September 2009 – Page 13 – Shall Not Be Questioned

DC Circuit Rejects DC License Challenge

Bad case, bad defendant. Â This was probably a fore drawn conclusion. Â Gura’s case in Palmer is different, as he says here:

Alan Gura, the Alexandria, Va. attorney who filed the civil suit, told me on Wednesday evening that he doesn’t think the recent appeals court decision will make much of a difference.

“We’re not challenging the requirement for a license,” Gura said. But, he added, “there has to be the ability for people to quality for a license.”

I fully believe that a requirement for having a license to carry a concealed firearm is not within the spirit of what our founders would have believed about the Second Amendment, but it probably follows the Joe Huffman Corollary:

Infringed rights extinguished for a generation are probably going to go extinct. Think of machine guns in this country and handguns in the U.K. the odds are very slim that those will be regained via political and/or judicial processes.

I think this is unfortunately true, so I can appreciate Gura’s strategy here. Â If we’re not going to get unlicensed carry out of the courts, objective criteria is at least better than what you’ll get in New Jersey, Massachusetts, or Illinois.

Very Good News

The Supreme Court might be setting up something very interesting for us.

Notes From GBR in Reno

A few things of note:

There are cabs that have ads for whorehouses on the roof.
Right next to us are the Northern California Lefties. Turns out they are actually an association of left handed golfers.
The Tailhook convention is in the same hotel this weekend. Yes, this Tailhook.
I have an AR-15, 360 rounds of ammo, a bag of golf balls, a bunch of pool chalk cubes, and a very big shooting range out in the desert. Â Fun will be had.

Follow the Reno Adventures on Twitter

Given the ease of transporting an iPhone vs. a laptop, I expect that Sebastian will be updating mostly via Twitter while he’s hanging out with other gun bloggers. If you don’t follow him on Twitter, you should.

I’m quite confident he’ll have more insightful commentary on the event other than the fact that Reno’s airport smells bad. Expect pictures live from the scene, too.

Quote of the Day

From the DC City attorney in his Motion for Summary Judgement in the Palmer case challenging DC laws on carrying firearms:

The Districtâ€™s regulation of handguns at issue here is squarely in the mainstream and eminently reasonable, minimally intruding on the right announced in Heller to bear arms for the protection of â€œhearth and home,â€ while at the same time safeguarding public safety under traditional police powers.

I think DC’s attorney is a bit confused as to what defines “mainstream” outside of DC.

What an Odd Flight Route

I was just checking on the status of Sebastian’s next flight on FlightAware and discovered that Southwest has a pretty creative route for this particular flight number.

Most flights I’ve been on either fly between two cities repeatedly throughout a day or they travel in one general direction (say, Charlotte to Nashville to Dallas). But Sebastian’s next flight starts each day in Dallas and flies northeast to St. Louis. From there, it turns northwest to Omaha before a turn to the southwest to Las Vegas. Obviously, the next stop is to the northwest again to hit Reno. Then it continues on its northwesterly track to Portland before going northeast toward Spokane. I wonder how many flights do such and extreme zigzag around the country.

Fourth Amendment Case Involving Open Carry

A federal court in New Mexico rules in favor of a man suing police for a violation of his civil rights. Not a Second Amendment case, but still good news. It only takes a few of these for authorities to get the message.

Useful Commentary on the Great Divide Among Our People

Joe has a very well done and in-depth post about the whole philosophical divide between the pragmatists and the hard liners. Â I am actually not terribly against the “line in the sand” as a political philosophy. Â After all, the Second Amendment is such a philosophy. Â And if it ever came to a serious destruction of our rights, the “deal with us, or you get to deal with them” might be able to help arrive at a political solution. Â What I am against is the current form of the hard line philosophy. Â Like Joe, I just don’t see any reason to make a public spectacle when we’re still winning more than we’re losing. Â That could change, and if it changes, my attitude toward hard liners might change with it.

“You Lie!”

I did not watch the President’s address. I didn’t feel the need to listen to the same version of a speech he’s been delivering since before the election. But as soon as I heard about Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst, I cringed. I just knew that would come back to haunt him, and he obviously did as well given his near immediate apology.

However, the more I thought about it, the less upset I am about how the affair reflects on health care reform opponents. First, the comment was in reply to Obama’s statement that Republicans are lying. While that doesn’t make the breach of decorum appropriate, it does provide an important opportunity to refute Democratic talking points that the GOP otherwise may not have had.

On top of that, I think the style of the British Parliament is kinda awesome. Spirited debate with a bit of spice isn’t always a bad thing. It is not the process our Congress uses, and I understand that. But, seeing the jokes on Glenn’s site about a transition to that style did crack me up.

Ultimately, Wilson will pay a price for his outburst. Daily Kos and ActBlue mobilized to use it as an opportunity to raise more than $100,000 for his Democratic challenger over night. Some members of Congress are calling for formal punishments. His district is a fairly solid GOP area (PVI R+9). But between the negative attention that Wilson will attract to South Carolina, along with the fiasco that is Mark Sanford, hopefully the Republican voters don’t feel too beaten down by 2010.

Pretty Picture

I would refer to this picture as a moment of zen, but since it is a dying star, there’s probably very little zen-like about it.

Click to enlarge.