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.
In a recent Townhall.com column, former National Rifle Association president Sandy Froman protested the Justice Department’s misguided action. She correctly explains the government’s position includes only halfhearted support for the Second Amendment. If the Supreme Court were to adopt the Department’s position, it would imperil our civil right to keep and bear arms.
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.
The Left refers to racial equality and voting as “civil rights.” But, civil rights are broader than that. Our civil rights are all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence tells us that government exists to protect our God-given rights, and the Constitution created our court system where those rights are vindicated.
There are three civil rights for which any attempted regulation should be looke
Ken Blackwell
Ken Blackwell, a contributing editor at Townhall.com, is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and the American Civil Rights Union and is on the board of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He is the co-author of the new bestseller
The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency, on sale in bookstores everywhere..
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