Crapping on the First Amendment Because You Hate the Second

This looks to me like a pretty clear cut First Amendment violation by a Chicago suburb:

“Without legal authority and in violation of the Constitution, my client, a federally licensed firearms dealer, was delayed by the village when he initially applied for a weapons dealers business license in Norridge,” Maksym said.

“When village officials realized they couldn’t stop him from obtaining a gun dealer’s license, they arbitrarily imposed more restrictions on him without any legal basis.”

After failing to keep Kole from opening, Maksym said, his client was restricted by the village from advertising.

That should be a slam dunk in court. It might be permissible for a local governmental entity to regulate advertising generally, but it do it on the basis of content has no basis. I just hope his attorney is decent. They should not be able to condition the exercise of one constitutional right on the surrendering of another.

 

Last Day of Work

Today is my last day on the job. I will receive my last paycheck, along with a generous severance. Despite being short on things to do for the past few days, I do have one last task I need to do today. Next Tuesday I will do something I’ve never done in my life, which is file for unemployment. Because my entrepreneurial adventure has definitely fallen through (for now), I will begin my job search then as well.

Ten years ago I was 27, and this was an entrepreneurial adventure for me then, as I was one of the early employees. It’s only fitting I should be among its last. I survived through a lot of bad times, and I have to admit, looking back, it was mostly bad times. It was an A+ idea turned over to a D- management team, who proceeded to essentially blow through millions of dollars without ever giving the A+ idea a chance. We shed the D students a few years ago, but it was too late. I still want to give that A+ idea a chance, but I now have no money to do so.

It makes one wonder how many revolutionary ideas have been lost in the course of human events because they people who were tasked with developing and nurturing those ideas were complete morons with no understanding or appreciation for the idea or the people who created it. That might accurately describe our country, sadly, but my involvement in politics and this company is because I don’t accept that outcome gracefully.

We’re Talking Hull Crushing Depths Here

Our favorite Washington Post reporter, Sari Horwitz, is at it again helping the Democrats and the Administration blame our gun laws for operation Fast and Furious:

Titled “Outgunned,” the 26-page report recommends stronger penalties for “straw purchasers” who illegally buy guns for others and a reporting requirement for multiple purchases of long guns, such as AK-47s. Cummings will hold a forum on the report Thursday on Capitol Hill.

It’s really puzzled me how multiple long-gun reporting would have helped this situation, given that ATF knew about these sales, because they were reported by dealers, and told the dealers to process them anyway. In short, even given what they knew about, they couldn’t mount a competent enforcement operation.

And increasing penalties against straw purchasing? How is that going to help when ATF is facilitating straw purchasing? The penalty for straw purchasing is ten years in prison. How exactly is that toothless? Well, it’s pretty clear why:

Larry Alt, a lawyer and senior ATF field agent, testified that “we don’t get traction with the U.S. attorney’s office. They don’t follow through. They don’t want to prosecute cases.”

That’s Obama’s justice department, folks. Get a gun control supporting administration and suddenly prosecutions under gun laws fall… for people who are actually criminals.

Agents also said their efforts to combat the cartels would be strengthened with a federal statute criminalizing gun trafficking.

Isn’t gun trafficking already illegal? And pardon me if I’m not worried such a law is going to make it difficult for people like you and me to “traffic” firearms across state lines for the purpose of recreation and competition.

Sari Horwitz chooses to help deflect blame on to our gun laws because like many of our opponents, the only gun violence they really care about is that which can be used to advocate for new controls.

UPDATE: John Richardson notes that the report in question was available on the WaPo web site before it was available on .gov servers. More evidence the WaPo is just a mouthpiece.

Beware of Greeks Bearing Debt

Looks like another financial crisis has been averted for now, but I share SayUncle’s puzzlement about how Greeks Grok economic principles. Spend more money than you take in, eventually you run out of other people’s money. It’s still hard for me to understand why the European Project is worth British and German bankers having to continuously bail out the fiscal basket cases of Europe. At least the British were smart enough to stay out of the monetary union, but it’s hard to imagine the Germans are going to keep agreeing to bail out other members of the Eurozone.

Not Sure How You Miss This

Apparently a body was found in the water at a public swimming pool. This is not unusual, given that drownings happen in pools all the time. What is unusual, and almost unbelievable, is that the body was in there for several days. Apparently while the pool was open:

Police say lifeguards were on duty and people were swimming in the Veterans Memorial pool at Lafayette Park Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and it appears no one noticed the dead body.

I spent a lot of time at the local public pool as a kid, and I’m not sure how, even playing a game of Marco Polo, you’d miss a stiff floating next to you. What about the lifeguards? OK… well, even if your lifeguard is busy smoking dope or flirting with girls, you have a pool man who cleans the pool right? Right?

As of this hour, the entire staff of the Veteran’s Memorial Swimming Pool in Fall River has been placed on administrative leave.

I’d call that a start.

Attempt on WaPo Tank Diving Record

The Brady’s seem to be hot on the Washington Post’s trail to see who can get the deepest in the tank for the Administration. An Administration, I would point out, the Brady’s haven’t liked very much. Paul Helmke notes:

Rep. Issa and others can point fingers at the ATF for mounting a failed mission, but it is Congress that prevents the ATF from getting an annual inventory from dealers on guns sales to address the problem of guns “disappearing” from gun shops with no record of sales. That stops the agency from quickly shutting down corrupt shops.

Except this isn’t about corrupt shops, and none of those advocated policies would have done anything to reduce the damage done by Fast and Furious. Remember, ATF leadership was encouraging straw sales, sales suspicious enough to make the dealers call ATF to report them. ATF told the dealers to proceed, apparently without much real effort to track those firearms or arrest the buyers. There’s no policy prescription in Brady’s current formulary that would have done anything to stop a government agency from deliberately letting guns walk, in the hands of criminals.

That the Brady Campaign would continue to make excuses and deflect on this issue tells me gun violence is not their real concern. Their only interest in gun violence is to the extent that hobby horse can be ridden to justify more restrictions on the Second Amendment.

Bloomberg Buying Ads

As we’ve said, there’s not way to buy a fully automatic assault rifle at a gun show without a background check, but that’s not stopping Bloomberg from buying ad time to try to drum up support for denying constitutional rights with no due process by scare mongering among the public.

This is the kind of propaganda the Brady folks, nor other gun control groups, have the funding for anymore, which shows that MAIG and Bloomberg are really the last organization remaining credible threat to the Second Amendment.