I'm beginning to wonder about the NRA...

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ebd10

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OFF ALERT 03/31/07
DC COURT DECISION IN DANGER.

http://oregonfirearms.org/alertspage/03.31.03%20alert.html


The landmark decision of the DC Court of Appeals stating that gun ownership is an individual right is in grave danger. And that danger is coming from the NRA.

As you know, the Appeals Court of the District of Columbia recently ruled that DC's ban on guns was unconstitutional. It made clear, that despite what anti-rights activists have claimed for years, the Second Amendment means exactly what it says. The right to keep and bear arms is a right of people, not some vaguely defined "state militia."

But now that decision is under attack and that attack is coming from the National Rifle Association.

In an alert, dated March 28th 2007, the NRA tells its members "This week, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) introduced S. 1001, the Senate version of the “District of Columbia Personal Protection Act,” with 41 original cosponsors! Like its House counterpart -- H.R. 1399, introduced on March 8, by U.S. Representatives Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Mark Souder (R-Ind.) -- the Senate legislation seeks to restore the constitutionally-guaranteed Second Amendment rights of the residents of the District of Columbia by repealing the District’s onerous gun ban."

What's wrong with that? Well if the politicians and the NRA have their way, and this bill is passed, the Court's decision becomes meaningless and moot.

According to the lead lawyer in the DC case, Alan Gura, "If the D.C. gun ban is repealed before the appellate process is completed, Parker will be vacated and dismissed. It will have no precedential value. Whenever the Supreme Court might consider the Second Amendment in the future, it would likely be a criminal's case, not the upstanding plaintiffs in the Parker case who
have been harmed by the DC ban."

Gura added: "If Hutchison's bill were to pass, all of our hard work would be wasted."

In their March alert, NRA asks "all freedom-loving Americans to ask their Senators to vote for this bill. We will continue to work until we right this injustice in our nation’s capital.”

The lawyers who worked so hard on this case made extraordinary efforts to keep the NRA out of it, convinced that it was NRA's intention to torpedo the case.

In an alert from Gun Owner's of America, Executive Director Larry Pratt said "GOA is encouraged by Gura's report that the NRA shares his concern about Hutchison's bill. Gura says that the NRA has "given us their assurances that they are not interested in ruining the case. And Wayne LaPierre, NRA's Executive Vice-President, told me I can take that to the bank"

Gura and Pratt were too optimistic.

If the NRA is successful, this pivotal decision in favor of gun rights will be trashed.

The NRA is talking out of both sides of its mouth, and the victim of its deception will be you.

We will take a line out of their alert and urge you to follow it:

"You can call your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121, and your U.S. Representative at (202) 225-3121"

That's sound advice. But please tell your representatives to oppose Hutchison's ill conceived bill, S 1001.
 
I'm delighted to know that the Oregon Firearms Federation is sure that the majority on the Supreme Court will rule that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. That's very comforting.

The reason why I'm comforted by the Oregon group's absolute certainty is that there are many knowledgeable people who are not certain about how the presently-constituted Supreme Court will rule on this issue. It's obvious that the NRA is not certain that the court will rule in our favor, so the NRA strategy has been to postpone until there's a better chance of it.
 
It's obvious that the NRA is not certain that the court will rule in our favor, so the NRA strategy has been to postpone until there's a better chance of it.
Click to expand...

You have missed the point; the Parker decision identifies the Second Amendment as an individual right. Repealing the ban simply leaves us at the status quo. A Supreme Court ruling would remove any ambiguity as to the stance of the government and then the NRA and other organizations can concentrate on the real fight instead of treading water.
 
If Parker went the wrong way for us in the Supreme Court, would we be worse off than we are today?

On the other hand, if Parker went the right way for us in the Supreme Court, wouldn't we be much better off than we are today?
 
I imagine the folks of NRA who have been studying this whole deal have lost a serious amount of sleep worrying about which way SCOTUS would go. I know I would.

So I don't know.

Our rights have been infringed in a step by step manner. I've long felt that getting them back will also be in a step by step manner. The CHL laws indicate to me that we're gaining ground. L'Affaire Zumbo illustrated how the Internet has helped us have a stronger voice than ever before.

I'd hate to see a SCOTUS decision that could wipe out our gains, particularly on such a main point that "the people" is singular and not collective.

"L'audace! Toujours l'audace!" worked well for Napoleon and Patton, but their enemies were far more predictable than SCOTUS.

