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Member Section => Politics & RKBA => Topic started by: Brolin_1911a1 on March 13, 2008, 11:43:26 AM

Title: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: Brolin_1911a1 on March 13, 2008, 11:43:26 AM: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR2008031202717.html

Gun Battle at the White House?

By Robert D. Novak

Thursday, March 13, 2008; Page A17

In preparation for oral arguments Tuesday on the extent of gun rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has before it a brief signed by Vice President Cheney opposing the Bush administration's stance. Even more remarkably, Cheney is faithfully reflecting the views of President Bush.

The government position filed with the Supreme Court by U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clementstunned gun advocates by opposing the breadth of an appellate court's affirmation of individual ownership rights. The Justice Department, not the vice president, is out of order. But if Bush agrees with Cheney, why did the president not simply order Clement to revise his brief? The answers: disorganization and weakness in the eighth year of his presidency.

Consequently, a Republican administration finds itself aligned against the most popular tenet of social conservatism: gun rights, which enjoy much wider agreement than do opposition to abortion or gay marriage. Promises in two presidential campaigns are being abandoned, and Bush finds himself to the left of even Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

The 1976 D.C. statute prohibiting ownership of all functional firearms was called unconstitutional a year ago in an opinion by Senior Judge Laurence Silberman, a conservative who has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for 22 years. It was assumed that Bush would fight Mayor Adrian Fenty's appeal.

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 solicitor general argued that Silberman's opinion supporting individual gun rights was so broad that it would endanger federal gun control laws such as the bar on owning machine guns. The president could have ordered a revised brief by Clement.

But facing congressional Democratic pressure to keep his hands off the Justice Department, Bush did not act.

Cheney did join 55 senators and 250 House members in signing a brief supporting the Silberman ruling. Although this unprecedented vice presidential intervention was widely interpreted as a dramatic breakaway from the White House, longtime associates could not believe that Cheney would defy the president. In fact, he did not. Bush approved what Cheney did in his constitutional role as president of the Senate.

That has not lessened puzzlement over Clement, a 41-year-old conservative Washington lawyer who clerked for Silberman and later for Supreme Court JusticeAntonin Scalia. Clement has tried to explain his course to the White House by claiming that he feared Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court's current swing vote, would join a liberal majority on gun rights if forced to rule on Silberman's opinion.

The more plausible explanation for Clement's stance is that he could not resist opposition to individual gun rights by career lawyers in the Justice Department's Criminal Division (who clashed with the Office of Legal Counsel in a heated internal struggle). Newly installed Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a neophyte at Justice, was unaware of the conflict and learned about Clement's position only after it had been locked in.

A majority of both houses in the Democratic-controlled Congress are on record as being against the District's gun prohibition. So are 31 states, with only five (New York,Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and Hawaii) in support. Sen. Barack Obama has weighed in against the D.C. law, asserting that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms -- not just collective authority to form militias.

This popular support for gun rights is not reflected by an advantage in the oral arguments to take place Tuesday. Former solicitor general Walter Dellinger, an old hand at arguing before the Supreme Court, will make the case for the gun prohibition. Opposing counsel Alan Gura, making his first appearance before the high court, does not have the confidence of gun-ownership advocates (who tried to replace him with former solicitor general Ted Olson).

The cause needs help from Clement during his 15-minute oral argument, but it won't get it if he reiterates his written brief. The word was passed in government circles this week that Clement would amend his position when he actually faces the justices -- which would be an odd ending to bizarre behavior by the Justice Department.

© 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: GuyFawkes2008 on March 15, 2008, 04:15:03 PM: This whole episode is emblematic of the Bush whitehouse being completely asleep at the wheel on everything from Illegal Alien Amnesty to dropping the ball on 2nd Amendment rights. It is literally the gang that couldn't shoot straight.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: CurrieS103 on March 15, 2008, 05:18:17 PM: Dick Cheney didn't seem to have a problem with his shot gun. ;D
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: tombogan03884 on March 15, 2008, 11:40:36 PM: Quote from: GuyFawkes2008 on March 15, 2008, 04:15:03 PM
This whole episode is emblematic of the Bush whitehouse being completely asleep at the wheel on everything from Illegal Alien Amnesty to dropping the ball on 2nd Amendment rights. It is literally the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

Is your screen name an indication of how you think ? You might want to check out my blog, www.tombogan03884.wordpress.com

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: GuyFawkes2008 on March 16, 2008, 11:21:42 AM: Quote from: tombogan03884 on March 15, 2008, 11:40:36 PM

Is your screen name an indication of how you think ? You might want to check out my blog, www.tombogan03884.wordpress.com

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...

It sure is Tom. I just checked out your blog and read the 3/13 article on drug testing, and I couldn't agree with you more.

I think the powers that be (on ALL sides of the political playground) won't be truly happy until Americans are living like coolies, paid like third-worlders, and have no more rights, us citizens being merely so much corporate / political chattel.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: Rastus on March 26, 2008, 09:10:08 PM: I tend to believe the uproar in the gun community chilled the Bush Administration in general, and the Republican National HQ in particular. These guys know they need our votes in November and, after pissing on US citizens and seeing what happened after the illegal immigration thing the widespread threats of staying home with DC vs. Heller may have moved them towards the middle.

Don't forget, the Rhinos had to shut down a phone bank and send 140(+/-) people home...the Rhino bosses said it was old equipment and high cost that shut down the phone bank but the phone greeters said it was because funding shut-down with the Rhino stand supporting mongrel hordes rushing across our border.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: Pathfinder on March 27, 2008, 06:07:03 AM: Quote from: Rastus on March 26, 2008, 09:10:08 PM
I tend to believe the uproar in the gun community chilled the Bush Administration in general, and the Republican National HQ in particular. These guys know they need our votes in November and, after pissing on US citizens and seeing what happened after the illegal immigration thing the widespread threats of staying home with DC vs. Heller may have moved them towards the middle.

Don't forget, the Rinos had to shut down a phone bank and send 140(+/-) people home...the Rhino bosses said it was old equipment and high cost that shut down the phone bank but the phone greeters said it was because funding shut-down with the Rhino stand supporting mongrel hordes rushing across our border.

I'm not sure the RINOs believe they need us in November, esp with the news yesterday that the Dems will vote for McCain if their candidate (Hitlery or Obambi) doesn't get the nod. Michael can give us the facts, but I believe his overtures to McCain's group were rebuffed. Besides, in spite of any public pronouncements, McCain will support and sign (if Pres) every "reasonable" gun control law that the Congress sends him - no questions or thoughts to us.

Funding is another issue, though, and to the degree we can express our displeasure when the Rinos call, we have to do so. Keep the checkbooks closed.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: Rastus on March 27, 2008, 06:16:50 AM: Pathfinder, I hadn't considered that...could be. Now, here is the question, how many former Republican supporters, a.k.a. conservatives, will just stay home because they don't have a candidate and McCain and the Dems Brady Bunch all support erasure of U.S civilization? Just wondering, not challenging.

If I get a call poll call I will tell them I'm staying home because the Repubs have deserted conservatism....hoping a refusal to participate occurs in high enough numbers someone asks why.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: pioneer on March 27, 2008, 03:52:52 PM: Something else to consider.

The Heller case has a very narrow focus. Is the right to keep and bear arms an individual, or a collective right? Period. If either the government or Heller's attorney tried to expand the right to include automatic weapons, it is much less likely that the justices would agree, and possibly shoot down the entire case. The liberal justices tried to take the arguments in that direction, but Heller's attorney did not take the bait. He kept it focused. If the argument were expanded, the logical progression would be to also allow private ownership of artillery, rockets, missiles, nukes, etc.

The way the case was presented, even justice Kennedy, long believed to be the "swing vote," said he supported the individual right interpretation. That my friends, is a win for our side.

Legal, constitutional matters take decades to settle. First let's get a decision establishing an individual right, then let's expand it. The GOA takes an all or nothing approach, but in the legal world, that may just result in us having nothing. We must be patient and take this one step at a time. Our enemies do.

(http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb294/pioneer461/Flags%20and%20Icons/356074_1738066.jpg)
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: Bill Stryker on March 27, 2008, 09:00:02 PM: Path,
You need to check Bane's blog. He is supporting McCain. Albeit reluctantly.
There was a post on this forum or the Bane blog giving McCain's position on gun control. My take is that he is on our side, especially compared to the Democrat candidates.
IMO If you don't vote in November, you are shirking your duty as a citizen, helping the 2A enemy, and loose your right to bitch about the bad out come. It is imperitive to get pro rights candidiates elected to Congress, whether they are Rep, Dem, or I. So, don't sit this one out.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: tombogan03884 on March 28, 2008, 01:31:26 AM: Quote from: pioneer on March 27, 2008, 03:52:52 PM
Something else to consider.
the logical progression would be to also allow private ownership of artillery, rockets, missiles, nukes, etc.
(http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb294/pioneer461/Flags%20and%20Icons/356074_1738066.jpg)

Nukes would be out because plutonium is a "controlled substance" like crack. As for rockets and missles, they are like Machine guns, wth the proper licenses, you CAN build,own, and luanch them, Artillery is pretty much the same way, loo at all the black powder cannon being used by re-enactors. Besides that, none o these things are developed and marketed by "The US government, Even NASA buys from CIVILIA companies. If you can't possess etc, you can't develope and market.
Besides, if you are using them in a safe manner, with a safe backstop and all the awareness of surroundings that we preach with fire arms, why CA"T you have, missles, rockets and artillery ? The American Navystarted out with privately owned cannonon privately owned ships.
Title: Re: Bush Admin Backpedalling on Heller Case
Post by: pioneer on April 01, 2008, 03:45:27 PM: Quote from: tombogan03884 on March 28, 2008, 01:31:26 AM
Nukes would be out because plutonium is a "controlled substance" like crack. As for rockets and missles, they are like Machine guns, wth the proper licenses, you CAN build,own, and luanch them, Artillery is pretty much the same way, loo at all the black powder cannon being used by re-enactors. Besides that, none o these things are developed and marketed by "The US government, Even NASA buys from CIVILIA companies. If you can't possess etc, you can't develope and market.
Besides, if you are using them in a safe manner, with a safe backstop and all the awareness of surroundings that we preach with fire arms, why CA"T you have, missles, rockets and artillery ? The American Navystarted out with privately owned cannonon privately owned ships.

That is well understood, but this is a political fight and politics is governed by perception. While we understand the truth about class III firearms, etc., the common citizen thinks that all full auto guns are illegal. They believe what the MSM tells them to believe. As I said, we need to establish beyond doubt that the 2nd Amendment is an indivudual right, then expand upon that one step at a time.