MILLER: Gun owners’ election

[Bruce Jackson]

MILLER: Gun owners’ election
Ex-justice urges next Congress and president to restrict the Second Amendment
By Emily Miller
-
The Washington Times
Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Former Supreme CourtJustice John Paul Stevens demonstrated the
importance of America’s upcoming presidential choice as he spoke
Monday to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Justice Stevens
told the assembled gun grabbers of the urgent need for Congress to
adopt laws restricting the right to keep and bear arms.

As the author of the dissenting opinions in the Heller and McDonald
cases, which affirmed the right of individuals to keep handguns in the
home, Justice Stevens said the high court precedent still allows new
laws rolling back our rights.

The 92-year-old jurist explained the landmark gun rulings leave room
for restrictions on the right to carry outside the home, bans on
certain styles of firearms, elimination of carry rights in “sensitive”
places and background-check requirements for private gun sales.

“The Second Amendment provides no obstacle to regulations prohibiting
the ownership or the use of the sorts of automatic weapons used in the
tragic multiple killings in Virginia, Colorado and Arizona in recent
years,” the Ford nominee said, incorrectly lumping together
semi-automatic and automatic weapons, which already are highly
regulated.

He added, “Maybe you have some kind of constitutional right to have a
cellphone with a pre-dialed 911 in the number at your bedside, and
that might provide you with a little better protection than a gun
which you’re not used to using.”

As Justice Stevens was issuing this call to trade in rifles for mobile
phones, Mitt Romney’s campaign announced the formation of the
Sportsmen for Romney coalition. “Hunters, fishermen, sports-shooters,
and outdoor enthusiasts not only create millions of jobs and pump
billions of dollars into our economy, they stand on the forefront of
defending our Second Amendment rights and protecting the natural
wonder of our nation,” Mr. Romney said in a statement. “If I am
fortunate enough to become president, they will have a friend in the
White House.”

The co-chairmen include five-time Olympic medalist Kim Rhode, National
Baseball Hall of Fame member Wade Boggs, championship-winning NASCAR
team owner Richard Childress and comedian Jeff Foxworthy.

One of the coalition’s national advisory board members, Remington Arms
Co. CEO George Kollitides, explained that threats like that seen at
the Brady Center meeting motivated him to support Mr. Romney.

“The next four years will see legislative and regulatory threats that
stand to derail the hard-fought Second Amendment rights of all
law-abiding Americans,” the gun-manufacturing executive told The
Washington Times. “This is to say nothing of the judicial risks
associated with an aging Supreme Court and a commander in chief who
has already appointed two justices who do not recognize the Second
Amendment as an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Mr. Obama was an outspoken gun-control advocate before he ran for
president, and he still supports bringing back the so-called “assault
weapons ban” that failed to decrease crime. There is no doubt he would
put another liberal justice — or three — on the bench if given a
second term.

Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.

Read more: MILLER: Gun owners' election - Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/16/gun-owners-election/#ixzz29a69FktJ
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter


--
Have you remembered to sign up for the VA-ALERT yet? If so,
are you enjoying it? If not, what are you waiting for? It's FREE!
just click

http://www.vcdl.org/va-alert.html