The Brady Campaign against their own words

November 12, 3:43 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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    Dennis Henigan edits the 2nd Amendment (video disabled)

Back in late October, I wrote "Brady Campaign hypocrisy," chiding the Brady Campaign--specifically, their Vice President for Law and Policy, Dennis Henigan--for his accusation that the "gun lobby" tries to hide the truth.  This accusation positively reeks of hypocrisy, on a couple levels.

First, Henigan himself, in arguing on a video clip that the Second Amendment did nothing to protect the individual's right to keep and bear arms, recited the amendment in its entirety--except for the "of the people" part--the very part that poses the biggest problem for the now discredited "collective rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Second, when this clumsy bit of Constitutional editing on the Brady Campaign's part was publicly exposed (I'd like to think I played a role in that), they did everything they could to erase all Internet tracks of the video segment--taking it down from YouTube and from their website, and bullying the web hosts wherever copies of it were posted, claiming copyright infringement.

In the late October article of mine, I had hoped to get around the copyright issue:

I won't  try to post the video here (I still have it, though), because I don't want to get Examiner embroiled in a court fight over what the Brady Campaign would try to frame as a copyright issue.  I think a "Fair Use" defense would have a pretty good chance--it is, after all, only 15 second excerpt from a video over 3 1/2 minutes long, but I can't drag Examiner into that.

I can, though, at least offer the audio [now disabled].  Who is promoting the "bliss" of ignorance now, Dennis?

Alas, the Brady Campaign is claiming that even that infringes on their copyright, despite the fact that this would seem to pretty clearly fall under "Fair Use" protection.  Again, though, in the interest of not embroiling Examiner in a copyright infringement battle, I'll--for now, at least--forego trying to post video, or even audio, of Henigan's little editing job.

There is something, though, that I can do.  At the same time the Brady Campaign put that video segment on YouTube and on their own website, they also posted the transcript, which faithfully quotes Henigan reciting the Second Amendment--minus "of the people."  They took the transcript down, of course, at the same time they took the video down--but one Illinois gun blogger I read daily anticipated such behavior, and took a screen capture.  Here it is, cropped down to the relevant portion:

Note also the amusing " . . . it is not legitimate for courts to edit the Constitution."  Apparently, though, it is legitimate for the Brady Campaign to do so.

Update: It seems that someone who doesn't fear Brady bullying has a copy of the video--that entity has given me permission to post the link.

By the way, speaking of Brady Campaign hypocrisy and copyright infringement, we find yet another skeleton in the Brady closet.  They don't exactly inspire a great deal of faith in their integrity, do they?