in the US? How many rounds of ammunition?
Good luck .....
Funny how someone can find something in the constitution that no one noticed for two hundred years, and suddenly everything is flipped on its head. Just like that. No need to re-write the constitution; all you have to do is re-read it.
To paraphrase one of the world’s great experts on the subject, it doesn’t matter who writes the constitutions, what matters is who reads it. Get the right mix on the Supreme Court and the law is whatever you want it to be.
“So much for our gun rights.”
Maybe ‘so much for yours’. I, for one, won’t be giving up anything to these people. And if they come to my door, they’ll realize what I’m talking about, and why I have these things in the first place. I suggest all of us adopt this mindset and any further thoughts about gun control by these commies will be put to rest.
I was counting hubbys rifles over the weekend. I stopped at 44 and skipped two rooms.
Gee I guess Obama lied. What a shock. Are they going to come for Joe Biden’s guns too? What’s he going to do then? He assured us Obama wouldn’t touch guns. They managed to fool plenty of conservatives, self proclaimed rednecks, and even many gun owners into voting for the O/B ticket. I wonder if any of them are feeling duped now.
Here, let me correct this for you...
So much for our gun rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Especially life.
Mark
I think the Democratic congresscritters are still a little tto scared about the 1994 election to let Holder get too out of control with the gun issues, but who knows.
This guy sounds like a future Darwin Award recipient.
My dad and I own between us 12 - just went on an ammunition buying spree last weekend ... dropped four hundred dollars at Walmart ... guy behind the counter says lots buying and starting to be slow in shipments ... buy now and buy often ...
“..ban on the use of any firearm for self-defense in the home.”
That, by itself, is the most ominous part of it all — a disarmed American society living among fully armed criminals.
We’ve had 13 years to prepare for this day. No more Waco’s.
The Second Amendment was given to us exactly for this reason: To protect ourselves from people like Hussein and Holder. The way the thugs invaded the home and kidnapped Elian is one of our country’s most disgraceful acts. I still can’t believe that happened in America. God bless the photog who snapped that shot.
I wonder what the Obamanites think about the current mass buying of `black’ rifles and ammo (I participate most enthusiastically). Surely they must be monitoring the situation (and don’t call me Shirley!).
Are they thinking, “Yes! Kick down enough doors and shoot enough gun owners and the remainder will get the message!”
Or could they be saying, “Uh, wait a second, do we even have the sheer manpower to carry out mass confiscation?”
And would state and local law enforcement fall meekly into line and carry out this Mother of Unfunded Mandates?
Again, for now anything goes. But this ain’t the USSR and it sure as heck is not the registered and disarmed U.K.
Anyway, Molon Labe!
The left thinks the Constitution began with FDR (who was a socialist of the highest order, by the way), and it brazenly ignores the 140 years that preceded him.
Oh, how I loathe the left. But, the left are cowardly, and they will get their just due shortly.
revisionist constitution
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