just keep on digging

Imagine that you are high up in the chain of command of an activism and lobbying organization. Imagine that one of your representatives, operating in his official representative capacities, gave a video interview at some point in the past. Imagine that the said representative managed to thoroughly misquote an Amendment to the United States Constitution in such a way that would be salutory to your organization’s professed goals and desires. Imagine that this video managed to spread like wildfire, cropping up in all of the usual locations for videos on the internet, and that it was being used to discredit your representative and your organization as a whole.
So what would you do? Issue a retraction? Set up another interview clarifying the situation, and correcting the misquote? Apologize for the error?
Those are certainly all options… or you could try to have the video removed from every location it has been posted, claiming “copyright infringement”, just like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Ownership is doing.
Back in 2007, Dennis Henigan, speaking as a representative of the Brady Campaign (their Vice President for Law and Policy, in fact), was giving an interview on the upcoming D.C. vs. Heller Supreme Court case (then referred to as D.C vs. Parker), and expounded on how the Brady Campaign supported the specious and since-debunked “collective interpretation” of the Second Amendment. In the course of the interview, he quoted the Amendment… only he left out “of the people” from his recitation. Now, over a year and a half later, the Brady Campaign is trying to cover its tracks, rewrite history, and remove any record of this gaffe from the internet.
Unfortunately for them, the internet never forgets.
For a while, the Brady Campaign even had a transcript of the interview on their webpage, but, unsurprisingly enough, that transcript was removed before their assault against the video started. However, it was not removed before Thirdpower was able to get a screenshot (replicated here, just in case), clearly showing the omission of “of the people” by Henigan. For the sake of clarity, this what Dennis Henigan and his interviewer said, as retyped directly from the screencaptures of the Brady Campaign’s own webpage:

Q: So, the Court effectively ignored the first half of the Second Amendment and focused only on the second half regarding the right to bear arms?

The Second Amendment is the only provision in our Bill of Rights that actually states its own purpose. It says a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And the court has held, the Supreme Court has held, that that statement of purpose must be taken seriously and the right must be evaluated and interpreted in light of that purpose. And by ignoring that purpose the D.C. Circuit not only contradicted the Supreme Court but also years of precedent which establishes that it is not legitimate for courts to edit the Constitution. The courts must interpret the Constitution as it was written by the framers. That is what the D.C. Circuit did not do.

As previously mentioned, this conversation took place before the ruling in Heller had been handed down – a ruling which simultaneously handed Henigan his own ass on a silver platter by indicating to him that his logic was, quite literally, back-assward (i.e. because the people would forever be armed, the government would always have them to create a militia, if it would be needed… not the other way around).
But talk about stifling irony – Henigan has the nerve to take the D.C. Circuit court to taks for supposedly editing the Constitution (which they, of course, did not do) while simultaneously editing the Constitution himself? Talk about a boneheadedly stupid move.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the Brady Campaign, the irony and boneheaded stupidity does not stop there – it would seem as though they only care about copyright when it makes them look bad, but when it comes to “borrowing” other people’s intellectual property, well that is a-ok.
I suppose pro-rights activists like me should thank the Brady Campaign – with all of the character assassination they are doing on their own credibility, it really saves us from having to do little more except point at the examples and let people educate themselves. Good job, boys. Keep it up!