NAGR Gun Rights Blog

In a move that will shock no one, President Barack Obama nominated a gun-unfriendly attorney to the United States Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan, Obama’s second female Supreme court nominee, was the lawyer for the White House that wrote the Clinton firearms import ban.

From the Volokh Conspiracy legal blog:

The Chicago Tribune’s James Oliphant reports: “According to records at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., she also drafted an executive order restricting the importation of certain semiautomatic assault rifles.”

When ban was announced, Clinton staffer Jose Cerda stated, “We are taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns.” [Los Angeles Times, Oct. 22, 1997].

The import ban was made permanent in the spring of 1998. Here’s an explanation I wrote, as part of an article on Rahm Emanuel for America’s 1st Freedom, which is a NRA member magazine:

In 1998, Clinton forbade the import of 58 types of firearms and their accessories. . . .

Emanuel defended the ban on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, repeatedly claiming that the banned guns were ‘military weapons, not sporting weapons.’

‘Those weapons were designed for one purpose—military—and they don’t belong on our streets,’ he insisted.

Emanuel asserted that Clinton had banned “the AK-47,” which was pure nonsense. The AK-47, which is a fully automatic rifle, was not covered by the import ban. Indeed, not one of the guns banned was an automatic, nor were any of the guns manufactured primarily for military use.

All the banned guns were used in target competitions. Some had names like “Hunter” or “Sporter.” So how did Clinton and Emanuel get around the 1986 federal law requiring that imports must be allowed if the gun is “particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes”?

Emanuel argued that it was permissible to ban the guns because [a Treasury study found that] comments from hunting guides showed that the guns were rarely recommended for hunting trips. As if the only gun that is a “sporting” gun is one used by people who can afford to take trips with a professional guide.

Emanuel further contended that the guns should be banned because they “accept rounds in the 20, 30, 40, in some cases 100 rounds at a case” [sic]. Of course, every gun that accepts a detachable magazine can accept a detachable magazine of any size. So Emanuel’s theory would actually set the stage for a ban on every gun that uses a detachable magazine.

To make matters worse, as a law clerk Kagan lobbied Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall to side against the right to keep and bear arms in the District of Columbia.  This is particularly concerning considering that 2008′s Heller Decision allowed for extremely limited firearms rights in D.C .