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Jewish World Review May 23, 2002 / 12 Sivan, 5762
Laura Ingraham
The Washington Post editorial page has never come across a new gun restriction it didn't like. So it provides the perfect platform for septuagenarian McGrory to unload on the Bush Administration. And if the facts aren't on your side--no problem! Make them up! Here's a sampling of some of the most outrageous lies McGrory served up in Sunday's anti-gun, anti-Ashcroft, anti-NRA column:
This McGrory bile and venom cocktail was inspired by the Justice Department's recently stated view that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to keep and bear arms (not merely that of a "militia"). The Solicitor General's office, in two separate briefs filed with the Supreme Court, indicated that the Bush Administration believed that the right to gun ownership extended to the people of the United States as part of the Bill of Rights. McGrory incorrectly asserts that "60 years of court opinion (sic) have held that the Founders intended to extend a collective privilege for militias." In fact, the Supreme Court's Miller case (1939) dealt only with a narrow class of short-barrelled shot guns, and the Court made no sweeping pronouncement of the Second Amendment that would foreclose the individual rights interpretation that the Bush Administration and most serious Second Amendment scholars hold. McGrory, too busy with her character assassination of Mr. Ashcroft, fails to mention that this "gun nut" urged the Court NOT to take the cases challenging the two gun laws. The government correctly contends the restrictions are constitutional (narrowly tailored for a compelling government interest). McGrory's column is important because it demonstrates how desperate the Left has become about guns. Gun control fanatics simply cannot comprehend why most Americans aren't buying the view that guns cause crime, and so they'll do and say just about anything to scare them into enlightenment. One highly-acclaimed antigun scholar, Michael Bellesiles, has already seen his book Arming America (Random House) debunked as fraudulent. When other scholars questioned his data on gun ownership in early America, he claimed his supporting documentation was lost in a flood.
The Bush Administration took a first step toward bringing some clarity to
the current gun debate. Eventually, the Supreme Court will have to settle
the Second Amendment question. Until then, brace yourself for more
McGrory-like attacks.
05/19/02: El Jefe basks in Carter's Light
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