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a good read
drach
Member Posts: 130 ✭✭✭
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A Navy Seal, Injured and Alone, Was Saved By Afghans' Embrace and Comrades' Valor
Link to the story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001492.html?hpid=topnews&sub=new
Link to the pics:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/070608/GAL-07Jun08-77355/index.html
By Paul Duggan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 18, 2007; A01
Meet the lawyer who conceived the lawsuit that gutted the District's tough gun-control statute this month. Meet the lawyer who recruited a group of strangers to sue the city and bankrolled their successful litigation out of his own pocket.
Meet Robert A. Levy, staunch defender of the Second Amendment, a wealthy former entrepreneur who said he has never owned a firearm and probably never will.
"I don't actually want a gun," Levy said by phone last week from his residence, a $1.7 million condominium in a Gulf Coast high-rise. "I mean, maybe I'd want a gun if I was living on Capitol Hill. Or in Anacostia somewhere. But I live in Naples, Florida, in a gated community. I don't feel real threatened down here."
He is 65, a District native who left the city 40 years ago for Montgomery County, a self-made millionaire who thinks the government interferes too much with people's liberties. He was an investment analyst before he sold his company for a fortune and enrolled in law school at age 49. Now he's a constitutional fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, working in his luxury condo 1,000 miles away.
It was his idea, his project, his philosophical mission to mount a legal challenge to the city's "draconian" gun restrictions, which are among the toughest in the nation. The statute offends his libertarian principles, Levy said. And it is entirely his money behind the lawsuit that led a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to strike down the statute this month, a ruling that stunned D.C. officials and gun-control advocates. The city said it will appeal the decision.
Levy, who moved to Florida two years ago, explained in an interview why he initiated the case, with Cato's blessing; why he has rejected offers of financial help, insisting on footing the bills himself; how he and a co-counsel searched for and vetted potential plaintiffs, finally settling on a diverse group of six people; and why he thinks letting D.C. residents keep loaded guns in their homes would not make the city a more dangerous place.
"By the way, I'm not a member of any of those pro-gun groups," he said. "I don't travel in those circles. My interest is in vindicating the Constitution."
Before they filed the lawsuit in February 2003, arguing that the city's gun statute violates the Second Amendment's language on the right to bear arms, Levy and Clark M. Neily III, a public-interest lawyer, spent months carefully assembling a cast of plaintiffs, Levy said.
"We wanted gender diversity," he said. "We wanted racial diversity, economic diversity, age diversity." The plaintiffs had to be D.C. residents who believed fervently in gun rights and wanted loaded weapons in their homes for self-defense. And they had to be respectable.
"No Looney Tunes," Levy said. "You know, you don't want the guy who just signed up for the militia. And no criminal records. You want law-abiding citizens."
He and Neily worked the phones. "We called all our contacts in the legal community," Levy said. "We looked at the newspapers: Who was writing on the subject? Who was sending letters to the editor about gun laws?" They scoured the city. "Friends lead you to other friends, and you just keep talking and talking to people, until finally you have your clients."
They found dozens of likely plaintiffs, Levy said. They went with three men and three women, from their mid-20s to early 60s, four of them white and two black. They found a mortgage broker from Georgetown and a neighborhood activist in a crime-scarred area of Northeast Washington. They also lined up a communications lawyer, a government office worker and a courthouse security guard. In their disparate walks of life, the six shared an eagerness to arm themselves.
Levy knew only one of them: Tom G. Palmer, 50, a Cato colleague who is gay. Years ago in California, Palmer said, he brandished a pistol to scare off several men who he feared were about to attack him because of his sexual orientation. He said he wants to be able to legally defend himself in his Washington home.
With some exceptions for police officers and others, the D.C. statute bars residents from owning handguns unless they were registered before 1976, the year the law was enacted. And it requires people with registered rifles or shotguns in their homes to keep them unloaded and either disassembled or fitted with trigger locks, meaning they cannot legally be used for self-defense.
"Ridiculous," Levy said.
