Category: Guns

NRA has published a much better statement than their initial one in their latest Grassroots Alert:

Gun owners are understandably dismayed about the brief filed by the Department of Justice.

Although the DOJ brief was filed on the same day as “friend of the court” briefs supporting the District, it does not support DC’s position but rather its own unique point of view-a view with which the NRA still disagrees.

The District is asking the Supreme Court to reverse the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals and find that the Second Amendment does not protect a broad individual right. DOJ is supporting a different view-that the Second Amendment does protect an individual right, and that the case should go back to the lower court to apply a different standard of review. DOJ suggests applying a lower level of constitutional scrutiny than the Court of Appeals adopted. The NRA disagrees and believes the lower court’s ruling should be upheld.

NRA believes that the right to arms is a fundamental right; as with other fundamental rights, laws restricting that right deserve the highest level of scrutiny. The NRA and those seeking to overturn the gun ban believe that the scope of the Second Amendment is clear. Contrary to DOJ’s suggestion, this case is not about felons or machine guns. This case is about law-abiding people who want handguns and long guns for self-defense. The total ban on self-defense gun ownership in D.C. is so severe that it should be found unconstitutional under any level of scrutiny, and we will make that point in our “friend of the court” brief when it is filed next month.

Finally, while NRA strongly disagrees with many of the arguments in DOJ’s brief, there are a few areas of agreement. Notably, DOJ agrees that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, and that it applies to the District, even strongly hinting that under the lower “heightened scrutiny” it supports that D.C laws could be unconstitutional. This was not the position of the previous administration. In fact, Clinton administration Attorney General Janet Reno and Solicitor General Seth Waxman, along with other DOJ officials from the Clinton administration have filed their own brief in support of the District, arguing that there is no individual right at all to possess guns outside of government service.

DOJ also recognizes that the Second Amendment protects a right to self-defense, and that the right to arms was a pre-existing right protected, but not created, by the Constitution.
If you would like to express your opinion of this brief directly to DOJ, please call the Department’s Press Office at: (202) 514-2007.

Follow the link for some more background on the brief filers. This is a much better statement than the original one, and I am pleased that they had more to say on this.

I’m not entirely sure who David is saying might have wanted the DOJ Brief to come out the way it did, but having talked to several people who are running themselves ragged working on this case, I want to make my views on this clear.

No one I have talked to or heard about, that was wary about the Parker case initially, was opposed to it for any reason than they thought it was going to lose if it hit the Supreme Court.  A lot has changed since 2003, when the case was initially filed, and many of the folks who were initially wary are working very hard on making sure the case comes out in favor of Heller, and we get a strong individual rights ruling from The Court.  That includes council that’s working for the National Rifle Association.  The initial conflagration has been put aside, because the important thing now is for the case to come out on terms that doesn’t gut the second amendment.