Martha Dean Unmasked

A great post by Meghan Freed at Connecticut Law Blog:

...Although running as a Republican, Martha Dean is almost a Libertarian. (Although I have no idea whether Dean would agree with my “Libertarian” connotation of the positions described on her website, the description is no less apt.) Dean’s version of Libertarianism shocks in two ways – first the “almost” and second the “Libertarian.” The “almost” involves Dean’s second pillar, “faith,” which we’ll return to later...

Here’s the thing about the type of Libertarianism inherent in Dean’s positions. It’s pretty darn batty. It’s pretty darn close to anarchic. Any political philosophy taken to its extreme is dangerous, but, as Rand Paul and his bring-back-the-segregated-lunch-counter-in-the-name-of- free-enterprise brand of wacky has taught us, Libertarianism tends to hang out much closer to the precipice than America’s brand of Liberalism, or even Conservatism. So now, please indulge some discussion of Martha Dean’s Libertarianism, beginning with the Second Amendment.

Agree or disagree, it is not surprising for a Republican candidate with Libertarian tendencies to support the rights of gun owners. Dean takes it a whole lot further, though. On her campaign site, Dean links to a video of her speaking at a second amendment march in Hartford on April 11th...

In this video Ms. Dean is standing in front of a banner for the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, Inc... Ms. Dean opens her speech by calling the Second Amendment “the greatest of all the amendments,” and she’s just warming up. At minute 3:40, she proclaims that as attorney general she will “oppose all efforts to create nonsensical distinctions that are nowhere supported by our constitutions between different types of firearms,” because “nowhere in the constitution does it say that the government gets the effective firearms and the people the ineffective ones,” and “nowhere in our constitution does it say that the government gets the modern firearms and the citizens only get the antiquated ones.”

....(A)n attorney general candidate opposing any restriction on any type of firearm is pretty outside the Connecticut mainstream. And it’s definitely outside the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. (In District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2816-2817 (U.S. 2008), the Roberts Court noted that “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” The Court stated that there is a historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons,” and further noted that it would be permissible to ban “weapons that are most useful in military service – M-16 rifles and the like . . . .”)

In her speech Ms. Dean also advocates for in-school firearms training for boys and girls. So, you know, at least Junior will be safe with the family uzi.

...But the “faith” pillar of Dean’s platform triumvirate is when she swings off the Libertarian road. Dean “believes in a higher duty owed to God’s law when it conflicts with the laws of government...” Is Connecticut okay with an attorney general who would put her version of God’s law above Connecticut’s laws? Golly, I hope not. Apparently, Dean is so fond of the Second Amendment that she forgets about the First Amendment...