Category Archives: District of Columbia v. Heller

More on Obama’s Doublespeak

Last week I wrote a post about how Barack Obama was trying to have it both ways on the Second Amendment. Ken Blackwell at Townhall.com, however, believes that Obama’s doublespeak about the Second Amendment (among some of Obama’s other statements) reveals a disturbing pattern in his attitudes about individual rights and a host of other issues:

Yet while Mr. Obama says he supports your Second Amendment rights, he also says he supports that gun ban. He went on to say that local governments should be able to enact any gun control laws they consider necessary to end gun violence, and that any such measures are constitutional.
What kind of gun rights does he supposedly support? What kind of “right” do you have, when the government can completely rob you of 100% of the exercise of that right, anytime they decide they have a good reason?

That’s like saying you have the right to worship as you choose, but the government has the power to ban attending church. Or that you have the right to free speech, but that government has the power to stop you from speaking about any subject it wants. Or that you have the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, but that anything the government wants to search at your house is automatically reasonable.

A right that the government can completely take away at any time is no right at all.

So to say that the Second Amendment means you can own guns, but that the city where you live can ban all gun ownership, then you have no Second Amendment rights at all.

I truly hope that someone will have an opportunity to ask Obama if he really believes that local governments can toss aside the Constitution whenever convenient (though I have a hard time believing that Obama would restrict federal agents to the Constitution while giving local law enforcement carte blanche to violate basic civil liberties of citizens). As if doublespeak on the Constitution wasn’t enough, we can expect doublespeak on many other issues which concern such issues as the economy, terrorism, and growing government.

The article continues:

This is what Americans could expect from a President Obama. He’ll wax eloquent about your rights, but then say government can take away whatever part of them—or all of them—that it wants.

It’s the disturbing pattern that’s starting to emerge of Mr. Obama announcing a principle or a goal, then endorsing policies that are the exact opposite of what would promote that principle or goal. It’s political-doublespeak. It’s Orwellian. In fact, it’s Clintonian.

Look for this pattern across the board. This is how he’ll empower private markets, by increasing government control. He’ll preserve our private-market healthcare system, by having government take it over. He’ll lower taxes, by raising them. He’ll cut government, by increasing government spending. He’ll create jobs, by raising taxes and fees on business […]

I’m sure there will be even more Obama doublespeak as the campaign wears on. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he proposed a new cabinet level position such as The Ministry Department of Truth.

Obama Tries to Have it Both Ways on the Second Amendment

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Barack Obama said Friday that the country must do “whatever it takes” to eradicate gun violence following a campus shooting in his home state, but he believes in an individual’s right to bear arms.

Obama said he spoke to Northern Illinois University’s president Friday morning by phone and offered whatever help his Senate office could provide in the investigation and improving campus security. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the Illinois shooting to reporters while campaigning in neighboring Wisconsin.

The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.

When I ran across the headline’s article “Obama supports individual gun rights” in The Rocky Mountain News, I knew I had to read further. So far, so good…so what:

“I think there is an individual right to bear arms, but it’s subject to commonsense regulation” like background checks, [Obama] said during a news conference.”

He said he would support federal legislation based on a California law that would facilitate immediate tracing of bullets used in a crime. He said even though the California law was passed over the strong objection of the National Rifle Association, he thinks it’s the type of law that gun owners and crime victims can get behind.

To be honest, I don’t know anything about this particular policy [if anyone can give me a Cliff’s Notes version, please fill me in]. Being able to trace bullets used in a crime back to a particular firearm…I thought this was already an accepted, common practice? I must be missing something; clearly if the NRA is opposed to this policy maybe we should look at it.

So Obama believes that the right to bear arms is an individual right (more than we can say about most Democrats) but also believes in “common sense regulation.” Surely, Obama would not consider the D.C. gun ban to be common sense…or would he?

Although Obama supports gun control, while campaigning in gun-friendly Idaho earlier this month, he said he does not intend to take away people’s guns.

At his news conference, he voiced support for the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court next month.

“The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can’t initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang bangers and random shootings on the street isn’t born [sic] out by our Constitution,” Obama said.

Now I’m really confused! The only thing I can figure is that Obama’s views on gun rights are based on what he thinks his supporters want to hear at any given moment (in other words, he’s being a politician). Obama’s comments also reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about the Constitution on his part. The right to bear arms, or any of the other rights found in the Constitution for that matter, are not “born out” of the Constitution; the Constitution merely recognizes individual rights which already exist.

Given these seemingly contradictory statements, one wonders what policies an Obama administration would support and what sort of judicial appointments Obama would make with regard to the 2nd Amendment.

***Correction***

Brad pointed out that the journalist likely misinterpreted Obama’s statement:

The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can’t initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang bangers and random shootings on the street isn’t born [sic] out by our Constitution.

What Obama likely meant was “borne out by our Constitution” meaning “supported by our Constitution” rather than “born of our Constitution.” While Brad and I both disagree with Obama on this point even as he likely intended it, I think it’s important that we try to represent the senator’s remarks accurately.

Elsewhere in the article there was this:

The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.

Here again, it’s the journalist’s interpretation (Nedra Pickler in this case) of what she thought Obama said. Hopefully, Obama knows better since he is a former constitutional law instructor (though I’m sure that there are many constitutional law instructors who actually do believe the Constitution grants rights rather than recognizes their existence). The only way to determine if the journalist correctly interpreted Obama’s speech would be to find a transcript of the speech. So far, I have been unable to find one but when I do I will link the transcript to this post so readers can decide for themselves whether Pickler’s interpretation of Obama’s speech is correct or not.

More Amicus Briefs In D.C. v. Heller

There have been several more amicus briefs filed with the Supreme Court in support of the effort to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun ban, but the one that raises the most eyebrows is signed by the Vice-President himself:

Vice President Cheney signed on to a brief filed by a majority of Congress yesterday that urged the Supreme Court to uphold a ruling that the District of Columbia’s handgun ban is unconstitutional, breaking with his own administration’s official position.

Cheney joined 55 senators and 250 House members in asking the court to find that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms and to uphold a lower court’s ruling that the D.C. ban violates that right. That position is at odds with the one put forward by the administration, which angered gun rights advocates when it suggested that the justices return the case to lower courts for further review.

In order to make his dramatic break with the administration, Cheney invoked his rarely used status as part of Congress, joining the brief as “President of the United States Senate, Richard B. Cheney.” It is a position he has used at times to make the point that he is sometimes part of the legislative branch and sometimes part of the executive.

A copy of the brief can be found here.

In addition to what will no doubt come to be called the Cheney brief, the Congress of Racial Equality has filed a pro-Respondent brief that asks the court to look at the racist history of gun control laws, a pertinent argument given the racial makeup of the District of Columbia. That brief can be found here.

Respondents File Brief In D.C. v. Heller

Earlier this week, the Respondents filed their opposition brief to the District of Columbia’s appeal in District of Columbia v. Heller:

If the Constitution protects an individual’s right to possess a handgun, then the District’s ban on such arms must be declared unconstitutional, lawyers for the man challenging the “nation’s most draconian gun laws” told the Supreme Court yesterday.

Lawyers for Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard, filed a brief saying that the District’s categorical restrictions are so broad that they cannot comply with the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to bear arms.

“However else [the District] might regulate the possession and use of arms, their complete ban on the home possession of all functional firearms, and their prohibition against home possession and movement of handguns, are unconstitutional,” wrote Alan Gura, one of three lawyers representing those who challenged the District’s 1976 ban.

District of Columbia v. Heller, to be argued before the justices March 18, promises a historic examination of the Second Amendment, which holds that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

As Jason noted earlier today, there was also an amicus brief filed by members of Congress in addition to several other amicus briefs in support of Heller’s position:

Additionally amicus briefs are expected to be filed before Monday’s deadline.

Members of Congress file brief in Heller case

Here is some good news concerning District of Columbia v. Heller. US Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Jon Tester (D-MT) are filing a brief with signatures of 250 House members and 55 Senators, urging that the DC gun law be overturned by the Supreme Court:

“All of the congressional legislative history is assuming that the Second Amendment, which is in the Bill of Rights, is an individual right and for a city or state to thwart this by taking a person’s right in their home to have a loaded gun, just seemed to be a perfect opportunity for the Supreme Court to affirm this individual right that Congress has acknowledged throughout its history,” Hutchison said.

Tester said the writers of the Constitution did not intend for laws to be applied to some people and not others or to be applied some times and not others.

“We cannot restrict the right to bear arms just like we can’t restrict the right to practice religion or the right of a free and independent press,” Tester said.

The Bush Administration has filed a brief on behalf of the District of Columbia. However, the administration says that it supports the individual rights view of the Second Amendment.

Heller could settle the question as to whether the Second Amendment is an individual right (which is my belief) or a collective right. To learn more about the case, visit DC Gun Case or read this article by Robert Levy. You can also listen this event podcast from the Cato Institute that explains some of the details of the case and why the challenge to the ban was presented.

Oral arguments for Heller begin on March 18th.

H/T: Of Arms and the Law

[UPDATE] Here is the brief signed by Vice-President Dick Cheney, 55 members of the Senate and 250 members of the House.

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