Democrats under the gun

Changing tune on the Second Amendment

Republicans seized control of Congress in November 1994 in part by harping on the perception that the Democratic Party had abandoned gun owners and that the party's lawmakers were poised to enact a series of new restrictions on firearms possession, including a federal requirement to obtain a license before purchasing a gun, or a scheme to register all handguns currently in private hands.

Notwithstanding the political backlash such a trampling of the Bill of Rights had spawned, similar proposals were echoed by Al Gore and Bill Bradley in the 2000 presidential campaign. And yet, as post-election polls revealed, Mr. Gore hemorrhaged support from Democrats in state after state throughout the nation's heartland, because voters feared a Gore administration would conduct house-to-house searches of gun owners, seizing firearms from law-abiding citizens.

This time, those vying to challenge George W. Bush in November have at least paid heed to public opinion -- not to mention the Constitution -- and eased their zeal to violate the rights of gun owners. The advocacy group Americans for Gun Safety surveyed the presidential hopefuls on a range of firearms-related issues, including their views on the Second Amendment. With the exception of the Rev. Al Sharpton, every Democrat responded; President Bush said he would provide his answers during the general campaign.

All the Democrats cited various measures they'd take to restrict the rights of innocent Americans. But what's interesting here is the Democrats' unanimity when they were asked whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to own guns ... or whether it simply states the "collective" right of state militias to be armed. All of them said the Second Amendment -- within limits they'd never allow to be placed on other freedoms within the Bill of Rights, to be sure -- protects the rights of individuals to possess firearms.

This is a stunning turnabout, considering the outright hostility the Bush administration faced from liberal activists in 2001. In briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, Attorney General John Ashcroft then stated that as a matter of policy, gun ownership is an individual right. Anti-gun groups such as the Violence Policy Center and Handgun-Free America went bonkers, claiming Mr. Ashcroft was "taking the law into his own hands" and was promoting an "extreme ideology."

A couple of years later, Democratic candidates are falling all over themselves, embracing a similar position -- on paper, anyway. After being routed in closely contested states filled with rural and suburban voters who own firearms and aren't ashamed to say so, Democrats no longer consider this view to be such a "radical departure" from Second Amendment jurisprudence.

(Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial)