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Eurotrash Commentary on Second Amendment
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Alarm as US law officer restores right to own guns
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday May 9, 2002
The Guardian
The US justice department has told the supreme court that gun ownership is guaranteed by the constitution, overturning the official government position of the past 60 years.
Legal experts say the statement could result in US gun laws falling apart.
A triumph for the gun lobby, the view was stated in footnotes to two unsolicited briefs sent to the supreme court on Monday night giving opinions in gun-ownership cases.
They were written by the solicitor general, Ted Olson, and deal with the second amendment to the constitution, which states: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
This made a lot more sense in the late 18th century than it does today. And since a 1939 supreme court ruling, the government position has been that the amendment only safeguards the right to a gun of those called up for an officially sanctioned militia.
Otherwise there was no constitutional right to gun ownership, which left the issue open to government regulation.
Mr Olson wrote that the second amendment broadly protected the right of individuals, including those not engaged in military service or training, to bear their own firearms, subject to reasonable restrictions to prevent possession by unfit persons or restrict types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse.
The supreme court is not obliged to rule in line with the advice, and the briefs do not ask it to take any action, but the Brady Centre to Prevent Gun Violence said their real impact would be that government lawyers would take this as official guidance when arguing gun cases.
"It is truly perverse for the attorney general to be instructing justice department lawyers throughout the country not to assert the strongest argument in favour of the constitutionality of gun laws," its legal director, Dennis Henigan, said.
Experts say the briefs will encourage the National Rifle Association to challenge laws restricting rights of ownership. Rules requiring background checks before purchases and banning machine guns could be vulnerable.
"If there's an individual right for the average citizen, those types of regulations may very well be at risk," Franklin Zimring, a legal scholar at the University of California, told the Los Angeles Times.
The NRA warmly welcomed the policy change, calling it "a very good start".
The attorney general, John Ashcroft, a lifelong NRA member, promised a change in policy last May.
In marked contrast to other aspects of the crackdown on illegal immigrants and terrorist suspects after September 11, Mr Ashcroft refused to let the FBI check its own records to find out if any of the suspects had bought guns, although such records were stipulated by the 1993 Brady law on gun control.
He said the records infringed gunowners' rights, and ordered that they should be held no longer than 24 hours, and then destroyed.
Mathew Nosanchuk, a legislative expert at the Violence Policy Centre, a gun control group in Washington, said: "Here you have an attorney general flouting decades of precedent to embrace an expansive view of a heretofore unrecognised individual right to own a gun, and that could put many gun laws at risk."
? The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who is increasingly troubled by the increase in crime involving firearms, has announced a gun amnesty, and says his administration will buy guns from residents for $100 each, with no questions asked.
The policy will apply for the next 30 days.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,2763,712197,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday May 9, 2002
The Guardian
The US justice department has told the supreme court that gun ownership is guaranteed by the constitution, overturning the official government position of the past 60 years.
Legal experts say the statement could result in US gun laws falling apart.
A triumph for the gun lobby, the view was stated in footnotes to two unsolicited briefs sent to the supreme court on Monday night giving opinions in gun-ownership cases.
They were written by the solicitor general, Ted Olson, and deal with the second amendment to the constitution, which states: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
This made a lot more sense in the late 18th century than it does today. And since a 1939 supreme court ruling, the government position has been that the amendment only safeguards the right to a gun of those called up for an officially sanctioned militia.
Otherwise there was no constitutional right to gun ownership, which left the issue open to government regulation.
Mr Olson wrote that the second amendment broadly protected the right of individuals, including those not engaged in military service or training, to bear their own firearms, subject to reasonable restrictions to prevent possession by unfit persons or restrict types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse.
The supreme court is not obliged to rule in line with the advice, and the briefs do not ask it to take any action, but the Brady Centre to Prevent Gun Violence said their real impact would be that government lawyers would take this as official guidance when arguing gun cases.
"It is truly perverse for the attorney general to be instructing justice department lawyers throughout the country not to assert the strongest argument in favour of the constitutionality of gun laws," its legal director, Dennis Henigan, said.
Experts say the briefs will encourage the National Rifle Association to challenge laws restricting rights of ownership. Rules requiring background checks before purchases and banning machine guns could be vulnerable.
"If there's an individual right for the average citizen, those types of regulations may very well be at risk," Franklin Zimring, a legal scholar at the University of California, told the Los Angeles Times.
The NRA warmly welcomed the policy change, calling it "a very good start".
The attorney general, John Ashcroft, a lifelong NRA member, promised a change in policy last May.
In marked contrast to other aspects of the crackdown on illegal immigrants and terrorist suspects after September 11, Mr Ashcroft refused to let the FBI check its own records to find out if any of the suspects had bought guns, although such records were stipulated by the 1993 Brady law on gun control.
He said the records infringed gunowners' rights, and ordered that they should be held no longer than 24 hours, and then destroyed.
Mathew Nosanchuk, a legislative expert at the Violence Policy Centre, a gun control group in Washington, said: "Here you have an attorney general flouting decades of precedent to embrace an expansive view of a heretofore unrecognised individual right to own a gun, and that could put many gun laws at risk."
? The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who is increasingly troubled by the increase in crime involving firearms, has announced a gun amnesty, and says his administration will buy guns from residents for $100 each, with no questions asked.
The policy will apply for the next 30 days.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,2763,712197,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878