In a 2 to 1 decision issued March 9, the appellate panel agreed with the plaintiffs that the gun restrictions violate the Second Amendment. The statute remains in effect, at least temporarily, while attorneys for the city consider their next legal move. The case could be headed to the Supreme Court, and it could affect other strict gun laws across the country.
Levy, who is mainly a writer and lecturer, is one of three plaintiff's attorneys in the case, his first direct involvement in litigation since he graduated from George Mason University law school in 1994, when he was 53. One of his co-counsels, Neily, is working on the lawsuit for free. The other, Alan Gura, a high-priced civil litigation specialist, was hired by Levy to serve as lead counsel and argue the case in court.
"To take something like this all the way through the Supreme Court, you're talking about several hundred thousand dollars," Levy said. But because Gura is charging a reduced rate, "it hasn't been nearly that much." Levy wouldn't cite a figure but said it was "a considerable sum." Whatever the price, he said, "happily, I'm in a position to pay it."
When the D.C. Council passed the restrictions three decades ago, it was trying to curb gun violence. Supporters of the law warn that if the appellate ruling stands and the District is forced to enact a weaker statute, permitting loaded weapons in homes, more shootings are sure to result, by accident and on purpose. Meanwhile, if pistols become legal in homes, many residents probably would acquire them, giving thieves more guns to steal and sell on the streets.
Like other critics of the law, Levy cites the District's annual triple-digit homicide totals and its "ridiculously high rate of crime" in the past 30 years as evidence that the statute has not made Washington safer. Its only impact, he said, has been to disarm honest residents in their homes, leaving them vulnerable in a violent city.
To Levy the libertarian, though, the effectiveness of the law -- its success or failure in curbing crime -- isn't the core issue. What matters most to him is whether the statute unjustly infringes on personal liberties. He doesn't dispute that "reasonable" gun controls are permissible under the Second Amendment. But the District's law amounts to "an outright prohibition," Levy said, and "that offends my constitutional sensibilities."
So he opened his wallet and did something about it.
Because of his and Tom Palmer's involvement in the case, Levy said, a mistaken impression has spread that the Cato Institute instigated the lawsuit. "They love this case and they've been very, very supportive," he said. But Cato is a think tank, not a law firm, and hasn't so much as filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. "This is my venture," Levy said.
The lawsuit failed last year in U.S. District Court, prompting the appeal that succeeded this month. Although gun-rights advocates and other organizations have offered to aid the case financially, Levy said, "I've taken nothing. Zero." The reason: "I don't want this portrayed as litigation that the gun community is sponsoring. . . . I don't want to be beholden to anyone. I want to call the shots, with my co-counsel."
He can afford to.
In the interview, Levy recalled his working-class roots in the Petworth area of Northwest Washington, where his parents ran a small hardware store. If there was a gun under the counter or in their home, he said, he never saw it.
After getting a doctorate in business from American University in 1966, he left the city for Silver Spring and started a company in his home: CDA Investment Technologies. Using the limited computer power available then, CDA analyzed and reported on the performances of securities, money managers and institutional portfolios.
Business boomed. By 1986, when he sold the company to a Dutch publishing giant, CDA had offices in Rockville, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo and London. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but Levy said he got plenty.
"Selling it allowed me to pursue whatever new opportunities I wanted to pursue without any financial pressures at all," he said. He decided to get a law degree and indulge his longtime interest in public policy. He had been contributing money to the Cato Institute for years, and in 1997, Cato hired him as a fellow, giving him a pulpit from which to espouse his views on limited government and the sanctity of personal freedoms.
The Second Amendment is just one of his areas of interest, and not the biggest one, Levy said. The right of the people to keep and bear arms isn't a right he ever needed to exercise.
"Even when I lived up there, I didn't live in D.C.," he said. "I lived in Chevy Chase, in a high-rise that was secure. And before that in Potomac. Not exactly high-risk areas."
The Chevy Chase high-rise is in Montgomery County. Levy and his wife sold the condo two years ago for $2.6 million and moved to Naples. They spend summers in their million-dollar home in Lake Biltmore, N.C., a resort area in the southwest corner of the state.
