I can't help but wonder, though, how Robert Levy fits into this view. The driving force behind the most significant Second Amendment case in decades (actually, it could easily end up being the most significant ever) has, according to the New York Times, never owned a gun, and is not particularly interested in them. If he has any financial ties to the gun industry, no one seems to have found them (and I don't for a minute imagine that no one has looked for such a connection).
Levy bankrolled this Second Amendment advocacy endeavor with his own money, not as what is so contemptuously labeled a "gun nut," but as a "rights nut" (I, by the way, consider myself to be both kinds of "nut").
Mr. Levy, who said he is “not particularly interested in guns,” pursued the case to vindicate his libertarian principles.Furthermore, Levy makes it very clear that the "gun lobby" is not behind this endeavor.
“Free markets,” he said, ticking off his basic beliefs. “Private property. Individual rights. And most of all, strictly limited government in accordance with the constitutional structure the framers established.”
Along with carefully selecting the plaintiffs, the lawyers working with Mr. Levy shaped their case in a second way, consciously keeping their distance from some groups that support gun rights.In fact, the NRA (almost universally, but incorrectly, considered to be synonymous with the "gun lobby") was perhpas the biggest obstacle to the advancement of this case.
“We didn’t want this case pictured as another case sponsored by the usual suspects, which is to say the gun community,” Mr. Levy said. “Basically we wanted this to be a grass-roots public interest case, so I decided to fund it.”
The road to the Supreme Court has been a bumpy one, Mr. Levy said, thanks mostly to the National Rifle Association.Face it, citizen disarmament advocates--your enemy isn't the "gun lobby"--it's the People (and I don't mean the National Guard).
“The N.R.A.’s interference in this process set us back and almost killed the case,” he said. “It was a very acrimonious relationship.”
“Their thinking was,” Mr. Levy said, “‘good case, might win in the appellate court but it could be a problem if it reaches the Supreme Court.’”
Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s chief executive officer, largely confirmed that characterization. “There was a real dispute on our side among the constitutional scholars about whether there was a majority of justices on the Supreme Court who would support the Constitution as written,” Mr. LaPierre said.
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