Texas AG authors pro-rights amicus brief, 37 state AGs sign on

From the Lone Star State:

AUSTIN - From Texas Attorney General's Office - Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today (Monday) took legal action to protect Texans’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court and authored by Attorney General Abbott, 38 state attorneys general explain that law-abiding Americans have a fundamental right to bear arms – and that local governments cannot simply disregard that right and impose an outright ban on handgun possession.

“Just last year we successfully fought to have the U.S. Supreme Court confirm that Americans have an individual, constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms,” Attorney General Abbott said. “Now, the City of Chicago claims that the Supreme Court’s year-old decision does not apply to local governments – so cities and towns can simply ignore the Second Amendment and pass laws that disregard city residents’ constitutionally protected rights. In response, we’ve built a coalition of 38 state attorneys general who reject Chicago’s attempt to circumvent the Constitution and who understand that all Americans – whether they live in D.C. or not – have a fundamental right to keep and bear arms.”

...

Attorney General Abbott’s brief is co-sponsored by Ohio, Arkansas and Georgia. Other states that joined the brief are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Article here. You can read the brief here.

Naturally, the anti-rights jurisdictions, such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois (but not Wisconsin), were some of the twelve that did not join the list of states supporting application of the Second Amendment to the states. If your state's attorney general was one of the twelve that did not sign the brief, perhaps you should inquire as to why.

Thirty four state Attorneys General support Second Amendment incorporation

From NRA-ILA:

Fairfax, Va. – Two-thirds of the nation’s attorneys general have filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in the case of NRA v. Chicago and hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This bi-partisan group of 33 attorneys general, along with the Attorney General of California in a separate filing, agrees with the NRA’s position that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms in the home for self-defense, disagreeing with the decision recently issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

“The historical record clearly shows that the Second Amendment was intended to apply to every American in every state in the country,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “As the Supreme Court said clearly in last year’s landmark Heller decision, the Second Amendment protects an individual right that ‘belongs to all Americans’. Two-thirds of America’s state Attorneys General agree.” ...

Read the rest here.

The states supporting Second Amendment incorporation are:

TEXAS, GEORGIA, ALABAMA, ALASKA, ARKANSAS, CALIFORNIA, COLORADO, FLORIDA, IDAHO, INDIANA, KANSAS, KENTUCKY, LOUISIANA, MAINE, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, MONTANA, NEBRASKA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEW MEXICO, NORTH CAROLINA, NORTH DAKOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, SOUTH DAKOTA, UTAH, VIRGINIA, WASHINGTON, WEST VIRGINIA, AND WYOMING

You can read the amicus brief here.

California filed its own, separate amicus brief, which you can read here.

Note that these are amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to hear the appeal. The Court has not yet decided whether or not to do so.

Guns and the Obama effect

CNN's Lou Dobbs does a segment on rising gun sales, and the Obama effect (this segment aired before Eric Holder was confirmed as Attorney General):



[Via Liberty Belles]

Not now, Eric

From JPFO, on the timing of the next "Assault Weapons" ban:

Barack Hussein Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder naively blurted out the other day that he was going to lead the charge to get the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban” reinstated.

Mind you, civilian ownership of “assault weapons” (by definition fully automatic firearms) has been legally forbidden to nearly all civilians since 1934. Yes, one can, with great effort, obtain a Class III Federal Firearms License, pay a $200 transfer fee, and, if you can find one, pay an exorbitant amount of money for a pre 1986 machine gun. However, for all intents and purposes, “commoners” can’t own them legally.

But none of that makes any difference to the pandering gun prohibition crowd. They are now, and always have been, the most insidious and manipulative of liars. Their smarmy deceptional dexterity would have made Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels green with envy.

Attorney General Holder’s main argument? To help the Mexican government fight drug cartels.

What?? This is the Attorney General of the United States of America, not Mexico’s Minister of Justice. On top of that, the insanely wealthy Mexican drug kingpins can buy guns from a dozen alternate sources across the globe. Or, they could set up factories and make their own. What a crock. But let me stay on point here…

Holder’s rookie presentation came off so lame and fundamentally misdirected that many Liberals in Congress must have cringed and gritted their teeth.

