Obama and the attempt to destroy the Second Amendment

[piper17 1]

Obama and the Attempt to Destroy the Second Amendment

October 6, 2008 - by David T. Hardy

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama must demonstrate executive experience, but he remains strangely silent about his eight years (1994-2002) as a director of the Joyce Foundation, a billion dollar tax-exempt organization. He has one obvious reason: during his time as director, Joyce Foundation spent millions creating and supporting anti-gun organizations.

There is another, less known, reason.

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

Joyce’s directors found a vulnerable point. When judges cannot rely upon past decisions, they sometimes turn to law review articles. Law reviews are impartial, and famed for meticulous cite-checking. They are also produced on a shoestring. Authors of articles receive no compensation; editors are law students who work for a tiny stipend.

In 1999, midway through Obama’s tenure, the Joyce board voted to grant the Chicago-Kent Law Review $84,000, a staggering sum by law review standards. The Review promptly published an issue in which all articles attacked the individual right view of the Second Amendment.

In a breach of law review custom, Chicago-Kent let an “outsider” serve as editor; he was Carl Bogus, a faculty member of a different law school. Bogus had a unique distinction: he had been a director of Handgun Control Inc. (today’s Brady Campaign), and was on the advisory board of the Joyce-funded Violence Policy Center.

Bogus solicited only articles hostile to the individual right view of the Second Amendment, offering authors $5,000 each. But word leaked out, and Prof. Randy Barnett of Boston University volunteered to write in defense of the individual right to arms. Bogus refused to allow him to write for the review, later explaining that “sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium.” Prof. James Lindgren, a former Chicago-Kent faculty member, remembers that when Barnett sought an explanation he “was given conflicting reasons, but the opposition of the Joyce Foundation was one that surfaced at some time.” Joyce had bought a veto power over the review’s content.

Joyce Foundation apparently believed it held this power over the entire university. Glenn Reynolds later recalled that when he and two other professors were scheduled to discuss the Second Amendment on campus, Joyce’s staffers “objected strenuously” to their being allowed to speak, protesting that Joyce Foundation was being cheated by an “‘agenda of balance’ that was inconsistent with the Symposium’s purpose.” Joyce next bought up an issue of Fordham Law Review.

The plan worked smoothly. One court, in the course of ruling that there was no individual right to arms, cited the Chicago-Kent articles eight times. Then, in 2001, a federal Court of Appeals in Texas determined that the Second Amendment was an individual right.

The Joyce Foundation board (which still included Obama) responded by expanding its attack on the Second Amendment. Its next move came when Ohio State University announced it was establishing the “Second Amendment Research Center” as a thinktank headed by anti-individual-right historian Saul Cornell. Joyce put up no less than $400,000 to bankroll its creation. The grant was awarded at the board’s December 2002 meeting, Obama’s last function as a Joyce director. In reporting the grant, the OSU magazine Making History made clear that the purpose was to influence a future Supreme Court case:

“The effort is timely: a series of test cases - based on a new wave of scholarship, a recent decision by a federal Court of Appeals in Texas, and a revised Justice Department policy-are working their way through the courts. The litigants challenge the courts’ traditional reading of the Second Amendment as a protection of the states’ right to organize militia, asserting that the Amendment confers a much broader right for individuals to own guns. The United States Supreme Court is likely to resolve the debate within the next three to five years.”

(45:17-18; online link; slow).

The Center proceeded to generate articles denying the individual right to arms. The OSU connection also gave Joyce an academic money laundry. When it decided to buy an issue of the Stanford Law and Policy Review, it had a cover. Joyce handed OSU $125,000 for that purpose; all the law review editors knew was that OSU’s Foundation granted them that breathtaking sum, and a helpful Prof. Cornell volunteered to organize the issue. (The review was later sufficiently embarassed to publish an open letter on the affair).

The Joyce directorate’s plan almost succeeded. The individual rights view won out in the Heller Supreme Court appeal, but only by 5-4. The four dissenters were persuaded in part by Joyce-funded writings, down to relying on an article which misled them on critical historical documents.

Having lost that fight, Obama now claims he always held the individual rights view of the Second Amendment, and that he “respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms.” But as a Joyce director, Obama was involved in a wealthy foundation’s attempt to manipulate the Supreme Court, buy legal scholarship, and obliterate the individual right to arms.

Voters who value the Constitution should ask whether someone who was party to that plan should be nominating future Supreme Court justices.

David T. Hardy has practiced law since 1975. He has five books and thirteen law review articles in print, and blogs at Of Arms and the Law. He's also the producer of the documentary In Search of the Second Amendment.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[Pegandmeg 0]

You know, even though I support the 2nd amendment, I don't understand why so many people choose this as their biggest passion and devote so much time to it.

So, people have to wait a lousy week and get a background check before getting a gun. I think it's 15 days in California. So, people aren't allowed to own automatic rifles. So, people can't buy laser guns when someone comes around to making a hand-held version. So, people can't make an atomic bomb in their homes. Big deal.

