2009 – Page 49 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Newsday Upset Gun Owners are Normal

Verne Gay of Newsday, which serves Long Island, is pretty upset with a Colorado gun shop owner for showing gun owners are normal, every day people, rather than living up to their prejudices of gun owners:

Yeah, the first thought that comes to mind is “Bowling for Columbine.” Right state, same general idea – a sort of candid look into the heart and mind of people who like the feel of hard, cold steel in their hands.Â Michael Moore, of course, wanted to expose the horrors ofÂ gun ownership. Ryan apparently wants to expose the bores. And dull these heat-packers are – rattling on about their favorite Glock, or piece with the best kick, or weaponry that might scare off intruders by sight or sound alone. Oh, for just one wild-eyed, heavily inked, badly scarred, deeply disturbed maniac to wander in off the street, and thereby instantly confirm all our worst fears. Instead, we get some slightly bent soccer moms and dads debriefed by an impossibly cheery, cheesy, chummy game-show host. Showtime must have thought there would be great humor and irony in the mundane exchanges recorded here. But it miscalculated. Badly.

I’m sorry we don’t live up to your stereotypes, and feed your prejudices and irrational fears, Mr. Gay. I really am. I do have one promise for you, though. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure the same type of people you see in “Lock and Load” can live in Long Island, as your friends and neighbors, and still enjoy the same Second Amendment rights. Maybe then you’ll give up the hate when you can no longer count on the unconstitutional gun laws of the City and State of New York to insulate you from people who have a different ideas about how to live.

Dems Looking For a Way Forward on DC Voting

Looks like, in order to avoid having to give DC residents their Second Amendment rights back, the Democratic leadership in the House is going to attach DC voting rights to a defense spending bill. To do that, the Democrats will have to waive House Rules, which prohibit legislation or amendment implementing legislation in appropriations bills. This is a bit of a desperate measure, meaning that Pelosi hates the Second Amendment that much.

We Have Bigger Problems than This

Maybe I’m a hell of a lot more socially liberal than your average Republican, but when we have Maoists in the White House, this just doesn’t seem to be a really big deal. I mean, I wouldn’t say an adultÂ should condone a kid in his mid to late teens having a relationship with an older person, but if it wasn’t another teacher, or anyone else known to the adult, I’m not sure what conservatives are expecting here. I’m also not sure what this has to do with any “homosexual agenda” that is a favorite of conservatives.

I don’t expect Republicans to come out in favor of gay marriage, or to embrace gay sex in the streets, or anything like that. But beating up on gays when it’s politically convenient might win them votes for now, but it’s killing them with people under 30.

You Have to be From Philly to Get This Joke

Gizmodo is featuring these fun fire screens where you can have the city of Rome, or City of London silhouetting your fire. Â First commenter on this says:

As a Philly native, I’m holding out for the Ogontz Ave. rowhomes, circa 1985.

Not very tasteful, but then again, neither is the city. For those of you not familiar, see here. BTW, it was Osage Ave, not Ogontz.

Top Rifles?

Caleb has his list. I think it depends on what criteria you use, and it would be important not to mix criteria. Does one mean which rifles had the greatest impact technology wise? Market success? Or the greatest impact on warfare? It would seem to me that Caleb’s list is more the latter two, but I will go for the former. You’d have to take into some account the commercial or military success of the design, since a one off design can’t be said to have much overall impact even if it was innovative. So I’ll have a go:

Some overlap with Caleb’s list, but not a whole lot. I like the Ruger 10/22, but I don’t think it was particularly revolutionary when it was introduced in 1964, as there were other blowback operated semi-automatic rifles out there by then. As much as I love shooting my AR-15, and can’t deny its long service to the US and other militaries, it’s still just a variant of a gas powered semi-automatic rifle, even though it’s a rather innovative one. The Brown Bess I take issue with because it is not a rifle. I agree with Steve that the AK-47 is deserving, but Kalashnikov wasn’t trying a whole lot that hadn’t been tried before, so it wouldn’t make my top five.