So… the very next day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi completely refuted Holder’s plan!

It was an intriguing slap on the wrist for Holder, and perhaps a valuable insight for American gun owners.

Pelosi’s implied message to Holder was: “Not now, Eric. The time is not yet ripe.”

Friends, you must understand that the victim disarmament crowd absolutely MUST have another Columbine or Stockton Schoolyard or shopping mall semi-automatic RIFLE massacre to grease the skids of their agenda. As I’ve said before: They don’t want the handguns nearly as fervently as they want the semi-auto rifles.
...
The short story? Obama and the Congress simply do not have a leg to stand on if they simply step up and start pushing for a ban on the sale of semi automatic rifles and high capacity ammunition magazines. There are too many other very loud noises in the barnyard right now.

“Not now, Eric. The time is not yet ripe.”

BUT…

With another Columbine or Stockton Schoolyard or shopping mall massacre, the flood gates have opened wide.

Then you’ll see Schumer and Feinstein and McCarthy, spearheaded by Eric Holder, pompously leading the resurrection of the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban”. The BATFE will be unleashed into a feeding frenzy of jackbooted injustice. ...

Article here. With all that's on the Big O's and Congress' plate at the moment (bankrupting the country is hard work, you know), I suspect that the big push for a new and "improved" AWB will indeed come after another mass shooting, probably at a "gun-free" disarmed victim zone.

Who voted for Holder

As you may know, the Senate has confirmed Eric Holder as Attorney General. The International Herald Tribune has the roll call results by state:

The 75-21 roll call by which the Senate voted to confirm Eric Holder as attorney general.

On this vote, a "yes" vote was a vote to confirm Holder and a "no" vote was a vote to reject his confirmation.

Voting "yes" were 54 Democrats, 19 Republicans and two independents.

Voting "no" were 21 Republicans.

Alabama

Sessions (R) Yes; Shelby (R) No.

Alaska

Begich (D) Not Voting; Murkowski (R) Yes.

Arizona

Kyl (R) Yes; McCain (R) Yes.

Arkansas

Lincoln (D) Yes; Pryor (D) Yes.

California

Boxer (D) Yes; Feinstein (D) Yes.

Colorado

Bennet (D) Yes; Udall (D) Yes.

Connecticut

Dodd (D) Yes; Lieberman (I) Yes.

Delaware

Carper (D) Yes; Kaufman (D) Yes.

Florida

Martinez (R) Not Voting; Nelson (D) Yes.

Georgia

Chambliss (R) Yes; Isakson (R) Yes.

Hawaii

Akaka (D) Yes; Inouye (D) Yes.

Idaho

Crapo (R) No; Risch (R) No.

Illinois

Burris (D) Yes; Durbin (D) Yes.

Indiana

Bayh (D) Yes; Lugar (R) Yes.

Iowa

Grassley (R) Yes; Harkin (D) Yes.

Kansas

Brownback (R) No; Roberts (R) No.

Kentucky

Bunning (R) No; McConnell (R) No.

Louisiana

Landrieu (D) Yes; Vitter (R) No.

Maine

Collins (R) Yes; Snowe (R) Yes.

Maryland

Cardin (D) Yes; Mikulski (D) Yes.

Massachusetts

Kennedy (D) Not Voting; Kerry (D) Yes.

Michigan

Levin (D) Yes; Stabenow (D) Yes.

Minnesota

Klobuchar (D) Yes.

Mississippi

Cochran (R) No; Wicker (R) No.

Missouri

Bond (R) Yes; McCaskill (D) Yes.

Montana

Baucus (D) Yes; Tester (D) Yes.

Nebraska

Johanns (R) No; Nelson (D) Yes.

Nevada

Ensign (R) No; Reid (D) Yes.

New Hampshire

Gregg (R) Yes; Shaheen (D) Yes.

