JUSTICE DEPT. CONCLUDES 2ND AMENDMENT ‘SECURES INDIVIDUAL RIGHT’

BELLEVUE, WA—The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Citizens Committee
for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) today hailed a report from
the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that concludes
the Second Amendment “secures an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Though dated Aug. 24, the 93-page document was just released. It details
the exhaustive research by Assistant Attorneys General Steven G. Bradbury,
Howard C. Nielson, Jr. and C. Kevin Marshall who studied the history of
legislation and court cases to reach their conclusion. They note that,
“our examination of the original meaning of the Amendment provides
extensive reasons to conclude that the Second Amendment secures an
individual right, and no persuasive basis for either the collective-right
or quasi-collective-right views.”

“This report confirms what the gun rights community has known to be true
for many years,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “The right to keep and
bear arms is a right to be enjoyed and exercised by every citizen.
Henceforth, all Americans will know that the claim by anti-gunners that
the Amendment only protects some mythical right of the states to form
militias and National Guard units is an outright fraud.”

“For too long,” stated CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, “enemies of
individual liberty have lied to the American public. They’ve tried to
convince us that we have no right of self-defense, no right to own
firearms as personal property, and no right to have the means to resist
tyranny, which is what the Founding Fathers specifically had in mind when
they wrote the Second Amendment. There is nothing in the Amendment about
‘sporting purposes,’ duck hunting or target shooting, and the anti-gunners
know it. Now all Americans know it, too.”

“There should be no doubt,” Gottlieb concluded, “that those who have
campaigned for restrictive gun laws or outright gun bans have been working
to rob Americans of a constitutional right, a civil right. The time has
come for America to re-examine every restrictive federal and state
firearms statute, every local ordinance, every regulation and start
erasing those that were written solely to infringe on the rights of
individual, law-abiding citizens to peaceably own firearms of their
choice, without ever again having to explain why.”

The entire report is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and
largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group
focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and
possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than
600,000 members and supporters. With more than 650,000 members and
supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and
Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation’s premier gun rights
organizations, dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active
lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of
gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.

This is the statement the NRA issued today (23rd.) regarding the Department of Justice's memo:
_______________________

The clearest and most comprehensive statement ever made by the Executive Branch on the true meaning of the Second Amendment was recently released by the Justice Department. In a memorandum posted on their web site December 17, 2004, the Justice Department concludes without reservation that "the Second Amendment secures a personal right of individuals, not a collective right that may only be invoked by a State or a quasi-collective right restricted to persons serving in organized militia units."

The opinion does not address the constitutionality of particular laws placing limits on the possession, carrying, or use of firearms. It does note that certain classes of people (felons, those addicted to drugs or alcohol) can be prohibited from owning firearms and that certain types of firearms can be regulated.

This memo, for its excellent research, adds much to Second Amendment scholarship. But its major impact will be on the courts — and the Department itself.

The memo calls current judicial opinions an "unsettled legal landscape," where no theory holds firm. Stephen Halbrook, respected Second Amendment litigator and historian, says of the memorandum, "It is a highly credible message to the courts, for it exhibits a depth of understanding about the Second Amendment that few jurists have ever attained, and should be persuasive in future decisions."

The Department of Justice defends federal firearms laws. When it comes to interpreting the Second Amendment, it has flip-flopped. According to Mr. Halbrook, this monumental opinion "promises to keep the Department on the high road, for it is irrefutable in its analysis and its history." For gun owners now, and in the future, this is great news.

ENOUGH ALREADY!
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I'm willing to "humor" the gun people and concede unrestricted second ammendment rights.
But where the hell are their priorities?
Don't they realize there are human societies existing with gun restrictions where the citizens are happy and fulfilled? (and safer too, although for some reason these people find it impossible to acknowledge the facts that gun free societies really have less violent crime. Hey, I'll event grant them their right to refute that fact too, if it makes them happy)
But

Sorry, cut me short.
But.....
I just can't bring myself to give the second ammendment equal billing with the first.
It's as if gun fans wouldn't mind trashing the first ammendment so long as they can keep their gun collections.
Sorry but it's true. How else does one explain millions of gun people voting for Bush? They seem to believe that the Bushes give a crap about first ammendment rights. What's the matter with these people? Seriously, I don't understand.

What is the source of this post? It appears to be a newswire release from SAF. In fact, now that I think if it, as I read all newswire releases I remember this one.

Please include source links in posts.

Here ya go Paine...sorry bout dat.

SAF

There are societies that have gun ownership on par with our own that are significantly safer than some of the societies that anti-gun idealists fantasize about.

