Since the ACLU is so zealous in protecting citizens from “violations” of the First Amendment, why doesn’t it also zealously protect gun owners’ rights under the Second Amendment?

I am not aware of one single case in which the ACLU went to bat for those whose Second Amendment rights were abused by government.

The website of the national American Civil Liberties Union says that “neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue.” But each affiliate has latitude in choosing its cases, and ACLU chapters in several states, including Louisiana, have sided with gun owners.

In a news release issued Feb. 14, the ACLU of Pennsylvania announced that it had filed a federal suit against Philadelphia “on behalf of Mark Fiorino, a gun rights advocate who legally carries an unconcealed weapon in public.”

“The suit alleges that the Philadelphia Police Department filed retaliatory charges against Fiorino after it learned that there was a YouTube recording of Philadelphia police officers threatening to shoot and screaming profanities at an unresisting Fiorino in February 2011,” reads the news release. “Fiorino was cleared of all charges in October 2011.”

Fiorino settled the case — Fiorino v. City of Philadelphia, et al. — earlier this month for $25,000.

The national ACLU statement was last updated in July 2008, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court changed its long-held stance on the Second Amendment, ruling that the Constitution guaranteed an individual right to bear arms, not a collective one as lower courts had ruled for several decades. Two years later the court extended that to apply to state and local gun laws.

ACLU affiliates in Florida, Nevada and Texas have since taken a stand on the Second Amendment. The Louisiana ACLU filed a federal suit in 2009 against the city of New Orleans and its police chief and District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro after authorities refused to return a confiscated handgun.

‘Exploring options’

The case — Errol Houston Jr. v. City of New Orleans, et al. — was dismissed, but the ACLU appealed. On Thursday, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, agreeing with the lower court that Houston “does not have a Second Amendment right to the particular firearm seized.”

“The right protected by the Second Amendment is not a property-like right to a specific firearm, but rather a right to keep and bear arms for self-defense,” Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

“Houston has not alleged defendants prevented his ‘retaining or acquiring other firearms.’ … Therefore, he has not stated a violation of his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”

But Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, in her dissent, said the court was wrong to make an exception “for particular exercises of the right at stake (so long as other exercises of that right are permitted.)”

“Consider, for example, a court holding that the Free Speech Clause affords no protection against the government preventing the publication of a particular editorial in the New York Times because there are plenty of other newspaper that might publish the piece,” she wrote.

“Or consider a court holding that the Fourth Amendment is inapplicable to the unreasonable seizure of a specific automobile so long as the government does not prevent the owner from borrowing, renting, or purchasing a replacement vehicle. These examples should suffice to show the absurdity of courts recognizing categorical exceptions for each particular exercise of those rights.”

Marjorie Esman, director of the Louisiana ACLU, told The Informer on Friday that the group hasn’t decided whether to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. “We’re exploring our options,” she said.

Online: www.laaclu.org; www.ca5.uscourts.gov.

The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098, press 5 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com

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