Bush Does Care About the Second Amendment, Just Not Very Much
Jacob Sullum | March 13, 2008, 11:18am
Robert Novak reports that "disorganization and weakness in the eighth year of [Bush's]presidency" are responsible for the bizarre split within the Bush administration over whether the Supreme Court should uphold the D.C. Circuit decision overturning the District of Columbia's gun ban. To the dismay of gun rights advocates, Solicitor General Paul Clement is asking the Court to send the case back to the D.C. Circuit to consider whether the District's laws can withstand "intermediate scrutiny" under the Second Amendment. Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, has joined 55 senators and 250 House members (in his capacity as president of the Senate) in a brief that urges the Court to uphold the D.C. Circuit ruling, saying that "the District's prohibitions on mere possession by law-abiding persons of handguns in the home and having usable firearms there are unreasonable per se" and that "no purpose would be served by remanding this case for further fact finding or other proceedings." Novak claims the president agrees with Cheney:
The president and his senior staff were stunned to learn, on the day it was issued, that Clement's petition called on the high court to return the case to the appeals court....The president could have ordered a revised brief by Clement. But under congressional Democratic pressure to keep hands off the Justice Department, Bush did not act....
While [Cheney's] unprecedented vice presidential intervention was widely interpreted as a dramatic breakaway from the White House, longtime associates could not believe Cheney would defy the president. In fact, he did not. Bush approved what Cheney did in his constitutional legislative branch role as president of the Senate.
Lord knows Novak's sources are much better than mine, but I'm not sure I buy this. If Bush cared enough about the issue, he could and would have intervened. This part is even more suspect:
Bush finds himself left of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama....Sen. Obama has weighed in against the D.C. law, asserting that the Constitution confers individual rights to bear arms—not just collective authority to form militias.
As I pointed out in my column a few weeks ago, Obama has specifically cited D.C.'s ban as an example of gun control that should be upheld notwithstanding the individual right to keep and bear arms. In this week's column, I explain why that position is so hard to defend.
Clement's brief is here (PDF). The congressional brief signed by Cheney is here (PDF). Last month Brian Doherty noted an op-ed piece criticizing the Justice Department's position by Cato Institute legal scholar Bob Levy, who spearheaded (and financed) the gun ban challenge. The Goldwater Institute gets into more detail here (PDF).
Other Matt | March 13, 2008, 1:45pm | #
But if the Pink Pistols and similar groups get a higher profile, the two coalitions might be scratching their heads in bafflement.
Don't forget JPFO, SAS, and other "minority" groups who the Democrats staunchly believe they represent.
Bush's presidency brought us the "Patriot Act", he's no fan of individual empowerment. Obama is quite precise in referring to "hunters", wants to outlaw semi auto firearms (no, joe, not just rifles...all of them, including shotguns, and handguns...). He's just pandering to the "we know what's better for you, so sit down and shut the fuck up while we tell you what to think" Democrats. Speaking of which, hi joe, how you been keeping lately?
Anyway, the only thing he promises is "change", and there's a whole bunch of people that don't realize that word cuts a number of ways. Painful death is "change", I'd prefer to see what kind of "change" someone advocates, but I guess I'm not in with the "in crowd" on Obama on that one as the man has yet to say much of anything of substance on anything to my ear. Hillary says she has more experience, she's right, Ferraro says he wouldn't be where he is if he wasn't black, she's right, and she wouldn't be where she was if she wasn't a woman, but don't mess with Obama's "change". ::sigh:: We're headed for some fucked up years here, I didn't think it would get much worse than Bush, but it's pretty easy to see that whatever direction we go now will only further infringe upon us.
As long as cultural biases play a role in the formation of these coalitions, I suspect that some in the Dem tent will find gun owners "icky"
Thoreau, I think this is more the mechanism of propegating the idea that what they're doing is "right" after the fact. The reason I say this is that the canard used to sell firearm regulation is that it stops violent crime. This is obviously not the case, DC is a great example of how little it helps. However, most of these same people who talk about "violent crime" picture urban minority gang banger types. So, I'd say this is not the basis.
However, when someone says "Wait a minute, this isn't right", they're portrayed as white, backcountry, tobacco chewing rednecks. The president of the senate in Virginia said something to the effect of "I can see we have gun bills, we have the cast of Deliverance here" or something akin. It's a smug superiority which goes to "I'm better than you so I know what's right" and back to "You poor thing, I'll take care of you for your own good" kind of viewpoint.
It's really interesting how the gun owners are violent urban minorities or psychotic mass spree killers for the purposes of passing regulations, but when it comes to who it impacts, those inbred country hicks aren't "us" anyway so it's not a big deal.
