Bush Justice Department: What Constitution?
by Larry Pratt
The Solicitor General, Paul D. Clement, of the United States is the
lawyer for the Justice Department. On January 11, Clement dropped
a bomb designed to destroy the Second Amendment.
The bomb was a friend of the court brief that is a marvelous work
of Newspeak as described by George Orwell in his novel of a horrifying
future where words mean the opposite of their original definitions.
On the one hand, the brief argues that the Second Amendment protects
an individual right to keep and bear arms that predated the creation
of the U.S. government by the people. On the other hand, it concludes
that any and all guns can be controlled or banned if a federal court
finds that to be reasonable restriction or ban.
The brief asserts, with no proof whatsoever, that there is an
"unquestionable threat to public safety that unrestricted private
firearm possession would entail.." It is somewhat amazing that a
brief in defense of the DC gun ban would say such a preposterous thing.
It is the District of Columbia, with its gun ban, that usually has the highest
murder rate of all U.S. jurisdictions. In high-gun-ownership jurisdictions
such as neighboring Fairfax County, VA (with nearly twice the D.C. population),
the murder rates are much lower. In Fairfax County it is more than 100 times less than the D.C. murder rate.
In some thirty pages of flip-flopping arguments, the Justice
Department brief never once considered what the founders of the
American republic might have meant by the phrase "shall not be
infringed." But the Clement brief did criticize the idea that the
Second Amendment was a categorical prohibition on banning guns.
The opinion of the DC Court of Appeals (DCCA) overthrew the DC handgun
ban (and ban-by-trigger lock of long guns) on the grounds that the
Second Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms.
This categorical view of the Amendment should be sent back to the
Appeals Court for another look, according to Bush's brief.
The Appeals Court should be told to look at the District's gun ban
in terms of what is "reasonable."
Nary a thought about what the founders meant, and thus what the Second
Amendment requires. The law should be "developed incrementally"
according to Clement - the living Constitution assertion that has been
put forth to justify legislation by judges (i.e., lawlessness).
Clement's language is the language of tyrant's throughout history.
He claims for the government the right to change the meaning of the
law and the Constitution on a continuing basis - on a whim. This
avoids the messy business of proposing and debating constitutional
amendments. It so much tidier to have a small group of rulers emerge
from behind closed doors to announce what the law is today, and what
is illegal now that was legal a few minutes ago.
Clement, and most judges, have bought into an unconstitutional way of
interpreting the Constitution that permits judges to consider various
levels of scrutiny that are appropriate. Thus, they might decide (for
reasons best known to themselves) that a higher level of scrutiny is
required for interpreting a particular section of the Constitution.
On the other hand, they might decide that a lesser standard of rational
or reasonable of scrutiny is all that is needed.
When we hear judges talk about which level of scrutiny is appropriate
in a particular case, the proper translation of the legal jargon is:
"How far from the meaning of the Constitution can we get away with
using?"
It is worth noting that the Second Amendment was written with the
level of scrutiny appropriate for interpreting it, i.e., "shall not
be infringed." That means that a discussion of the proper level of
scrutiny, which is found in the Bush brief, and all other anti-gun
briefs, is simply a coded discussion of the question: "What can we
get away with this time?"
The Bush brief submitted by the Solicitor General was co-authored by
Stephen Rubenstein, the head lawyer for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). Not surprisingly, the brief expresses
alarm that federal gun bans, licensing requirements, registration laws, import
restrictions and other unconstitutional federal laws and regulations might
topple if "shall not be infringed" is the required level of scrutiny.
In the Clement-Bush brief, the phrase "shall not be infringed" is never used.
That is not surprising, since the game would be over if they did.
It is so hard to say gun ban or licensing requirement in the same breath
with "shall not be infringed."
D.C. v. Heller would not immediately result in such a happy situation.
The case was designed to ease weak-kneed judges in a slow walk back
to the Constitution. All that would happen if the decision of the DCCA
were simply left standing is that DC would return to its pre-1976 law.
And that law is about as bad as what one finds in New York City today.
Heller does not face the judges with keeping a gun ban or erasing all the unconstitutional gun laws on the books. Of course, the Court could do
that, but such an outcome would be quite surprising in view of the lowest
common denominator that would be necessary for any kind of a favorable decision.
Unhappily, the Bush brief makes it more likely than not that the
Second Amendment will be gutted (unconstitutionally) by the Supreme
Court. No wonder Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) is seeking to get his
colleagues to co-sign his letter urging Bush to pull his brief.
Thosewishing to so urge their Representatives can go to
http://gunowners.org/a012308.htm to send an email with that request.
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Larry Pratt is Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, a
National gun lobby with over 300,000 members located at 8001 Forbes
Place, Springfield, VA 22151, (703) 321-8585.
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