This tells me one thing, and its really quite overt, namely that guns are not the cause of the violence, but an object used to express conditions. Furthermore, that certain places where guns are banned, or heavily restricted (even in the US) have higher incidence of violent crime tells me that these conditions which are expressed, and produce decidedly negative outcomes will be expressed irregardless of the presence of weapons. Basically, if people are able to live happy and fullfilled lives without guns they will be no danger with guns.

Just remember this -

this is the same Justice Department that pushed for the Patriot Act
this is the same Justice Department that used that Patriot Act to go after pot dealers
this is the same Justice Department that pushed for Patriot Act II, and
this is the same Justice Department that couldn't discover who outed a covert CIA agent from within the White House after 18 months of investigations!!

So, I don't think too much of this Justice Department. Although it may be true that the possession of firearms is a right guaranteed to the individual by the 2nd amendment to the Constitution, any decision by this Justice Department can be reviewed later by any other subsequent Justice Department and changed as a matter of policy. At one time in this country, according to this very same Constitution, only landowners could vote in our elections, it was legal to own black people, and women did not have the right to vote.

Hang in there BS!...I'm sure one will come along that will agree with you.
But for now...I'll hang my hat on this one.

Do you agree with the return of 60's-era no-knock laws?
Do you agree with the search of a person's private property without prior notice?
Do you agree with the confiscation of the reading lists of the patrons of libraries?
Do you agree with the wiretapping of a person's phoneline without a judge's warrant?


If you said "yes" to any of the above questions, then you agree with John Ashcroft because these are just a few of the policies he instituted at the Justice Department under the Patriot Act.

Ashcroft is a neo-con.

The way things are going you may want that gun. We all should have one

rifle or shotgun. Whether it is for food or for self protection. Don't give up

any rights with W or change the USC

We carry guns here in Missouri and no one has killed me yet. I haven't killed anyone yet either.

I'll agree thee are societies where people are tightly controled and have little gun rights and seem happy, but we do have the consitution here that gives up this right and you can't just say I don't like it so disregard the consitution in that area... I will say I talk to alot of people in england who are not happy about the direction of their gov't and are not as happy as they might appear. This is a good thing IMO.

We're not even asking for loosening restrictions. We're just saying that the huge array of restrictions already on the books is enough; continuing to pile more and more restrictions on the heads of law-abiding gun owners (like saying I can't own a certain rifle because of the way the stock is shaped) is wrongheaded and doesn't address gun misuse at all.


Actually, I believe just as strongly in the first amendment as I do the second. Thankfully, the First Amendment has a lot of strong advocates. It has the ACLU on its side, the courts, civil libertarians inside and outside of academia, some (though not all) of the media on its side, and strong backing in the courts.

Unfortunately, pretty much the only people defending the Second Amendment are we gun owners, with very little sympathy from the media and academia (except for hunting), gross ignorance of the technical issues among both politicians and the public at large, and apathy (if not outright hostility) from the ACLU. So I think the second amendment is in a much more tenuous position than the first, and therefore weight second-amendment issues accordingly.


The (wrongheaded) restrictions on the first amendment being kicked around by Ashcroft et al pale in comparison to the (equally wrongheaded, but lots more draconian) restrictions on the second amendment kicked around in the last session by leading Democratic politicians. For example, no one is seriously proposing to come into my house and confiscate books at gunpoint that the Moral Majority disapproves of, or to make possession or transfer of "subversive" literature a felony, or to require that "subversive" literature be registered with the government. But lots of people have seriously proposed to come into my house and confiscate various guns the prohibitionist lobby disapproves of, or to make possession or transfer of some of our guns a felony, or to require my wife and I to register them with the government.

Since the late '80's, the national Democratic party leadership have been doing their dead-level best to make this election, and every national election, a Hobson's choice for gun owners (particularly we owners of nonhunting guns): vote Republican or else. I'm arguing that this should stop. I see some encouraging movement in this regard, and I hope it continues.


No, no, no, and no. In fact, I am vehemently against them, as are most gun-owning libertarians (probably more so than the general public, since we gun owners do face the spectre of such powers being used against us in the name of "public safety" or "fighting terrorism"). But respect for the fourth amendment and respect for the second amendment are not mutually exclusive; I wish the two major parties would stop trying to make us choose between the two.

You had a choice this year.

Kerry is a gunowner and a hunter who said that he wasn't out to confiscate anyone's guns.

Bush is the biggest liar to sit in the White House since 1974.

