Gaston 45, an even worse outrage is that the British shot innocent colonials at Lexington and Concord, rebels destroyed Fort Sumter, and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Time passes, situations change, and wise people don't focus on one event in order to exaggerate it into something bigger for the sake of making an unworthy point.
That article you've linked to is dated
April 3, 2007, which at this moment was 270 days ago according to a date tracker at the head of that article. You ignore the date tracker and the date too so you can make a distorted snapshot. When you begin with your mind made up it's not hard to find proofs for what you believe by capturing one moment in time, focusing exclusively on it, and misrepresenting it as the entire story.
Sometimes, to paraphrase what you said, it's what
a person doesn't do that is more telling.
Part of what
you don't do is mention that on June 2, 2004--three years earlier--the NRA filed an
amicus brief in
support of this same case with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. That appeal's success is what led to the present situation in which the Supreme Court will rule.
You're correct that for a long time the NRA was nervous about the strategy being pursued by Robert Levy, one of the plaintiffs' attornies, and opposed it.
But you don't mention that Levy is not a gun owner and has no interest in guns or even gun owners except as they relate to his own interest. He says so, often.
Levy is a rich man who went to law school late in life and is motivated by a combination of his own political principles and the desire to accomplish something astonishingly brilliant in the law. There's nothing wrong with those motives but it's important to know that Levy doesn't have the same personal stake in this case as you, I, any other gun owner, or the NRA. Robert Levy is a high roller who wants to see how far he can build the pot and thinks he can win. He has enough money to fund everything himself, out of his own pocket. When I tried to contribute support for this case, Levy thanked me but refused to accept. Robert Levy has the money to do it all himself, wants to do it all himself, and he doesn't
want gun rights groups to participate as leading players.
But Levy is not a gun rights activist and never claims to be one. This case for him is a carefully plotted game in which he thinks he can outsmart the experienced players. It looks now as if he is winning. That's wonderful.
If Robert Levy wins his game, I'm in a better place as the result and so are you. We'll cheer him louder even than we are now doing before this game is over. But if Robert Levy loses his game, we're worse off because he will have taken us in a bad direction. We will wail, complain, and lament what he did to us. That's how gun owners behave.
But it's most unwise to exaggerate either outcome at this point because neither you nor I are players in this game. We're on the sidelines watching nervously.
A lot of people in this forum are nervous too because we all stand to lose
a lot if
the worst happens at the game's end. One thing is for sure if Robert Levy has a smashing defeat in this game: his ability to function as a gun owner isn't affected, because Levy is
not a gun owner and has no interest in becoming one. Robert Levy is playing gun rights chess.
So unless you are an experienced Constitutional lawyer with a specialty in gun rights issues or an experienced high stakes strategist you're not even a pawn in this game: you're an amateur in the audience, watching the players on television, and criticizing their moves with all the skill of someone who doesn't know the rules of the game.
You've actually damned one of the players so you could praise part of the audience for not being on the field. "Well, at least the guys sitting in the stands next to me didn't make that play" is not good commentary. Yes, GOA didn't butt heads with Robert Levy, but that's because it didn't
do anything at all except stand on the sidelines for years.
Don't just do something, stand there is not what I consider the motto of an effective activist gun rights group. You do, and so does GOA. It's no surprise that people hold differing opinions about many things.
The NRA and Robert Levy differed about strategy for a long time. Levy wanted to risk everyone else's gun rights on his case; the NRA wanted to get a certain victory for DC residents to protect them for sure. It's easy to second guess the players and to be a Monday morning quarterback.
GOA has a different strategy, which you admire. The GOA strategy is to sit on the sidelines doing
nothing but "appreciating" and criticizing until some point at which they can identify the winner of this game. Then they will rush onto the field, grab the ball, and shout "We won!" a lot so it can star in the victory parade. Just now--in the past few days--GOA has proclaimed that it will file an
amicus brief too, but you members need to send more money to cover its expenses.
Your most serious omission lets you misrepresent the entire situation between the NRA and Robert Levy. Levy has made great efforts to thwart the kind of misrepresentation you've made. On December 3, 2007, for example, Levy said this about the NRA
now:
“Their thinking was,” Mr. Levy said, “‘good case, might win in the appellate court but it could be a problem if it reaches the Supreme Court.’”
Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s chief executive officer, largely confirmed that characterization. “There was a real dispute on our side among the constitutional scholars about whether there was a majority of justices on the Supreme Court who would support the Constitution as written,” Mr. LaPierre said.
Both men said the N.R.A. and Mr. Levy’s team were now on good terms.
But you don't say any of that, presumably because you don't like
that picture and prefer the distortion in your head. GOA does too.
For both Robert Levy and the NRA there was a long period in which they disagreed about strategy, each believing strongly in its position for good reasons, and then they came together. Step back and try to see things clearly and objectively for a moment so you can see that what really happened was
compromise. GOA can't compromise. It's a "no-compromise" gun rights group. GOA is
not a player and
never will be a player. That's not its strategy.
