From:
http://www.lcav.org/content/letternra.asp
An Open Letter to the NRA
March 27, 2000
Mr. Charlton Heston
President National Rifle Association of America
11250 Waples Mill Rd.
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
Dear Mr. Heston,
We are law professors and historians who have a deep interest in the Second Amendment and its implications for the regulation of guns and of gun ownership. Our politics run the gamut. But we are united on the vital importance of putting to rest any misperception that the Second Amendment prohibits a wide range of effective and reasonable firearms regulations.
There is room for debate about which firearms policies will best serve Americans. But the law is well-settled that the Second Amendment permits broad and intensive regulation of firearms, including laws that ban certain types of weapons, require safety devices on others, mandate registration and licensing and otherwise impose strict regulatory oversight of the firearms industry. These and similar regulations are fully consistent with the Second Amendment.
The Second Amendment – quoted in full – states that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The United States Supreme Court and every federal appellate court to consider the issue have held that the Second Amendment permits a wide range of reasonable gun control laws. And although academic views differ regarding whether the Second Amendment does more than protect the state militia from being disarmed by federal law, we all agree that the Amendment plainly permits reasonable firearms regulations including those set forth above.
The National Rifle Association’s repeated suggestions that the Second Amendment somehow stands in the way of effective and reasonable regulation of guns and gun ownership is a distortion of legal precedent and a disservice to all Americans, the great majority of whom support thoughtful firearms policies. The issue at hand transcends the liberal/conservative divide: prominent conservatives like the late Chief Justice Warren Burger and the late Solicitor General Erwin Griswold allied themselves against the NRA’s overbroad reading of the Second Amendment. Moreover, as this letter makes clear, it is false and misleading for the NRA to cite any of us or our scholarship as authority for the notion that the Second Amendment prohibits reasonable regulation of the manufacture, transfer, ownership and possession of guns.
We encourage you and your supporters to focus on the real issue facing our country – and it isn’t the Second Amendment. The central issue on which we all should focus is what sort of firearms legislation and policies will best prevent the killings and violence that plague our country today.
Sincerely,
(see attached list of endorsers)
cc: Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice-President
Academic Endorsers of the Letter to Charlton Heston Regarding the Second Amendment:
1. Akhil Reed Amar
Southmayd Professor of Law
Yale Law School
2. Edward Ayers
Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History
University of Virginia
3. Michael Bellesiles
Professor of History
Emory University
4. Carl T. Bogus
Professor of Law
Roger Williams University Law School
5. Jeff Brand
Professor of Law
University of San Francisco School of Law
6. John L. Brooke
Stern Professor of American History
Tufts University
7. Edwin G. Burrows
Professor of History
Brooklyn College
8. Richard M. Buxbaum
Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law
9. Andrew Cayton
Professor of History
Miami University
10. Erwin Chemerinsky
Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics and Political Science
University of Southern California Law School
11. Saul Cornell
Associate Professor of History
Ohio State University
12. Edward Countryman
University Distinguished Professor
Southern Methodist University
13. Michael C. Dorf
Professor of Law
Columbia University
14. Norman Dorsen
Stokes Professor of Law
New York University School of Law
15. David R. Dow
George Butler Research Professor of Law
University of Houston Law Center
16. Robert R. Dykstra
Professor of History and Public Policy
State University of New York (SUNY) Albany
17. Susan Estrich
Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science
University of Southern California Law School
18. Heidi Feldman
Associate Professor of Law
Georgetown Professor of Law
19. Don Higginbotham
Dowd Professor of History
University of North Carolina
20. Peter Hoffer
Research Professor of History
University of Georgia
21. N.E.H. Hull
Distinguished Professor of Law and History
Rutgers University, Camden
22. Nancy Isenberg
Associate Professor of History
University of Northern Iowa
23. Yale Kamisar
Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor
University of Michigan Law School
24. Michael Kammen
Professor of American History and Culture
Cornell University
25. Stanley Katz
Professor in Public and International Affairs
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
26. David M. Kennedy
Donald I. McLachlan Professor of History
Stanford University
27. Christopher Kutz
Associate Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law
28. Jill Lepore
Associate Professor of History
Boston University
29. Jan Lewis
Professor of History
Rutgers University, Newark
30. Rory Little
Professor of Law
Hastings College of Law
31. Ronald Mann
Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
32. Mari Matsuda
Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
33. Andrew J. McClurg
Nadine H. Baum Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law
34. Mary Beth Norton
Mary Donlon Professor of American History
Cornell University
35. Michael L. Perlin
Professor of Law
New York Law School
36. Jack Rakove
Coe Professor of History and American Studies
Stanford University
37. Peter M. Shane
Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
38. Billy Smith
Professor of History
Montana State University, Bozeman
39. Laurence H. Tribe
Ralph S. Tyler, Jr., Professor of Constitutional Law
Harvard Law School
40. Richard Uviller
Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
41. Charles D. Weisselberg
Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law
42. Robin West
Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
43. Welsh S. White
Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh
44. William M. Wiecek
Conadon Professor of Public Law and Professor of History
Syracuse University College of Law
45. Gary Wills
Adjunct Professor of History
Northwestern University
46. David Yassky
Assistant Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School
47. Michael Zuckerman
Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania
Note: Institutions are listed for identification purposes only.
Well, there's the frag list.
The elites don't see the obvious way around this. I'll just form the 1st Minnesota Militia, then we can have the 2nd Minnesota Militia, and then the 3rd, etc. Everyone that wants to join pays 5 bucks a year. Gotcha!!!