Enter the National Rifle Association, a Hatch supporter (and vice versa), the organization most closely associated with vindicating gun-owners' rights. Now it gets really convoluted, because the facts suggest Mr. Hatch and the NRA are doing everything they can to prevent the Supreme Court from upholding the Second Amendment. Here's the untold story behind the Hatch bill: It was concocted by the NRA to head off a pending lawsuit, Parker vs. District of Columbia, which challenges the D.C. gun ban on Second Amendment grounds.Maybe the NRA is just afraid that if there's too much good news, the fires will flicker lower and contributions will begin to disappear.
In February, joined by two other attorneys, we filed the Parker case, a civil lawsuit in federal court on behalf of six D.C. residents who want to be able to defend themselves with a handgun in their own homes. When we informed the NRA of our intent, we were advised to abandon the effort. Surprisingly, the expressed reason was that the case was too good. It could succeed in the lower courts then move up to the Supreme Court where, according to the NRA, it might receive a hostile reception.
Maybe so. But with a Republican president filling vacancies, one might expect the court's composition to improve by the time our case was reviewed. More important, if a good case doesn't reach the nine justices, a bad one will. Spurred by Attorney General John Ashcroft's endorsement of an individual right to bear arms, public defenders across the country are invoking the Second Amendment as a defense to prosecution. How long before the high court gets one of those cases, with a crack dealer as the Second Amendment's poster child?
Commit this to memory, folks: "if a good case doesn't reach the nine justices, a bad one will." And when the anti-freedom goons get their hands on a bad case, they aren't going to hesitate for one instant.
Read the whole thing, there's more in there that's worse than what I quoted. See also Banning the Ban by Gene Healy.
Via The Agitator.