Senator Kerry cosponsored S.1431 last session (very bad), and his own web site said he favored banning the "possession or transfer" of several of the guns my wife and I own. He also promised to fight hard for a "renewed and expanded" ban on so-called assault weapons if elected, which could only mean a California-style ban--and I understand that the Cali ban is indeed confiscatory (only the confiscation is from your children after you pass on rather than from you). He said that if my wife and I wanted to own the types of guns we already own, we needed to "join the military." And he expressly contrasted himself with Bush on that issue, positioning himself as someone who would fight hard for more restrictions (3rd debate, IIRC), and castigated Bush for letting the Feinstein ban expire. Senator Kerry stood up for hunting, and for the ownership of skeet shotguns, but made it very clear that he wanted 15-round handguns (like my wife's) and civilian AK-47 lookalikes (like mine) banned.

I respect Senator Kerry, but in the end I could not countenance that. Nor could a LOT of centrist/libertarian gun owners. And as I've said (both target='_blank'>here on CGCS and back on the JK forums), the Democratic party needs to stop this sort of thing to stop alienating gun owners, especially the 4 out of 5 who don't hunt...

Kerry is about as progun and a hunter as I am good at crawling on my stomach and shooting deer....

There's no sense in me discussing this any more.

What's done is done.

And so am I.

We have a right to bear arms-that's understood. Now we must topple oppressive regimes. Well, we can always start with the peaceful method first. But who knows how bad it is going to get?

It is a dangerous and idle dream to think that the state can become ruled by philosophers turned kings or scientists turned commissars. For if philosophers become kings or scientists commissars, they become politicians, and the powers given to the state are powers given to men who are rulers of states, men subject to all the limitations and temptations of their dangerous craft. Unless this is borne in mind, there will be a dangerous optimistic tendency to sweep aside doubts and fears as irrelevant, since, in the state that the projectors have in mind, power will be exercised by men of a wisdom and degree of moral virtue that we have not yet seen. It won't. It will be exercised by men who will be men first and rulers next and scientists and saints long after.

Loosely translated, there is no such thing as a utopia, no perfect peace. Peace is not something you pay for a single time. It's on a rental agreement, and you pay for it with blood, sweat, tears... and most importantly, courage.

OF COURSE you will! You voted for Bush!

I agree with Frenchy, and I voted for Kerry so now what?

Translation: You guys play too rough for me so I quit!

Who is that being crucified in your avatar?

It's Captain America.

Exactly my point. Even with that support, first ammendment rights are in jeopardy. Sorry, but if ATF goons knocked on your door to take away a gun or two, you would be pissed, outraged, and cry "This is not America!" But worst case scenario, you'd have to live your life with different guns in the house.
Now, when the Supreme Court is tipped by fascists who don't recognize privacy rights, or the right to die, or uphold the flow of public money to religious organizations, or find internet censorship benign, in a very real sense America as we know it will be gone.
Many gun people I know take first ammendment protections for granted, like benE. I would go so far as to say the last election was a huge victory for the second ammendment, at the expense of the first.

I don't argue that there are some encroachments going on regarding the First Amendment, as well as much more serious encroachments on the Fourth and Fifth. But the Second Amendment is currently in the worst danger of all. As I said, we are nowhere near having "subversive" books confiscated at gunpoint.

I'm not saying we should save the second amendment and let the rest die. I'm saying that the Democratic party should uphold ALL of the bill of rights and stop making us choose between the second and the others. Is that too much to ask??

Not only is it not too much to ask, it is the ONLY thing one should ask of a political party. And I will register as a Democrat the day they take that stand.

Um, I hate to break it to you, but who do you think also voted for the patriot act? You'll find quite a few Dems on that list made it pass... along with Kerry if I remember correctly. And you'll actually find most gun owners don't take the 1st ammed. for granted. They use it everyday to fight for their other rights against those who would choose to take it away.

America will only be gone when people out there think its ok to sacrifice some rights in order to secure their own false sense of security.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
-Benjamin Franklin

anyone who trusts either of our two mainstream parties to protect their civil liberties is kidding themselves.

And yes, i voted for kerry, but i trusted him to protect my gun rights about as much as i trust ann coulter not to bash democrats.

Amen brother...on both counts!

ultraist;

The Second Amendment isn't a Republican/Democrat thing. It's an Authoritarian/Libertarian thing, as is all of the Bill Of Rights.
The government doesn't grant then, nor do they have a right to take them away...unless we let them.

The Justice dept. also said we could torture prisoners...fortunately what the Justice Department says is meaningless until it has been adotped by Congress or a federal court...