He said he visits Washington about once a month, but he steers clear of the neighborhood where he grew up. "Today it's an area of drug sales, a lot of crime," he said.
"I mean, where my dad's store was, you don't want to walk around there at night anymore."
Open Letter From An American Airlines Pilot
(CANADIAN AND BRITISH COMMENT APPEARS AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE AND IS MEANINGFUL.)
This pilot hit the nail right on the head in his open letter.
The paper stated that some Muslim doctor is saying we are profiling him because he has been checked three times while getting on an airplane. The following is a letter from a pilot.This well spoken man, who is a pilot with American Airlines, says what is in his heart, beautifully....
If you truly believe in fair & reasonable objectivity - Read, absorb and pass this on.
.............................................................
YOU WORRY ME!
By Captain John Maniscalco, American Airlines Pilot
I've been trying to say this since 911, but you worry me. I wish you didn't. I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country. But you don't blend in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.
I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands, professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now. I don't fully understand their grievances and hate, but I know that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.
On September 11, ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings, killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers.
The Palestinians celebrated, the Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. So, I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage, hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist.
How do I differentiate between the true Arab/Muslim Americans and the Arab/Muslim terrorists in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter MORE of the same good neighbors and children?
The events of September 11 changed the answer. It is not MY responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults. It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this country to determine it for me.
I want to know, I DEMAND to know and I have a right to know, whether or not you love America ... Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation; that He will protect it and let it prosper? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your Jihads? Are you thankful for the freedom that this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by also paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America? ? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.
Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions YOU are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America . Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent, because I worry about who you regard as innocent.... No more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks, because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy; I am interested only in action. What will you do for America - our great country - at this time of crisis, at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting 'Allah Bless America'. I want to see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.
The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize right now in Muslim communities. You know them.
You know where they are. Hand them over to us, NOW! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.
The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States proves who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing 'leaders' like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat.
IF the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people, then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good, pure, and true, when your 'leaders' ARE teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance? It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if huge numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.
We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us -- our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to DEMAND it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family.
I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American..... But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance, and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand. Until then, "YOU WORRY ME!"
CANADIAN COMMENTS:
I totally agree with this sentiment. I hope you will forget all about the 'political correctness' mandate we've had rammed down our throats, and see if this doesn't ring true in your heart and mind. For Canada , with all the multiculturalism we've been told is so important....why should we not, as Canadians, expect that the millions of new people immigrating to our country will show their love for our country, their allegiance to our country, their willingness to obey the laws of our country, and acceptance that we are a Christian country? Just because they are able to enjoy exercising their own religion, they should NOT expect us to be ashamed of ours. They knew Canada was a Christian country when they came here. Why are we erasing Christianity because immigrants who are unwilling to adopt our way of life expect us to? There is just too much insanity in the world, and we have to start taking a stand.
I hope you will forward this, so that others will feel they are not alone if they are starting to feel the same.
BRITISH COMMENTS: At last a clear non racist example of the concerns that the vast majority of our Nations population probably share. The pilot's letter encapsulates all that is fair and just about national pride and protection of one's national culture. I fear it may be too late here in UK, BUT we too want our country back in the form that attracted all these different cultures to come here in the first place!! In all our conversations with a wide range of friends and acquaintances we have not met one that disagrees with our own views. If only we all had the courage of our convictions to pass this on, it is a statement that should be accepted as the heart-felt feelings of someone with honest commendable national pride.
THIS IS TOO GOOD TO JUST READ AND DELETE -- LET'S SATURATE NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA, UK, EUROPE, USA, CANADA AND THE REST OF THE FREE WORLD WITH THIS ONE! MAY GOD BLESS THOSE WHO HAD THE COURAGE TO WRITE THE ABOVE AND MAY GOD BLESS THOSEWHO READ AND PASS THIS ON AND MAY GOD BLESS THOSE WHO WILL HELP STOP THE INSANITY!
[:)]
Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est ("A sword is never a killer, it's a tool in the killer's hands") ~~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca "the younger" ca. (4 BC - 65 AD)