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Ashcroft supports 2nd Amendment
SCHUMER CRITICIZES NEW DOJ DECISION TO CHANGE CONSTITUTIONAL
DEFINITION OF GUN OWNERS
Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 8, 2002
Schumer: Ashcroft Decision Betrays Promise "To Follow Letter of
the Law" Made During His Controversial Confirmation Hearings Changing
Definition of 2nd Amendment Could Undermine State, Local Gun Laws, End
Vital Legal Protections That Reduced Gun Violence, Crime
US Senator Chuck Schumer today criticized
the Justice Department's sudden change of interpretation of the Second
Amendment, after decades of long-held policy. For over sixty years, the
Justice Department has interpreted the Second Amendment as applying to
those with a reasonable relationship to a well regulated militia. Now,
in a stunning reversal of long-held policy, the Justice Department has
argued before the Supreme Court that the Constitution broadly protects
the rights of individuals to own firearms. Schumer made the following
statement at a press conference today:
"Yesterday, the Justice Department
used footnotes in two Supreme Court briefs to announce a massive change
of course in our nation's gun control policy. For the first time in
60 years, the federal government is saying that the right to bear arms
is an individual right.
"This decision wasn't made after
discussion, debate, and open dialogue. It wasn't made in consultation
with Congress and the states. And it wasn't put forward with the kind
of detail and analysis that such a significant policy shift would usually
come with. Instead, it was done undercover, buried in footnotes.
"The broad principle that there is
an individual right to bear arms is shared by many Americans, including
myself. I'm of the view that you can't take a broad approach to other
rights, such as First Amendment rights, and then interpret the Second
Amendment so narrowly that it could fit in a thimble.
"But I'm also of the view that there
are limits on those rights. Just as you can't falsely shout fire in
a crowded movie theater, you can put restrictions on who can own guns
and how, when, and where they may be possessed.
"At his confirmation hearings, Attorney
General Ashcroft swore to enforce and defend all existing federal gun
laws. He said, ‘I understand that being Attorney General means
enforcing the law as they are written, not enforcing my personal preferences.'
"He also said, ‘I believe that
there are constitutional inhibitions on the rights of citizens to bear
certain kinds of arms, and some of those I would think good judgment
-- some of those I would think bad judgment. But as attorney general
it is not my judgment to make that kind of call. My judgment, my responsibility,
is to uphold the acts of the legislative branch of this government in
that arena, and I would do so and continue to do so in regard to the
cases that now exist, and further enactments of the Congress.'
"The case that now exists is the
United States v. Miller from 1939. In that case, the Supreme Court said
that the Second Amendment protects only those rights that have some
reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well
regulated militia.
"During his confirmation hearings,
John Ashcroft made it abundantly clear that he would enforce the law
as it is written, not as he'd like it to be. What happened to that pledge?
It's hard to look his actions and not question whether he's going back
on his word.
"The vote to confirm John Ashcroft's
nomination was close, both in committee and in the Senate. Many members
of my party who voted to confirm him based their decision on his commitment
to follow the letter of the law. I wonder how they feel right now. I
wonder if this is what they had in mind.
"The Justice Department is saying
that the right to bear arms is subject to "reasonable restrictions."
But the devil, as always, is in the details.
"Is the federal ban on assault weapons
a reasonable restriction? Is the federal ban on felons owning firearms
a reasonable restriction?
"We should know where Attorney General
Ashcroft is on these questions but we don't. And we don't know precisely
because this was done undercover of darkness, and not through an open
process.
"The impact of this policy change
is startling. Has the Justice Department considered how state laws will
be impacted? Is Maryland's 7-day waiting period unconstitutional? How
about California's ban on Saturday night specials?
"The District of Columbia, a city
that was once not only the nation's capital, but the nation's murder
capital, has one of the strictest gun laws in the country. DOJ's reversal
raises questions about how federal prosecutors operating in the District
will use this interpretation in prosecuting gun crimes."
"As for New York, we require strict
licensing and registration of handguns. And for good reason. States
and local communities need to be able to pass gun laws that deal with
their own particular issues. What works in one part of the country isn't
going to work in another."
"Even within New York State we have
different laws because what works in Onondaga County won't necessarily
fly in Brooklyn.
"Not to put too fine a point on it,
but if New York City had Arizona's gun laws, Times Square would look
like the OK Corral. And that's not OK.
"So I'm calling on the Department
of Justice to fill in the details on this proposal. I am sending a letter
today to Attorney General Ashcroft, asking him to explain the rationale
for this policy change and the reasons it was not publicly vetted and
discussed with Congress.
