Posted on 12/26/2012 8:20:40 AM PST by marktwain
By now you may have read about the DC Metropolitan Police Department's active investigation into David Gregory. The host of NBC's Meet the Press thought a 30 round AR magazine would make a cool prop to shake in the face of Wayne LaPierre this past Sunday. What Gregory didn't think about was the DC law which forbids the mere possession of any magazine that is capable of holding more than 10 rounds. If he did think about the law, he obviously assumed it didn't apply to "esteemed journalists" such as himself.
Now conservative attorney Aaron Walker is offering to defend Gregory on Second Amendment grounds in a challenge to the DC law. Walker, who blogs and tweets as "Aaron Worthing", made the offer yesterday on Twitter. Twitchy has aggregated the tweets by Walker on the subject here. Walker is better known for the whole Brett Kimberlin saga.
While at first blush it sounds like a great idea challenging the DC law on Second Amendment grounds to get a gun hater off, in this case it is rather short sighted. As Alan Gura has pointed out many times in many venues, Second Amendment litigation needs to be strategic. Case law needs to built bit by bit and precedents set. It is a cumulative process where the success of the current case depends upon earlier positive precedents. This is the same process that Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund used over time to defeat both de jure and de facto segregation by race.
The threat to this strategy comes from both criminal attorneys trying to use the Second Amendment to get crooks off the hook and misguided ideologues like Leonard Embody who represent themselves in court. I think defending David Gregory in a court of law on Second Amendment grounds would likewise be a threat to this strategy. While you and I may disagree, I think it highly unlikely at this time that a court would find the DC restrictions unreasonable and inconsistent with the Heller decision.
So I would say to Aaron Walker, while it sounds like a cool idea, don't go there if you care at all about the Second Amendment.
I’d rather see Gregory go to jail.
Jail for one of the elites? NFW. Gregory will be sentenced to community service in the form of anti-gun public service messages.
In another article the Chief of Police said that NBC and David Gregory made inquiries to the Police Chief about the Magazine in question and even asked for “special permission” to use it, in which they were DENIED FORMALLY and Formally told that it was absolutely ILLEGAL. So we have an official Conspiracy on behalf of NBC, THEY ALL BELONG IN JAIL, even though the Law is out and out UNCONSTITUTIONAL, Lock them up and force NBC and David Gregory himself to pony up the dough to get the law overturned, just like we poor citizens would have to do.
Seems odd that they wouldn’t just use a fake AR-15 magazine if the law forbid possessing a real one.
Here’s one from a $60 kit used trick out paint ball weapons:
http://www.trinitypaintball.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=TR+754
After all, they could have just annonced that “this 30 round AR-15 magazine is a non-firing replica meant for illustrative purposes only since DC law forbids possession of the actual item.”
$60 and a short explanatory announcement; is that so hard for the liberal MSM and their lawyers to comply with the law?
Book’em Danno.
$60 and a short explanatory announcement; is that so hard for the liberal MSM and their lawyers to comply with the law?
they think that laws only apply to us little people...
They could have held up a photo...or used some file footage of somebody holding one somewhere out in flyover country.
But no, Gregory anted to be able to wave a real one around...probably will win some sort of award for it.
I’d love to see one of these jouralistos demonstrate how phenominally easy is is to switch magazines.
And take a chance on breaking a nail!? No way!
He is a (ptui, ptui) lib.
Nothing will happen to him.
Guaranteed.
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