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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.

Is it at least possible, that Ashcroft is taking this to the courts in order to set up legal precedent affirming the second amendment? After all, just making policy statements doesn't do anything for future court cases. However, if the government loses, then a precedent could be set that would have long term, positive ramifications.

If Ashcroft refuses to prosecute existing laws, how will they ever get overturned by the courts? If he just backs down and refuses to prosecute, then the next administration can just reverse itself and the laws will still be on the books.

Sneaky, have you thought that maybe they want the cases to be seen in court, which won't happen if there isn't somebody on both sides of the case as the writer states, and in doing so in this case they can also not be shown to have been defending "criminals" right to bear arms.

As a political move it is a deft one. As a true believer move (as both of us probably are) is sucks eggs. Most of the domestic agenda is starting to suck eggs as well but what can I do? The pres. is concentrating on keeping Saddam (and others) from getting nukes and he's thrown everything else over the side. A nice benefit for the liberals who have someone who will "play ball" now.

Oh, and lest I forget, Jim Jeffords can still kiss my A%%.