- (CNSNews.com) - It's official: The Bush administration
believes that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear
arms, a position described in press reports as a major reversal of longstanding
policy.
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- In two court filings this week, Solicitor General Theodore
Olson (the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer) said: "The current
position of the United States ... is 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."
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- In those court filings, Olson also wrote that the right
to bear arms is "subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent
possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms
that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."
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- Last year, in a letter to the National Rifle Association,
Attorney General John Ashcroft expressed the same opinion, writing, "While
some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a 'collective'
right of the states to maintain militias, I believe the amendment's plain
meaning and original intent prove otherwise."
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- While gun owners are delighted with the policy change,
gun opponents are appalled.
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- Wire reports quoted Michael Barnes, a spokesman for the
anti-gun Brady Campaign as saying, "This action is proof positive
that the worst fears about Attorney General Ashcroft have come true: his
extreme ideology on guns has now become government policy."
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- People on both sides of the gun issue are waiting for
the Supreme Court to offer a clear interpretation of the Second Amendment,
but no such ruling is imminent.
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- According to wire reports, the last time the Supreme
Court ruled on the scope of the Second Amendment was in 1939.
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