Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Eric Holder is at war with gun owners' rights

3.21.12

This week we've seen confirmation that the National Rifle Association has been right all along about President Obama's choice for attorney general to lead the Department of Justice.

Taken with Eric Holder's arguments at the Supreme Court, and Operation Fast and Furious, the picture emerges of an inveterate opponent of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

When Holder was U.S. attorney for D.C. in 1995, he gave a speech to the Woman's National Democratic Club about firearms. He shockingly argued that "what we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that's not cool, that it's not acceptable, it's not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitude about cigarettes."

Holder added that he asked the District of Columbia's "school board to make a part of every day, some kind of anti-violence, anti-gun message. Every day, every school, at every level ... We need to do this every day of the week, and just really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way."

This video -- first aired in 1995 on C-Span2 -- was unearthed by Breitbart.com, posted by editor-in-chief Joel Pollak (the same guy who annihilated Soledad O'Brien on CNN recently).

By the way, it's encouraging evidence that before he passed away, Andrew Breitbart built an operation and assembled a team of capable researchers and reporters to realize his vision of exposing the Far Left, packaging material in a user-friendly fashion.

Someone might suggest that Holder is only going after inner-city youth violence involving guns, but those suggestions fall flat. Holder says not a single word acknowledging that over 80 million American gun owners possess guns for self-defense or other lawful purposes, or that 20 million of them use firearms for hunting.

Instead Holder expresses absolute opposition to private gun ownership. By saying we need to change the way "people think about guns, especially young people," that means older people, too.

It also means people outside the city of Washington. He wants a daily "anti-gun message" to "brainwash" people to think of gun ownership like "cigarettes," as unhealthy and undesirable. Those are his words in context in a full-length video, not anyone's spin.

This video reinforces Holder's argument to the Supreme Court in 2008 in a new light. In D.C. v. Heller, Holder joined a brief arguing that the Second Amendment "right of the people to keep and bear arms" does not apply whatsoever to private citizens.

Holder's brief argued that the Second Amendment only concerns state governments equipping their National Guard units, and therefore that a nationwide ban on gun ownership would not violate the Constitution.

Add to this the still-unfolding scandal of Operation Fast and Furious, where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives -- part of Holder's DOJ -- was allowing guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

This, while Holder's anti-gun political allies argued that the fact that those cartels had American guns means that we need new and harsher federal gun-control laws (which Holder would be in charge of enforcing and prosecuting).

Together, this video, the Heller case, and the gun-running scandal paint a picture of a liberal anti-gun activist, who rejects the plain meaning of the Second Amendment, and who relentlessly explores new ways to limit firearm ownership and turn public opinion against gun owners.

We don't need Holder brainwashing our children to despise the Second Amendment, or for that matter any part of the Bill of Rights to our Constitution.

What we do need is a U.S. attorney general who reveres the Constitution that he is sworn to uphold.

Examiner legal contributor Ken Klukowski is a fellow at the American Civil Rights Union and on faculty at Liberty University School of Law.

SOURCE: Washington Examiner

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