David Kope who writes with the Volokh boys, says this morning [1]:
[2]
Holder
Earlier this year, Eric Holder–along with Janet Reno and several other former officials from the Clinton Department of Justice–co-signed an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller. The brief was filed in support of DC’s ban on all handguns, and ban on the use of any firearm for self-defense in the home. The brief [3] argued that the Second Amendment is a “collective” right, not an individual one, and asserted that belief in the collective right had been the consistent policy of the U.S. Department of Justice since the FDR administration. A brief filed by some other former DOJ officials (including several Attorneys General, and Stuart Gerson, who was Acting Attorney General until Janet Reno was confirmed)took issue with the Reno-Holder brief’s characterization of DOJ’s viewpoint.
So, since Heller won the case, and not those urging more gun control, doesn’t that end it?
No.
But at the least, the Reno-Holder brief accurately expressed the position of the Department of Justice when Janet Reno was Attorney General and Eric Holder was Deputy Attorney General. At the oral argument before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson, the Assistant U.S. Attorney told the panel that the Second Amendment was no barrier to gun confiscation, not even of the confiscation of guns from on-duty National Guardsmen.
[4]Gee... looks to ME like he was taken at the point of a gun...
Oh, by the way…
Holder played a key role in the gunpoint, night-time kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez.
Why is that of import to this discussion?
The pretext for the paramilitary invasion of the six-year-old’s home was that someone in his family might have been licensed to carry a handgun under Florida law. Although a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo showed a federal agent dressed like a soldier and pointing a machine gun at the man who was holding the terrified child, Holder claimed that Gonzalez “was not taken at the point of a gun” and that the federal agents whom Holder had sent to capture Gonzalez had acted “very sensitively.”
So clearly, to Eric Holder, the truth is no barrier to his political objectives. This is an example, dear reader of the best and brightest Obama can find to help him along to his political objectives, which apparently he feels Holder shares. I tend to agree; these are values the two share. Which of course leads me to a question:
Do you even begin to understand what we’re in for, as a country, and how badly we’re screwed?
Go read the Volokh article.