"I am also asking him to provide
an analysis of the federal, state, and local gun laws that DOJ believes
will be affected by this new interpretation of the Second Amendment.
"When it comes to guns, this is the
biggest shift in policy we've seen in decades. It could undermine hundreds
of state and local laws that have drastically reduced gun violence and
saved countless lives. This is an underhanded way to avoid debate and
it is a clear departure from what John Ashcroft promised to do during
his confirmation hearings. To say it's a disappointment would be an
understatement. It's a problem, and it's one we're going to deal with,
aggressively, starting right now."
The individual right to bear arms
The
Washington Times, EDITORIAL • May 10, 2002
This week, Solicitor General Theordore
B. Olson went before the U.S. Supreme Court and began making the federal
government's case that the Second Amendment does, in fact, protect an
individual right to keep and bear arms. "The current position of
the United States," Mr. Olson wrote in briefs filed with the court,
"is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the rights of
individuals, including persons who are not members of any state militia
or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear
their own firearms." (Italics added.)
Many people likely do not realize that the
linchpin of gun-control efforts for decades has been the exact opposite
of Mr. Olson's position — that the Second Amendment guarantees only
the corporate right of "the militia," not private individuals
unconnected to the armed forces, to keep and bear arms. Indeed, the government
itself has taken that very position for years as well.
It is a patently ridiculous argument, however,
that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep
and bear arms. To accept it, one must take the position that the Founding
Fathers, who led a war against an oppressive government, endorsed disarming
every citizen who wasn't somehow connected to "the militia,"
or another branch of the armed services — obvious historical evidence
to the contrary notwithstanding. Most colonial Americans, as any school
child knows, possessed firearms openly, even though most had little or
nothing to do with any formal branch of the armed services or "militia."
And why bother writing a Second Amendment guarantee to protect a government
right?
In point of fact, the Bill of Rights was
written explicity to protect individual rights against government encroachment.
It is a near-certainty that the Constitution — which spells out the
authority of the federal government in relation to the states and to individuals
— would never have been ratified absent the Bill of Rights. And had
the Founding Fathers attempted to disarm the average citizen, it is equally
certain there would have been another revolution in short order.
Those familiar with the colonial era know,
furthermore, that "the militia" was synonymous with what we
might today call a "citizen's army" — that is, a potential
force comprised of every able-bodied man who might be called upon to defend
the fledgling nation in the event of an outside threat. It did not mean
a formal "army" as we understand the concept today. Finally
and most telling of all as regards the "intent" of the Founders,
there is abundant, highly specific written evidence that they sought to
guarantee the average person's right to keep and bear arms as a means
of keeping the government itself in check. The security of a "free
state" depended upon an armed citizenry, they said. So it does.
Mr. Olson's — the federal government's — refreshing return
to an honest reading of the Second Amendment is to be cheered.
Individual gun rights get administration's
support
05/07/2002 By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Bush
administration has told the Supreme Court that it believes that the right
to bear arms applies to individuals, not just to state militias, a significant
change in firearms policy that legal analysts say eventually could help
form the basis for overturning some restrictions on guns. The
move reverses the U.S. government's long-standing view of the Second Amendment,
voiced consistently since the Nixon administration, that the Constitution
protects only the rights of state-sponsored militias, such as today's
National Guard. It also bolsters efforts by Attorney General John Ashcroft,
the National Rifle Association and other gun-control foes who have sought
a broader reading of the Second Amendment and opposed many gun restrictions.
The government's new legal position could
entice the Supreme Court, which last ruled on the right to bear arms in
1939, to again weigh in on the issue. The court said then that the right
to bear arms belongs to the "well regulated militia" referred
to in the Second Amendment. In recent years, some justices, most notably
Clarence Thomas, have suggested that the court re-examine whether individuals
are covered.
The administration's shift was asserted in briefs
concerning two cases the high court received late Monday for possible
review. Solicitor General Theodore Olson wrote that the government had
changed its stance on the Second Amendment since the cases, from Texas
and Oklahoma, were heard in lower courts. "The current
position of the United States," Olson wrote, "is that the Second
Amendment more broadly protects the rights of individuals ... to possess
and bear their own firearms, 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."
He also suggested that gun restrictions be subject to the toughest constitutional
test, called "strict scrutiny."
Harvard University law professor Laurence
Tribe said that such a heightened standard ultimately could jeopardize
some gun restrictions. Tribe added support to gun owners' rights two years
ago, when he wrote that he had come to believe that the Second Amendment
protects individuals, with certain limits. Tribe said the administration's
new position goes further because its legal test "would severely
restrict reasonable regulations of firearms. That is a rather frightening
reading of the Second Amendment."