Art
 
It's obvious that the NRA is not certain that the court will rule in our favor, so the NRA strategy has been to postpone until there's a better chance of it.
Click to expand...

That's not an irrational position to take, and if the NRA would just come clean with the membership, and openly admit that it doesn't at this time want to defend the 2nd amendment in the Supreme court, and will do everything in it's power to sabotoge anybody else who tries to, I could have some respect for the organization.

But, of course, you know that the NRA doesn't tell the membership that that's it's stance, and that it's asking them to lobby for this law to kill off the Parker decision before it can reach the Supreme court.

Any more than the NRA tells us members that sometimes we've got to vote for the candidate who's worse on gun control, because they're an incumbant who's going to get reelected no matter what we do, and we don't want to piss them off.

That's my biggest complaint about the organization: The NRA regards us members as idiots who have to be lied to to trick us into doing the smart thing. Whether it's lobbying for a bill that would keep the 2nd amendment out of the Supreme court, or feeding us rigged candidate ratings to trick us into casting tactical votes for bad candidates.

I wonder if the NRA would still be the biggest pro-gun organization, if it had a policy of being honest with members about it's strategy and tactics?
 
I am with the NRA on this one...

Better to hold on to our gains and continue to push as we have been pushing than chance that SCOTUS will see things favorably.
 
I recently met Stephan Halbrook, the lead attorney from Seegars v Ashcroft (the NRA-sponsored DC case), and when I alleged that the NRA had been trying to sabotage Parker, he said that the NRA had tried to join with the Parker lawsuit because they felt that Alan Gura and Robert Levy werent experienced enough appellate attornies to take a case to the DC Circuit or the Supreme Court successfully. They were worried about another Silviera v Lockyer, where a well-intentioned attorney creates a bad precedent through lack of skill or experience.

I think this is a very reasonable concern in light of how horribly Silviera turned out and how much worse another Silviera v Lockyer would be if handed down by the supreme court. I'm also inclined to defer to Mr Halbrook's judgement of the situation because the man has been doing this sort of thing for a very long time. Off the top of my head- US v Staples, US v Printz, US v Thompson Center, etc, etc- pretty much every modern gun case I have ever cited to, he litigated.

The NRA isnt trying to hog the spotlight or kill off competition. They arent exactly starving for good press amongst the gun rights crowd.
 
Every time they push for the enforcement of the over 20,000 gun laws already on the books...
All the pols have to do is get the law passed, then they'll have the full support of the NRA.

I'll support organizations who are directed at restoring those liberties which have been torn from us, as well as those to which we still cling.
The NRA can go rot, for all I care. They've turned into a fund raising bureaucracy, with little apparent desire to restore lost freedoms, beyond the lip-service required to sucker more members in.
 
Idealism tempered by a knowledge of how the world works is 10000x more useful than the ideological purity that gets espoused by the e-lawyers on here.
 
I'm sure they know what they're doing. Remember the NRA likely has people with personal contact with some of the Judges and House Reps and Senators. They're taking the safest bet and leaving themselves a good back-up plan. The bill may may. Then again, the courts may fail us. :cool:
 
---------quote-----------
doesn't at this time want to defend the 2nd amendment
-------------------------

I'm sorry, but this is BS spin.

Lots of thoughtful people who are dedicated to the 2nd ammendment, and who know a lot about the law and the machinations of the Supreme Court, have doubts about whether this is a good case to take in front of this particular Supreme Court.

You may disagree with them. Maybe you think this is a great case, and this court is likely to rule in our favor. If so, please make that argument.

Personally, I'm not sure one way or another. I'd love to get a sweeping victory for the 2nd ammendment in the Supreme Court. However, I don't know enough about the law or about how the Supreme Court works to know what our chances are of getting a sweeping victory versus a sweeping defeat.

Maybe the Supremes will rule in our favor, and we're all out buying brand new Class III full autos on the Monday after the decision. Maybe the Supremes will rule against us, and the JBT's will come kicking down our doors on the Monday after the decision.

My guess is that neither of these extreme outcomes is likely, but I honestly don't know whether this case is more likely to hurt us or help us.

Maybe you do have enough legal expertise to feel certain that the outcome will be positive. If so, please share your wealth of knowledge with us.

But don't just sit there, as these Oregonfirearms people are doing, and accuse anyone who disagrees with you of "not wanting to defend the second ammendment."

If the more cautious legal scholars are right, and this case goes against us, can I accuse you and Oregonfirearms of "being eager to destroy the second ammendment?"
 
velojym,

When the Bradyites say "We don't want to ban all guns, we just want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children," do you believe them?

