Interview: The Way of the Gun
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MJ: How do you think the Virginia Tech shootings will affect gun rights efforts nationwide?
RL: The laws ought to be changed so that people are able to defend themselves. There will be clamor from the usual suspects to go in the other direction, to have tighter laws. I think the people on the Virginia Tech campus and all the other campuses should be able to do the same thing they do anywhere else in the state of Virginia. And that is if they qualify for a concealed carry permit, they should be able to carry one on campus. And this regulation has not turned Virginia into Dodge City. The real violence has occurred where they can’t have guns, namely on the campus not where they can have guns, namely off the campus.
And it’s not that everybody will rush out to carry a gun. They won’t. In all the states—and as I mentioned there are 45 that have concealed carry rights—only five percent of the population takes out gun permits. The other 95 percent benefit because criminals don’t know who is armed. So a guy who is contemplating an act like what happened on Monday and he thinks the first guy he’s going to encounter is going to blow his brains out, he’s a little hesitant to engage in these sorts of activities. You can’t stop it all, but you can certainly stop some of it, and you could certainly have stopped the multiple killings that occurred systematically at Virginia Tech.
MJ: The media has been all over lawmakers and presidential candidates claiming that an incident like this has no bearing on the political landscape surrounding gun control. Essentially, they are claiming, the tragedy at Virginia Tech will disappear without a legislative trace.
RL: Democrats, who tend to be in favor of stronger gun controls—first of all I think they’re wrong, but even if they’re right—they don’t have the courage of their conviction, because they are politically craven and they are not willing to take a stance on this because they fear their electoral prospects will be impeded. A lot of people who are gun owners and believe in gun ownership are not going to vote for a lawmaker or presidential candidate if they come out foursquare against gun control.
MJ: Is there a tragedy of any magnitude that could change the equation?
RL: Sure, but the question is, in what direction? Does it change the equation in the sense that it convinces people to go for tighter gun laws when the guy’s already violating several gun laws that already exist. I mean, what’s another gun law? He’s violated the law against carrying a gun on campus, violated the law by obliterating the serial number on his gun, and he has violated the law against murder. None of those laws seemed to matter to this guy. So another law is unlikely to make any difference.
MJ: In an op-ed in the Washington Examiner, you wrote of repeated attempts by the NRA to derail your litigation. What form did these attempts take and why would the nation’s foremost gun lobby work against litigation that was clearly in line with its interests?
RL: I want to know too. I don’t know the answer to that, but relationships have been smoothed and we are working with the NRA now. The NRA says that they support the Parker litigation and don’t intend to do anything that would derail the litigation. They have said that they think it ought to go to the Supreme Court and that it ought to win. And I am willing to accept their words as gospel until I have reason to believe otherwise.
MJ: You say relationships have been smoothed? What were the disputes?
RL: In 2002, when we first contemplated this suit, their emissaries came to me to try to dissuade me from filing the suit. The asserted reason was they thought it was a good suit and had a good chance of winning. Therefore, it would likely go to the Supreme Court and they didn’t think they had sufficient horsepower in the Supreme Court. They didn’t want to take that gamble.
We didn’t buy that argument because we thought by the time the suit went up to the Supreme Court, the court would look a lot better. We were right. The substitution of Justice Alito for Justice O’Connor is a step in the right direction for those who believe in gun rights. The court looks better than it is going to look for a while with the likely Democratic administration.
MJ: What is the timeline for this case as it heads to Supreme Court?
RL: A petition for the case to be reheard before the full judge panel of the D.C. Circuit court has been filed. If it gets granted, that’s going to add another three to six months onto the case because a lot depends on whether there is going to be a new briefing or whether they are going to use the existing briefs. There are a whole lot of imponderables there. If it doesn’t get granted or if the court doesn’t vote to rehear the case, then the petition to file cert (a document that the losing party files asking the Supreme Court to review a decision by a lower court) will be filed and ruled on over the summer. That means the Supreme Court will hear the case sometime after October of this year and would probably decide the case between January and June of 2008.
MJ: Are you certified to go before the Supreme Court?
RL: Yes, I’m a member of the Supreme Court bar.
MJ: So, you’ll be taking it all the way?
RL: That’s our intent. And we have a very good chance. I think that it is very unlikely that five justices on the Supreme Court are going to say that the Second Amendment means nothing. That’s what they would have to say to uphold the total ban on handguns that exists in Washington D.C.
It is also especially unlikely during the heat of the 2008 election—and that is when it is going to happen—because it would be a rallying cry for the whole pro-gun committee. Just like an abortion decision that overturned Roe v. Wade would animate the pro-choice folks. That kind of political turmoil is something the court is sensitive to.
Leigh Ferrara is the senior Washington fellow at Mother Jones.
And all of them are under attack, by dems and repubs.
What is next, I wonder ?