|
AFP INTERVIEWS SECOND AMENDMENT
HERO 
By
Mark Anderson
PHOENIX,
Ariz.—At
the 138th annual
National Rifle Association convention, near-record numbers of
firearms and
accessories sellers, shoppers and Second Amendment
guardians—including Dick
Heller, respondent in the famous District of Columbia v.
Heller U.S.
Supreme Court ruling—swarmed the downtown convention center
May 14 to May 17.
WATCH THE
INTERVIEW WITH DICK HELLER ARTICLE
CONTINUES BELOW
Heller,
a D.C. resident,
received repeated attention from NRA officials and celebrities because
the
Supreme Court’s favorable ruling in his case recognized that
the right to bear
arms is an individual right, not a collective one, and ruled that
handguns can
now be owned by D.C. residents on an even footing with long
guns—loaded,
unlocked and ready to go. At least that’s the intent.
 |
Heller,
interviewed by AFP at the exhibit booth
operated by Hi Point Firearms and Charter Arms, was recognized as a
Second
Amendment hero later that day by guitar rocker, avid hunter and NRA
Board
member Ted Nugent during his fiery “Ted, White and
Blue” political oratory.
ABC’s John Stossel, among the few government skeptics in the
corporate media,
called attention to Heller during his keynote speech to more than 5,000
NRA
members. Stossel noted that, in Heller’s case, the Supreme
Court threw out a
32-year handgun ban in the District of Columbia,
which was passed in 1976. Heller stood
up during the dinner to loud applause.
However,
Heller told AFP that the District of Columbia—ever
since the Supreme
Court ruled on his case in June 2008—is digging in its heels and trying
to make owning and using guns in D.C. a complicated affair.
Heller’s legal
helper, Bill of Rights Foundation President Dane vonBreichenruchardt,
seconded
that motion.
AFP
asked Heller about the legal landscape since the
ruling.
“That’s
an interesting question,” said Heller, noting
that despite the challenges that lie ahead, it was still a worthwhile
victory.
“Because you never know how you would be doing had we not
[won] it. It’s been
an emotional rollercoaster. . . one of exhilaration for years [while]
thinking
‘we have got to do something. What can we do?’ Once
we got started and got
serious, then every few days was an up or down ride. You think
you’re on the
path to the Supreme Court, but then you trip over something and it
takes three
weeks, or a year, to recover or re-implement a new legal
strategy.”
Heller
and vonBreichenruchardt met in 1993 and decided
to challenge the D.C. handgun ban, mainly because the handgun ban had sparked
a high crime rate. VonBreichenruchardt went to Georgetown University
to learn law, though he did not become an attorney. Heller had legal
standing to
own a handgun, because he worked as an armed security guard, but could
not take
home his weapon for self-defense. He still is employed in that
function.
In
2006, “Heller I” started in U.S. District Court for
Washington D.C. Heller’s team lost there; it was appealed to
the D.C. Circuit
Court and then went to the Supreme Court. Heller was the plaintiff
until the
District filed an appeal and became the petitioner, making Heller the
respondent; hence, in the final ruling the case was called District of Columbia
v.
Heller.
Did
D.C. officials follow through and totally throw out
their gun ban like the court ordered?
“In
my dreams—in our ‘free’
society’s fantasy world,
yes,” Heller replied, laughing at the tedious rules that
local officials are
trying to require for gun ownership in the wake of the ruling.
“They [D.C. city
officials] started eating sour pickles and said, ‘You have
your individual
rights, but we have gun control.’ ”
Heller
added: “They controlled everything from
bullet-count, to color of gun, to misclassifying semi-automatics as
machine
guns—until we fought back with the Heller II case. . . .We
had to, because they
said, ‘we’re giving you nothing except your right
to own it.’”
Accordingly,
Heller circulated fliers at the NRA
convention that noted: “The battle to assure the Supreme
Court’s ruling is
implemented correctly involves ongoing and expensive
litigation.” It states
that donations can be made to the Bill of Rights Foundation to
“directly
support the Heller [II] Case.”
Heller
II was filed in July 2008 after the Supreme
Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.
VonBreichenruchardt
told AFP: “As you know, we
prevailed on the initial case, then we filed immediately after because
the city
[which had seemingly obeyed dropping their outright ban on
handguns]
refused to register any semi-automatic handguns. They also left this
draconian
requirement in place where the gun has to be disassembled,
trigger-locked and
unloaded until a threat is assessed. [They said that] if you assess
that there
is a threat, then you can assemble your gun and load it and use it
against your
assailant. So we filed [a challenge] on that but it never went to
court. The
city backed off. However, since then, they have arbitrarily just picked
‘the California
list of
approved and unapproved guns,’ that can be registered. They
just adopted that
list. It has no rhyme or reason. Certain guns are not allowed to be
registered
just for cosmetics.”
Describing
one of many silly rules that D.C. city
officials want to require, vonBreichenruchardt said that they
won’t allow ownership of a
Colt 45 “Series 70” handgun but will allow the
exact same gun as long as it does
not have “Series 70” etched on it. Series 70 refers
to the model number of a
particular assembly year. Guns owned in D.C. must be black or
silver—no
“designer” colors are allowed, examples of which
were exhibited nearby
during the interview. For example, Charter Arms of Dayton,
Ohio, sells
the “Pink Lady” revolver, among other colorfully
finished guns that this AFP
writer and camera assistant, Angie, examined. That company made a special
revolver to
recognize Heller’s efforts.
According
to vonBreichenruchardt, the city ever
allowing concealed-carry permits in D.C. is as likely as finding an
empty beer
can on the moon. But it gets worse.
“You
cannot even take the gun out of the house. To go
to a shooting range outside the city, you have to . . . disassemble it,
bullets
have to be in a completely different place, and you have to carry a
special
permit and you have to drive directly out of the city,”
vonBreichenruchardt
told AFP. These stated rules show why
“Heller II and beyond” is
needed in a sustained effort to simplify handgun ownership
in D.C. now that
it is technically allowed, he added.
He
also said that a major but lesser-known result of
“Heller I” is that rifles and shotguns are supposed
to be treated the same as
handguns—as an allowable firearm that can be assembled,
loaded and ready to
fire in case of a home invasion or some other threat.
The
point to remember, says vonBreichenruchardt, is that
the District
of Columbia
remains dedicated to such hair-splitting gun regulations that
criminals, by definition,
will never follow in order to gain the upper hand over law-abiding
citizens. But
the main thing is that “the Supreme Court for the first time
in almost 70 years
agreed that the Second Amendment is a fundamental, enumerated,
individual right—not
a collective right.”
For
updates, see dickheller.org, which is
Heller’s Facebook page.
MARK ANDERSON is
AFP's corresponding editor.
Subscribe to
American Free Press. Online
subscriptions: One year of weekly editions—$15 plus
you get a BONUS ELECTRONIC BOOK - HIGH PRIESTS OF WAR - By Michael
Piper.
Print
subscriptions: 52 issues crammed into 47 weeks of the year
plus six free issues of Whole Body Health: $59 Order on this website
or call toll free 1-888-699-NEWS .
Sign up for our
free e-newsletter here
- get a free gift just for signing up! (Issue # 21,
May 25, 2009) | 
