2010 – Page 114 – Shall Not Be Questioned

What Color is the Constitution in Eleanor Norton’s World?

So says Eleanor Holmes Norton in a press release, opposing exemptions to DCs gun laws for active duty military:

“It is difficult to understand the obsession by some members of Congress with a congressional district that is not their own.Â Worse, neither Mr. Gingrey, nor any other member of Congress, would tolerate interference with the local laws of their district.Â Neither will I,” Norton said.Â “However, Mr. Gingrey’s aim is transparent: to score political points at the expense of residents of the nation’s capital.”

Not their own? I could swear there being something in my copy of the constitution about Congress having the power, “To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States,” among other things. I don’t know what color the Constitution is in Eleanor Holmes Norton’s world, not even speaking of the sky, but Congress is vested by the constitution with ultimate authority over the District of Columbia, which means what goes on in The District, especially when it comes to constitutional issues, is most definitely Congress’ business.

DC Trying to Screw Gura on Attorneys Fees

Basically they don’t want to pay up. Alan Gura, understandably, wants to be paid. It’s important that Gura win this, not just for his own sake, but for ours as well. DC should have to pay the cost of defending an unconstitutional law, and that has to include reasonable fees for the person who challenges them.

The fact that this is getting some public play is also good. That 3.5 million dollar price tag DC is getting slapped with will be noticed by other state or municipalities, and that might make them decide to just fold rather than proceeding forward with a court case and losing. I look forward to Mr. Gura pursuing Chicago for attorneys fees if we prevail there. The idea of Chicago having to fork over a seven figure check is even sweeter than DC having to do it.

Mother Jones Not Happy With Obama on AWB

They seem to be upset that even after Calderon’s speech before Congress, that Obama still doesn’t want to touch the assault weapons issue. There’s a great irony, also, in the photo Mother Jones chose for their article. The rifle appearing is a South Korean assault rifle made by Daewoo, which has never been lawful to import into the United States for civilian use. There is a semi-automatic variant called the DR-200, but they were made illegal for importation into the United States in 1997 because they were determined to be non-sporting under the Gun Control Act of 1968. There are very few of those in the country. Obama hasn’t reversed that determination. If you’re going to pick a firearm to illustrate the point that Obama won’t ban assault weapons, it’s probably best not to pick one that’s already banned, and still banned.

Gun Debate Breaks out in Finland

Looks familiar to anyone in this country:

A pro-weapons advocate, Otso Vainio claims that the hysterical media has distorted the scope of the problem.

â€œThe [average] amount of people killed with legal guns in Finland, I canâ€™t remember exact figures, but it was two point something annually. Thirty-nine people die from the heat of the sauna annually.â€

The gun debate will continue to divide Finland, but if further shooting tragedies happen, it may eventually spur Finnish lawmakers to make citizens surrender their firearms.

If the Finns want to keep their guns, they are going to have to fight to keep them. One of the big problems I think European gun owners have had is they fall backÂ reflexivelyÂ to the sporting position. The problem with that is, no one is going to agree to preserve your sport over what they see as social ills. Pit sports against the public good and sports are going to lose.

It becomes a very different argument when you frame it as removing people’s ability to defend their own lives. Having spoken with some Europeans about this issue, I will say I don’t know how much this will resonate with them versus how much it resonates with Americans. Some Europeans I’ve spoken with are very committed to the idea that protection is a community function rather than an individual function. In the US, even fairly liberal, lefty people fundamentally believe in the right to use lethal force in self-protection, even if they aren’t completely comfortable with the idea of guns. A big aspect to our success here has been to get ourselves on the side of individual self-protection, and our opponents on the other side of that debate. In any political struggle, you want to pass your position off as the mainstream position, and paint your opponent as a nutty extremist. What’s the issue in Finland? I don’t know. Defense against bears maybe? Then there’s also this kind of bear, which has occasionally been known to wander into Finland.

