| Reply from Stephen Halbrook |
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The following reply is available at CalGunlaws.com
10/14/2003
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The debate over which which case is better for the United States Supreme Court has led THE Keep and Bear Arms (KABA) website to publicly criticize NRA attorney Stephen Halbrook, stating that he "appears not only unprepared to effectively argue a Second Amendment case, but ready to give up the farm - to register handguns and call it 'reasonable' - when he gets his day in court."
CalGunLaws.com obtained a copy of Mr. Halbrook's response to the KABA's accusations. Mr. Halbrooks response details why a step by step approach is better and more likely to accomplish it's goal then a wholesale attack on the system.
RESPONSE BY STEPHEN HALBROOK
Handguns are absolutely banned in the District of Columbia. Before 1976, citizens could possess registered handguns. D.C. law required all firearms to be registered, but that year a law was passed prohibiting the registration of handguns, thereby completely banning them. Our lawsuit, Seegars v. Ashcroft, seeks to allow D.C. residents once again lawfully to possess handguns.
Our clients actually live in the District of Columbia and are confronted by criminals of all kinds in their neighborhoods. For them, it would be major progress to be able to keep a handgun in the home, even if it must be registered. Arm-chair critics may wish to litigate every gun control law on the books in one case, but it's not realistic litigation strategy.
Our strategy is a narrowly-focused effort to encourage the court to recognize the Second Amendment as an individual right and to declare the D.C. handgun ban unconstitutional, so that residents who are daily threatened by criminal violence may keep handguns in their homes to defend themselves. To a defenseless people, the ability merely to possess a handgun would be a giant step forward. But it's just the first step. If we can persuade the court to invalidate the gun ban, the next logical step will be attacking the registration of firearms as a violation of the Second Amendment.
This strategy is similar to that used by the NAACP in the decades leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. They didn't go into court trying to overturn all Jim Crow laws at once, and instead picked one specific blatantly offensive part of the law for each case that actually had a chance to be struck down, and then they used that decision in subsequent cases to bolster further arguments.
NRA supports this litigation as part of a broader strategy to restore Second Amendment rights to D.C. citizens. Bills have been introduced in both the Senate and the House to repeal not just the handgun ban, but also the requirement that all firearms be registered. The goal is the complete restoration of Second Amendment rights, and NRA will continue vigorously to pursue this objective in the courts and in the Congress.
Stephen P. Halbrook
Attorney at Law
10560 Main St., Suite 404
Fairfax, VA 22030
Tel. (703) 352-7276
Fax (703) 359-0938
Email: protell@aol.com
Website: www.stephenhalbrook.com
Posted by Mike Haas. You may enjoy some of my web pages:
http://NRAWinningTeam.com/
http://AmmoGuide.com/
http://PatriotBoxers.com/
http://NRAMembersCouncils.com/lifeclock/ (As time goes by)
