Reader's Soapbox: P-I wrong on gun law

To paraphrase National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston, "When a newspaper gets it wrong, that's a mistake. When a newspaper knows it's wrong, that's a lie."

Leave it to readers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to decide which in the aftermath of a June 1 editorial that horribly distorted fact when it discussed Attorney General John Ashcroft's interpretation of the Second Amendment and the frequently misrepresented Supreme Court ruling in the 1939 Miller case.

The P-I Editorial Board would have readers believe that Ashcroft, in telling the NRA that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, is expressing an opinion that "runs counter to most legal scholarship on the amendment ..."

To the contrary, overwhelming legal scholarship supports the individual-right interpretation. With few exceptions, nearly all law review articles published since 1980 on the amendment say it protects an individual right. That interpretation is now known as the "standard model."

Even distinguished constitutional scholar and law professor Laurence Tribe, long an advocate of the "collective interpretation," has reversed himself and now acknowledges -- however grudgingly -- that the Second Amendment does, indeed, protect an individual right to bear arms.

In the 1990 Fourth Amendment case U.S. vs. Verdugo-Urquidez, Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the majority, noted in dicta, "The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by 'the people of the United States.' The Second Amendment protects 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms,' and the Ninth and 10th Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to 'the people.'"

The term "right of the people" appears five times in the Bill of Rights. Why would anyone believe that the individual right protected by the Second Amendment be any different from the individual rights protected by the First, Fourth, Ninth or 10th Amendments?

The P-I alludes to the Miller case. Someone familiar with Miller could reasonably wonder whether anyone on the Editorial Board has read that decision. The P-I called Miller "the court's last major holding, which said the Constitution guarantees only a collective right to guns through state and federal militias."

Nowhere in Miller is it stated that the Second Amendment is a collective right. Justice McReynolds, writing for the majority in that case, merely stated that a sawed-off shotgun did not have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia," adding, "we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

This does not mean individual citizens do not have the right to keep and bear other types of firearms.

Further, the court held: "The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the (Constitutional) Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. 'A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.' And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."

Translation: Every able-bodied male could be called to muster in an emergency, and bring their own firearms. This state's Constitution, Article 1, Section 24, states quite clearly: "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men."

It would appear that Ashcroft's interpretation of the Second Amendment as an individual right is far more accurate than the discredited "collective right" theory to which the P-I Editorial Board continues to cling in its ongoing campaign to restrict firearm ownership.

And that begs the question: At what point does a right become so regulated that it ceases to be a right?

If we were debating the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press, that line would be drawn very narrowly and defended with equal fervor by the Fourth Estate as the Second Amendment is defended by gun owners.

The Second Amendment is no more, or less, absolute than the First, and that if one is so easily demonized and misinterpreted, what is to stop that same thing from happening to the other?

Joe Waldron is executive director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week and a member of the National Rifle Association Board of Directors.

Add P-I Opinion headlines to