CLICK
HERE TO SEE THE WHOLE ARTICLE
(As you can guess this is
driving the anti-gun groups nuts)
Brady Center Blasts Ashcroft's Official Reversal of the Justice
Department's Longstanding Position on the Second Amendment
7 May, To: National Desk, Contact: Amy Stilwell of the
Brady Center to Prevent Gun, Violence, 202-898-0792
WASHINGTON, May 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Michael D. Barnes,
president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, today blasted
U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft's official reversal of the United State's
long-standing position on the Second Amendment. The new position --
which was included as a footnote in two U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) briefs that were filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday,
May 6 -- reflects Ashcroft's personal view that the Second Amendment
"broadly protects the rights of individuals" to possess
firearms. This directly contradicts the Justice Department's position
of more than 40 years that the Second Amendment confers a collective
right to bear arms in the context of a state-sponsored militia. "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 Barnes. "His new position represents
a radical departure from the Justice Department's unwavering interpretation
of the Second Amendment spanning at least four decades, an interpretation
that has prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court and every federal appeals
court, with the sole exception of the renegade decision in U.S. v.
Emerson.
About-Face On Guns
WASHINGTON, May 8, 2002, (AP / CBS)
"This action is proof positive that the worst fears about Attorney
General Ashcroft have come true."
Michael Barnes, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
(CBS) Reversing decades
of Justice Department policy, the Bush administration has told the
Supreme Court 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 high court 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, through four Democratic and five Republican administrations.
"The coalition is very disappointed
that [Attorney General] John Ashcroft's personal politics and debt
to the NRA have climbed into the official position of the Justice
Department," Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition
to Stop Gun Violence, told CBS Radio News. Laws like "the Brady
Bill, like the assault weapons ban have met constitutional muster."
New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, said that during
his confirmation hearing Ashcroft promised to uphold the laws as they
exist and not to promote is own agenda. "What happened
to that pledge?" he asked reporters. "It's hard to look
at his actions and not question whether he is going back on his word."
"Somehow the gun movement in this country has been captured
by people who are extreme and believe in no restrictions at all and
that seems to be the direction Attorney General Ashcroft is moving
in," he added.
MY COMMENT
That "going
back some 40 years"? Does that mean that up to 40 years
ago, or for 186 years the government interpretation was that the individual
did have the right to possess firearms. What a bias article!
Eugene Volokh
UCLA School of
Law
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Legislation
Could Arm Commercial Pilots
The Hartford Courant, May 1, 2002,By PAUL MARKS, Courant
Staff Writer
Fear of death won't deter suicidal terrorists,
but a nationwide coalition of commercial pilots is seeking authority to
carry handguns in the cockpit in the belief that the fear of failure will.
On Tuesday, the pilots' campaign got a boost from Congress, as the House
chairmen of committees on transportation and aviation announced they will
co-sponsor legislation letting airline pilots carry guns.
The measure, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Don
Young, R-Alaska, and John L. Mica, R-Fla., would require the new Transportation
Security Administration to deputize pilots as "federal flight deck officers"
authorized to be armed. Within four months of passage, at least 500 pilots
would be sworn in. Within two years, any pilot who volunteers would be
deputized. Such pilots would get 48 hours of special training in
defending the cockpit, where currently their only available weapon is
an ax designed for cutting through the fuselage in the event of fire.
"Pilots are the last line of defense against
any terrorist hijacking," said Mica, whose aviation subcommittee has scheduled
a hearing Thursday on the proposed bill. "To date, we have failed to provide
them with the tools they need to defend themselves, their crew and the
public. Fortifying the cockpit doors was an important step, but ... given
enough time, any door will eventually fail. Arming the pilots is the necessary
next layer of security."
"We have offered [terrorists] a virtual
guarantee that if you get on a plane with a weapon, you'll be the only
one aboard that's armed," said Price. By discouraging hijackers, he said,
guns in the cockpit would help safeguard every U.S. airliner. "Terrorists
do not fear death; they fear failure, so you have to convince them that
they will not succeed."
During a comment period earlier this year
on whether to arm pilots, a Federal Aviation Administration website received
more than 10,000 responses, mainly in favor. Opposition has come
from major airlines, which worry about the liability of allowing guns
aboard flights. They argue that cockpit doors have been reinforced since
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and are being strengthened further. United
Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier, has begun training pilots to use Taser
stun guns, which can subdue attackers temporarily. A key provision
in the legislation proposed by Young and Mica would free airlines and
the pilots who volunteer to carry guns from liability for any injuries
resulting from a shooting incident.
