GUN-RIGHTS “>MOMENTUM:

Arizona voters may get a chance to do something that Gov. Janet Napolitano would not: limit her power to take away their guns or limit their rights to carry guns during an emergency. On a 4-2 party-line vote, the Republican-controlled Senate Government Committee approved a measure Tuesday that would legally bar any governor from using a state of emergency to place new restrictions on the possession, transfer, sales, carrying, storage, display or use of firearms or ammunition. The bill also would remove any ability to commandeer and use weapons or ammunition during any state of war.

Meanwhile, Prof. Joseph Olson emails:

Minnesota AG Mike Hatch has joined twelve other Attorneys General in supporting a meaningful individual right to keep and bear arms. The amicus brief was filed June 16, 2006 in Parker v. DC. (the Cato Institute-backed Second Amendment-based challenge to DC’s gun ban now on appeal in the US Court of appeals for the Disctrict of Columbia Link).

The AGs’ position is that:

“The district court’s holding that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms denies American citizens a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. *** [A]lthough the individual right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment is not an absolute right immune from any restrictions whatsoever, … the D. C. Code provisions … which essentially impose blanket prohibitions on handgun ownership and possession of functional long guns…, are fundamentally inconsistent with the Second Amendment right of Americans to keep and bear arms. As such, they are unconstitutional on their face.”

I’m not expecting a win on this, but it’s more sign of shifting sentiments, and politics.