Charles L. Cotton wrote:Now I have a question for you. For years, you have preached that the NRA compromises too much; that it sold us out on the machine gun issue. While I could not disagree with you more on these issue, tell me why you have not made so much as a peep about your libertarian brethren on the "Levy team" doing far far worse. Libertarian Gura conceded in oral argument that machine guns are not protected under the Second Amendment. Where is your condemnation of Gura?
If you will quote him exactly, I will either condemn him, praise, him, or remain neutral. I don't know what exact passage you're referring to, so I can't comment.
I do know that they took a position of only trying
the one issue at hand, because it was a narrowly crafted case. Machine guns weren't at issue; overturning the DC ban was.
For the record, I praise NRA where they deserve it (and their funding and assistance in this case certainly helped), just as quickly as I condemn them where I believe they are too comfortable with banning "some guns", or banning guns for "some people".
For instance, an acquaintance in New Hampshire was just found guilty on a state charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. How? His girlfriend was distraught and threatening to kill herself, a threat he believed to be credible. He knew she had a pistol in her car, so he retrieved it, unloaded it, and locked it in his safe, then immediately called 911, and told the responding officers everything.
He was convicted on a state charge (which was wrong; the jury overlooked the "competing harms" argument), but if this was a Project Exile area, he'd be looking at 5 years in federal prison, with no parole. And that is not just the NRA's official position, it's their brainchild: that this man, and anyone in a similar position, should get an automatic 5 years without parole, by preventing a death.
For their educational, training, and legislative efforts to make things better, I salute the NRA (and that's why I am a member). For the roadblocks they throw up in the path of those who would be more bold, I condemn them. And for their acceptance of the idea that the 2nd means something less than what it says --for all guns, for all people-- I have nothing but contempt.
Kevin