stonewall Justice Scalia’s majority opinion. Then, after Sandy Hook, he saw the gathering momentum for federal gun restrictions, and he felt compelled to sound a warning. Shapiro tells Newsmax he still
wishes that ending gun violence was as simple as banning fi rearms. There’s only one small problem, he says. After a career dedicated to adjudicating the law, his direct experience has reluctantly led him to an inescapable conclusion, namely, that the NRA was right: Severe restrictions on Second Amendment rights only rendered law-abiding citizens defenseless in the face of muggers and maniacs. Asked to explain his view of
the reality of gun control, Shap- iro off ers a scenario. “If you actu- ally were to take a group of parents and tell them, Hey, you’re going to leave your kids alone all day somewhere. And we’re going to take one group of kids and we’re going
“The two people who are selling so-called assault rifl es are Sen. Feinstein and President Obama, not us. They’re the ones that are scaring American gun owners.”
— David Keene NRA President
to make sure that there are police offi cers or security around them, and then we’re going to take anoth- er group of kids, and they won’t have any security or police around them, but we’re going to put a lot of rules in eff ect that say no one can hurt anyone else. “Now which group do you want
your kids to be in? It’s not that hard to fi gure that out. And there’s a reason we feel that way: Because words alone do not stop violence.”
S
hapiro’s epiphany came on June 26, 2008, the day the Heller verdict was handed down. Dick Heller, a D.C.
policeman, had fi led suit when his
application to register a handgun with the city for use in his own home was rejected. Shapiro was still a big proponent of the gun ban at the time. “I was actually hoping at that
stage that the gun ban would be upheld,” he says. “I wanted the district to be vindicated.” He was seated right next to
Heller, and watched him carefully as the Scalia opinion was read. “When they read the decision,
he started to cry,” Shapiro says. “I have to admit that I was moved by that, because I saw that this was not just someone who wanted to have a gun to embolden them- selves. This was someone who real- ly felt as an individual that they had been restricted or oppressed by the state, and that they were fi nally being vindicated. And that had an impact on me.” As Shapiro weighed the
strength of the dissenting opinion, a blasphemous thought entered his mind. “I started to think to myself, You
SUPREMELY VICTORIOUS Dick Heller, of District of Columbia v. Heller fame, outside the Supreme Court after his victorious overturn of D.C.’s firearms ban. Inset: Jeff rey Scott Shapiro.
50 NEWSMAX | MARCH 2013
know what? Maybe the Supreme Court is right on this.” To his sur- prise, some of his pro-ban asso- ciates appeared more focused on thwarting the will of the justices than in complying with it. He had vigorously enforced the strict D.C. ban when it was the law. But now gun-control advocates apparently felt empowered to ignore a law they didn’t like. Shapiro eventually decided to leave government service and
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