After being detained for strolling around a suburban park with a Draco pistol, Leonard Embody tried suing the officers who detained him. If you’re not familiar with his story, I’ve got background here. In short, and as usual, he lost.
He then appealed to the 6th Circuit, who were none too sympathetic [pdf].
For his troubles, Embody has done something rare: He has taken a position on the Second and Fourth Amendment that unites the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Second Amendment Foundation. Both organizations think that the park ranger permissibly disarmed and detained Leonard Embody that day, notwithstanding his rights to possess the gun. So do we.
Just savor the irony, folks.
In short, the Court found that Embody got exactly what he was seeking, just not the outcome for which he’d hoped.
Having worked hard to appear suspicious in an armed-and-loaded visit to the park, Embody cannot cry foul after park rangers, to say nothing of passers-by, took the bait.
Fortunately, they saw no need to comment much on the 2nd Amendment one way or another, finding only that,
No court has held that the Second Amendment encompasses a right to bear arms within state parks. (…) Such a right may or may not exist, but the critical point for our purposes [emphasis mine] is that it has not been established–clearly or otherwise at this point.
So, at least it’s not hurting us. That’s some consolation.
2 thoughts on “How Not to Win, Part II”
I was very afraid that the Court of Appeals would use Leonard Embody’s nonsense to do serious damage to Second Amendment jurisprudence. I’m enormously relieved that that didn’t happen.
Do you have any idea why he uses this alias, “kwikrnu?” I’m not sure how to pronounce it, and I don’t know if it means anything.