Flood the Court technique

[azredhawk44]

NRA was hesitant on the Heller case for a number of logical reasons.

However, that changed, and NRA came to support the case.

NRA did not attempt to "take credit" other than credit that was due to them for supporting Heller's efforts.

Yeah, mike, but what about the NRA/Orrin Hatch attempt to deliberately derail the case by rescinding the DC law in question prior to the case being heard?

NRA doesn't have a lot of room to crow in regards to their support of Heller, IMO.

But Cato Institute? Absolutely.

[Mike Irwin]

"Yeah, mike, but what about the NRA/Orrin Hatch attempt to deliberately derail the case by rescinding the DC law in question prior to the case being heard?"

You have to understand NRA's reticence.

NRA has been looking for the "perfect" case to present to the "perfect" court for a long time.

Heller wasn't seen to be the perfect case, and this court was seen to be a good one, but not a great one. The final tally certainly supports that.

Absolutely the worst possible thing that could be done would be to get behind a case that ends up going down in defeat.

Were that to have happened, it would be nothing but a long, loud, "WHY DID NRA LET THAT HAPPEN??? THEY SCREWED US!!!" for a long time.

NRA has no choice but to look at the big picture pros and cons. We don't really have to do that, and in my experience a lot of people refuse to do that.

[divemedic]

NRA has no choice but to look at the big picture pros and cons.

Actually, my own feeling is that the NRA is first and foremost a revenue generating engine which stands to lose quite a bit of money, should the issue of RKBA ever get settled.

Hence all of the, "ZOMG!!! The Dems are coming to get your guns, send us money now!!" mailings I get.

And for the record, the NRA was quick to jump on the bandwagon in June with:

Supreme Court Declares That the Second Amendment
Guarantees an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms
-- June 26, 2008

of course, they are forgetting to mention:

The Supreme Court (which still had Sandra Day O’Conner back then) would not reliably deliver a victory, they argued, and an authoritative statement from the Supremes that the Second Amendment did not protect an individual right could prove devastating to the long-term cause.

This was an intellectually respectable objection, the Levy team thought, but ultimately too fearful. If no one would fight for the Second Amendment qua Second Amendment in a relevant case, then its supposed paladins were as complicit in its irrelevance as were the most rabid partisans for the idea that the Second Amendment only applied to militias and is thus a dead letter.

“The second problem the NRA had with our case was territorial,” Gura says. “They didn’t want something like this going on that they didn’t have their hands in.” In fact, in April 2003, less than two months from Parker’s filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a new lawsuit challenging D.C.’s gun laws, Seegars v. Ashcroft, was filed with the backing of the NRA and its longtime Second Amendment legal eagle Stephen Halbrook in charge.

As per then-standard NRA practice, Halbrook offered the court a menu of options to choose from to overthrow D.C. gun laws, hoping one of them might work even if a direct Second Amendment challenge did not. Among them were claims that Congress had only empowered D.C. to create for itself regulations that were “usual and reasonable,” and that D.C.’s gun laws, being the most severe ones in the nation, were therefore unusual and unreasonable.

Unlike the Levy team, Halbrook and the NRA chose to sue not only Washington, D.C., but the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ is a significantly more formidable opponent than the District of Columbia. To add insult to injury, because of their unease with Levy and his comparatively inexperienced crew, the NRA team used Seegars as an excuse to try to scuttle Parker altogether by taking over the case, through the legal gambit of “consolidation.” That’s when two cases that are asking courts to decide on essentially the same matter can be combined, whether or not one of the parties really wants it—a hostile takeover of the litigation, as it were. The consolidation request, made to the court in April 2003, was denied.