New Jersey

Lautenberg (D) Yes; Menendez (D) Yes.

New Mexico

Bingaman (D) Yes; Udall (D) Yes.

New York

Gillibrand (D) Yes; Schumer (D) Yes.

North Carolina

Burr (R) No; Hagan (D) Yes.

North Dakota

Conrad (D) Yes; Dorgan (D) Yes.

Ohio

Brown (D) Yes; Voinovich (R) Yes.

Oklahoma

Coburn (R) No; Inhofe (R) No.

Oregon

Merkley (D) Yes; Wyden (D) Yes.

Pennsylvania

Casey (D) Yes; Specter (R) Yes.

Rhode Island

Reed (D) Yes; Whitehouse (D) Yes.

South Carolina

DeMint (R) No; Graham (R) Yes.

South Dakota

Johnson (D) Yes; Thune (R) No.

Tennessee

Alexander (R) Yes; Corker (R) Yes.

Texas

Cornyn (R) No; Hutchison (R) No.

Utah

Bennett (R) Yes; Hatch (R) Yes.

Vermont

Leahy (D) Yes; Sanders (I) Yes.

Virginia

Warner (D) Yes; Webb (D) Yes.

Washington

Cantwell (D) Yes; Murray (D) Yes.

West Virginia

Byrd (D) Yes; Rockefeller (D) Yes.

Wisconsin

Feingold (D) Yes; Kohl (D) Yes.

Wyoming

Barrasso (R) No; Enzi (R) No.

Remember these results, and how your senators voted the next time they tell you they "support the Second Amendment."

Senate panel backs Holder for AG

Unfortunately, looks like we're one step closer to having a committed anti-gunner as our nation's next Attorney General. From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved, and sent to the full Senate, the nomination of Eric H. Holder Jr. to be the nation’s The committee vote was 17 to 2, with only two Republicans, Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, voting against the nomination.

Some Republicans had hoped to make the Holder nomination a demonstration of party strength in the face of a Democratic-controlled White House and Congress. But the air went out of that effort even before Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican, said on Tuesday that he would support Mr. Holder’s nomination.

The nomination of Mr. Holder, who would be the nation’s first African-American attorney general, will go to the Senate floor in the next few days.

More from the Washington Post:

In a surprise, given comments over the past two months, several GOP lawmakers also cast their votes for Holder. Only two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, voted "nay" on the nomination. Cornyn expressed concern about the nominee's role in controversial Clinton era pardons, Holder's view on terrorism issues and his approach to gun rights.

But other members of the panel -- from Republican Lindsay Graham (S.C.) to Democrat Dick Durbin (Ill.) -- said that Holder had charted a careful balance between protecting the nation's security and endorsing civil liberties.

Only two senators on the Judiciary Committee, Sens. Cornyn (R-TX) and Coburn (R-OK) had the guts to stand up for gun owners. Remember that when Mr. Holder starts his anti-gun jihad on law-abiding gun owners, and when those senators who voted to confirm Mr. Holder say they "support the Second Amendment."

At least Sen. James Inhofe, Oklahoma's other senator, has indicated he plans to vote against Holder when his nomination comes before the full Senate:

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., cites the right to bear arms, his preference for justice over patronage, and the war on terror as reasons he plans to vote against confirming Eric Holder as attorney general.

Inhofe issued his statement in a news release, as well as on his blog and a YouTube video. The statement:

“I wanted you to be the first to know I am going to vote against to the appointment of Eric Holder to be the next attorney general of the United States.

“I believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who value their Second Amendment personal right to own their own firearms. I also believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who favor justice over political patronage. Finally, I believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who realize we are in a War on Terror and want to continue the strong efforts to bring terrorists to justice. I am opposed to the appointment of Eric Holder . . .

“I take particular interest in this nomination, because I, as well as the voters of the state of Oklahoma, feel strongly that the rights conferred upon us by the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantee an individual freedom that no government regulation can take away. Eric Holder’s record and his true beliefs about the Second Amendment are clear. In a brief filed in the Heller case, Holder joined other past Department of Justice officials by saying, “The Second Amendment Does Not Protect Firearms Possession or Use That Is Unrelated To Participation In a Well-Regulated Militia” and that “recognition of an expansive individual right to keep and bear arms for private purposes will make it more difficult for the government to defend present and future firearms laws.”

In addition, at least one other senator, Sen. John Barasso (R-WY), also thinks the Second Amendment is important:

In Wyoming, we don't ask for much from Washington. We do ask that Washington limit its intrusion on our land, water and especially our Second Amendment rights. That's not a lot to ask in the grand scheme of Washington but it is critically important to the constituents who sent me to fight for them.

President Obama has nominated Eric Holder to serve as the United States attorney general. During the Clinton administration, Mr. Holder was Janet Reno's deputy attorney general from 1997-2001. Deputy Attorney General Holder was on record supporting a long list of proposals to limit the Second Amendment rights of American citizens. He supported a three-day waiting period for handgun purchases, one-gun-a-month purchasing limits, licensing and registering of all gun owners, mandatory so-called smart gun technology and regulating gun shows out of existence.
...
As a United States senator for Wyoming, I take very seriously the responsibility to protect and defend our right to keep and bear arms. President Obama has every right to nominate Eric Holder to be attorney general. I have the duty to closely review the nominee's qualifications and philosophy on issues important to all Americans.

During Mr. Holder's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, he said gun control is not on this administration's agenda. He also said he still supports regulating private gun sales, banning ammunition and semi-automatic assault weapons. Given Mr. Holder's career of attacks on the Second Amendment, his nomination continues to be of great concern to me. I am not convinced his philosophy on the Second Amendment is acceptable to the people of Wyoming and gun owners across the United States.

Agendas and intentions can change quickly. Our nation's highest law enforcement officer must be committed to protecting and defending our individual rights to keep and bear arms. I intend to vote "no" on the nomination of Eric Holder.

Wisconsin Attorney General sidesteps open-carry issue

Here's a follow-up article to this post, discussing the open carry environment in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Attorney General has declined a request from a state legislator to issue a formal opinion on the legality of open carry:

As conflicts over of the open carry of firearms mushroom in the state, Wisconsin attorney general J.B. Van Hollen is declining to issue a legal opinion about whether the practice is legal.

In a Nov. 6, 2008, letter to then state Rep. Terry Musser (R-Black River Falls), deputy attorney general Raymond Taffora acknowledged a number of requests for just such an opinion, as well as a growing number of arrests for carrying firearms in plain view, mostly on the charge of disorderly conduct.

On behalf of an unnamed constituent, Musser had specifically asked for an opinion about the open carrying of firearms for personal defense, but Taffora told him there were prudent legal reasons for the attorney general not to get involved.

For one thing, Taffora said, many requests for a formal opinion had been prompted by disorderly conduct charges brought by district attorneys. In general, he wrote to Musser, private citizens wanted an opinion to cite at trial or at the appellate level to defeat the charge.

There are procedural reasons not to give them those citations, Taffora wrote.

First, he noted, state statutes provide that the attorney general can only provide formal opinions to the governor, the Legislature, state officers and agencies, corporation counsels, and district attorneys. The attorney general cannot issue formal opinions to cities, towns, villages or other municipal attorneys or private citizens.

"We also discourage authorized requestors from acting as proxies for private citizens seeking a formal opinion," he wrote. Musser was in fact acting as such a proxy when he asked for the opinion.
...
"The reason they (the attorney general's office) blew Musser off, I think, is that if J.B. says open carry is in fact lawful and then West Allis appeals, the state will be representing the city and he's going to end up creating a problem for himself defending the city's actions when he has already said what Brad did was lawful. So he's not going to put himself in jeopardy and open his mouth, although he should."

Whatever his motivation, the attorney general certainly has a surfeit of case law and DOJ briefs to form an opinion, if he chose to do so.

