Posted on 05/08/2002 11:57:58 AM PDT by Patriotman
White House reverses stand on right to bear arms
Associated Press
Washington — Reversing decades of Justice Department policy, the Bush administration has told the Supreme Court that it believes the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess firearms.
At the same time, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer said the case need not test that principle now.
The administration's view represents a reversal of government interpretations of the Second Amendment going back some 40 years.
"The current position of the United States ... is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms," Solicitor-General Theodore Olson wrote in two court filings this week.
That right, however, is "subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."
Mr. Olson, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, was reflecting the view of Attorney-General John Ashcroft that the Second Amendment confers the right to "keep and bear arms" to private citizens and not merely to the "well-regulated militia" mentioned in the amendment's text.
Mr. Ashcroft caused a stir when he expressed a similar sentiment a year ago in a letter to the National Rifle Association.
"While some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a 'collective' right of the states to maintain militias, I believe the amendment's plain meaning and original intent prove otherwise," Mr. Ashcroft wrote.
Critics accused him of kowtowing to the gun lobby and of undermining federal prosecutors by endorsing a legal view 180 degrees away from what has been official Justice Department policy through four Democratic and five Republican administrations.
At the time that Mr. Ashcroft wrote the letter, it was unclear whether he was expressing his personal view or stating a new policy position for the government. That question was mostly answered last November, when he sent a letter to federal prosecutors praising an appellate court's decision that found "the Second Amendment does protect individual rights" but noting that those rights could be subject to "limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions."
That opinion by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals went on to reject arguments from Texas physician Timothy Emerson that a 1994 federal gun law was unconstitutional. The law was intended to deny guns to people under judicial restraining orders.
"In my view, the Emerson opinion, and the balance it strikes, generally reflect the correct understanding of the Second Amendment," Mr. Ashcroft told prosecutors.
Mr. Emerson appealed to the Supreme Court, putting the Justice Department in an awkward position. Although the government won its case in the lower court using the old interpretation of the Second Amendment, Mr. Ashcroft had switched gears by the time the case reached the high court.
Mr. Olson's court filing on Monday urged the Supreme Court not to get involved and acknowledged the policy change in a lengthy footnote. Mr. Olson also attached Mr. Ashcroft's letter to prosecutors.
Mr. Olson made the same notation in a separate case involving a man convicted of owning two machine guns in violation of federal law. In that case, the government also won a lower-court decision endorsing a federal gun-control law.
The Justice Department issued a statement Tuesday night saying its latest comments reflect the Attorney-General's position in the November letter to prosecutors.
"This action is proof positive that the worst fears about Attorney-General Ashcroft have come true: His extreme ideology on guns has now become government policy," said Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which promotes gun control.
Mr. Barnes noted that other federal appeals courts and the Supreme Court have not found the same protection for individual gun ownership that the 5th Circuit asserted in the Emerson case.
The Supreme Court last ruled on the scope of the Second Amendment in 1939, when it said the clause protects only those rights that have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well-regulated militia."
Don't get me wrong. The ping was worthwhile (thanks BTW); the content left a lot to be desired.
"Firearms ownership is an individual right, unless we think it shouldn't be..."
Missed it by || that much.
In any case, thanks for your post. I enjoyed the hearty laugh I received.
However, you really should go back and r-e-a-d the article s-l-o-w-l-y, digest it, roll it around in your mind, and then you'll have a better chance of 'getting it'.
Regards...
How well have your "rights" fared so far?
Not worth a tinkers diddle.
#1 sC hears the case and decides "Not an individual right".
#2 sC doesn't hear the case, what we have is "Not an individual right, conficate them".
Do you or don't you have a right to keep and bear arms? Who says?
I, myself had to read it twice before I realized what is really being said without being said.
Not true. But being as I am essentially a "one issue" voter, Bush has SAID he is a "moderate" on gun control, i.e., he favors it. That said, I think we have a chance to educate him on just who the hell constitutes his voter base.
He was doing neither. He just got caught up in this mandatory federal gun confiscation scheme. His wife and her lawyer were just trying to bust his **^^'s,so this siced the feds on him because he had a gun. The way this law works,ALL that is neccessary to have the cops come confiscate your guns if for your spouse to say she or he is afraid of you,and that you have guns. No threat or act of violence is neccessary. It's almost automatic for divorce lawyers do this now,since it gives them one more "tool" to use in court against the spouse of their client. They stand up and say,"You honor,this man is so dangerous and his wife so afraid of him,that we had to have the police go to his house to confiscate his guns and arrest him!" Some women and their lawyers have even gone so far with husbands who are gun collectors to threaten to do this unless she is paid 50% of the guns estimated worth.
Maybe they are waiting for a better case than one which would defend the right to arm wife beaters.
You are letting your knee-jerk biases overpower your common sense. I can think of no better case than one where the person has been arrested,had his Constitutional rights violated, and had his property confiscated without him ever being found guilty of anything.
BTW,let's suppose for a minute he HAD beaten his wife at one time or another. Would you want his steak knives and his car confiscated and him arrested for having them? He could easily kill his wife with either. How about have him arrested for buying gasoline becuase he COULD use it to burn her house down or make a bomb? In this country we are not supposed to punish people for what they MIGHT do,but for what they actually do.
BTW, this article says it was a Beretta pistol. I don't know from pistols, all I know is Beretta semi-automatic. Do you think he had a pistol? or that the writer got it wrong?
No,he had a Beretta pistol. Nothing special about them,they are now the standard sidearm of the US military. Is it possible you are confusing semi-automatic (self-loading single shot) with full-automatic (machine gun)?
Note also that he was acquitted of all domestic violence charges. The only "crime" of which he has not been acquitted is his excercise of his right to keep and bear arms.
AND that it is because of THIS conviction that it is now a violation of federal law for him to even again own or be in possession of a firearm. Kinda ironic,ain't it?
BTW,this is one of the biggest reasons I'd like to see the Supremes take this case on. There is no way in hell they could possibly approve of a circular firing squad like this being Constitutional.
L. Pratt's entire statement can be read off the Alan Keys Show link found at www.msnbc.com
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