Wilmington Housing Authority Gets Sued

There’s been pressure put on the Wilmington Housing Authority trying to get them to remove the gun ban language from their leases. It would seem that asking nicely didn’t work, soÂ NRA is filing suit against them.

This sort of ties into the previous post aboutÂ privilegeÂ vs. right. Obviously no one has a right to live in public housing either, really. But how much of a condition may the government impose? If it’s ruled that public housing bans are unconstitutional, it would give more ammunition to a case like the one in the previous post.

Banning Guns in a Household as Probationary Condition

Eugene Volokh links to an interesting case in California:

The prosecution had asked that Javier be placed in a juvenile â€œcamp,â€ â€œplacement in light of appellantâ€™s gang involvement and prior history,â€ but the juvenile court sentenced Javier to probation and â€œhouse arrestâ€ but with a condition: â€œI want no weapons anymore at your house. Dad, Iâ€™m sorry, no weapons, none.â€ (This apparently referred to â€œguns or other deadly or dangerous weapons.â€) And the Court of Appeal upheld this, on the grounds that this was â€œreasonable in light of the facts that appellant was on probation at the time of the charged offense for possession of a firearm and had admitted to participating in gang activity.â€

This is a difficult question, as to whether this would be constitutional. What makes it questionable is the voluntary nature of the probation. The father could presumably retain his rights and let the kid serve a sentence in juvie. You have a right to a gun, but you don’t have a right to probation. How much can the court condition the exercise of a right on receiving a privilege from the state? One useful way to look at how we condition rights on other stateÂ privileges, like free speech for example, versus holding a government job.

This is especially true if you look at this in the free speech context. In some of the Court’s early free speech cases, the courts were pretty deferential to government conditioning the job privilege on limiting free speech rights, with Oliver Wendel Holmes saying, “There may be a constitutional right to talk politics, but there is no constitutional right to be a policeman.”

But modern free speech doctrine does protect a government employees right to free speech. In later cases, beginning in 1967, the Court extended protections for the speech of government employees when they speak on matters of public concern. But it’s important to note that the speech of government employees still does not enjoy the same protections, in terms of the government being able to fire you, that you would enjoy as a private citizen. The government can still fire individuals for certain exercises of what would normally be free speech.

Applied to the gun context, it would seem that the government couldn’t condition not owning a gun in exchange for the privilege of a government job. It strikes me that a probation case involving a juvenile isn’t really that clean an analogy, especially when it was a firearm involved in the original offense. I suspect something like this wouldn’t be constitutional under all circumstances, but under some it might be. This one might be.

Small Victory for PA Gun Clubs that Serve Food

SB 828, the bill to exempt non-profit, home preparation of certain foods from inspection requirements, has passed the House and Senate and is on its way to Governor Rendell for signature. It’s being reported in the Beaver County Times, but it does exempt Sportsman’s clubs in the bill specifically, in addition to any 501(c)(3).

My club shut down its kitchen a long time ago because of the problem of public health inspection. ~~Clubs similarly situated should be able to reopen without running afoul of state law, or having to undergo licensing and public health inspection~~. It ~~was~~Â is rather silly to require this anyway. It’s a private club, not a commercial kitchen, and most gun cubs do not operate kitchens for profit, but rather forÂ convenience.

UPDATE: Looking at the bill a bit further, the exception is fairly limited. It only applies to food made in private homes, and then only foods not deemed potentially hazardous. I was hoping this was a broader exemption, but it would appear to not apply to club kitchens. But it does exempt food made at home, provided they are not potentially hazardous. If you look at the definition for “potentially hazardous,” it’s a relatively simple definition involving charts and tables.

So this really doesn’t exempt much. But there are at least some foods that would be exempt, like baked goods. I’ve altered the title to reflect reality. Sorry for jumping the gun on this one. Originally this bill was much better than it ended up.