The stance taken by the two committee chairmen
contrasts sharply with views expressed in recent weeks by the Bush administration.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and Homeland Security Director
Tom Ridge are both opposed to arming pilots. Mineta contends newly reinforced
cockpit doors would block terrorists from taking over an airplane.
However, the final word must come from John Magaw, head of the Transportation
Security Administration. A spokesman for the agency said Tuesday that
the issue still is being studied.
CLICK
HERE TO SEE THE WHOLE ARTICLE
CLICK HERE TO SEE
THE NRA LIVE VIEDO REPORT, "Armed Pilots: Surest Route To Safer Skies"
NRA
LIVE VIEDO REPORT "Armed Pilots: More Debate, No Decision"
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Democrat Miller wins over NRA crowd
The Washington Times, April 29, 2002
RENO, Nev. (AP) RENO, Nev. (AP) —
Only about half the crowd at the NRA's 131st annual meeting at the Reno
Hilton hotel-casino stood when Mr. Miller was introduced as the first
Democrat to give a keynote address to the gun rights group in more than
a decade.
But nearly all rose to give a 30-second standing ovation by the time the
popular former two-term Georgia governor finished his speech touting the
NRA's 4.2 million members as the epitome of "mainstream America."
"Like many of you, I've got more guns than I
need, but not as many as I want," Mr. Miller said. "Now that
may sound a bit confusing to some — a Democrat wanting more guns," he
said, explaining he is a life member of the NRA with an A-plus voting
record from the group, "and I'm darned proud of it."
Mr. Miller said Mr. Gore lost partly because
Democratic strategists listened to bad advice from pollsters who claimed
voters favored gun control. He said Mr. Gore's stands on gun rights cost
the vice president key Southern states, including Arkansas, West Virginia
and Tennessee. "I recall the surprise of national Democratic leaders
at losing those states in the presidential election," Mr. Miller said.
"All their expert pollsters said voters favored some kind of gun control.
Well, I stand with heartfelt conviction over a political wind gauge any
day.
"What many do not understand is that the gun issue is not just about guns.
It's about values. It's about setting priorities. It's about personal
freedom. It's about trust," he said.
Mr. Miller said 73 percent of the Georgians he
surveyed in a poll for his 1994 gubernatorial re-election bid agreed with
the statement: "Whenever I hear politicians talking about gun control,
it makes me wonder if they understand my values or my way of life."
CLICK
HERE TO SEE THE WHOLE ARTICLE
UPDATE: Gov. Miller's speech is driving the HCI
crowd crazy!
Make sure that you call Zell's office, 1-800-839-5276
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B.E.A.R., Brady E-Action Response Network,
in part
Issue: 49 - Friday, May 03, 2002
Last week, Senator Zell Miller (D-GA)
was the keynote speaker at the NRA's annual convention held in Reno,
Nevada. In his address, Senator Miller hopped on the gun lobby
bandwagon, spouting the usual rhetoric claiming that the NRA –
an extreme special interest group that is systematically working
to dismantle sensible gun laws --represents “mainstream America”.
He’s dead wrong. And we need
you to tell him so! Call Senator Miller at
(202) 224-3643 and tell him that he is out of step with the
majority of Americans who believe in sensible gun laws. Tell him
to stop putting your family and fellow Americans at risk! Tell him
you don’t agree that supporting sensible gun laws loses elections,
and you’ll be proving it with your vote in 2002!
The NRA leadership does NOT represent
the views of mainstream Americans. Rather than working to prevent
gun violence, the NRA fights to keep military-style assault weapons
- high-powered weapons with no civilian purpose - easily available
and on our streets. NRA leaders repeatedly demonize America's law
enforcement officers, most infamously calling federal agents 'jack-booted
thugs' for enforcing our nation's gun laws. Are these the so-called
'values' our lawmakers want to espouse?
Tell Miller that he and the NRA do
NOT represent the views of mainstream America! |
CLICK
HERE TO SEE WHOLE AP ARTICLE BELOW
David O. Boehm of
Rochester, N.Y., a retired appellate judge, said in recent years "it
seems most Democrats nationally have opposed instead of supported the
right to possess firearms." But Miller "has grown
up with firearms. He understands there's nothing sinister about it,"
Boehm said. "I thought he beautifully, articulately and eloquently
expressed the feelings of so many of us here."
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T
H-R Attacks Ascroft's view of the 2nd Amendment
