‘A new day’ for Eric Holder; for you, it’s back to ‘92

February 4, 5:09 PMCharlotte Gun Rights ExaminerPaul Valone

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Vice President Joseph Biden administers the oath of office to Attorney General Eric Holder during a ceremony at the Justice Department in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009. Holder's wife Sharon Malone is at center. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) 

 “I am determined to ensure that this shall be a new day for the dedicated career professionals that I am so honored to call my colleagues,” -- Attorney General Eric H. Holder upon being sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden.

As National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea has extensively documented, it isn’t possible to get much more hostile to the Second Amendment than Holder. In fact, both constitutional lawyer Stephen Halbrook and Holder himself pointed out during confirmation hearings that he recently filed a brief in the case of Heller v. DC advocating the position that the Second Amendment does not reinforce an individual right to keep and bear arms.

When questioned by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), “Do you accept and understand that the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right to bear arms, Holder dodged: “I understand that the Supreme Court has spoken.”

And dodge he should. Says Second Amendment lawyer David Kopel:

“As Deputy Attorney General, Holder was a strong supporter of restrictive gun control. He advocated federal licensing of handgun owners, a three day waiting period on handgun sales, rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month, banning possession of handguns and so-called ‘assault weapons’ (cosmetically incorrect guns) by anyone under [the] age of 21, a gun show restriction bill that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows, national gun registration, and mandatory prison sentences for trivial offenses (e.g., giving your son an heirloom handgun for Christmas, if he were two weeks shy of his 21st birthday). He also promoted the factoid that ‘Every day that goes by, about 12, 13 more children in this country die from gun violence’—a statistic … true only if one counts 18-year-old gangsters who shoot each other as ‘children.’

Did your Senators support your rights?

Nor did the party of alleged conservatism make a united stand for the Constitution. Only a narrow majority of the 41 Republicans in the US Senate voted against confirming Holder (21 “nay,” 19 “yea” and 1 not voting).

North Carolinians got pretty much what they paid for in the last election: Senior Sen. Richard Burr (R) kept his word and voted against the Holder confirmation; freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D) continued her long history of anti-gun votes (beginning in the NC Senate) by voting to confirm.

“Assault weapon’ redux: Second warning

Not one to let a triviality like the Supreme Court stop him, Holder’s “understanding” of the Heller decision won’t prevent him from leading the administration charge for gun control. Questioned by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Holder still considers as “permissible,” in the post-Heller environment, “closing the gun show loophole,” “banning ‘cop-killer’ bullets,” and “making the assault weapon ban permanent.”

 Add this to last week’s Congressional diatribe by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) on reinstituting – and probably expanding – the 1994 ban on semi-automatic firearms, and at least two shots have been fired by Democrats across the bow of the “S.S. Constitution.”

Strangely, during the last election, when my organization did “robo-calls” against Obama to 23,000 unaffiliated, gun-owning (and apparently hoodwinked) voters, I received irate e-mails accusing us of lying – that Obama wouldn’t take their guns. If those gun owners don’t get the message yet, they will soon enough.

Perhaps Holder is right: It’s a new, if somewhat chilly day in Washington. For gun owners, it’s also a road trip back to the heady days of Janet Reno. 

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