Commonwealth Club of California Holds OC Forum

I’m kind of boggled why California has something called the “Commonwealth Club”, when only Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Massachusetts go by that title, but they are holding a forum on the open carry issue generally, and the bill to outlaw it specifically, in both San Francisco and the second in Lafayette. See the link if you’d like to attend.

What Not to Do

Shooting at fleeing suspects is generally going to get you into a lot of trouble, as this guy in Oregon just discovered. Oregon does permit one to use deadly force to stop a felony, but only while it’s attempting to be committed. Once the felony is already carried out and the perps are fleeing the scene, you can’t shoot to prevent flight unless you’re a police officer.

Miracle Cures

SayUncle wonders why with all the press about miracle cures, life is still pretty much putting up with horrible diseases until finally one kills you. I actually most like this explanation for how these stories end up in the media, from the comment section over at Uncle’s. I don’t blog much about work topics, mostly because they pay me to make computers solve drug discovery problems, and I don’t like mixing work and hobby. But I can speak on this topic a bit.

The short answer is that taking breakthrough scientific discoveries and turning them into a pill your doctor can prescribe you is a very difficult, long path that spans more than a decade typically, and that assumes you’re successful in the end, which you probably won’t be.Â As much as libertarians will want to blame the FDA for this, the FDA isn’t really entirely responsible for this state of affairs. That’s not to say the FDA is blameless, but, for the most part, the problem is rooted in the fact that most of the easy drugable targets have been hit already, and what the industry is left with are harder problems.

Moreover the current industry paradigm for discovering drugs is poorly suited to more difficult targets. The best way I can put it is that if our industry built airplanes, we’d throw thousands of workers at the problem, without too much of a plan, assembling parts and hurtling them up in the air to see if they flew. Do that enough, eventually you’ll probably get some hastily assembled hunk of metal to fly for a bit. But it’s not very efficient at getting a final product. When the industry was hugely profitable, and easy targets were plentiful, this was a successful model. When the problem got harder — we not only need planes that can glide for a bit, we need jetliners — that method no longer works. The problem is, the industry is just starting to figure this out, but they don’t have a paradigm to replace it yet. We still don’t really know how to build airplanes in a systematic way, going back to the analogy.

There have been companies that have developed a more systematic way to discover new compounds that can hit more difficult targets. I currently work for a company that is trying to do drug discovery using supercomputers (which is where I come in). But even doing things this way just offers you a better chance at success. It doesn’t automatically make getting a pill your doctor can prescribe you an easy problem. In the mean time, the industry is in the process of imploding, as patents run out and pipelines dry up. There aren’t enough new drugs to replace what’s going off patent, and that is going to have an effect on research into new drugs.

So where does the FDA come in? The FDA approval process is a significant reason why investigational new drugs fail. Most of the times drugs fail this process, it’s for good reasons, like a really poor side effect profile, which is a nice way of saying the drug slowly cooks your liver, or damages your heart (think Vioxx). Other reasons are that they aren’tÂ efficacious. And having watched this process happen, I can tell you if the FDA approval process, or something like it, weren’t in place, the industryÂ would put drugs on the market that kill people. Not because we’re evil, but because it’s relatively easy to convince yourself of things that aren’t necessarily true, fail to do the right tests, and overlook things. The problem with the FDA is they’ve take their primary role and taken it way beyond basic safety andÂ efficacy. The joke is you couldn’t get Tylenol approved today (toxic to the liver in doses not much higher than theÂ therapeuticÂ dose) nor could you getÂ AspirinÂ (promotes gastrointestinalÂ hemorrhaging) approved, even though both are generally regarded as safe by the FDA. To me the FDA’s role is essentially to prevent fraud — if you’re marketing a drug to do X, and saying it’s safe and effective, you need to prove that first. Obviously a drug that fries your liver shouldn’t be acceptable. But there are many cases where the FDA is taking their mission way beyond what’s good for society as a whole, and are erring way too much on the side of caution. That’s good for covering the asses of bureaucrats, but not too good for getting life altering and life saving treatments into people’s hands.