| Firearms Law & The Second Amendment Symposium |
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| Written by Daniel White | |
| Sunday, 08 October 2006 | |
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OFCC's Dan White, along with attorney Dan Ellis, attended the 2006 Firearms Law & The Second Amendment Symposium held at the George Mason School of Law in Arlington, Virginia on Saturday, October 7th. Not only were the speakers very informative, but OFCC also made a lot of new friends with other pro-gun groups from some of the Eastern states. This networking will help by giving us valuable insight into what has and has not worked in other states, most of whom have had concealed carry laws longer than Ohio. An incident from OFCC's past activities even made it into one of the presentations, as you will read about later in this story. The first speaker, Professor Nelson Lund of the George Mason University School of Law, spoke about the history of the construction of the Second Amendment and debunked the myths and misinterpretations often touted by the antis to support their opinions. David Hardy, an attorney from Tucson, continued this theme and explained that two separate issues are addressed in the amendment because of attempts to assuage fears about the new government. Some people were worried the new government would abolish the militia and others were concerned the right of the people to be armed would be denied. The framers wrote the amendment to affirm their belief that the militia was necessary to the defense of the citizens and that their citizens would not be disarmed. One of the big issues at the time was the debate between a standing national army and the people assembling to form the militia as needed. There was concern that the army would become too powerful and that the militia was a needed check on the power of the army. In order to resolve that issue, the framers put directly in the amendment that the militia was necessary and that the citizens couldn't be disarmed. The next segment of the seminar concerned firearms litigation and regulation. Many of the past cases were reviewed and analyzed, and pending cases were explained. Attorney Richard Gardiner from Fairfax, Virginia pointed out that one of the strategies being employed is to use draconian regulations and threat of litigation to drive licensed dealers out of business and effect firearms bans by default. The number of licensed dealers has fallen to 1/3 the numbers before the Clinton Administration. The next panel was about firearms regulation, international law, and human rights. Professor Joyce Malcolm from the George Mason University School of Law spoke about the failures of strict gun control in other countries as it led to skyrocketing crime rates. She reported that there is a growing push in many of those countries to roll back their gun control laws and return protections to the citizens. David Kopel, Research Director for the Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado spoke at length about the agenda being pushed through the United Nations that not only is there no basic human right to self defense, but that countries who do not have strict gun control are guilty of human rights violations. The final segment of the day covered the law and politics of self-defense & concealed carry legislation. Professor Renee Lernor from the George Washington University Law School covered the success of the reforms in Florida law giving more protections to the law abiding citizens instead of favoring the criminals. The last speaker was Professor Brian Patrick from the University of Toledo. He explained that the recent trend towards gun rights reform was due to the activism of grassroots organizations. In this model, groups of like minded people get together and spread their ideas through horizontal propaganda amongst their friends and peers. Whereas the elite use vertical propaganda (we know what's best, so do what we say) to try to spread their ideas on gun control. He also talked about the concept of interpretive experts who the average citizen relies upon to help them form their opinions and values and the fact that the mainstream media (often dominated by liberal anti-gun pundits) has appointed themselves into this role. This led to his example of elitism in the media when an OFCC member once tried to obtain a media card from the Ohio Highway patrol. Despite the fact that he wrote news stories for the OFCC website, the media card was denied. Overall, the conference was a very worthwhile experience and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is able to attend next year's. |