Ashcroft Right On Gun Ownership
All I can say, Is right on Mr Ashcroft! ~Amanda 
BILL COULTER
Ashcroft right on gun ownership
Attorney General John Ashcroft caused gun-control advocates and assorted liberals to go ballistic by his radical assertion that, yes, the Second Amendment does indeed guarantee individuals the right to keep and bear arms.
That’s exactly what most law-abiding, gun-owning Americans have believed all along. Apparently it was news to nanny-state proponents and other pantywaists, even though the Second Amendment was ratified more than 200 years ago on Dec. 15, 1791.
From some of the reactions, you would have thought the sky was falling:
”So now . . . Ashcroft thinks he gets to rewrite the Constitution to reflect his personal opinions. His pronouncement . . . that the 2nd Amendment guarantees individuals the right to own guns, despite six decades of federal policy and U.S. Supreme Court decisions to the contrary, is another audacious move by a man who mistakenly thinks his job is to make, not enforce, the law,” opined The Los Angeles Times.
”Ashcroft has compared the gun-ownership right with the First Amendment’s protection of speech — which can be limited only in a fashion narrowly tailored to accomplish compelling state interests. If that’s the model, most federal gun laws would sooner or later fall,” warned The Washington Post in an editorial on Friday.
More realistically, the National Rifle Association called Ashcroft’s position a ”breath of fresh air” to freedom-loving gun owners.
The amendment states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
? Does that mean citizens have a ”collective” right to own guns only so states can have well-regulated militias; that citizens can possess guns only for the purpose of serving in militias? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never known a member of the National Guard to take his or her M-16 to summer camp.
? Or does it mean that a citizen’s basic right to keep and bear arms — a right Americans enjoyed before there was a Constitution or a Bill of Rights — cannot be infringed upon because states may someday need to call them up for service in a militia?
Legal scholars remain divided.
Based on writings of the time, Ashcroft believes that the Second Amendment was understood to mean that individual citizens had a basic right to keep and bear arms. Individuals in the 18th Century needed guns to hunt and for their protection. Individuals today need them for their protection.
Ashcroft says that the last six decades of federal policy and court decisions on gun ownership have been too narrow. He also says that the Second Amendment protects the right of gun ownership beyond what is reasonably related to the preservation of the militia.
In a footnote filed with a legal brief to the Supreme Court, Ashcroft’s position is explained as understanding that the Second Amendment “more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms, subject to . . . restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are . . . suited to criminal misuse.”
Naturally, the gun-control bunch doesn’t like Ashcroft’s position. It’s a step backward for them. The gun-control crowd is after eliminating individual ownership of guns, all guns — that includes granddad’s favorite shotgun that hasn’t been fired in 50 years.
Most liberals prefer collective rights to individual rights. For them, it may be OK to own a gun if it’s used only for militia purposes. But individual rights often appear too dangerous for the safety or best interests of the greater society.
Take a little breather. The sky is not falling. Count on the Justice Department to continue to enforce existing gun laws. Your next-door neighbor is not going to bring home a 155mm howitzer.
All Ashcroft has done is make individual Americans a little more free. It is a breath of fresh air. But, of course, the Supreme Court can always take another view.
Bill Coulter is an editorial-board member of The Houston Chronicle.