With all the other things going on with the world THAT'S the thing that someone is passionate about?

[Trent 0]

Why should we consider the 2nd amendment to be less important than any other? Sure it sounds cliche, but if it weren't important to the founders... why'd they put it second?

It's a right. That's it. Destroying it makes it easier to destroy other rights.

Oh, hello again!

[Cari 0]

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You know, even though I support the 2nd amendment, I don't understand why so many people choose this as their biggest passion and devote so much time to it.

I agree with this 100%. In fact, I don't understand when people pick one cause and run with that, and use that one cause to determine how they vote. There will never be a candidate on which I agree with every single view they have (if there was, there is no way they would ever get elected anyway!), but I have the ability to look at the bigger picture. I mean, the whole, "OMG THEY'RE TAKING OUR GUNS!" thing is a little played out at this point anyway, isn't it?

[AggieDave 6]

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I mean, the whole, "OMG THEY'RE TAKING OUR GUNS!" thing is a little played out at this point anyway, isn't it?

Nope. Look at all of the modern day countries that have done just that to their citizens!

I don't want to see the 2nd Amendment hampered any further, just as I don't want to see the rest of the Bill of Rights hampered.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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Why should we consider the 2nd amendment to be less important than any other? Sure it sounds cliche, but if it weren't important to the founders... why'd they put it second?

Aren't the guns in circulation supposed to prevent that from happening? Isn't that the thought process that an armed population could stop a rogue government?

[quade 4]

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Isn't that the thought process that an armed population could stop a rogue government?

Perhaps at one point, but if you think about it realistically, that could never happen today. As armed as the US populace is (and it is clearly the most well armed populace on the planet), as long as the government has the military on its side, the populace could never successfully rise up against it through use of force.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[JohnnyD 0]

Straight from his website:

Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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Perhaps at one point, but if you think about it realistically, that could never happen today. As armed as the US populace is (and it is clearly the most well armed populace on the planet), as long as the government has the military on its side, the populace could never successfully rise up against it through use of force.

But if that was the original intention and the original intention isn't possible anymore, shouldn't the amendmend be abolished?

[Cari 0]

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Quote

Why should we consider the 2nd amendment to be less important than any other? Sure it sounds cliche, but if it weren't important to the founders... why'd they put it second?

Aren't the guns in circulation supposed to prevent that from happening? Isn't that the thought process that an armed population could stop a rogue government?

That was a big part of the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists that ended up leading to the 2nd Amendment. That would be virtually impossible now though.

[piper17 1]

Actions speak louder than words!

His web site can say anything it wants but his history says otherwise!

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[JohnnyD 0]

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Actions speak louder than words!

His web site can say anything it wants but his history says otherwise!

Didn't see that reply coming at all.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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You know, even though I support the 2nd amendment, I don't understand why so many people choose this as their biggest passion and devote so much time to it.

Because it affects us personally more than anything except higher taxes (and maybe the devalued dollar, although historically I've spent a lot more time at gun ranges than travelling abroad).

Places with liberal carry laws don't have as many home invasions and restaurant take overs.

During natural disasters, riots, and economic collapses the police are under no obligation to protect individuals. You can give up your food, water, and property to anyone stronger or protect yourself with guns.

My favorite guns have to stay in another state because the bed-wetters in California are afraid of black guns and I don't want to see that happen in the rest of the country.

Given what's happened in California (which is usually a bellwether for the rest of the countr, as in the Clean Air Act of 1970, bans on public tobacco use, etc) and other English Colony/Commonwealth countries like Australia and Canada that's probably reasonable.

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With all the other things going on with the world THAT'S the thing that someone is passionate about?

Actually, I'd have more fun jumping off big cliffs in National parks than shooting my guns but the nanny state won't let me. You gotta cling to what you have left.

[Trent 0]

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Perhaps at one point, but if you think about it realistically, that could never happen today. As armed as the US populace is (and it is clearly the most well armed populace on the planet), as long as the government has the military on its side, the populace could never successfully rise up against it through use of force.

I disagree. Armed irregulars have done very well against organized militaries in the past. You also assume that the military would, as a whole, agree to fight their own people.

Not to you Quade, but to Dekker... what other rights should we give away just because a few people don't think it's possible that we use them for what was intended? Why is having fewer rights better?

Oh, hello again!

[AWL71 0]

Quote

Quote

Actions speak louder than words!

His web site can say anything it wants but his history says otherwise!

Didn't see that reply coming at all.

That the best you got? Show me one pro 2nd Amendment cast by BO. Good luck because no such vote exists.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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Not to you Quade, but to Dekker... what other rights should we give away just because a few people don't think it's possible that we use them for what was intended? Why is having fewer rights better?

Not talking about giving up rights in that sense, nor do I equate free speech with walking around with a gun, just have never seen the logic in that connection.

