Fred Thompson blasts Bush DoJ for ''overlawyering'' D.C. gun ban case

RedState.com is reporting that Fred Thompson wasted no time in condemning President Bush's Solicitor General's request that the D.C. Circuit Court remand the District of Columbia v. Heller appeal back to the trial court for "fact-finding" under a less demanding constitutional standard.

From the story:

The Fred Thompson for President, South Carolina bus tour reached Spartanburg today, where the Law & Order TV star candidate fielded questions at Papa's Breakfast Nook from Charlotte, N.C.'s WBT-AM radio talk show host Jeff Katz.

Asked his opinion of the Second Amendment and the Solicitor General's request that the DC Circuit Court remand the appeal back to the trial court for "fact-finding", the lawyer turned Senator from Tennessee said the Bush Administration was "overlawyering" and stated that he opposed remand and that the case should move forward to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The DC District Court in an opinion written by Judge Silberman, struck down the DC ban on the possession of hand guns even in one's own home. Judge Silberman ruled that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to protect one's home with arms that pre-dates the Constititution.

NationalReview.com's Jonathan Adler followed up by noting "I do not know whether any of the other campaigns have taken notice of the DoJ brief, but Fred has. ...Thompson accused the administration of "overlawyering" the case. After all, if an individual rights view of the Second Amendment does not proscribe an outright ban on handgun possession, there is not much left of the rights it purportedly protects."

Indeed. And Fred Thompson stands alone among the short list of pro-gun Presidential candidates who is paying attention to (i.e. leading on) the latest developments in this crucial Second Amendment issue.

Last year, Senator Thompson wrote about District of Columbia v. Heller:

Six plaintiffs from Washington, D.C. challenged the provisions of the D.C. Code that prohibited them from owning or carrying a handgun. They argued that the rules were an unconstitutional abridgment of their Second Amendment rights. The Second Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, provides, “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 District argued, as many gun-control advocates do, that these words only guarantee a collective “right” to bear arms while serving the government. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected this approach and instead adopted an “individual rights” view of the Second Amendment. The D.C. Circuit is far from alone. The Fifth Circuit and many leading legal scholars, including the self-acknowledged liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, have also come to adopt such an individual rights view.

I’ve always understood the Second Amendment to mean what it says – it guarantees a citizen the right to “keep and bear” firearms, and that’s why I’ve been supportive of the National Rifle Association’s efforts to have the DC law overturned.

In general, lawful gun ownership is a pretty simple matter. The Founders established gun-owner rights so that citizens would possess and be able to exercise the universal right of self-defense. Guns enable their owners to protect themselves from robbery and assault more successfully and more safely than they otherwise would be able to. The danger of laws like the D.C. handgun ban is that they limit the availability of legal guns to people who want to use them for legitimate reasons, such as self-defense (let alone hunting, sport shooting, collecting), while doing nothing to prevent criminals from acquiring guns.

The D.C. handgun ban, like all handgun bans is necessarily ineffectual. It takes the guns that would be used for self protection out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, while doing practically nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining guns to use to commit crimes. Even the federal judges in the D.C. case knew about the flourishing black market for guns in our nation’s capital that leaves the criminals armed and the law-abiding defenseless. This is unacceptable.

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