As German alluded to and The Lakeland Times has reported, both Doyle, as attorney general, and the Supreme Court recognized open-carry rights in State of Wisconsin v Hamdan, in which the High Court carved out a concealed weapon exemption for small storeowners.

In a brief signed by Doyle, the Department of Justice argued against the exemption, citing the ability of citizens to already possess and carry an open weapon: "The State argues that even under the strictest enforcement of the [concealed carry] statute, a person lawfully in possession of a firearm will always retain the ability to keep the firearm in the open - holding the weapon in the open, keeping the weapon in a visible holster, displaying the weapon on the wall, or otherwise placing the weapon in plain view," the court stated in summing up the DOJ's brief.

In her dissent of the final decision, chief justice Shirley Abrahamson went even further.

"That is, [the law] does not prevent anyone from carrying a firearm for security, defense, hunting, recreation, or other lawful purposes," Abrahamson wrote. "Rather, it limits the manner of carrying weapons, by requiring that a weapon that is on a person or within a person's reach not be concealed. The gist of the offense is the concealment."

What's more, the state Supreme Court has already ruled on what can be and cannot be considered disorderly conduct, in the case, State v. Douglas D.

"To prosecute a defendant for a violation of this statute, the State has the burden to prove two elements," the court determined. "First, it must prove that the defendant engaged in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or similar disorderly conduct. Second, it must prove that the defendant's conduct occurred under circumstances where such conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance. Under both elements, it is the combination of conduct and circumstances that is crucial in applying the statute to a particular situation."

How the very act of a carrying a visible legal firearm fits or does not fit that judicial criteria is a matter screaming for clarification.

With the attorney general on the sidelines, that will likely happen in court, probably the Supreme Court, and take months, if not years. In the meantime, more open carry arrests for disorderly conduct and more contested court cases can be expected.

Read the article here. If memory serves, like Wisconsin, the Ohio Supreme Court had held that the prohibition on concealed carry did not violate the Ohio state constitution due to the availability and legality of open carry. And as I recall, Ohio concealed carry advocates held a number of open carry marches during their successful fight to get a concealed carry law passed.

Perhaps it's time for Wisconsinites to organize a similar process, with sympathetic news organizations (and their video cameras) on hand to record any peaceful marchers getting arrested on these ridiculous disorderly conduct charges, and pro-gun rights attorneys on hand to any fight such unfounded charges, and (just as important) sue the offending LE agencies and municipalities for civil rights violations.

Holder nomination

More on the pro-gun and anti-gun reactions to President-Elect Obama's nomination of Eric Holder as Attorney General:

From the Blog of Legal Times: Why Gun-Rights Advocates Are Opposing Holder

Advocates of gun rights are drawing on the old and the new in their criticism of Attorney General-designate Eric Holder Jr.

The criticism appears in letters sent in the last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee from two organizations that generally oppose restrictions on gun ownership. Their letters preview what may come up Thursday and Friday during Holder’s confirmation hearing, when a lawyer who has written often about the Second Amendment is scheduled to testify at the request of Republican senators.

Gun Owners of America is opposing Holder outright. The National Rifle Association says it has “serious questions” and “substantial concerns.” ...

According to Earth Times, the Brady Campaign has only praise for Mr. Holder:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, submitted a statement for the record to the Senate Judiciary Committee today praising the nomination of Eric Holder to be Attorney General of the United States.
...
"During his illustrious career, Eric Holder has been an eloquent and forceful advocate for sensible gun laws," Helmke wrote. "As Deputy Attorney General, he worked on numerous proposals to help protect our families and communities from gun criminals and he stressed a coordinated approach that included both prevention and enforcement. He supported balanced efforts that would both prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands and strengthen the government's ability to enforce the law when they do... Because of his excellent qualifications, many years of distinguished public service, and unyielding commitment to sensible gun policies, the Brady Campaign strongly supports the nomination of Eric Holder to be Attorney General and urges the Senate to confirm him." [emphasis added]

The full statement is available at the Brady Campaign's website here.

