Posted on 03/24/2008 3:13:59 PM PDT by dynachrome
In a "move that surprised some observers," the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday, attorney Alan Gura, appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the federal guard who sued the District of Columbia in 2003, claiming he feels unsafe because he's not allowed to keep his guns at home, "appeared to concede large chunks of his argument, moving away from an absolutist position on gun rights."
"He concurred, at one point, with Justice Stephen Breyer that a ban on machine guns or plastic guns" (whatever those are) "would be constitutional because those weren't the kind of arms normally carried by members of state militias in the early days of the United States."
Was it a failure of nerve under pressure, or did somebody get to this guy?
The statement above is like saying "freedom of the press" doesn't apply to newspapers printed on modern, high-speed electric presses -- only to handbills printed one at a time on an old-fashioned hand-cranker, because that's the only kind they had back in Ben Franklin's day.
(Excerpt) Read more at lvrj.com ...
Did journalists have laptops and blackberries 200 years ago? Cell phones? We should look real hard at the 1A next.
Obviously, the Constitution only applies to the original 13 colonies.
Neither; it was a realistic assessment of the fact that no one on the Supreme Court would be willing to strike down the ban on full-auto weapons or to hold that there is a constitutional right to carry concealed guns onto airplanes. The object of a lawyer is to win the case he is arguing, not to insist on some absolutist position that is far beyond what is needed to decide the case at hand.
PS - Still waiting for that plastic gun. Oops! It’s full of steel! Silly wabbit, tricks are for squids.
May not be plastic, but Mayor Bloomberg of NY is wetting his panties! (gun company has bloomberg collection!)
http://www.lauerweaponry.com/duracoatcolors.cfm?colortype=bloomberg&Category=245
The question the judge asked him was about a gun designed to avoid metal detectors. Whether there is such a gun now or not, the right answer was to say that he was not contending that such a gun was constitutionally protected.
Gura had to proceed carefully and allow the Justices to reach a correct understanding on their own. But he was too cautious. I believe Kennedy jumped in an one point and said that MG's were precisely guns that would be protected and that Gura's stance on the operative clause was too narrow. (I paraphrase.)
I know it's stupid, but a strong answer could be perceived as "smart-ass" and THAT loses the argument.
After I listened to the recast, I though Clement(!) was a stronger proponent of the operative clause than Gura. And that was a supreme disappointment.
Clearly, the First Amendment was meant to apply only to sheet-fed printing presses of the sort useful for printing political broadsides and publick notices, not the modern high-speed web-fed assault presses in use today, an ecological threat to our very forests, and which should only be used by the government to print free informational pamphlets.
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