From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: [UPI] ACLU awaits voters' decision
Date: 15 Sep 92 16:55:49 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Sep12.160114.19951@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
> In article <37933@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> cote@cs.ucsd.edu (Brad Cote) writes:
# #I'm still waiting for an ACLU member (or anyone) to explain to me why
# #the ACLU does include the 2nd Amendment as one of the constitutional
# #rights for which they fight.
# 
# Essentially because the ACLU accepts the argument, best articulated by
# Professor Tribe in a long footnote in page 299 of his treatise, AMERICAN
# CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 2d, that the Second Amendment does not create an
# individual right. I believe the ACLU is mistaken about this--Professor
# Sanford Levinson in his article "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" in the
# January 1990 issue of Yale Law Journal (forgive me for not including the
# complete cite--I'm pulling this from memory) conclusively refutes, IMHO,

Sanford Levinson, "The Embarrassing Second Amendment", Yale Law
Journal, 99 [December 1989].

# the view that the right to keep and bear arms is *not* an individual
# right. (Levinson's argument was later publicized, and more or less
# endorsed, by Michael Kinsley in THE NEW REPUBLIC.)
# 
# I don't let the ACLU's mistaken position on this issue prevent me from
# giving that organization money, however. They're right on most
# civil-liberties issues. I ended my membership in the National Rifle
# Association, however--not because I disagree with their interpretation of
# the Second Amendment, but because I disapprove of their lobbying and
# campaign tactics and strategy. For example, the NRA will routinely endorse
# and throw major money behind candidates who support the individual right
# to keep and bear arms even when those candidates have terrible positions
# on most other civil-liberties issues. In Texas, my home state, the NRA
# supported Clayton Williams against Ann Richards in the 1990 gubernatorial
# race--they ignored the fact that Richards is a gun-owner and hunter
# because (as I recall) Richards supports some relatively modest
# registration requirements.
# 
# Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 

Politics is full of tough choices.  In California, many election
choices are between Big Government liberals (higher taxes, more
restrictive gun control laws, more laws regulating free speech,
pro-choice, but at least they believe in protection against unreasonable
search and seizure) and conservatives (lower taxes, no gun control
laws, pro-life, callous attitudes about search and seizure).  I'm
not thrilled with either choice -- and it's part of the reason I
would like for liberals to start either standing up for the WHOLE
Bill of Rights (as Rep. Jolene Unsoeld of Washington has started to
do), or for conservatives to start standing up for the REST of the
Bill of Rights (as some conservatives, like California Assemblyman 
McClintock does).



-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
There can be no peace as long as AB 2601 lives.
Newsgroups: misc.legal