GOA: Oppose Holder nomination

From Gunowners of America, comes this important message:

Barack Obama is wasting no time poking a sharp stick in the eyes of gun owners.

The incoming President's choice for U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, is an anti-gun extremist who has assailed gun owners since his days in the Bill Clinton administration.

Holder, who served as Deputy Attorney General from 1997-2001, supports a 3-day waiting period for handgun purchases, one-gun-a-month rationing, licensing and registration of all gun owners, mandatory so-called smart gun technology, a lifetime gun ban for certain juvenile offenses and regulating gun shows out of existence.

As Janet Reno's top deputy, Eric Holder was the go to guy on gun control issues. In a 1999 statement, Holder told members of Congress not to cave in to "the special interest that value the cold hard steel of guns more than the lives of children, neighbors and police officers," and urged them to pass legislation that would have destroyed the gun show industry.

Read the rest here, then please consider contacting your U.S. Senators and urging them to oppose Mr. Holder's nomination.

Here is a YouTube video of then-Clinton administration Deputy Attorney General Mr. Holder's 1999 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee:

Obama's Attorney General nominee

From Jeff Knox of the Firearms Coalition, via Ohioans for Concealed Carry:

Barack Obama’s nomination of Eric Holder to be the Attorney General demands an immediate and unequivocal response from gunowners and rights advocates and that response should be “Absolutely Not!”

Holder’s appointment to be AG must be approved by the Senate. While it is highly unlikely that opponents could muster the 51 votes needed to reject Holder’s appointment, a single Senator can place a “hold” on the confirmation and effectively lock up the system just as Democrats did with a number of President Bush’s judicial appointments and the appointment of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the UN. Once a “Hold” has been placed, a supermajority of 60 votes is required to break the hold. With enough vocal opposition to Holder’s confirmation, Obama could be forced to withdraw the nomination and select someone else to be his AG. Even if opponents cannot successfully block Holder’s appointment, a strong and concerted effort to do so will go far toward warning the Obama administration and the new Congress against trying to interfere with the rights of Americans to own guns.

As Attorney General, Holder would command the massive and powerful Justice Department which now includes BATFE, and has the expanded powers bestowed by the poorly named “Patriot Act.” Holder could make minor modifications in the way certain laws and regulations are interpreted and broadly expand restrictions on importation, transfer, and possession of a variety of firearms, ammunition, and gun parts. He would be in charge of the records of NICS checks and could be expected to attempt to create a de facto registration system by circumventing the law mandating the destruction of those records upon completion of a legal transaction. Holder would be responsible for interpretation and enforcement of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and would also set official policy as to what the government believes the Second Amendment actually means and how it is to be enforced or prosecuted. Since Holder has long been an outspoken advocate for more restrictive and intrusive gun laws and was a cosigner of an amicus brief endorsing the “collective right” theory of the Second Amendment – a theory rejected by all 9 Supreme Court Justices – it can be expected that his official interpretation of the amendment would not be a favorable one.

Read the rest here.

Will Obama's Attorney General respect the Second Amendment

From Reason, on President-elect Obama's pick for Attorney General:

While it wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the decision, Obama's statement was an improvement over his previous equivocations. But that line about Chicago and Cheyenne definitely stood out. Chicago, after all, has a gun ban in place that's just as constitutionally dubious as the one struck down in Heller. Indeed, Alan Gura, the attorney who successfully argued Heller before the Court, is now working on the challenge to the Windy City law.

So last week's announcement that President-elect Obama has tapped outspoken gun control advocate Eric Holder to serve as his attorney general should come as something less than a complete shock. Holder, who served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton and as acting attorney general under President George W. Bush (a position he held until John Ashcroft was confirmed), has pushed for sweeping and restrictive gun control measures throughout his career while also endorsing the now-discredited collective rights interpretation of the Second Amendment. Obama's selection of Holder raises some serious concerns about his administration's commitment to upholding the entire Bill of Rights.

Article here. It think it's pretty obvious that Obama's AG is anti-gun. I expect that Obama's choices for U.S. Attorneys will likewise share an ideological kinship with the Attorney General nominee against law-abiding gun owners and against the Second Amendment as an individual right.

On Obama's likely Attorney General nominee

From the no-big-surprise files comes word that President-elect Obama's likely nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, who served in the Clinton Justice Department, wants to close the gun show "loophole". From a June 1999 statement by then-deputy Attorney General Holder:

"But while the Brady law has done a lot to make this country safer, the law has a dangerous loophole that criminals and others who cannot legally buy guns at a licenced gun shop exploit. While everyone who buys a gun through a licenced dealer must undergo a background check to determine if they are eligible to buy a gun, the current law allows unlicenced sellers at gun shows to sell to anyone -- with no questions asked.

"It's not hard to see what kind of message that sends to criminals.

"But it is hard for me to believe that any reasonable person -- including those who serve in Congress -- could oppose taking the simple step necessary to close that gap.

"Last month the Senate passed a bill that does close the loophole. And this week the House has an opportunity to join them in this very logical decision.

"This should be an easy decision. But for many Members it will not be, because of the pressure they are under from the NRA. We must urge Congress to resist the gun lobby's pressure to vote for the sham gun control being pressed on the House.

Read his statement here.

A National Review article also raises Mr. Holder's position on the "loophole":

The fact that Attorney General nominee Eric Holder is no friend to gun owners is not a surprise. What may be a surprise, and worthy of examination at his confirmation hearing, is Holder's post-9/11 contention that a pressing threat to our national security is terrorists shopping for weapons at U.S. gun shows.

Article here.

Another National Review article discusses some of Mr. Holder's record in the Clinton Justice Department:

In any other time, Holder would simply be an uninspired choice. But these are not ordinary times — we face a serious, persistent threat from Islamist terrorists. At the same time, Democrats have expressed outrage over both the alleged politicization of the Justice Department and the reckless disregard of its storied traditions. For these times, it is difficult to imagine a worse choice for AG than Eric Holder.

Much has been made, and appropriately so, of Holder’s untoward performance in the final corrupt act of the Clinton administration: the pardons issued in the departing president’s final hours. Of these, most notorious is the case of Marc Rich, an unrepentant fugitive wanted on extensive fraud, racketeering, and trading-with-the-enemy charges — but granted a pardon nonetheless thanks to the intercession of his ex-wife, a generous donor to Clinton’s library and legal-defense fund.

Holder’s role was aptly described as “unconscionable” by a congressional committee. He steered Rich’s allies to retain the influential former White House counsel Jack Quinn (Holder later conceded he hoped Quinn would help him become attorney general in a Gore administration); he helped Quinn directly lobby Clinton, doing an end-run around the standard pardon process (including DOJ’s pardon attorney); and he kept the deliberations hidden from the district U.S. attorney and investigative agencies prosecuting Rich so they couldn’t learn about the pardon application and register their objections.

Article here.

Finally, Dave Kopel, writing at Volokh, notes that Mr. Holder signed an amicus brief supporting Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban in the D.C. v. Heller case before the Supreme Court earlier this year:

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 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.

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.

As Deputy Attorney General, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control. He advocated federal licensing of handgun owners, a three day waiting period on handgun sales, rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month, banning possession of handguns and so-called "assault weapons" (cosmetically incorrect guns) by anyone under age of 21, a gun show restriction bill that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for trivial offenses (e.g., giving your son an heirloom handgun for Christmas, if he were two weeks shy of his 21st birthday). He also promoted the factoid that "Every day that goes by, about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence"--a statistic is true only if one counts 18-year-old gangsters who shoot each other as "children."(Sources: Holder testimony before House Judiciary Committee, Subcommitee on Crime, May 27,1999; Holder Weekly Briefing, May 20, 2000. One of the bills that Holder endorsed is detailed in my 1999 Issue Paper "Unfair and Unconstitutional.") [emphasis added]

It's going to be a long four (or eight) years.