[ftp://ftp.shell.portal.com/pub/chan/orgs/asa]

[contact info checked 7/15/94]
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Date: Wed, 9 Feb 94 13:11:21 -0800
From: Andy Freeman <andy@CS.Stanford.EDU>
To: ca-firearms@shell.portal.com
Subject: Academics for the 2nd Amendment

It's a 501(c)(3) tax deductible organization.  The address is:
    Academics for the Second Amendment
    Professor J. E. Olson, President
    Box 131254
    St. Paul, MN 55113

The organization's goal is to give RKBA its proper, prominent place
in Constitutional discourse and analysis as an individual right.

Right now they're in the "stand up and be counted" phase, running
"Open Letter" ads signed by a very impressive list of law, political
science, and history professors.  It has been published in National
Review, New Republic, and National Law Journal (March 93).  They'd
like to run the same advert in more "popular" pubs like NYT, LAT,
WashPost, etc, but that takes money.

They've started running symposia at major legal conferences (American
Assoc of Law Schools, Jan 94) as part of their effort to "sponsor
academic symposia, support research and publication, and challenge the
legal profession and the public to appreciate the place of the
individual [RKBA] in the American consitutional scheme."

The letter consists of the obvious discussion of "right of the
people", "militia", "individual right", and "self-defense" (through
the 14th).  The only part that a RKBA fanatic could possibly
object to (and I think it would be wrong to do so) is:
    "Of course, the right to bear arms is no more `absolute' than is the
    right to speak, to publish, or to assemble.  Hence, there is room for
    disagreement over the scope of Second-Amendment rights, just as there
    currently exists legitimate disagreement over the scope of
    First-Amendment rights of assembly and free speech.* Nothing in this
    statement, therefore, is intended to deny either the constitutionality
    of, or the need for, sensible gun laws."

It would be wrong to read that as a support for dumb/restrictive gun
laws as * is an explicit reference (in the letter) to Kates' "The
Second Amendment: A Dialogue" in 49 Law and Contemporary Probs 145
(1986).  That's a very pro-gun paper and I doubt that any pro-RKBA
person would find its defn of "sensible gun laws" restrictive.

-andy