Bush Snubs Heller
The lamestream media told you:
The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to uphold the District of Columbia’s gun ban in the D.C. v. Heller case. The Office of Solicitor General’s brief makes it clear that regulation and registration of guns is allowed under the Second Amendment.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
The OSG brief is disappointing from a pro-rights view but the media’s characterization of it, like nearly everything the media does about guns, is just wrong.
Bush’s Justice Dept. brief recognizes 2A as an individual right, and asks that the D.C. ban be overturned. What it does not do is ask for “strict scrutiny,” the highest standard when applying 2A to other laws across the nation.
I suspect (without hard evidence) OSG is trying to justify some wiggle room in the decision, so a robust individual-right finding does not also wash away gun laws that even hard-boiled gun-rights advocates usually support (for prisoners, escapees, parolees, fugitives, arming vessels of foreign powers, violent felons, true nut jobs, sticking up convenience stores, etc). None of that would end anyway.
What’s important now is to ask the presidential candidates where they stand on gun rights. It’s critically important, so expect the media to not do it. If you can squeeze a question into the debate at a town hall, ask. For a clear description of the matter, my friend Sandy Froman has a good one posted at TownHall.com.
Some 19 briefs asking the Court to deny your rights have been filed by the usual suspects: Janet Reno and former Justice Dept. officials, the NAACP, American Academy of Pediatrics, a variety of “public health” groups, Brady and the Violence Policy Center, several city mayors, D.C. activists, and 18 members of Congress.
The brief supporting the Second Amendment from Heller’s team is due Feb. 4, and friend-of-the-Court briefs for the we-have-rights side come a week later. As many as 40 are expected. Stay tuned.
John Lott points out: The District’s acting attorney general, Peter Nickles, happily noted that the Justice Department’s brief was a “somewhat surprising and very favorable development.” Alan Gura, the attorney who will represent those challenging the ban before the Supreme Court, accused the Bush administration of “basically siding with the District of Columbia” and said that “This is definitely hostile to our position.” Los Angeles Times said in their lead on Sunday, “gun-control advocates never expected to get a boost from the Bush administration.”
| More from Alan Korwin
Stumble It!
