Attorney General Eric Holder used his testimony before a House committee on Thursday to tout the supposed need for new gun control laws to prevent “gun walking,” or the transportation of firearms across the Southern border. But he – and members of the committee – ignored existing laws that already accomplish Holder’s ostensible goals. “That is why we need a stronger gun trafficking law,” Holder said in response to questions about recourse against officials who signed off on the gun walking tactic. The tactic was integral to Operation Fast and …
There are quite a few reasons to be concerned about the U.N.’s pending Arms Trade Treaty. It poses a number of risks to the Second Amendment and, more broadly, it is based on the completely fallacious belief that all the world’s nations are actually serious about controlling the illicit arms trade. If they were, of course, no treaty would be necessary. What the treaty will end up doing is making the arms trade more dangerous, by giving the world’s dictator states an internationally-recognized right to import and export all the …
The wake of a violent tragedy is an appropriate time for reflection, investigation, prayer, and the promotion of healing. It is a particularly inappropriate time for political opportunism. After last weekend’s tragedy in Arizona, Congress should put the brakes on any desire to ram through gun-control legislation that will neither solve the perceived problems in federal law nor prevent any future assaults on public officials. Observation teaches us that in the wake of crisis, politicians’ instinctive reaction is to check the legislative box and claim that they have solved a …
The Washington Post today ran a lengthy front-page story headlined “As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border.” The title pretty much sums it up: the Post states that an “unprecedented number of American guns [are flowing] to the murderous drug cartels across the border” and that this is fueling the violent battle between drug runners and the Mexican government. Of course, one reason that battle has turned violent is because the Mexican government of Felipe Calderon is trying, for the first time, to …
We have posted several videos from this summer’s Second Amendment Task Force this week. Today’s final installment is of remarks by Dave Kopel, Research Director at the Independence Institute. During his address, Kopel discussed the Kagan nomination in the broader context of the fight to protect gun rights. He specifically discussed the development of the Fourteenth Amendment and the role it can play in the defense of the Second Amendment.
Yesterday, we shared a video of our own Hans von Spakovsky speaking at a Second Amendment Task Force event earlier this summer. Hans focused on Kagan’s record and how her inaction on certain Second Amendment-related issues speaks volumes about how she would deal with them on the bench. In today’s video, Stephen P. Halbrook, a 30 year veteran of litigation on 2nd Amendment rights, explains some cases that he worked on relating to the Second Amendment while Kagan was the point person on gun control during the administration of President …
At a Second Amendment Task Force held earlier this summer, Hans Von Spakovsky, Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, explained that Elena Kagan’s lack of action in her current job as Solicitor General with regard to the 2nd Amendment speaks volumes about how Kagan would rule on similar cases that would appear before the Supreme Court. As Hans explained to the audience, “”A lot of the discussion and speculation about Kagan’s legal philosophy is limited by her very thin record of scholarship and her complete lack of experience in …
After helping to strike down the Chicago handgun ban, the winners in today’s Supreme Court decision promised, in an exclusive interview with the Heritage Foundation, that more such cases would be coming in the next few weeks. Alan Gura, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, promised, “There will be future cases, I will be bringing cases in the days and weeks to come.” When asked about the decisions impact, he said, “We will see laws that serve no useful purpose other than to annoy gun owners struck down and others that …
As the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan got underway at 12:30, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions (R-AL), lost no time getting to the heart of the concerns that are raised by Elena Kagan’s nomination by President Obama to the Supreme Court: Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least fifty years. It’s not just that she has never been a judge. She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which real understanding occurs. Ms. Kagan …
Moments ago, the Supreme Court announced that, Yes Virginia, the Second Amendment does in fact apply to the states, and thereby struck down Chicago’s complete ban on handgun possession. But this decision (and the Court’s prior decision in Heller) raises still other questions which will likely have a substantial impact on what that Second Amendment right functionally means. For example, what constitutes a reasonable regulation on firearms under the Second Amendment? Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is wasting no time. Before the Supreme Court even issued its opinion, he said that …
