New at Reason

April 11, 2007

Jacob Sullum feels pretty safe questioning Rudy Giuliani's commitment to the Second Amendment - it's not like Rudy ever carries a gun.

Comments

|4.11.07 @ 8:20AM|#

I love that a Rudy Giuliani banner add poped up next to this article.

|4.11.07 @ 8:53AM|#

I noticed that also, funny.

LarryA|4.11.07 @ 10:29AM|#

I got the banner as well. "Optimistic leadership. Proven results." [barf]

it's not like Rudy ever carries a gun.

But he does. Several. Never leaves home without them. They're in the holsters of the police officers that bodyguard him 24/7.

|4.11.07 @ 10:35AM|#

I must admit that, while I disagree with him, I support Rudy's choice to at least be honest about his position, in contrast with Mitt the Varmint Slayer. BTW, the DC gun ban isn't really a federalism issue, as DC was always supposed to be governed directly by Congress.

|4.11.07 @ 10:58AM|#

He's not honest about his position. He he's very anti-second amendment dispite his assertion that he is not.

He made it a priority to get guns of the streets. He sued Virginia in an attempt to force them to change their gun laws. And, in the 8 years as Mayor, I never heard him say ANYTHING in support of the 2nd amendment or people rights to own a gun. The bottom line, as Mayor, he did his best to make sure you didn't own one.

Rudy didn't author NYC's gun prohibition. But he had no problem enforcing it. Therefore, I would suspect that if a Democratic Congress passed a strict gun control law, he probably wouldn't have a problem enforcing that either.

|4.11.07 @ 11:54AM|#

"Giuliani also made a revealing comment when he accused gun manufacturers of knowingly supplying criminals by "overproducing guns, way beyond the number that's necessary for hunting and for law enforcement." "

The solution is obvious; President Giuliani can nationalize Big Gun. Once the government is the monopoly weapon producer/ supplier, any individual citizen who desires to own one can apply for permission, and the government can determine who is worthy of posessing a firearm. Simple.

Then- on to cold remedies!

|4.11.07 @ 12:35PM|#

I have never seen a Guiliani banner on Reason.
'Supwidat?

|4.11.07 @ 3:02PM|#

"Giuliani tries to reconcile his support for strict gun control in New York with his newfound commitment to the Second Amendment by saying that different jurisdictions should be able to choose the gun laws that are appropriate for them. As his website puts it, 'Rudy understands that what works in New York doesn't necessarily work in Mississippi or Montana.'

"But the right to keep and bear arms has no meaning if politicians are free to impose any kind of gun control they think 'works.' In the D.C. gun ban decision that Giuliani says he supports, a federal court overruled the judgment of local officials because it was inconsistent with the Second Amendment."

But the "local officials" in Washington DC are by definition *federal* officials. Giuliani's conversion to federalism on the gun control issue is no doubt opportunistic, but a serious case can be made that the Second Amendment provides for an individual right to keep and bear arms but that this restriction on government power is *applicable only to the federal government*--including of course the local government in DC. (See *Barron v. Baltimore* which held that this was true of the Bill of Rights in general. It was, after all, fear of excessive *federal* not *state* power which motivated the Bill of Rights.) True, the Supreme Court has ruled that most of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights are made applicable to state governments under the 14th Amendment (the "incorporation" doctrine) but not all of them--as far as I know, the right to a trial by jury in civil cases has still not been held obligatory against the states. Anyway, the whole "incorporation" doctrine can be questioned on historical grounds, as for example Raoul Berger has done.

Saying that you're for the DC Circuit's decision but in favor of the rights of states to regulate guns is of course not a libertarian position. But it is not an intellectually indefensible position, either.

|4.11.07 @ 4:15PM|#

I have never seen a Guiliani banner on Reason.

The Ultimate Fitness Program's ads got yanked after the authorities found out that guy's carpet was underage.

|4.11.07 @ 4:54PM|#

if Giuliani had any intention of being honest on the gun issue, he would stop trying to conflate the 2nd Amendment with hunting.

If he truly supports a "states' rights" interpretation of the Second, he'd call for the repeal of the 1968 Gun Control Act and at least sections of the 1934 National Firearms Act.

One really does have to wonder what the public health costs have been to treat people who've lost hearing because suppressors are so heavily regulated.