Senate Bill 184 will have a third hearing next week. The bill has been added to the Senate Judiciary on Criminal Justice Committee's agenda for January 30 at 10:00 a.m. in Senate Building, North Hearing Room.

This legislation would restore the right of individuals to respond in force in defense of their lives and family without fear of civil lawsuits by criminals.

By Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman
Special to the Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram

Martin Luther King Jr. put it best: "A right delayed is a right denied."

The lesson appears to have been lost on the Department of Justice and Solicitor General Paul D. Clement in the amicus curiae brief submitted recently for the government in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, which challenges the city's 31-year-old handgun ban, a horrible gun law that has had its day in court and lost.

In a transparent exercise of political pandering, Clement and his colleagues named on the brief have strenuously, and correctly, argued that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right, yet they insist that every restrictive gun law currently on the books should stand.

They want this case sent back to the lower courts for further consideration. Translation: Legal sleight of hand is being used to make the Second Amendment a right "in name only." And Clement appears to suggest that the longer the Supreme Court can put off deciding whether a restrictive gun law violates that important civil right, the better.

It is gratifying that the government properly holds the Second Amendment to be protective of an individual right, but that gratification is greatly diminished by the argument that this case requires further review. That would be a great injustice, and as King once noted, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

By Charles Bloomer

Remarks delivered to the Prince William County (VA) Republican Women's Club, January 7, 2008.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The debate surrounding the Second Amendment generally falls into one of three categories – esoteric and philosophical, emotional, or practical. The esoteric, philosophical approach tries to discern the amendment's meaning by parsing and deconstructing the language of the amendment, by arguing the definitions of various words such as militia, "the people", or the meaning of "bear arms". Even the grammar of the amendment is analyzed – dependent clauses, independent clauses, even the placement of the commas. The case currently before the Supreme Court, Heller vs District of Columbia, hinges on the meaning of "the people", and whether the meaning of "the people" in the Second Amendment is the same as the meaning of "the people" in other places in the Bill of Rights. The Court's ruling will be interesting in light of a recent poll that shows that two-thirds of Americans believe that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.

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