Rights? What do you mean you have rights?

[Tim Nunan]

http://www.saf.org/viewpr-new.asp?id=265

BLOOMBERG OUTRAGE: ASKS JUDGE TO BAN 2ND AMENDMENT REFERENCES!
For Immediate Release: 5/9/2008
BELLEVUE, WA – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has moved from outrage to atrocity by asking anti-gun activist federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during a civil lawsuit trial beginning May 27 against Georgia gun dealer Jay Wallace, proprietor at Adventure Outdoors.


The New York Sun reported that Bloomberg’s attorneys made the request. Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said the move clearly shows that Bloomberg has “total disregard not only for the Second Amendment, but also the First.”


Bloomberg’s attorney on this case, Eric Proshansky, has reportedly argued in a brief that “Any references to the Second Amendment or analogous state constitutional provisions are likewise irrelevant” to the upcoming trial.


“This trial is supposed to be held in a federal court, not a kangaroo court,” Gottlieb stated. “What’s next, a request that Judge Weinstein not allow defense witnesses or rebuttal? Why not just dispense with the trial altogether and lynch Mr. Wallace from the limb of a tree out in Central Park?


“The civil prosecution, and un-civil persecution, of Jay Wallace has never really been about the Second Amendment, until right now,” he observed. “And, thanks to Mr. Proshansky’s brief, this trial is suddenly all about the First Amendment as well.


“We are neither surprised nor shocked at Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s attorney for making this move,” Gottlieb added. “This is the kind of behavior one should expect from a billionaire demagogue who considers himself so far above the law that he launched this vigilante campaign against firearms retailers by stepping outside legal channels in the first place. He sent private agents to several states without legal authority, jeopardizing legitimate on-going criminal investigations in the process.


“Now Bloomberg wants a gag order,” he concluded. “Apparently, in Mikey’s world, a fair trial is one in which a defense attorney is muzzled, and the defendant is already guilty until proven innocent. Bloomberg missed his calling. Instead of being mayor of an American city, he should have been the administrator of a gulag.”


The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.