AV> I have written to the NRA and been advised that the lawsuit
AV> it is backing to overturn the assault-weapons-and-high-
AV> capacity-magazines ban did not raise the 2nd Amendment as an
AV> issue.
 BP> The US Supreme Court has consistently refused to take 2nd Amendment
 BP> cases since the Miller case in 1939 when only the Government's side
 BP> was heard.  The lower level courts just ignore the Miller decision,
 BP> so it doesn't do any good to raise this issue.  The NRA has also
 BP> been removed as a plantiff in the "assualt weapons", magazine ban
 BP> case anyway. The Appeals Court said they didn't even have standing
 BP> to challenge it.
AV> According to the correspondence I posted along with the above
AV> and the latest _National Rifleman_, the standing dismissal was
AV> overturned.  But, even if the NRA didn't have standing, this
AV> doesn't mean that it couldn't sponsor citizens who do have
AV> standing in order to assure that their cases turn out right
AV> and that everyone else's are thereby protected -- kind of like
AV> the ACLU does (although, hypocritically, the ACLU doesn't care
AV> about 2nd Amendment civil liberties or the fact that there may
AV> not be civil liberties except for the 2nd Amendment and
AV> private gun ownership).
You better look into the case a little closer.  The Appeals Court
ruled that the NRA still did not have standing in the case as the
lower court had ruled.  It was manufacturers etc. who they said had
standing.  The NRA could give financial support if they want but
usually businesses have enough money to take care of their own legal
bills. The issues NRA would raise can not be part of the case though.
Their part was thrown out.
 BP> There are plenty of people being convicted and imprisoned for
 BP> violating federal firearms laws that are direct violations of 2nd
 BP> Amendment rights.  Many of these people have raised the issue but
 BP> it hasn't done them any good.
AV> This leaves the question of how well, if at all, was the 2nd
AV> Amendment issue raised and litigated.  If it was raised,
AV> zealously litigated, and attempted to be appealed all the way
AV> to the U.S.  Supreme Court (which was NOT even done in the
AV> Miller case, or it would likely have turned out better) and
AV> the court didn't accept the case, this indicates that the 2nd
AV> Amendment was not wrongly decided in the underlying suit. 
I don't think you understand the Miller case.  The Government lost
the case on 2nd Amendment grounds at the trial court level.  The case
was dismissed and the two defendants, who were criminals for other
reasons, released.  The Government is the party who appealed the
dismissal. The defendants were long gone by then.  In fact it is said
that one of them was dead by the time the Supreme Court heard the
appeal.  Even though the Supreme Court overturned the trial court and
returned the case to that level so it could be determined if the
short barrel shotgun they had could be used as a militia weapon, that
trial never took place.
By the way. The fact that the Supreme Court refuses to hear a case
signifies nothing about the underlying merits of the case being
appealed to them.  Your last sentence above is completely wrong.
AV> This further suggests that the cases in question involved only
AV> a desire to own firearms and not a constitutional right to own
AV> firearms.  If this is the case, we need to stop fooling
AV> ourselves that our interest is
AV> constitutionally based and get behind political action and a
AV> PR campaign to make guns "cool" and acceptable to as many
AV> voters as possible.  But, the NRA keeps telling us that it
AV> is seeking to protect our *2nd Amendment rights*, which can
AV> best be protected in court, yet I don't see the reports of how
AV> it is doing so -- even its participation in the "assault-
AV> weapons-ban" suit is apparently on a non-2nd-Amendment basis
AV> (which makes it no surprise that the NRA would have standing
AV> problems), and its calls to *political* action are a
AV> concession that the "rights" in question do not implicate the
AV> 2nd Amendment.
Believe me.  When someone is facing several years in prison they use
every issue they can.  Maybe some of the lawyers are not that great,
but there are enough Federal firearms cases every year that this
issue has been raised many times.  As I said, the Supreme Court
refuses to hear 2nd Amendment cases.  The latest gun ban case had
10th Amendment problems too and if the NRA didn't have standing under
the 10th Amendment, they wouldn't have standing under the 2nd
Amendment either.  The courts will not hear 2nd Amendment cases. 
Nothing can be done about that except to get more honest judges, but
that won't happen with the current system.
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