Do you think such statements reflect their true agenda, or do you think they say these things for reasons of political positioning; because they think it's good propaganda that will help them advance their real agenda?

Personally, I think it's just propaganda. I think they really do want to ban all guns. However, they know that their real agenda of banning all guns is likely to be viewed as "extreme" and they calculate they can achieve more political success by pretending to support a more "moderate" position and saying they're only trying to impede criminals and protect children.

Furthermore, I think that from their viewpoint, it's a smart thing to do. Smart political activists have to craft their messages so as to gain the most possible support for what they are trying to achieve at that moment, even if those messages aren't exactly in line with their long-term agenda. If the Bradyites want to advance their agenda, they're doing the smart thing by crafting a political message that is palatable to the mass of undecided voters.

If you can follow the above, then you ought to be able to spot carefully crafted political messages when they're being used by people on our side.

When the Bradyites introduce a new gun control law, often in the wake of a splashy public shooting like Columbine, people on our side often point out that we already have 20,000 gun laws on the books. They point out that what the Columbine shooters did was already illegal, and we don't need any new laws to prosecute such criminals. They say that we certainly have enough gun laws on the books already, that specifically target criminal activity, and that we should be enforcing such laws instead of trying to pass new unnecessary ones that aren't really targeted at criminals and criminal activity.

When people on our side, including the NRA, say things like that, I don't read them to be saying "let's zealously enforce every dumb little law on the books, let's and persecute gun owners for ticky-tack violations, and let's pass a lot more dumb gun laws while we're at it!"

When the NRA says "let's enforce the laws on the books," it seems to me, they are always saying that in opposition to some proposed new law. So I tend to read such statements as the NRA saying "this new proposed law is dumb, and we don't need it."

Personally, I think you really have to bend way over backwards to read such a statement from the NRA, in such a context, as "Please pass this new gun law! In fact, please pass any gun bans and restrictions you like! Once they're on the books, we'll enthusiastically support them!"

Personally, I think anyone who reads such a statement from the NRA in such a context and finds that message in it is being wilfully obtuse. I don't think there's really anyone out there who really has such a profound lack of understanding of political tactics.

If there was someone out there, who really had such a profound lack of understanding of political tactics, I sure wouldn't want to rely on them to advance our gun rights political agenda.
 
Does the bill have a chance of passing now that the circuit court has ruled against the DC gun ban?

It didn't pass when Hutchison introduced it before.
 
If the more cautious legal scholars are right, and this case goes against us, can I accuse you and Oregonfirearms of "being eager to destroy the second ammendment?"
Click to expand...

Arguably not, since as of this moment the 2nd amendment is a dead letter everywhere but in the DC and 5th circuits. It's already destroyed. 2A rights have been supported through legislation, in an environment where virtually no gun control law whatsoever can be struck down by the courts. If the Supreme Court rules against the 2A, nothing changes.

Except of course for the fact that the Supreme Court would have issued a patently ridiculous ruling on the order of Plessy and Korematsu, and would be igniting a firestorm of grassroots and academic protest.
 
he said that the NRA had tried to join with the Parker lawsuit because they felt that Alan Gura and Robert Levy werent experienced enough appellate attornies to take a case to the DC Circuit or the Supreme Court successfully.
Click to expand...

If they were such hotshots THEIR case would have been the one that prevailed, and Parker would have ended up in the circular file.

The NRA does indeed not want to have to argue the 2nd amendment in front of the Supreme court at this time. Gura deliberately crafted a pure 2nd amendment test case, designed so that it could not be decided on any other basis, so the court would HAVE to address the 2nd amendment in order to rule on it.

The case Halbrook cobbled together in a hurry after it became obvious Gura was making headway was designed to introduce other issues, to give the district court an escape hatch so that they could rule without addressing the merits of Gura's 2nd amendment arguments. If Halbrook had succeeded in having the cases joined, the case would have been ruined as a vehicle for getting the 2nd amendment in front of the Supreme court.

As I say, the NRA's position on this isn't irrational. They might even be right. But they're not being very honest with people about this.
 
How many Supreme Court cases has the NRA won in the last 20-30 years?

I think its about time they step aside and give someone else a shot. I mean, what the heck, if the case goes poorly, I'm willing to bet that NRA membership increases quite a bit.
 
A ton of cases dude. You just havent been paying attention. There is more to gun rights than the 2nd amendment.

