Sen. Ted Stevens' "armed citizenry"
Letter, September 10, 1995
National political leadership
Letter, February 11, 1997.
The Blood on Their Doorstep
Letter, July 27, 1998.
What's wrong with Barney Frank?

Index to this file:
Letter April 15, 1999, To Congress on US v. Emerson
Letter April 5, 1999, To Washington Post on US v. Emerson
AP report, April 4, 1999, on US v. Emerson

April 15, 1999

Because you did not read my letters of last July 27 and March 1997 and respond to the issues raised (.../potowmack/397cong.html), the gun lobby's preposterous doctrine of political liberty is now in federal court, US v. Emerson (Memorandum Opinion, 3/30/99, http://www.txnd.uscourts.gov/PDFs/emerson.pfd). To dismiss a provision of the Lautenberg Act, which is bad law, Federal District Judge Sam Cummings cites from the enormous volume of pseudoscholarship, produced by gun lobby charlatans and libertarian law professors, that has filled the law journals in recent years and which the Potowmack Institute (and the Firearms Policy Journal before it) has examined and exposed as historical and constitutional fraud and cynical political demagoguery. The doctrine, nevertheless, is widely believed. It is the doctrine of the rightwing movement in microcosm. The gun lobby has made its case before (.../warin.html). They don't give up.

Neither do they have an opposition. In going through the business of forming a nonprofit last year, I came to appreciate how much the nonprofit sector shapes political agendas and public consciousness. In the past few decades, very aggressive, purposeful rightwing foundations have spent $100s of millions to shape the public consciousness in just about every area of public policy (.../index.html). I am confident that when the full story is told, it will come out that the pseudoscholarship that has formulated the gun lobby's armed populace fantasy has been promoted by, if not outright commissioned by, the same rightwing foundations. There is already good evidence. On the other side, the political opposition to the armed populace fantasy is the centrist, establishment foundations which fund, or at least provide the seed money for, the efforts to address gun violence. These are the "liberals." They have apparently decided, either out of timidity or incompetence, that they will limit their support to gun manufacturer law suits, advocacy of trigger locks and the compilation of public health statistics. They will not support anything that might promote serious public debate and raise political consciousness on the most fundamental issues of law, government and citizenship. Regardless, the fundamentals come up for renewal every few generations. They are up for renewal now.

Just as the gun lobby does not have to work hard to cultivate an eager-to-believe constituency, the "liberals" do not have to work hard either to contain public discourse. The enormity of the fraud is only exceeded by the determined refusal of anyone to expose it. It does not take a great intellect, but when the Federalist Papers and John Locke's The Second Treatise of Government are put in front of the news media they are reflexively dismissed as some eccentric's "particular truth" (.../news.html). Diane Rehm (.../196rehm.html) at WAMU told me to take her off of my mailing list. No one, however, could replace the Washington Post (.../washpost.html) as the supreme example of dereliction and irresponsibility.This is the decadent state of the political culture as we enter the twenty-first century. We see the collateral damage in the daily news.

You, however, are different. You take an oath of office to maintain the internal sovereignty of the United States. You don't have to wait for a constituency to pound on your door to fulfill your first and highest obligation. Internal sovereignty means that this government is something more than a political weathercock blowing in the wind of opinion polls. Now that the impeachment Republicans have harangued us nmercifully on the rule of law, you can start explaining what the rule of law is (.../597intro.html) and what it imposes on individual citizens. The rule of law means that citizens are under law and government and the constitutional design of this political system does not provide for a civil right secured by government, mind you to maintain a balance of power between a privately armed populace and any and all government. There can be no civic limbo between a state of law and government and the state of anarchy. That is what the gun lobby wants. If you don't think so, it is your first order of business to ask (.../nratanya.html). Otherwise, they will sneak it in and bad laws that make no sense and evade real issues contribute to the strategy.

The Potowmack Institute intends to file an amicus curiae when Emerson is appealed. The subject of our brief will not be gun manufacturer liability, trigger locks or public health statistics. It will be your oath of office. This is the most serious political business in front of you and it about time you listen up and start taking serious political business seriously.

