CHRONICLE PROFILE: Gary Gorski A lonely fight for gun rights

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/23/2002 | Katherine Seligman

[SteveH]

Just before it became illegal to own military-style assault weapons in California about three years ago, Gary Gorski went shopping. The suburban Sacramento lawyer already had one high-powered rifle sitting in his home safe, but he rushed out to buy seven more. Just on principle.

[SteveH]

guts

[SteveH]

bang

[Steel and Fire and Stone]

Chuck Michel, a spokesman for the California Rifle and Pistol Association and an NRA lawyer, said he sympathized with Gorski's impatience, but said his approach was "not the way to go about correcting the problem." Michel has filed a lawsuit in Fresno Superior Court challenging the weapons ban on the basis of its ambiguity. Gorski, he said, is a "well-intentioned loose cannon."

As an NRA member, and a California gun owner who's 2nd amendment rights are being redefined into priviledges daily by the CA legislature, I wonder why I'm a member of this organization. I'll be sure to mention this when they NRA comes calling at renewal time.

Does the NRA actually want to win against the anti-gunners, or just want a long term, viable issue on which to collect donations? Seems like they've gone "corporate", i.e. sacraficing all principle for the greater good --- defined as the continued viability of the NRA and their officer holders.

By the way, for all those good folks who say "well, that's the crazies in California ... it can't happen here", you are 100% wrong. Every gun law that is "successfully" implemented in CA will be a model for a gun law you'll see in your own state. It may take 10-20 years, but your rights in your state will be forfeit if they succeed in California.

FReegards, SFS

[rellimpank]

--the NRA has sense enough to not take losing cases into courts where loss is equally sure. The wrong case to the Supreme Court is a loss forever--

[servantoftheservant]

In this particular case, Gorski got an admission from the the psychos on the 9th Circuit that the justification for the assault weapons ban in California is that the 2nd is a 'community right' rather than an 'individual right'.

How can this not be the definitive case to take before the Supremes? It can't get much more cut and dry. We'll get the final word on whether the 2nd is individual or communal, and thereby whether we live in individual freedom or in communist freedom.

[SteveH]

My personal opinion is that this is one of the laws that the gun organizations probably ought to take on, because of the registration and confiscation issues.

It seems to me that Gary did a good job getting the justices "on record". The significance is, apparently, that the justices went on record using the collective-rights view after the Emerson decision. So Emerson is framed in time by conflicting decisions from a different federal district appeals court and makes the Supremes responsible, at least on paper, for resolving the discrepancy. The case also seems reasonably clean of distracting issues such as prior arrests, other charges, etc.

With a clean shot at another Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment, the counterargument to the claim that it may be lost forever by an unfavorable ruling is that at least the battle lines would then be clearly drawn.

It would almost be comical to witness the necessity of such a lawsuit to seek clarification of a few simple words, were it not for the seriousness of the issues involved.

[Shooter 2.5]

In a very short time, a couple of Supreme Court Justices are scheduled to retire. We have the chance to have more convervatives on the bench. Yet, there are people who are trying to rush a Supreme Court ruling before that happens.

The NRA, SAF, and the other gun groups aren't pushing for a Supreme Court ruling until the new Justices are appointed. It's wise to wait until at least one more conservative can rule in our favor.

[Vic3O3]

ping

[Redbob]

"The wrong case to the Supreme Court is a loss forever--"

Like Dred Scott, for example?

[Lurker]

The NRA has done more damage to gun rights than Sarah Brady ever could hope to in her wildest dreams.

L

[lentulusgracchus]

Agree that taking it to the "wrong" Supreme Court would result in another lashup job like the 1939 Miller decision, which looks more and more like another New Deal put-up job. Reading about that case makes my blood curdle.

Our basic problem is political and overarching. Getting conservative justices nominated by Bush is not a slam-dunk. He wants to nominate cronies -- have you been following the threads on that? And Bush cronies are not conservatives except by comparison to people like Charlie Schumer.

Pew Trusts did a psychometric study of the electorate (measuring the victims for the knife, no doubt) in 1999 that indicated no support for gun rights among the group the Bushies come from: business-oriented middle-class, middlebrow people. They make their livings pushing other people around, and so they have a natural antipathy, like the ideologues and NGO types on the Left, toward individual ownership of firearms. They want (IMHO) a police monopoly on firepower -- which would then be used to protect them against crime and their employees.

I'm afraid that Bush II will produce more Kennedys and Souters than Scalias and Thomases, and that they in turn will refuse to revisit and overturn the "community right" garbage articulated in Miller and Presser vs. Illinois (1895), the bad case that Miller rested on.

In Presser, the Court agreed with union-busting bosses in Chicago that Illinois could restrict the roster of the Militia (National Guard) to 8600 men, and that nobody else had Second Amendment protection and could be disarmed and criminalized at will for possession by the legislature and courts.

[Shooter 2.5]

You have no idea what you're writing about. The NRA is only a lobbying group just as the Second Amendment Foundation, The Second Amendment Sisters and the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.
The only time a gun group will be effective is if all the gun owners join the fight instead of a measly 5%.
We need the gun groups working together and stop this childish infighting.

[Shooter 2.5]

You're correct although we just have to ask ourselves why the media is suddenly pushing for a Second Amendment ruling. I would still wish for a moderate who knows how to read a simple sentence instead of a member who echos the ninth court. [Yes, I put the ninth in small caps for a reason]

[Lurker]

The NRA approved of the 1968 GCA. In fact, Charleton Heston was one of its biggest backers.

The NRA is worse than useless.

L

[Shooter 2.5]

You had to go back thirty years to come up with something.

Heston also said that he didn't like AK's but he didn't want them banned. He used the same paraphrasing of " I don't agree what you said, but I will defend your right to say it". Get a clue.

I don't particularly like people sitting on the sidelines doing a bunch of childish naysaying. The NRA may have done a mistake or two but I don't see any other group that comes close to stopping gun laws like the NRA.

Let me guess, you don't belong to any group, right?

[Shooter 2.5]

The NRA didn't "approve" of the GCA. They didn't have the votes to stop it.

[rellimpank]

Exactly. The simpletons who damn the NRA for the actions of the last forty years are generally ignorant of the facts of what the Johnson and Carter administrations wanted and would have got without the NRA---

As far as the so-called "no compromise" gun organizations of today-GOA and JPFO--while well meaning, without the NRA neither of them could get more than one vote in the House and none in the Senate--

As far as Dred Scott, I don't think we are going to fight a civil war to get our guns back--

[Shooter 2.5]

I haven't seen the GOA stop any gun laws. The GOA was chased out of Michigan. The SAF started the concealed weapons lawsuit in Ohio and the NRA is involved in the negotiations.

If the GOA is such a "No Compromise" organization, I have a way they can prove it. The Kansas state constitution says:

Kansas: The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be tolerated, and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power. Bill of Rights, § 4 (enacted 1859, art. I, § 4).

Let the GOA sue the State of Kansas and stop acting like a yapping little dog around the NRA. I'm getting a little sick that the GOA members still can't get it throught their noggins that we all have to work together.

[Shooter 2.5]

Civil War? The gun owners who don't belong to the NRA complain about mailers where they have to drag their lazy butts off a couch to throw the letters away. Why on earth would anyone, such as you and I, believe they would fight for their rights in a shooting war.

Here's a little fact about Heston. Every year, a gunsmith craftsman creates a firearm that is donated to the NRA at each Annual Meeting. That's the flintlock that Heston was holding in his hands when he gave the "From My Cold Dead Hands Speech". If anyone is so interested in Heston holding a semi over his head in order to give that speech, I'm sure the NRA will accept the donation.

No takers?

I didn't think so.

[cavtrooper21]

No, Air CAV!
C'mon folks, let's support this brave man, before the JBTs come knocking at his door, and then there is a "terrible incident" or "accident" and we lose this fighter for good. And when the he makes enough noise, you know it will happen.