I have had great luck with the press, having never been burned by a reporter using an embarrassing quote that I did or did not say. But this Cybercast News Service story on the Right to Arms panel at the Brookings Institution on Monday really led some people astray. At Brookings, I made the point that those who favor gun control should not use methods of interpretation to negate its meaning that their political opponents can just as easily use against the rights that they support. The two such moves are to appeal to the “underlying” principle or purpose of a provision to limit its scope. The second is to argue that changing circumstances justifies ignoring a part of a written constitution. Speaking after me, Ben Wittes took the honorable position that we should adhere to what a written constitution says and the the Second Amendment clearly DOES protect an individual right. For this reason, he would prefer it be repealed.
Wittes’ opinion gained the headline in CNS: Repeal Second Amendment, Analyst Advises. The problem was they then followed with my point making it appear as though I was responding to his proposed repeal by proposing that other constitutional rights should also be repealed! Now the CNS column does not actually put those words in my mouth, but the story is very confusingly written and one blogger unsurprisingly read it this way:
Imagine my surprise. A