Year: 2010

From Glenn Reynolds’s article on gun rights becoming normal:

For gun rights activists, that has both upsides and downsides. On the one hand, it means that some gun-control laws, at least, will now be found unconstitutional. Most of the work of doing this will be done by lower courts, which have traditionally been pretty dismissive of Second Amendment rights, but there’s some sign that lower courts are taking things more seriously since Heller, and this case is likely to reinforce things considerably. Chicago’s existing anti-gun ordinance is very likely to be struck down now, as it is virtually the same as the D.C. gun ban struck down in Heller. Other highly restrictive laws are also likely to fall.

On the other hand, if gun-rights activists sit back and expect the courts to do their work for them now, they will be sadly disappointed. If pressed with further cases (which Gura says he plans to bring), the courts will do some good. But the primary protection for gun rights up to now, and for all constitutional rights, really, is political. Judicial review was intended by the Framers to be a backup system, not the main source of protection. That was intended to come from the people — and realistically, because if people don’t stand up for their own rights, courts are unlikely to take up the slack for long. (Especially when, as here, the protection comes in a 5-4 decision).

Absolutely. This is not the time for us to just let the courts handle things. SAF is a fine organization, and is doing great work with their litigation strategy. But they are a 501(c)(3), which means they cannot participate in the political process to the degree NRA can. Both groups are important. Professor Reynolds concludes:

Nonetheless, the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions have made a major difference. In particular, they have offset the gun-control community’s longstanding effort to “denormalize” firearms ownership — to portray it as something threatening, deviant, and vaguely perverse, and hence demanding strict regulation, if not outright prohibition. That effort went on for decades, and received much media support. Two decades ago, it seemed to be working.

But with the Supreme Court saying that it’s clear the Framers regarded individual gun ownership as “necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” that effort must be seen as a failure now. Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law. It will stay so, as long as enough Americans care to keep it that way.

Read the whole article. Well worth your time. It’s almost hard to believe this is true, and when I first got into this issue I wouldn’t have believed it. But I’m increasingly believing it is true –they’ve lost this aspect of the culture wars. Now we just need to win broad protection for our rights.

Alan Gura has revealed his next move. This is an interesting case, involving North Carolina’s emergency powers provision, which appears very broad:

In February 2010, the City of King and Stokes County declared a state of emergency due to heavy snowfall and local power outages. The proclamation from the City of King forbade the sale or purchase of firearms and ammunition, as well as the possession of firearms and ammunition off an individual’s premises. If you had a North Carolina Concealed Handgun Permit, it didn’t matter as the state of emergency proclamation superseded it.

This will be interesting to watch, especially after the election. One of NRA’s legislative priorities has been fixing emergency powers provisions in states that have had bad ones. Democratic control of the North Carolina legislature, with anti-gun reps heading up key committees, has prevented substantial improvement in North Carolina law to date. If the North Carolina legislature flips to Republican control, I would expect NRA to move for a legislative fix. I’m not sure if that would moot this case or not. Either way, there’s no reason to not use the Courts, and Gura is always very careful about putting together good cases that win. It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Sensibly Progressive points out that American Hunters and Shooters Association once assured us that Sotomayor was going to be our justice, and presumably we self-defense whackos just needed to quiet down and accept her. Well, as the decision yesterday has shown, she doesn’t believe Americans have a fundamental right to keep a handgun in their home according to our constitution. From the dissent she joined:

In my view, JUSTICE STEVENS has demonstrated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “substantive due process” does not include a general right to keep and bear firearms for purposes of private self-defense. As he argues, the Framers did not write the Second Amendment with this objective in view. See ante, at 41–44 (dissenting opinion). Unlike other forms of substantive liberty, the carrying of arms for that purpose often puts others’ lives at risk. See ante, at 35–37. And the use of arms for private self-defense does not warrant federal constitutional protection from state regulation. See ante, at 44–51.

The Court, however, does not expressly rest its opinion upon “substantive due process” concerns. Rather, it directs its attention to this Court’s “incorporation” precedents and asks whether the Second Amendment right to private self-defense is “fundamental” so that it applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. See ante, at 11–19.

I shall therefore separately consider the question of “incorporation.” I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as “fundamental” insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes. Nor can I find any justification for interpreting the Constitution as transferring ultimate regulatory authority over the private uses of firearms from democratically elected legislatures to courts or from the States to the Federal Government. I therefore conclude that the Fourteenth Amendment does not “incorporate” the Second Amendment’s right “to keep and bear Arms.” And I consequently dissent.

We’ve known for a while the Emperor has no clothes when it comes to AHSA. Now the Emperor’s pasty white skin is blinding people.

I have never heard of the Alyona Show, but apparently it exists on the RT network. and Ladd Everitt from Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and J.P. Freire from the Washington Examiner appeared on it in regards to the McDonald ruling:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuLaeCMN0zo[/youtube]

She asked tough questions of both sides, and was intelligent and informed about the issue. Not to mention kind of hot. Note that RT is Russia Today. What is Russia today?

RT was launched as Russia Today by an autonomous non-profit organization in 2005. However, much the funding to this organization, ANO TV-Novosti is injected from Russian Federal Budget (2.4 Billion Rubles in 2007 [1]). In 2007, RT’s monthly audience share exceeded that of CNN and Bloomberg TV among NTV-PLUS satellite subscribers in Moscow.

Get that? The former commies are managing to have better coverage of our issues than CNN and Bloomberg. This is a sad, friggin state of affairs for our media here when the Russian Government manages to fund media that’s more objective and informed than our own. God help us.