Right to Carry Still Alive in Iowa

The Iowa Senate overwhelmingly passed a right-to-carry bill, and now the debate is moving on to the house. The biggest opposition is actually coming from our own side, who is pushing a Vermont carry bill. Vermont carry is a non-starter. It’s not going to pass. GOA and its state affiliates have consistently been willing to let the perfect be the enemy of the good in state after state by opposing bills that stand a good chance of passing, and will make life measurably better for gun owners, and pushing bill that have zero change of passage. The best thing for Iowa is to pass this now, and we’ll work on Vermont carry in states where it’s feasible to push that agenda, such as Arizona currently.

Going on the Offensive

I mentioned last week that we were going to start profiling pro-gun campaigns that could use a financial lift on our activist site – PAGunRights.com. Last week’s race was chosen because it’s a pro-gun seat at risk to be taken over by an extremely anti-gun opponent. But this week’s race, well, we’re going on the offensive. We’re aiming to boot an unpopular anti-gun Republican out of the state house.

We got this tip from a fellow NRA EVC who has a volunteer who decided that if their elected representative wasn’t going to represent the district, someone would challenge him. So with that, Jonathan Jenkins decided to step up and run against the anti-gunner himself.

The incumbent is a D- rated Republican. He did technically win the local party’s endorsement over Jenkins, but only on the 3rd ballot by the minimum number of votes needed after much wrangling once he realized his local folks weren’t too happy. While normally I would view a primary challenger who can’t get support from the local folks as a near impossibility, I think the number of ballots it took to get to the bare minimum for endorsement shows that there’s something good going on in the district. With resources, Jenkins can get his message out to the Republican voters and get the district back on the right track.

So if you have a few bucks to spare, he could use it and we could actually make gains in Harrisburg with the right kind of Republican candidates. If you’re anywhere near the area, I’m sure his campaign could use some more feet on the ground.

More Constitutional Amendment Suggestions

Randy Barnett has a different variation on a federalism amendment. Section two is the one I find most interesting:

Section 2. Whenever two thirds of the Governors of the several States concur, they may rescind any law or regulation of the United States, or they may propose amendments to this Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.

I actually would suggest something even a little more radical. To allow the state legislatures of just 1/5th of the several states, which would be ten states currently, to propose repealing federal laws by putting the matter to a referendum vote. So if ten states vote to, say, repeal ObamaCare, it would go on the ballot to be voted on by the people. It would look something like this:

Section 2. Whenever one fifth of the legislatures of the several states shall concur, they may propose to rescind a law the United States, which shall be rescinded for all intents and purposes, whenever the people in two thirds of the states shall approve through direct vote, to be held on the election day for members of the United States Congress, according to the law of each state in which the ballot measure shall be held.

I think the barrier to amending the constitution needs to be pretty high, but I’m not too concerned about the people being able to rescind federal laws, especially if they are unpopular. What do you think?

Dozens, Thousands, What’s the Difference?

CNN apparently reported that “dozens” or maybe “hundreds” of people attending the Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nevada, which featured Sarah Palin as the speaker. You can find pictures from the American Border Patrol here, which show just how small the crowd really is. As Bruce notes, “[I]t’s not a lie to describe 10,000+ people as ‘dozens’. Just as its not a lie to say Nome, Alaska is ‘within walking distance’ to Miami – it’s just a shitload of walking.” These people are going to be in for a rude awakening come November.

The Chicago Way

So what’s the big deal about Sarah Palin saying “reload” when someone has clearly educated Obama in the Chicago Way.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0RLyxP13o[/youtube]

Say what you will, but I consider this progress in terms of bringing Obama around to the idea of gun rights.

Hat Tip to Instapundit.

First Amendment Implication in DC Court Ruling?

A very good discussion going on at Volokh on the DC ruling. It gets into the comments a bit about whether guns painted a certain color could be ban. It’s argued that could be a first amendment issue. Someone in the comments brings in the funny with:

What we need is for someone to come up with a “Bong hits 4 Jesus” durocoat.

I’m sure that the folks at Lauer will get right on that. Oh, if you don’t get that reference, just click here. Unfortunately that argument lost :)

Stick to History Professor

I demand the arrest of Thomas William Heyck, professor of History at Northwestern University for this vicious and seditious attack on the Second Amendment. Because clearly the right to free speech only applies to goose quill and parchment! None of this newfangled Internets.

The Great 0.0000013%

The media doesn’t seem to want to let go of this story of threats of violence and broken windows in the wake of health care. It fits their narrative of the Tea Party and other various persons opposed a government takeover of health care being dangerous extremists, so why not hype it up? Conveniently ignored is the fact that there are just as many bozos on the left doing this stuff, and that have been doing this stuff, for years. Just be thankful it wasn’t a free trade agreement getting passed out of Congress!

But I also notice when the call goes out, the great three percent turns out to be the great 0.0000013%. That’s not enough people to have a decent game of baseball let alone enough to fight a revolution. I stand by my assertion that the entire movement is a way to remain emotionally satisfied while sitting on one’s posterior and doing nothing to actually help vote these bozos out of office, and keep voting them out of office until we start pushing back Leviathan.

Heller II Fails First Round

In US District Court in the D.C. Circuit, DC’s restrictions on guns as they currently are have been upheld. You can find the opinion here. I think this is wrong, but it’s worth noting that the original Heller case, then known as Parker v. DC failed at the District Court level too, but won on appeal. No guarantee this happens here, however.

For a lot of reasons, I’m not too enthusiastic about proceeding forward at this point with challenges to assault weapons bans. Let’s get the court to say a bit more about the right first, before opening that whole can of worms. I agree the common use test here should easily protect them, but just because it’s correct doesn’t mean that’s what the courts will do.

UPDATE: Just skimming, this is an awful ruling. No attempt was made to determine whether DC’s state public safety goals with their ridiculous gun control scheme could be achieved with a lesser level of infringement. It’s hard to see what gun control law would fail this level of scrutiny applied by the District Court.