Word: ashcroft
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When two-thirds of the murders in the U.S. are committed with guns, one would hope that politicians would be taking prudent steps to restrict access to firearms. Against all common sense, Attorney General John Ashcroft is working to make guns more easily available. Last Monday, the Justice Department reversed its longstanding position on the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” reinterpreting it as an individual right to own guns rather than a collective right to bear arms in a militia. Ashcroft’s policy reversal confirms many...
...last decision on the Second Amendment. In the 1939 case United States vs. Miller, the court established that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms only with some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well-regulated militia. In fulfilling his oath of office, Ashcroft must respect that the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court is “the supreme law of the land.” He should encourage the Justice Department to follow the justices’ directive and not push his own personal interpretation on the department or on the American...
Regardless of the Supreme Court’s current position, it is frightening that Ashcroft, in the position of the nation’s top crime fighter, wants to liberalize federal firearm policy. A good attorney general would work to take the country in exactly the opposite direction. America needs tougher laws to keep weapons away from criminals and children, ban handguns and create a national gun registry to keep track of weapons and their owners...
...obstacle to taking these steps goes beyond Ashcroft’s hard-line policy. The vague wording of the Second Amendment leaves open the possibility that a future Supreme Court will reinterpret the Constitution the way Ashcroft does. The amendment has the potential to obstruct future federal gun control legislation that could prevent thousands of needless deaths. Therefore, the American people and the individual states should vocally push for the repeal of the Second Amendment...
...conventionality of the typical Hollywood product is tiresome. So is the industry notion that triumphs of the human spirit--see almost any Oscar nominee--constitute a higher seriousness. But the response to these conditions should not be to make movies designed merely to drive John Ashcroft crazy. That we have a deadly drug demimonde in this country is a tragic given. That popular culture has a right to examine it is also obvious. But moviemakers have to be something more than movie-smart adolescents to do that job effectively...