Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebastian
You can find Alan Gura's response to all this unwarranted armchair quarterbacking here. |
I re-read the transcripts again after seeing Sebastian's post, and I want to retract the following statement I made in an earlier post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChamberedRound
it seems that things headed south for Gura as soon as he brought up that machine guns are standard military issue and should be protected.
|
What I stated above was NOT what Gura did; in fact, he did the exact opposite and said that machine guns can be regulated because they are "not appropriate for civilian use" (p59, line 4). While I hate that he had to go this route, I have to agree with and respect his decision. We can't expect the court to rule for an invidividual right AND challenge Miller at the same time. And while he was given an opportunity by Justice Ginsberg to say that machine guns (p60, line 3) should be protected as they are in standard military issue, I think to reverse himself at that point would've been a bad idea. I still believe his argument was too conciliatory, especially towards the end, but on the issue above I have to agree.
With that said, I do take issue to some extent with the following statements:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Alan Gura
You want to change 922(o)? Take a new person shooting. Work for “climate change.”
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Sebastian
He’s right. You have to sway public opinion if you want traction on that issue.
|
While I agree that "climate change" would definitely help our cause with respect to regulated items, it shouldn't be assumed that this is necessary. The Constitution is supposed to protect our rights regardless of the "climate". If the climate were that important to the protection of rights, then
Plessy v Ferguson would never have been overturned in
Brown v Board of Ed. A large portion of the country at that time had hostile, or at least ambivalent, beliefs with respect to the issue brought before the Court, yet the argument they presented resulted in a unanimous ruling.
We shouldn't need to be popular, or hold the majority, to have our
rights protected; that's a founding principle of our government.