Yours truly,
G. Eyclesheimer Ernst

If, in your AP report, April 4, the courts make a ruling regarding a "protected individual right" to gun ownership based on English antecedents of the right "to bear" arms, the outcome will be ignorant and anarchical. In recent years, unobserved by the Washington Post, gun lobby ideologues and libertarian law professors have fabricated a fraudulent doctrine, published mostly in law journals, of a private right to gun ownership. The fraud has established credibility on at least two seats on the Supreme Court (Thomas and Scalia) and apparently permeated more deeply into the federal judiciary.

The Second Amendment was about military organization. "[T]o bear arms" describes a military function. The larger context was the republican right of the people to participate in the military functions of the state rather than leave those functions up to the regular army. The Militia Act of 1792, enacted by the same people who ratified the Second Amendment, required the states to "enroll" that is, register gun owners for militia duty. Militia duty was conscript duty. The regular army was not. The dozens of state militia acts that followed from the national act were loaded with rules imposed on gun owners. There were no protections mentioned for private individuals to be exempted from laws.

The US Constitution including the Second Amendment is a part of the English legal tradition. Contrary to the present deception, the American gun culture does not have its roots in the tradition of English law. Its roots are in the rebellious traditions of Scotland and Ireland which are not only not a part of the English tradition but have been constantly at war with it to this very day. The rebellious traditions transferred across the Atlantic. In 1794, the Whiskey Rebels were literally up in arms over Hamilton's ill-conceived whiskey tax. President Washington sent an army and tried the leaders for treason. The Whiskey Rebels were Scots and Irish. In those days they "institute[d] new government" and gave it "just powers." Today, with much dereliction at the Washington Post, we will dissolve government, public authority and any notion of a public interest and institute anarchy. These are the gun lobby's and Stephen Halbrook's ("Halbrook" not "Holbrook". The sloppiness of the reporting is indicated) long sought goals.

Yours truly,
G. Eyclesheimer Ernst
Research Director
The Potowmack Institute
http://www.potowmack.org/index.html

"The Libertarian Fantasy on the Supreme Court" http://www.potowmack.org/997cthom.html

"The Rule of Law"
http://www.potowmack.org/597intro.html

"Charlton Heston Speaks: with comments"
http://www.potowmack.org/398chest.html

"The Dereliction and Cowardice of the Washington Post"
http://www.potowmack.org/washpost.html

"The Pseudoscholarship: Lapierre's list"
http://www.potowmack.org/196lrev.html

"True Scholarship"
http://www.potowmack.org/lcress.html
http://www.potowmack.org/1197row.html

and much more.

Texas Case Could Become Test of Gun Control Laws

Associated Press

Sunday, April 4, 1999; Page A10

LUBBOCK, Tex. A federal judge dismissed charges against a man accused of breaking a law that prohibits someone under a restraining order from owning a gun.

Legal experts said Thursday's decision set an important precedent that could be the basis for challenges to other gun control laws. "If appealed, this could be the springboard for a definitive Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment," said Stephen Holbrook, an attorney who represented sheriffs in a successful challenge to provisions of the federal Brady gun control law. "That could have wide implications."

The case revolves around Timothy Joe Emerson, a physician in San Angelo who was arrested last year and charged with violating a restraining order after brandishing a handgun in front of his wife and her daughter.

Defense attorneys argued that Emerson has a right to own guns under the Second Amendment and that any law infringing upon that is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings agreed, ruling that the right to bear arms is a protected individual right -- not just a right belonging to an organized militia, as federal prosecutors contended. Cummings said he based his decision on a "historical examination of the right to bear arms, from English antecedents to the drafting of the Second Amendment." Government lawyers plan to appeal. "No gun control law has ever been struck down because of the Second Amendment," said Brian Morton, a spokesman for the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press

[PotowmackForum] interactive posting

Sen. Ted Stevens' "armed citizenry"
Letter, September 10, 1995
National political leadership
Letter, February 11, 1997.
The Blood on Their Doorstep
Letter, July 27, 1998.
What's wrong with Barney Frank?

Index to this file:
Letter April 15, 1999, To Congress on US v. Emerson
Letter April 5, 1999, To Washington Post on US v. Emerson
AP report, April 4, 1999, on US v. Emerson

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