A-G Nominee Eric Holder is Anti-Second Amendment

President Obama’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, is hostile to gun rights, notes the Independent Institute’s Stephen P. Halbrook. Halbrook is the author of The Founder’s Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms.

Halbrook testified at Holder’s confirmation hearing earlier this month that Holder’s “denial that law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes is exemplified by his support for draconian proposal to criminalize, with severe felony penalties, exercise of that constitutional right.”

While Holder was a senior Justice Department official in the Clinton administration, the DOJ backed bureaucratic rules that would have buried lawful gun owners and sellers under a mountain of red tape.

Halbrook points out that Holder participated in a pro-gun control amicus curiae brief in the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller. In the case last year the Supreme Court struck down the District’s oppressive handgun ban, finding that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms. 

Despite his hostility to a basic civil right, Holder has reportedly secured the support of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), an endorsement that probably clears the way for his approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow.