Stop and think for a minute about what he has REALLY done,not what spin says he has done. He is doing his best to torpedo a case that would most likely serve as a basis for overturning ALL federal gun-control laws. Janet Ashcroft's "letter of intent" isn't binding in any way,and means less than nothing to any future AG who replaces him. On the other hand,a modern Supreme Court ruling that clearly states the federal government does NOT have a legal right to restrict the ownership or possession of arms by citizens would be grounds to overturn GCA-68,the Assault Weapons Ban,and every other federal gun law. The plain FACT is the federal government does NOT have the right to restrict ownership or possession of firearms by citizens in ANY way. Bubba Bush and Janet Ashcroft are working hard to try and make sure this never happens.
What are you going to do then?
That's why such is a risky strategy.
No one is stopping you from breaking a federal gun law and going to SCOTUS over it. This doesn't prevent that in any way, and in fact it strengthens your case.
Why would it serve as such a basis? There are many grounds for overturning the Lautenberg Attrocity, many of which would hardly mention the Second Amendment.
Among other things, the Lautenberg Act seeks to federalize the issuance of restraining orders and domestic-violence prosecution. The Supreme Court already decided in Lopez that the federal government does not have plenary power; issues of local violence are a matter of state jurisdiction. For the Court to allow the government to prevail in this case would be for it to declare that the federal government has plenary power over anyone who possesses any artifact which has ever been involved in interstate commerce. For it to declare that would effectively annul its previous decision.
Further, I don't know to what extent statutes may be challenged on the basis of unconstitutional language which would not otherwise be relevant to the current case, but there are numerous other provisions in the Lautenberg Attrocity which are unconstitutional on their face. For example, it would retroactively change the punishment imposed upon someone who plead no-contest to a domestic violence charge in exchange for a completely-suspended sentence [which, if the person would otherwise have had to stay in jail pending trial, would be less 'punishing' than going to court and being acquitted]; such retroactive reworking of punishemnts is clearly forbidden by the Constitution.
The Lautenberg Act, despite its being passed 98-0 in a Republican-controlled Senate, is so eggregiously unconstitutional even on non-Second-Amendment grounds that the Court has plenty of 'outs'.
No kidding. Where are the rest of these happy-dappy Freepers who see only sunshine, green grass, and kittens going to be when Attorney General Chuck Schumer takes office in President H. Clinton's administration and goes after gun owners with all he's got?
"But... but... Former Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote a letter back in 2002!"
Mark me down as one Libertarian who's in favor of drug-testing as a requirement to posting on FR. These people do NOT understand the gun-rights/gun-control scene at ALL.
Hmm, that sounds a whole lot like the argument many of us were making about CFR and you folks called us "traitors". I guess it just depends on the ox being gored huh? So much for "principle" when it comes to the bashers. LMAO
hehe
BTW, this article says it was a Beretta pistol. I don't know from pistols, all I know is Beretta semi-automatic. Do you think he had a pistol? or that the writer got it wrong?