Oddly though, Mr. Ashcroft has allowed the District U.S. attorney's office to rely on Sandidge to defend D.C.'s gun ban. Nothing odd about it at all. The ONLY reason Bubba-2 and Ashcroft stepped in on he Emerson case was to try to limit the damage it would do to gun control. They clearly wanted to establish limits,and to make it cleary understood that the feral gooberment DOES have the legal right to enforce un-Constitutional gun laws.
It's hard to know what to make of this.
No,it's not. Janet Ashcroft and Bubba-2 were backed into a corner by Emerson,and were only practicing damage control. They were terrified of a wide-ranging opinion that would knock the wheels out from under the un-Constitutional GCA-68 and MGA-34. Bubba-2 is a statist just like that worthless SOB he calls "Poppy".
It's tempting to read it as indicating Mr. Ashcroft isn't serious about the individual rights view of the Second Amendment.
He's only interested in establishing that those are LIMITED individual rights,and that the feral gooberment has the ultimate rights
. Sure, he'll reward political allies like the National Rifle Association with public statements supporting the view, but when it comes to getting people who work for him to act on it, he demurs.
This had nothing to do with the NRA,and everything to do with damage control. Yeah,they will try to spin it to put a "we're on your side!" face on it,but don't believe this for a minute.
But that case stated baldly that "the right to keep and bear arms is not a right conferred upon the people by the federal constitution" a statement that's rather hard to square with the Second Amendment,Entirely correct. The Constitution does NOT confer rights. DC isn't a state, and the Feds can do what they want, in their own District... No different than barring weapons from an Army post.
It is not odd enough that AG Ashcroft is permitting the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia to defend the current DC gun ban. Until the Supreme Court rules otherwise, the D.C. Court of Appeals case is precedent. So fighting that in DC Superior Court now, when their own appellate bosses say the U.S. Attorney's Office loses, will just lead to a loss on this issue.
Very good lawyers -- and Ashcroft is one -- don't filing losing motions and end up looking like losers. The DC gun ban can be challenged if/when the Supreme Court rules on the Second Amendment issue before it. Until the law changes on that level, there is no gain and only pain from messing with it at the D.C. Superior Court level.
So I firmly disagree with those who challenge this excellent Attorney General in this post as being weak-kneed in the D.C. case. It's called tactics. In chess, to get where you're going, you have to move the pieces around in the right order. It's not a question of the AG being less-than-ideologically-pure on the issue: there's nothing about losing in D.C. that would further the cause. It really is kind of amazing that with this great AG, in this wartime situation, an AG who's even taking this Second Amendment issue to the Supreme Court, people would question his motives on the D.C. Superior Court tactic.
