Now confirmed and sworn in as Attorney General, Jeff Sessions may have some challenges ahead that – should he decide to accept – would make liberal extremists and their media supporters go ballistic.
Cities and the officials in charge that stand in defiance of federal immigration law just might find themselves on the wrong end of legal action from a Sessions Justice Department.
If the new attorney general is willing to go that far, perhaps he will be willing to go a little farther, by taking up a suggestion from Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms late last year. Back in early December, Gottlieb suggested 11 actions to then President-elect Donald Trump to “make the Second Amendment great again.”
One of those recommendations was for the next attorney general to appoint an assistant/deputy whose sole task would be to identify state and local gun laws that violate the Second Amendment, and go after them. Here’s what Gottlieb wrote:
“It is time for the DOJ to prosecute violations of the Second Amendment and federal laws including the Firearms Owners Protection Act. The next attorney general should take action against states and local governments that adopt laws designed specifically to infringe on the rights of honest firearms owners or discourage people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms for legitimate reasons, including self-defense.
“For too many years, cities including Washington, D.C. and Chicago, and states including New Jersey, New York and Maryland have prosecuted firearms owners, including those in transit from other states, for actions that would be legal anywhere else in the nation. This must cease, and those states must be held accountable for their abuses.
“Egregious laws have been adopted also in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois. Bans on certain commonly-owned firearms in all of these states began as simple licensing and/or registration requirements. Earlier this year, for example, anti-gun Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey unilaterally decided to expand the definition of “assault weapon” in the Bay State, essentially rendering tens of thousands of legally-owned firearms as contraband. Her claim that the state law on “assault weapons” has been misinterpreted for the past 18 years, and that she was merely correcting that problem is specious at best.
“California is another example of a state where rights have been gradually eroded to the point where owning a firearm has become little more than a privilege. The state initially banned a limited number of firearms, and has gradually expanded that to cover a whole class of firearms, making previously legal firearms illegal. A deputy U.S. attorney general could bring the full force of the Justice Department against such demagoguery.
“That all of this has been done under the guise of ‘gun safety’ is an insult to the intelligence of gun owners. They see their rights have been infringed, and they deserve to have those rights protected and defended by the Justice Department rather than surrendered piecemeal to gun control extremism.
It should not simply be up to gun rights organizations like the Second Amendment Foundation to challenge such laws while the Justice Department acts like a spectator.”
Sessions is hardly ignorant of the situation, but he may need some time to get his feet on the ground.
Many observers have suggested that the Trump administration would currently not be in court over the executive order on travel if the president had waited for his attorney general to be confirmed and take over. With Sessions now at Justice, perhaps that problem can be straightened out.
Many see Trump as behaving like the proverbial bull in a china shop since taking office. He’s a businessman, not a bureaucrat, so he expects quick action and quick results. He creates the image of impatience and defensiveness; maybe a little too fast on the Tweet.
By going after possibly unconstitutional gun laws, Sessions could send a message to anti-gunners that treating a civil right like a government-regulated privilege was a bad idea from the beginning.
Related:
Anti-gun Alarmists Get Desperate with Demonization
Dilemma in Washington State: Crime Stats Don’t Support Gun Bills
ATF Proposes Sweeping Rollback Of Existing Gun Laws
Is Washington AG Selective About Constitutional Rights to Protect?
