We’ll have to try again next year. For this year, the Democrats have in charge of the House have announced there will be no more voting sessions this year. Next year the Republicans will control both houses. Let’s hope we can move a clean bill through both chambers, where Governor Corbett is sure to sign it.
Month: November 2010
Golden Moose
Michael Bane is trying to get a Golden Moose award. Who wouldn’t want a gold moose? It can appeal to both your inner hunter and inner survivalist both at the same time. Go vote here.
Denying 2A Rights for Habitual Drunkards
New Jersey law can prevent someone from keeping and bearing arms because of being a “habitual drunkard.” The Hunterdon County Democrat explains how this works in at least one case. Is such a restriction constitutional? I think the way this has been handled by New Jersey should be.
No one should lose or be denied a right in a case where it’s an arbitrary prior restraint applied by the police, or a mere administrative determination. But conceptually it’s difficult to see how this is much different than prohibitions against people who have been involuntarily adjudicated mentally defective. Provided the right cannot be removed except after due process through a court proceeding, and provided the prohibition lasts only as long as the condition, it’s hard to see under what grounds it differs from the prohibitions against the mentally ill.
Legislative Priorities in the 112th Congress
I don’t know what NRA is thinking, but I’m thinking our two top priorities need to be:
- Trying again for national reciprocity.
- Federal preemption of state and local gun bans.
I know that NRA probably also wants to push ATF reform, and I agree this is important, but these two issues can be carried out using Congress’ Section 5 enforcement powers under the 14th Amendment. There is court precedent in the case of City of Boerne v. Flores, which stated that Congress did not have enforcement powers that were more broad than the Court has established. Justice Kennedy’s opinion from that case:
Legislation which alters the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause cannot be said to be enforcing the Clause. Congress does not enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is. It has been given the power “to enforce,” not the power to determine what constitutes a constitutional violation.
There have been subsequent cases backing up this one, which could make both of these legislative actions problematic. But I am not one to believe the Supreme Court’s rulings were chiseled on stone tablets brought down from Mount Horeb. There is language in Heller to support both of these. Let the Congress tell the Supreme Court what they think the breadth of the Second Amendment is, and let the Supreme Court tell the elected branches of government why that is not the case. Personally, I think they’ll be very reluctant to overturn Congress’ determination.
I believe these two items are more important than ATF reform because they put us on the offensive in the Courts, rather than the defensive. Rather than having to justify why certain restrictions are unconstitutional, we leave our opponents arguing why an Act of Congress is beyond its Section 5 powers under the 14th Amendment. ATF reform is great, but it doesn’t help us much in our struggle to define the meaning of the Second Amendment, which is the most important thing we’re facing right now.
A Right to Keep and Bear Ammunition
Decided by the DC Court of Appeals. Dave Hardy notes that a few years ago, this would have been unthinkable.
Voting Jobs Away
It seems that the employees of Olin who work in a plant making centerfire ammunition decided to send their jobs down to Mississippi and out of Illinois. The company apparently gave the union a second chance to vote on contracts, but the workers still said no.
One big issue appears to have been cutting out the fifth week of vacation. Five freakin’ weeks of vacation. Because an entire month at four weeks is just not enough. Most of the workers interviewed don’t seem to care that they are losing their jobs. One expressed a bit of sanity and pointed out that a fifth week of vacation can’t compete with being able to keep his job that he’s held for 11 years. Maybe they could offer him a nice relocation package and a promotion to train the hundreds of new hires in Mississippi. Sanity should be rewarded.
Self Absorption
It takes a special kind of hubris to wake up one morning and decide that what this world is lacking is your visionary leadership, and an even more perfectly-distilled narcissism to think that if millions of people don’t like you, the problem is with all of them.
Pretty much. It occurred to me this election how I’d feel to have a group of people surrounding me with my name on buttons, stickers, hats, all cheering me on and chanting my name. Answer? Pretty damned awkward. In fact, creepy would probably be a better word. I don’t think I could ever be comfortable with it. Would you be? Think about the kind of person who would be comfortable with it, and you see the issue.
That’s not to say there aren’t politicians out there motivated by public service, but you have to have a bit of a narcissistic streak to want this kind of job. I’ve generally found office holders at the state and local level tend to be more real people. The higher you go, the more perfectly distilled the narcissism. Makes sense if you think about it. In a state level race at best you’ll get a room loosely filled with people cheering you on. Many of them will be friends and people you know. But imagine a Greek themed stadium full of people, all set up just for you, projecting their hopes, dreams and aspirations onto you, all because you can read a mean speech from a teleprompter. That’s a fundamental flaw in the human species that transcends politics.
Brady Goes Down to Defeat
Normally, I’d love writing that headline, but not for this particular Brady. The prospects for getting a pro-gun Governor of Illinois are very dim now, and as Bitter mentioned, the state House race we put the most effort into this year lost by 99 votes. Ninety-nine votes. This would have replaced an anti-gun Democrat with a pro-gun Republican. Despite winning in every other race, this one still stings. It would have been a great pickup for gun rights in our district, and in Pennsylvania. Never believe one vote doesn’t count, or one person can’t make a difference. Had I been able to send one or two more people to help out this campaign, we might have been able to make up those ninety-nine votes.
Can Condos Ban Guns?
It’s an interesting question, and it’s coming up in New Jersey. I’ve often heard of homeowners associations banning signage, or dictating what color you paint your house. But can they ban guns, or otherwise infringe on civil liberties? There’s quite a lot of confusion about how civil rights law is applied within the gun rights community, but it seems to me you might be able to sue the homeowners association under 18 USC 1595, which provides for civil action against violators of the Civil Rights Act, namely 18 USC 241, conspiracy against rights. Civil Rights Law isn’t something I’m an expert on, so maybe this isn’t actionable, but unlike pure advocacy against gun rights, which is not considered a legal conspiracy, actually preventing people, or conspiring to prevent people, from exercising a constitutional right would seem to be to be unlawful activity under the Civil Rights Act, and subject to civil as well as criminal penalties.
UPDATE: Thinking about it more, if you were a prospective homeowner, coming into an association that banned guns, you probably don’t have a case, because you willingly agreed to surrender your rights. If you were an existing homeowner within an association, and that association votes to ban guns, I think you may have a case. You may have contracted to abide by the dictates of the homeowners association when you bought the house, but I think a reasonable argument could be made that can’t extend so far as to deprive one of constitutional rights.
Right on Cue
The Bradys are beginning their bid to win back the support of the Democratic Party by arguing that NRA was hapless to save endorsed Democrats this election. I will retort back that this election was not about gun control or gun rights. In races where gun control groups tried to press the issue, they were defeated severely, such as in Pennsylvania, and in Virginia.