My question was a basic principle question, if that amendmend was put in for a specific purpose and that purpose is no longer possible, why keep the amendmend?

[kelpdiver 2]

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Isn't that the thought process that an armed population could stop a rogue government?

Perhaps at one point, but if you think about it realistically, that could never happen today. As armed as the US populace is (and it is clearly the most well armed populace on the planet), as long as the government has the military on its side, the populace could never successfully rise up against it through use of force.

The public would be quite successful by the standards of revolutions, but that doesn't mean many of us would want to live (or die) in such an experience. Saying/doing nothing now and waiting to fight our own version of Iraq later is a pretty retarded strategy.

BTW, it's not the only matter with single issue voters. You got pro-lifers killing for their cause, pro-choicers voting for their cause, and a still rather recent history with the FSM.

Is this fuzzy association or Obama's history a concern to me? No, thanks to Heller and the GOP's liberal use of the fillibuster, there's not much that will change in the next 4 years. The Democrats learned the price for strident gun control in 2000 and still know it. Besides, McCain's history on the 2nd (or 1st) amendment is suspect due to his association with the AGS.

[skydyvr 0]

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Perhaps at one point, but if you think about it realistically, that could never happen today. As armed as the US populace is (and it is clearly the most well armed populace on the planet), as long as the government has the military on its side, the populace could never successfully rise up against it through use of force.

Short of carpet bombing or nuking hundreds of our own cities, you just might be wrong about that.

. . =(_8^(1)

[billvon 2,989]

>Short of carpet bombing or nuking hundreds of our own cities, you just might
>be wrong about that.

No, he's right. And we're learning more and more about pacifying an armed population all the time.

I am all for private gun ownership, but the idea of a grassroots uprising taking the US military and government down by force is more a Hollywood fantasy than anything connected to reality.

[diverborg 0]

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You know, even though I support the 2nd amendment, I don't understand why so many people choose this as their biggest passion and devote so much time to it.

If this country went into economic meltdown, I don't think you realize how important firearms would be to everyday survival. Not to mention being able to protect yourself in your home as it is, can you imagine how you would protect your property and family in case of national disaster. Just ask some of those down here that stuck out Katrina. It would have been a much uglier situation if people had no means of protecting their family and home. Disasters bring out the best and the worst in people, and heaven forbid you'll ever have to experience that but infringing on the 2nd ammendment is messing with the security of our lives. What would you do if someone broke into your house at night to kill you and the govt wouldn't allow you to own a gun to protect yourself. I live in a nice neighborhood, and 3 blocks away this summer a thug broke into a random house to rob it in the night and stabbed the owner to death. It happens all the time, and I don't need some asshat telling me I have to take this intruder on with only a knife. Yes, its that important to us!!, and no this is hardly the only reason that I won't be voting for Obama.

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So, people have to wait a lousy week and get a background check before getting a gun. I think it's 15 days in California. So, people aren't allowed to own automatic rifles. So, people can't buy laser guns when someone comes around to making a hand-held version. So, people can't make an atomic bomb in their homes. Big deal.

If that was their only goals then I wouldn't be too concerned. Cmon, do you really think the anti-gun organizations that Obama supports really want it to end there. The crowd that pushes for these things will never let it end with just that.

[skydyvr 0]

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I am all for private gun ownership, but the idea of a grassroots uprising taking the US military and government down by force is more a Hollywood fantasy than anything connected to reality.

Agree, but I was thinking the other direction -- as in the military taking (and holding) the US populace. I don't think it could be done, see Iraq and Vietnam as examples.

. . =(_8^(1)

[billvon 2,989]

>as in the military taking (and holding) the US populace.

We did it in the 1860's - and the military was much less powerful (compared to a homeowner with a rifle) back then.

[skydyvr 0]

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We did it in the 1860's - and the military was much less powerful (compared to a homeowner with a rifle) back then.

Damn that -- they'll have to pry the game controller from my cold dead hands!

. . =(_8^(1)

[kelpdiver 2]

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So, people have to wait a lousy week and get a background check before getting a gun. I think it's 15 days in California.

It's ten days (to the minute) in CA. If you're a boy scout and go with the be prepared motto and buy a gun long before you need one (or Sac finally manages to ban purchases), then it's just a nuisance and waste of gas. The 1/month just prevents you from any discount for multiple purchases.

OTOH, if you're lower income, or if your boyfriend is threatening to kill you, these obstructions seem a bit more ominous. Then you need to hope you have good, and armed friends, who will help you out.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I am all for private gun ownership, but the idea of a grassroots uprising taking the US military and government down by force is more a Hollywood fantasy than anything connected to reality.

You don't have to take down the government by force to succeed. Has the enemy forces done that in Iraq? Nope. Are they fucking up the place just fine, enough that most Americans want to leave. Yep. And that's where our soldiers are shooting at foreigners. How happy are they going to be doing it at home? Not one bit.