Fifth Circuit Ruling Upholds Post Office Ban

Eugene Volokh has the story here, and notes:

The reasoning, Iâ€™m afraid, is pretty sketchy; it may well be, for instance, that the Second Amendment rule applicable to the government acting as proprietor should be less protective than the rule applicable to the government acting as sovereign, controlling behavior on private property. Thatâ€™s certainly so in large measure for the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and substantive due process. But it doesnâ€™t follow that thereâ€™s no protection offered by the Second Amendment there; that, I think, should take more argument. Nor is it clear that the â€œsensitive placesâ€ exception fromÂ Heller should cover parking lots as well as buildings â€”Â Heller itself, of course, was quite opaque about the scope of this exception, but I wish that courts applying it went into somewhat more analysis about what makes a place â€œsensitiveâ€ enough to justify gun bans.

Another case of the courts just citing Heller without doing any serious analysis. This opinion is considered “unpublished” which means it does not have precedential value.

UPDATE: Just to make it clear what I think Prof. Volokh is speaking about here, the government may exercise power as a proprietor, and eject someone carrying a firearm from its premises, but when it brings criminal charges unrelated to the exercise of its property rights, it exercises its power as a sovereign, to punish the deed of carrying a gun in a government building.

More Proof They Hate Us

Via SayUncle, it appears that H&K has settled their lawsuit against German Sports Gun for the GSG-5. There will be no more imported into the United States. I should have picked one up before they become collectors items.

Clayton Cramer on the 14th Amendment

Clayton has a very good article up over at Pajama’s Media, and it discusses a topic we spoke about a bit yesterday, namely whether the Court will choose to incorporate the Second Amendment through the traditional due process clause, or the privileges or immunities clause:

This could be a momentous decision. I can understand why the Supreme Court might look at the mess it will create if it admits that all of these previous selective incorporation decisions were wrongly made â€” because so much of our current society is based on these decisions. Perhaps they will decide to incorporate the Second Amendment through privileges or immunities and pretend that the results are pretty much the same either way. The results, however, will provoke a firestorm of suits seeking clarification, of that I can assure you.

I would imagine the Court can overturn Cruikshank without overturning its due process based decisions, and make a reasonable argument that incorporation can be reached through both mechanisms. But Clayton is right about the potential mess the Court could make if it choose the privileges or immunities path. Clayton speaks about one complication in regards to corporations, but there’s another complication as well. Is the right to be indicted by a grand jury amoung the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States? It would certainly appear so, but the Supreme Court has never incorporated the right to be indicted by a grand jury, a positive right rather than a recognition of a natural right, against the states. Pennsylvania is one state that does not use grand juries to bring criminal charges, except in rare circumstances, though the other states in the Third Circuit, New Jersey and Delaware, both do.

It’s the complications that overturning Cruikshank presents that makes me skeptical the Court will want to go there, but I’m holding out hope.

More Communists in the White House

Well, I guess we already had one, what’s another? Can we all agree that we ought not have people in the White House who look to mass murderers when it comes to seeking guidance? Why is it OK to say you look up to Chairman Mao? If she had said the same thing about Hitler, what would the reaction have been?

She needs to be fired. There is no room for people like this in the American government.

No Gun Control Law Too Reasonable

Can there be any doubt that the Brady Campaign has never met a gun control law that’s not eminently reasonable, and common sensical, no matter what effect we may tell you it will have on legitimate hunters and shooters? Try finding odd calibers or match grade ammunition at your local corner gun shop. For a lot of competitive shooters, especially cowboy shooters, mail order is really your only option, and now Governor Arnold just told those people they don’t matter.

I can tell you, without my regular mail order houses, there’s no way I could find everything I need easily. The local gun shops are often poorly stocked with reloading supplies, and the nearest Cabela’s is 100 miles away. Even if you think it makes sense to regulate loaded ammunition, it makes zero sense to regulate components, because criminals are not going to hand load their ammunition. That was purely a fuck you to law abiding gun owners from the Brady Campaign and Governor Schwarzenegger. Â Seriously guys, you might as well have elected Bustamante at this rate.

And guys like MikeB still want to insist there’s no hidden agenda here? Hell, it’s not even really that hidden!

UPDATE: Arizona is reporting that NRA is going to try for a repeal of this ammunition law.

UPDATE: Attractive Nuisance is reporting that the situation in California is even worse, because many areas in California are not serviced by gun shops at all. It’s a similar situation to most other highly restrictive states. You get a few restrictions in place, and gun owners either leave or give up the sport, which makes less demand for shooting related products, so shops close. Now you have the gun owners left in a precarious political situation, so you squeeze them more, then more, then more, until you’ve eradicated the right. You don’t have to make guns illegal to convince people to give up owning and using them. The other side is well aware of that.