Op-Ed: Late Betrayal on Gun Rights

By Ken Blackwell

Et tu, Brute? In the waning days of the Bush Administration, Justice Department lawyers have filed a curious amicus brief in the DC gun ban case before the US Supreme Court. The attorneys took a middle-of-the-road approach to Second Amendment freedoms. They argued that gun ownership is not a “fundamental” right. Instead, they say, it is a right deserving only an “intermediate” level of protection.

The brief is a disappointing about face for a Justice Department once lauded for its ardent defense of Second Amendment rights.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey owes gun owners an explanation for this late betrayal.

...It appears that the Justice Department is trying to say this is a right that should be protected, but the level of protection should be low enough to allow government to broadly restrict or maybe even eliminate your ability to exercise that right. They try to split the baby of having a right but letting government do almost whatever it wants to that right.

The problem with splitting a baby in half is that the baby usually dies. If our rights can be regulated to the point that we can’t exercise them in our own homes, then they’ve been regulated out of existence.

So much for civil rights.

...I have gotten solid information from some good lawyers at the American Civil Rights Union, in addition to legal perspective, from a couple of the best Supreme Court lawyers in the country.

They are gravely concerned about the Justice Department brief in the Heller case, saying that this could be a Trojan horse in the Second Amendment. They say that for various legal reasons if the Supreme Court were to adopt the position in this brief it would be toxic for gun rights in America.

Click here for the entire op-ed at Townhall.com.