[bill1952]

Bush’s thinking on this is beyond me, and his stance on this issue will not help the GOP in November.

Not at all - It is outright eerie.

[kennyboy509]

If the so called candidates continue to ignore gun owners,
they will pay the price at voting time.

Fred is the only one courting the gun owners.

Thats why he will win SC.

[Tigen]

The silence is
http://www.mydamnchannel.com/channel.aspx?episode=323

[Joe Brower]

My take on this galling Brief from the DOJ is this: The FedGov, no matter what party is running the show, simply doesn't want to give up one inch of its enormous aggrandizement of power and authority, the Constitution be damned.

After all, to gradually grow in both size and ability is the natural tendency of government, is it not?

[jmc813]

Good piece, thanks for posting. This is one of the main reasons I don’t think Huckabee wouldn’t be quite as bad as most freepers make him out to be.

[Abundy]

The candidates should speak out as if this were a modern-day Brown v BOE or Plessy v Ferguson.

The position taken by the Justice Department is that repulsive.

[El Gato]

Also—disturbingly—though OSG affirms that the Second Amendment secures an individual right, it does not call it a “fundamental right”—which is very important for legal reasons—and asks the Court to deny it the level of protection of a fundamental right.

Yep, fundamental rights generally get "incorporated" against state government infringement via the "due process" clause of the 14th amendment. Which is utter rubbish, the 14th's Privileges and Immunities Clause already did that for all of the rights protected against federal infringement by the Constitution, including the first 8 (or 9) amendments.

[El Gato]

As bad as this brief is, it’s not nearly so bad as the one filed by a bunch of ex DoJ “officials”, all Democrats, mostly from the “It’s OK to take sexual advantage of the interns” era, but at least one from the Kennedy/Johnson administration. That brief maintains that the second amendment protects the states’ right to arm their militias, which is the National Guard. Never mind that every rifle and bullet they have is owned not by the state, but by the US Army or Air Force, that is the federal government. Every one of their members is also a member of the US Army or US Air Force reserve. Been there done that.

They also maintain that the second is no bar to complete and total bans on firearms, by class or in toto, in the hands of ordinary citizens.

[BCR #226]

What many people are quietly stating here and there is that if SCOTUS trips up on the Heller case, we will see bloodshed, brief or no brief. This scares the hell out of me but it looks like a lot of Americans are just sick and tired of the crap that is happening. I’ve seen comments on “the soapbox hasn’t worked, the ballot box obviously isn’t working, time for the ammo box.” and others.

If these people are correct, I wonder how a civil war would effect the upcoming elections? If Bush is smart, he’ll get a clue and get the brief withdrawn and STFU. The presidential candidates really need to make comment on this issue or they will find a lack of voters this November.

As it stands now, we can only wait and see and pray that SCOTUS will stand head and shoulders above the rest of the Government by doing the right thing.

Mike

[William Tell]

In several other threads, I have pointed out just how weak the legal argument is in the US brief. I have let that weakness lull me into believing that no action need be taken.

Now, I have changed my mind. Though weak, the US brief is treason.

The argument in the US brief is that the right of US citizens to keep and bear arms is no more than the common law right to use arms in defense of self and state.

This is equivalent to stating: "The protection of the right to keep and bear arms of the citizens of Boston in 1791 under the US Constitution was no different than the protection of the right of those same citizens of Boston on April 19th, 1775; the date when government troops killed their own citizens while attempting to disarm them."

The weakness of the argument lulled me into believing that the Supreme Court would view such an argument with the scorn that it deserves. Unfortunately, I am guilty of assuming the best when I should be preparing for the worst.

I will be writing a letter explaining the above to both the President of the United States and to the Solicitor General of the United States. The issue is too important to permit this brief, however weak and wrong, from going unchallenged by those who know better.