BOB GARFIELD: On March 19th the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that likely will determine an issue that has been settled in the court since 1939 We've got to keep pushing the big lie. Stay on propaganda message #1
BOB GARFIELD: Well, let's not litigate this one, ...because it's not going our way.
DAHLIA LITHWICK:...the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals...went and said, the gun ban is unconstitutional because the Second Amendment provides a personal right to bear arms. And this was really a shocker....the total opposite of our agenda.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, for some of our listeners, the Limbaugh mouthbreathers the shocker will be that this came as a shocker, because we have so often heard the Second Amendment guaranteed right to bear arms that many of us have come to believe no proof mind you, just a "belief" that that is a matter of settled law must stay on message #2
DAHLIA LITHWICK: And what the court pronounced is actually the opposite of what you just said and most people believe. no proof, just a belief -- stay on message #3 The court said, no, it's not a personal right to pack heat. must stay on message #4 (overlooking the double negative, ed.)
So the question really for the courts has been settled. This is a right that goes to militias. If your National Guard wants to assert a Second Amendment right, that's fine, but you as Joe, guy on the street, do not have a right that flows from the Second Amendment. stay on message #5
And that's the really interesting part is that the American public has a whole different, and, as you suggest, almost antithetical notion of what the law says. stay on message #6
BOB GARFIELD: Is it because of lobbying by so-called gun rights organizations they have no validity that have led us to believe lied to us that this is still an open question? must stay on message #7
DAHLIA LITHWICK: This was very, very much influenced by the gun lobby. And the NRA, you know, it's not an accident that on that side of their building, their national headquarters, they only have the second half of that clause I read to you. stay on message #8
Now, I will say one thing that has changed in the last few decades that really made this interesting is that the legal academics who, you know, we all sort of think of pointy-headed guys in their ivory tower – it doesn't matter – silly intellectual types -- no common sense but liberal Constitutional scholars started to argue very strenuously for the NRA position on the Second Amendment.
There should be a strong individual right to bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment for the same reason that we believe there should be strong individual rights protected by the First and Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Oh $h*t, did I really say that?
And so suddenly the academy was all hopped up about it, they are actually reviewing the constitutional meaning -- we are in full panic here
BOB GARFIELD: So if this case is decided in the gun lobby's favor, not the "peoples", just the gun lobby's does that mean that I can get not only a handgun and a machine gun but that Stinger missile launcher that I've had my eyes on for so long? see how unreasonable this is listeners, be very afraid
DAHLIA LITHWICK: [LAUGHS] You and me, both - I don't think so, Bob. I think that the key to this case really is going to be the definition of what is a, quote, "reasonable" regulation on guns. And even though the court didn't talk about that reasonableness factor very much, it's an important part of this test. damage control
So what the court's going to do now is go back and look at, okay, assume that there's a fundamental Second Amendment right, a personal individual right to bear arms. Even notwithstanding that, what would be reasonable regulations? damage control
BOB GARFIELD: As you look at the media coverage of the gun issue as a public policy matter our anti-gun spin of the last many decades, do you think, you know, we as a group have done a good job explaining the stakes guns = mahem in the streets or have we somehow used a shorthand that obscures the issue? we were off message?
DAHLIA LITHWICK: I think that where we failed is explaining the lay of the land. yes, we were off message I think that we've gotten very, very involved in the Brady versus NRA horserace and his winning, I still can't bring myself to utter his name on vote counting d@mn democracy! and his winning on fundraising and who is responsible for Al Gore, you know, losing the 2000 election in his home state of Tennessee. d@mn NRA disrupting the political process -- denying the will of the people
But I think the legal question, the Constitutional question, you know, here's what the courts have held for decades and this has not wavered. stay on message #9 I think that's where we sort of fell asleep at the switch, because it seems to me, as you said, that when you look at the polls, most Americans have no idea what the state of the law was. stay on message #10, we elite opinion shapers must work harder to tell those fools what to think
