Year: 2009

AHSA Making a Bad Bet

Over at the AHSA Facebook site, Ray Schoenke says:

The truth is the lower courts of appeals are supposed to follow precedent. That is what Sotomayor did. When she’s a supreme court justice, she will follow the precedent set by heller, and hopefully incorporate the right as fundamental to ALL STATES.

Except you’re ignoring evidence that she doesn’t believe in incorporation at all.  Understand Ray, that means something.  Are you really willing to stake the reputation of your organization (not that is has much of one) on Sotomayor ruling in favor of incorporation when the issue comes before the Court?  That seems like a lousy bet to me.

But on the issue at hand, he’s correct.  Sotomayor was bound by precedent to rule the way she did in Maloney.  In Nordyke, the 9th Circuit case, the Court of Appeals had the option of proceeding forward with analysis of the Second Amendment under the due process clause because that path had not been closed by prior circuit precedent.  Now, a circuit court can overturn its own precedent, but only in an En Banc hearing.

If it hadn’t been for Bach vs. Pataki, it might have been possible for the panel in Maloney to take a more detailed look at incorporation, and whether Presser vs. Illinois is still binding, but Bach vs. Pataki shuts the door on how much a panel can do.  Because in Bach, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals did not address the issue of the Second Amendment being an individual right or not, and only focused on application to the states through the 14th amendment, Heller can’t really be seen as overuling Bach.

None of this means that Sotomayor believes the Second Amendment should be incorporated.  We have some evidence that she does not believe this.  It’s a question she will have to answer in her confirmation hearings.  The fact that Ray Schoenke is already jumping on board the Sotomayor train, before we’ve had an adequate opportunity to flesh out her views in a hearing, tells me that AHSA is not a serious gun rights group, but is rather a shill for the Democratic party.  Any real gun rights group would be supremely cautious about Sonya Sotomayor.

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False Flag Operation on Sotomayor

A guy claiming to be just your ordinary gun owner, but is really a heavy Democratic Donor and a professor at an Idaho University, says no one should listen to us crazy gun people when it comes to Sotomayor.  I guess he’s been getting his AHSA newsletter.

Started with Joe, who notes this guy isn’t like any other Idaho gun owner he knows, worked over to Thirdpower, who discovers he’s a big Democrat donor, and then Caleb, who notices he’s a liar too.

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Mike Cox Fires Back at the Free Press

Mike Cox, Attorney General of Michigan:

The Free Press failed to mention that 34 attorneys general signed on to the NRA’s challenge of Chicago’s strict gun ban, including both Democrats and Republicans. This isn’t about politics; it’s about standing up for principle.

It may come as news to the Free Press, but this office files amicus briefs all the time to protect the rights of the state and its citizens. For example, this office has filed amicus briefs in support of the Big Three auto industry and tougher standards to protect the Great Lakes.

[…]

I make no apologies for my support of the Constitution and the Second Amendment.

Good on him for not backing down.

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Fun Guns

Smith and Wesson are making a blue state compliant version of their .22LR M&P AR-15s.  This should be welcome news for those behind enemy lines.  Also, in what no doubt will make Bryan Miller weep, Tactilite is making an .50BMG upper for the AR-15.  I’ve seen other .50BMG uppers for the AR platform, but this one looks pretty good.  It’s bolt action.  At $1550 dollars, it’s a cheap way to get into long range .50BMG shooting.  If I lived out West, I’d think about it, but we don’t have ranges around here long enough to make a .50BMG anything other than an expensive toy.

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There’s a saying …

… about bourgeois Bostonians, who wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, terrified at the prospect that there might be people out there having fun.  That, in a nutshell, is northeastern leftism, and for the better part of a century that’s been the predominate philosophy in Washington D.C.

I suppose that’s why the Environmental Protection Agency thinks it’s time to crack down on boaters:

A proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency has boating organizations up in arms. Those organizations are now asking individual boaters for help in letting the EPA know the idea of allowing introduction of a new fuel that has not been independently tested in marine engines isn’t a good one. […]

That was proposed in March after Growth Energy, a pro-ethanol group collected fifty four other groups and petitioned the EPA to allow what is a fifty-percent bump in ethanol and reclassify E-10 fuel as E-15.

The boating industry is highly cyclical. When economic times get tough, people stop buying boats, and start selling them.  It’s devastating to the boating industry.  This is only going to make things worse.  Hope and change, folks.  Hope and change.  This Congress and Administration aren’t about jobs.  It’s about making middle class folks pay for our sins.  A permanently reduced standard of living will be our penance.

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ACLU Supporting a Gun Lawsuit?

Really? I’d have to find out whether it’s the national ACLU or the state chapter.  Some of the state chapters are not hostile toward gun rights.  If it’s the national ACLU, perhaps they are coming around.

UPDATE: Not a gun lawsuit, but search and seizure.

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Bi-Partisan Amendment to Save Pocket Knives

Knife Rights is reporting that an amendment has been introduced to stop the Customs enforcement of new regulations that would reclassify many types of common pocket knives as switchblades:

We now have a a bi-partisan amendment that has the critical support from the Senate committees which have responsibility for the FSA and which is endorsed by the Administration (Customs and Border Production have signed off on it). That gives it a very good chance of making it through the process, but first we have to get it voted into the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill.

They are asking people to write their senators and ask them to support it.  The amendment basically adds a specific exception to the Federal Switchblade Act for assisted opening folding knives.

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Pro-Gun Bill Enacted in Delaware?

And signed by Jack Markell? A few days after Jerry Brown signs onto Second Amendment incorporation?  Did NRA launch a leftist mind control satellite with all that money they are making by scamming people into paying for DVDs they didn’t order?  If so, can they turn it on Fast Eddie next?

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