Lying Scholars Fuel Anti-Gun Court Verdicts

RichardPoe.com ^ | November 9, 2003 | Richard Poe

[Richard Poe]

DAVID BACH is a warrior. A former Navy SEAL, a Naval Reserve officer, and a naval attorney with top-secret clearance, Bach stands at the frontlines of the War on Terror. Yet, on September 25, a federal judge forbade him to carry a gun in New York State.

The ruling is part of a growing trend. More and more federal judges today contend that Americans have no – I repeat, no – constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

How did this happen? Simple. Leftwing historians and law professors have been rewriting American history and reinterpreting the Constitution for years. Now their work is bearing fruit. Anti-gun judges parrot the lies their professors told them. With each stroke of their gavels, they infuse those lies with the force of law.

David Bach lives in Virginia Beach, but visits his parents in Ulster County, New York. Denied a license to pack a side-arm during these visits, Bach sued in federal court. "[B]ecause of my occupation within the Department of Defense and Naval Special Warfare, I believe my family and I are at greater risk of being targeted by those seek[ing] to carry out symbolic acts of terror," Bach argued in court papers.

Bach also invoked his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

No such right exists, said U.S. District Judge Norman A. Mordue of Syracuse, New York. In his ruling, Judge Mordue wrote, "[T]he court adopts the view that the Second Amendment is not a source of individual rights."

Echoing the lie taught in many law schools today, Mordue -- a Clinton appointee -- argued that the Second Amendment secures only a "collective" right, allowing National Guardsmen to bear arms.

Constitutional scholar Stephen Halbrook says that's baloney. Having argued and won three gun cases before the Supreme Court, Halbrook is probably America’s leading expert on gun rights. In his book, That Every Man Be Armed, Halbrook notes that, during the debate over the Bill of Rights in 1789, Tench Coxe – a friend of James Madison – published a defense of the proposed amendments in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette. Coxe wrote that "the people are confirmed… [by the Second Amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private arms."

James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, applauded Coxe’s article. Upon receiving a copy, Madison thanked his friend for "the cooperation of your pen" in helping to explain the Bill of Rights to the public.

Halbrook writes:

Coxe’s defense of the amendments was widely reprinted. A search of the literature of the time reveals that no writer disputed or contradicted Coxe’s analysis that what became the Second Amendment protected the right of the people to keep and bear their "private arms." The only dispute was over whether a bill was even necessary to protect such fundamental rights.

Why, then, do so many law professors teach exactly the opposite – that the Second Amendment secures no individual right to keep and bear arms? Simple. Many law professors are leftists who oppose gun rights. Therefore, they lie to their students about the true meaning of the Bill of Rights.

"One will search the `leading’ casebooks in vain for any mention of the Second Amendment," wrote University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson in the Yale Law Journal in 1989. Levinson accused the "elite bar" of "sheer opposition to the idea of private ownership of guns…"

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe scandalized academia in 1999 when he revised his treatise American Constitutional Law – a standard text in law schools since 1978 – and finally acknowledged the obvious; that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms. "I’ve gotten an avalanche of angry mail from apparent liberals who said, `How could you?’" Tribe told USA Today.

Subsequent editions of Tribe’s book now carry the correction. But the book misinformed law students for 20 years.

In his ruling against David Bach, Judge Mordue cites United States v. Miller (1939) – a Supreme Court decision which leftists claim overruled individual gun rights. In fact, it does just the opposite.

Not only does United States v. Miller confirm citizen gun rights, but Levinson says it strongly implies "that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers, and other armaments that are clearly relevant to modern warfare…"

It is time to purge what Levinson calls the "elite bar" of liars and ignoramuses. Too many Americans died to give us our Constitution. Will we surrender it now to the whims of leftist judges and law professors?
_____________________________________

Richard Poe is a New-York-Times bestselling author and cyberjournalist. His book The Seven Myths of Gun Control was just released in paperback. Poe’s forthcoming book, The New Underground: How Conservatives Conquered the Internet will be available soon.

[SteveH]

NY Sullivan Law *bang

[sourcery]

"Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger!"

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

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[pabianice]

Doesn't matter. Liberal judges will take-away all private firearms regardless of the law unless they are stopped from doing so.

[AlaskaErik]

I have an uncle who lives in that cesspool known as New York City. It goes without saying that I will never visit him there.

[Texas_Jarhead]

2nd Amendment BUMP

[chuckwalla]

That's right
The only law that matters to the left is what they want to make up to suit their agenda.
It changes according to what they need at any particular time.

[SJSAMPLE]

I agree, but his status as a SEAL, lawyer or veteran should grant him NOTHING. He shold be allowed to carry as a citizen of the United States and nothing more. The current argument is to allow retired LEO to carry as a way of dispersing the argument for all citizens to exercise their rights.

[TC Rider]

Not only does United States v. Miller confirm citizen gun rights, but Levinson says it strongly implies "that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers, and other armaments that are clearly relevant to modern warfare…"

My recollection from readings is that the court found against Miller because the court felt that a shotgun was not an effective combat weapon. Of course today, shotguns are regularly issued and used in Irag by our troops.

[Travis McGee]

Only the police and military need handguns.

[Larry Lucido]

Ping

[facedown]

Good article - BTTT.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Anyone, regardless of position, profession or prominence in rank, who rules that even one of the Bill of Rights-, does not pertain to the individual rights of every citizen of the United States of America, is either a liar unfit to be making such decisions or a complete damn Constitutionally illeterate fool who should not be making such decisions!

The United States Government already had the right to maintain an Armed Militia, that provision and the arming thereof was already a fact in the body of the United States Constitution. The second amendment merely conveyed that right to every Citizen of this country.

It doesn't matter how poorly written and open to argument and twisted interpretations it may be. THe only thing that need be remembered is that the Bill of rights, clarifies certain inaleinable rights of individual states, that the representatives of those states demanded before lending their blessings and authorization to, the Constitution of these United States.

THe Courts may have the power to bully and abuse a citizen who is excercising their right to keep and bear arms, they have the power to make his/her life unbearable and make a criminal of that gun bearer. The Courts have that power and the citizen is almost helpless to resist, but the citizen is a victem of abusive government and the courts are guilty of bastardizing the very document they swore to defend.

[chuckwalla]

You know after all the horrific history that proves the 2d amendment right the left still refuses to see. Why????
The only explaination I can come up with is that they are addicted to power and see any threat to their power as illegal.
A simple reading of the Warsaw ghetto uprising should convince any natural thinking person of the importance of firearms in the hands of private citizens. But not them.
No amount of history or law or logic works.

[Imal]

Leftists oppose private ownership of guns because it interferes with genocide.

[Cloud William]

My recollection from readings is that the court found against Miller because the court felt that a shotgun was not an effective combat weapon. Of course today, shotguns are regularly issued and used in Irag by our troops.

Shotguns were in military armories long before the Miller decision. Here's a modern reproduction of the WWI-era Winchester 1897 "Trench Gun":

[lelio]

"[B]ecause of my occupation within the Department of Defense and Naval Special Warfare, I believe my family and I are at greater risk of being targeted by those seek[ing] to carry out symbolic acts of terror," Bach argued in court papers.

While I support his lawsuit, I don't like that you have to show a reason to carry a gun around. What about those of us that aren't naval attorneys? Not to mention that I find it hard to believe that someone's going to target an attorney as a "symbolic act of terror".

Hopefully gun ownership won't be broken down into those that work for the state and those that don't.

[chuckwalla]

Miller lost/defaulted because he didn't show up.
I don't believe the firearm in question was ever ruled illegal.

[groanup]

The Miller case was about SAWED-OFF shotguns.