Maybe I’m in the clear on this Justice Department “gun-rights” brouhaha. I’ve heard from a number of lawyers who think Ashcroft et. al. are all wet on their interpretation of the law. But what caught my attention more is this piece in today’s the Washington Post.
In most respects, the Post piece tells the same story as yesterday’s Times piece. The author does seem to find more people to support the anti-Ashcroft line. But what’s telling is that the administration itself seems to be hanging its hat on a regulatory order signed by Janet Reno — an order which could obviously be overruled by an order by Ashcroft.
If there’s really black letter law on this, why bother making the case with a regulation signed by Janet Reno?
Also, Ashcroft’s Senate testimony on this particular point seemed a touch vague to me.
In any case, it’s important to keep our eye on the ball. For this to be a ‘story,’ Ashcroft’s call doesn’t have to be baseless or even necessarily wrong. The point is that it was discretionary. And he’s made every other discretionary call (beside the ‘gun-rights’ one) in the other direction – more often than not correctly, I think.
For the moment at least, I’m holding off on any correction. As the last few posts should show, I’m not above a retraction if one’s in order. But if there’s black letter law on this, I wanna see it.
