RUDY Versus GUNS
Date: Apr 15, 2007 6:45 PM
The Right to Hunt in Montana: Rudy Giuliani’s Narrow Reading of the
Second Amendment
By Jacob Sullum
Senior editor at Reason magazine
April 11, 2007
http://www.townhall
<http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JacobSullum/2007/04/11/the_right_to_hunt
_> .com/Columnists/JacobSullum/2007/04/11/the_right_to_hunt_
in_montana_rudy_giulianis_narrow_reading_of_the_second_amendment

Despite his promise to appoint “strict constructionists” to the Supreme
Court if he is elected president, Rudy Giuliani recently said he has no
interest in overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that discovered a
previously unnoticed constitutional right to abortion. Offending social
conservatives (and strict constructionists) even further, he told CNN
this constitutional right may require government financing of abortions
for women who otherwise cannot afford them.

Since Giuliani also claims to support “the right to bear arms” (a right
that is actually mentioned in the Constitution), he should, by similar
logic, advocate the use of taxpayer money to buy guns for poor people.
But the idea would never occur to him, because his sudden interest in
the Second Amendment, like his sudden interest in strict
constructionism, is merely an affectation intended to allay the concerns
of Republican primary voters.

In his stump speeches, Giuliani, whose campaign Web site calls him “a
strong supporter of the Second Amendment,” praises the federal appeals
court decision that last month overturned the District of Columbia’s ban
on keeping guns in the home for self-defense. Yet that ban is only
slightly stricter than the gun laws that Giuliani still brags about
vigorously enforcing when he was mayor of New York.

Giuliani tries to reconcile his support for strict gun control in New
York with his newfound commitment to the Second Amendment by saying that
different jurisdictions should be able to choose the gun laws that are
appropriate for them. As his Web site puts it, “Rudy understands that
what works in New York doesn’t necessarily work in Mississippi or Montana.”

But the right to keep and bear arms has no meaning if politicians are
free to impose any kind of gun control they think “works.” In the D.C.
gun ban decision that Giuliani says he supports, a federal court
overruled the judgment of local officials because it was inconsistent
with the Second Amendment.

Giuliani’s commitment to federalism in this area seems shaky in any
case. As mayor, he supported a federal law that required waiting periods
and background checks for gun purchases. He wanted to go further,
creating a national system for handgun registration and licensing.

Giuliani also supported a federal ban on “assault weapons,”
semi-automatic guns that were targeted based on their militaristic
appearance rather than their capabilities or use in crime. When the ban
lapsed in 2004, he wanted it renewed, although his campaign now says he
would not necessarily support reinstating it. If Giuliani sees this
utterly arbitrary law as the sort of “reasonable and sensible” gun
control he says is consistent with the Second Amendment, that standard
is easily met.

In addition to these explicit forms of national gun control, Giuliani
sought to impose restrictions throughout the country indirectly by
filing a lawsuit that blames firearm manufacturers and distributors for
criminal use of their products. The suit demands changes in the way guns
are made and sold that would affect their cost and availability nationwide.

Giuliani explained the rationale for the lawsuit during a June 2000
radio show: “We are dealing with a problem that is foisted on the city
by the rest of the country 95 percent of the guns in New York City can
be traced to someplace outside the city A lot of the problems in New
York City are caused by very, very lax regulations outside the city.” So
much for letting each city or state go its own way on gun control.

Giuliani also made a revealing comment when he accused gun manufacturers
of knowingly supplying criminals by “overproducing guns, way beyond the
number that’s necessary for hunting and for law enforcement.” For
Giuliani, it seems, hunting is the only legitimate use of guns for
people who are not police officers. Presumably that is what he imagines
folks in “Mississippi or Montana” are doing with their guns, while
law-abiding New Yorkers are disarmed in the name of fighting crime.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !