Laurence Tribe, popularizer of the "militia clause," receives appointment...

[SteveM]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124094017

Laurence Tribe, Constitutional law scholar at Harvard, will be senior counsel for the newly-created Justice Department program, Access to Justice. The new program will assist those facing criminal proceedings, but who are unable to afford counsel. Tribe, widely-known for popularizing the "militia clause" portion of the Second Amendment, in 1999 conceded that the Second Amendment does in fact protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, thereby undercutting his previous stand that the militia clause was operative in conditioning the "right" to arms. Whether or not this will satisfy some Second Amendment advocates that he is no threat to the RKBA remains to be seen. But he has a strong supporter in his corner: Pepperdine law school dean and former Clinton prosecutor, Kenneth Starr. Starr considers the Tribe choice as "brilliant," and supports Access to Justice.

edit for superlative

[X_Digger]

1. k&r!

Not really a guns forum topic, but a great stride for low income defendants. The state of legal aid in some places is reprehensible.

[GreenStormCloud]

2. A good choice, and neither threat nor benefit to gun owners.

In that position he really won't have any effect on national gun-control issues.

[TheWraith]

3. Supported by Ken Starr? Eww.

Still, this sounds like a good place for him.

[SteveM]

4. Yeah, well, if your dog's farts keep the bandits away, it's a good thing. nt

[TheWraith]

6. Um... what?

That only makes sense if we're talking in code, in which case "The chimaera barks at one AM."

[SteveM]

7. My attempt at humor...

As bad as a dog's fart is (Starr), if it works to your advantage, hold your nose.

[pscot]

8. If my bulldog's farts

don't keep the bandits away, they'll have to deal with the teeth at the other end. All I'll need is a mop for the blood.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

9. My Boston Terrier is a fart factory. I'm pretty sure it's not a good deterrent.

He farts and then runs in circles sniffing his ass.
Not the sharpest tool in the shed.

[Callisto32]

12. Funniest post in a week.

[Euromutt]

11. My thoughts exactly

In most circumstances, my gut reaction would be to be dead set against anything Kenneth Starr was in favor of. But in this case, I'll adhere to a narrow interpretation.

[ashling]

5. OUTSTANDING!!!

[Hoopla Phil]

10. When did he come around the the individual realization?

If he came to it do to being open minded and re-reading our founders intention then great. If he came about this realization do to being appointed and needing to be confirmed then, bad.

[SteveM]

13. He first expressed his change of mind in 1999...

This was also noted here by Stephen P. Halbrook:

"As Prof. Lawrence Tribe of Harvard University notes, 'The people's 'right' to be armed cannot be trumped by the Amendment's preamble.' Nor can the government pronounce the militia dead and then decree that the right to bear arms is archaic."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=397

I do not have the complete text of Tribe's "new" outlook, but in the Heller decision, he cautioned in a 2008 editorial against going more than the minimum distance, suggesting that rifles and shotguns would be okay in D.C., but not handguns as this somehow remains within the prerogative of the D.C. government.

"Under any plausible standard of review, a legislature’s choice to limit the citizenry to rifles, shotguns and other weapons less likely to augment urban violence need not, and should not, be viewed as an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of the people to keep or bear arms."

http://www.scotusblog.com/2008/03/the-view-from-cambridge-professor-tribe-on-the-guns-case/

This last quote seems like a rear-guard action at best, but an improvement over "militia clause" as dominant operative "right."