US v Staples is a great case because it imposed a "knowingly" requirement for all NFA prosecutions instead of leaving it as a strict liability crime. US v Thompson Center raised the standard for collections of parts from "may be assembled into an NFA item" to "can only be assembled into an NFA item." US v Printz put a little more meat back on the bones of the 10th amendment, which is HUGE because it forbids the feds from commanding local law enforcement to participate in gun confiscations.

And lets not forget the thousands of local victories they have had overturning preempted laws in various states, getting better self defense and carry laws passed and generally making it easier for us to exercise the right.
 
I overstepped my knowledge of the NRA's actions with my previous comment. I'll take a look into some of the cases you suggested LawBot. Thanks for the info.
 
Google for NRA defense fund. I'm not certain, but I think they keep track of all the cases they participate in or fund.

edit: Yes, here you go: http://www.nradefensefund.org/litigation.aspx

That lists only the cases they are currently involved in. Multiply that by several decades worth of activity to get an idea of the scope of the effort necessary to preserve gun rights.

Ah I remember this case. Dave Hardy (armsandthelaw.com) settled it a few months ago.
Jerry Michels (Arizona). He was a small gun shop owner in Mesa who was raided by BATF in October 2000. The raid was based on a claim that he sold used firearms without having a city "used property sales" license. The agents seized 290 firearms, virtually his entire inventory, and effectively ended his business. They returned a few days later to seize his reloading supplies and equipment. During the first seizure, the novice BATF agents handcuffed Mr. Michel, Mirandized him, took him to their office for four hours of questioning, and then released him, informing he that he was not under arrest. Mr. Michel filed suit for return of his property, pointing out that the city ordinance was not a "published ordinance" enforceable under the Gun Control Act, and that the property had been held for longer than was permissible. He filed a motion for summary judgment and BATF returned 284 of the 290 firearms to Mr. Michel or his customers (some firearms were on consignment or in for gunsmithing). Many of the firearms were damaged during the seizure. They were removed from packing boxes, dumped into plastic garbage cans, and loaded into trucks. Mr. Michel filed a Federal Tort Claims Act claim for their damage and also for false arrest, and then a lawsuit, seeking damages. The government moved to dismiss, which was opposed, and the trial court denied the motion to dismiss. A first settlement conference in 2004 did not succeed (BATF offered $2500, around $10 per damaged firearm). Discovery has been completed, and documents were obtained showing that ATF violated their own rules regarding caretaking of seized firearms. At a second settlement conference in October 2006 ATF raised its offer to $30,000. The settlement conference will reconvene on December 14, 2006. The conference resulted in a settlement. BATF agreed to pay the FFL $58,500 for damage to his firearms and false arrest.
Click to expand...
 
It never fails to amaze me that so many gun owners are experts in politics, the legal system, and strategy in addition to a great many other aspects of human endeavor. What I can't figure out, though, is why all you highly educated, brilliant, knowledgable, and successful people got us into this mess?

But I trust you folks to know more than the NRA, its lawyers, and its lobbiests. They're just a waste of money. Guys who log onto the Internet with fake names know more than any of those people. Let's get rid of the NRA so you folks are free to operate without them getting in your way.
 
In all fairness, we were into this mess when my grandparents were children. The "old hands" at the gun rights movement have only been pushing for the past 20-30 years. Guys like me are only just getting started. I am very encouraged by the progress that has been made thus far and the progress that will likely be made within my lifetime.
 
Well, one thing people need to keep in mind is that the Democrats just shot down a long-term goal of theirs (voting rights for DC) in order to avoid passing the NRA-sponsored legislation. Given that political reality, I don't think there is any chance that these bills will pass and the NRA is likely just grandstanding; though I think that was a risky game for the NRA to play.

As far as what would happen if this legislation was passed, it would not only destroy the case's Supreme Court potential, Prof. Eugene Volokh of UCLA has stated that it would likely destroy the precedential value in the D.C. circuit as well. This means that not only do we lose a case with a great set of facts; we effectively go back to where the Second is an individual right only in the 5th Circuit (though the 5th Circuit has yet to overturn any federal law unlike the D.C. circuit).

Generally I agree with Mr. Gura. A Second Amendment case is coming down the line within the next ten years, the question is whether our plaintiff is another Miller or some of the good people we have in Parker. There are only a few cases out there that have Supreme Court potential and a good set of facts. We can't really afford to throw them away - especially when it means giving back precedent at the Circuit Court of Appeals level. I am a constituent of Sen. Hutchinson and I have contacted her making it clear I do not support the bill at this time.
 
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