Alphecca

Hit Job on Gun Rights Lawyer

Almost one, anyway. Oddly enough, Robert A. Levy -- the lawyer who financed the appeal -- to the DC Circuit Court -- that wound up overturning (on paper) a gun ban in the District of Columbia, -- well, he doesn't and never has owned a gun. He just believes that the Constitution means what it says. Judging by the strong anti-gun rights bias shown by the Washington Post "journalist" named Paul Duggan, who profiles Levy, that's just wrong:

Meet the lawyer who conceived the lawsuit that gutted the District's tough gun-control statute this month. Meet the lawyer who recruited a group of strangers to sue the city and bankrolled their successful litigation out of his own pocket.

Meet Robert A. Levy, staunch defender of the Second Amendment, a wealthy former entrepreneur who said he has never owned a firearm and probably never will.

"I don't actually want a gun," Levy said by phone last week from his residence, a $1.7 million condominium in a Gulf Coast high-rise. "I mean, maybe I'd want a gun if I was living on Capitol Hill. Or in Anacostia somewhere. But I live in Naples, Florida, in a gated community. I don't feel real threatened down here."

He is 65, a District native who left the city 40 years ago for Montgomery County, a self-made millionaire who thinks the government interferes too much with people's liberties. He was an investment analyst before he sold his company for a fortune and enrolled in law school at age 49. Now he's a constitutional fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, working in his luxury condo 1,000 miles away.

Not only that, he "gutted" the law after [read the whole thing] searching for folks he didn't know, to represent. My ghod, no lawyer ever did that, went prospecting -- except to take out ads looking for class action victims to sue tobacco companies, airlines, pharmaceutical companies, oh -- and suggesting to municipalities that they should sue the gun industry for the criminal misuse of the industry's legal products!

Oh, here's a doozy:

When the D.C. Council passed the restrictions three decades ago, it was trying to curb gun violence. Supporters of the law warn that if the appellate ruling stands and the District is forced to enact a weaker statute, permitting loaded weapons in homes, more shootings are sure to result, by accident and on purpose. Meanwhile, if pistols become legal in homes, many residents probably would acquire them, giving thieves more guns to steal and sell on the streets.

Okay, let's just take his grammatical construction at face value, as well as his word, and grant that maybe he's (without a direct source and quote) representing what "supporters of the law" are saying.

But! If we use that same grammatical standard. . .That next sentence by the "journalist" is clearly his own opinion and is flat-out ridiculous. If people are allowed to have guns in their homes, they might get stolen. Maybe the district should also ban DVD players, jewelry, laptop computers, and other items eagerly sought by burglars and crackheads. Come to think of it, banning automobile ownership would sure cut down on stolen cars. I'd also strongly suggest a ban on carrying wallets around since that seems to be a common target of thugs.

This piece is another example of what I'm sure that liberals consider to be "unbiased" reporting by big media, as in comparison to what they consider to be right-wing bias at FOX News.