Month: September 2011
Lautenberg and Ex-Post Facto
There’s really no circumstance where I think a lifetime ban on a fundamental right should be constitutional for a misdemeanor conviction, but one of the gravest outrages perpetrated by the federal courts is allowing the ex-post-facto nature of the Lautenberg Amendment to stand. John Richardson has a good example in regards to why. As far as I know, there’s never been any direct Supreme Court ruling on the ex-post facto issue in regards to Lautenberg, but it seems pretty clear to me that stripping a constitutional right post-conviction, without any further due process, ought to be a violation. One might argue that you get around the ex-post facto issue by virtue of the fact that an action is required, namely gun possession with a misdemeanor DV conviction post the date of the act, but when the act of possession is protected by the Constitution, it’s hard to see how that doesn’t amount to punishment after the fact.
Self-Defense in the UK
Extrano’s Alley has an account of a homeowner who is facing charges for taking the knife from a home invader and then stabbing him with it. Instapundit is covering this too, and a reader there notes, “US gun rights groups should raise money (and publicity, and their own profile) to defend our innocent cousins across the pond.†I’m honestly not sure how much that would help. Prosecutors across the pond wouldn’t be taking these cases to trial if they weren’t pretty sure of a jury willing to convict. It’s a cultural issue, and I’m not sure American groups are going to be able to change that. I think that kind of change has to come from within.
Music to my Ears on Righthaven
Law School Textbook on Second Amendment
The totality of our opponents loss in Heller and McDonald probably didn’t really hit me until I saw this post over at Volokh on a new law school textbook on the Second Amendment. Understand that the Second Amendment is now a hot area in mainstream constitutional law. The textbook is co-authored by Nicholas Johnson (Fordham), Michael O’Shea (Oklahoma City), George Mocsary (Connecticut), and Dave Kopel (Denver). This is an academic work that’s the culmination of many years of research into this topic. At first, it was not widely accepted, and now it’s mainstream constitutional law. All new law students will be learning this version of history, the true version, our version, rather than the revisionist claptrap whipped up by our opponents.
Old Picture of the Day Blog, Add it to Your Feed
Old Picture of the Day is my new favorite blog to follow. This weeks mystery person contest threw me, because of the context. Presented in another context, I think just about everyone would get it. But the shotgun shouldn’t be too surprising. From the Wikipedia Article on the March King:
As a trapshooter, he ranks as one of the all-time greats, and he is enshrined in the Trapshooting Hall of Fame.[15] He even organized the first national trapshooting organization, a forerunner to today’s Amateur Trapshooting Association. Sousa remained active in the fledgling ATA for some time after its formation. Some credit Sousa as the father of organized trapshooting in America. Sousa also wrote numerous articles about trapshooting.
Perhaps a quote from his Trapshooting Hall of Fame biography says it best: “Let me say that just about the sweetest music to me is when I call, ‘pull,’ the old gun barks, and the referee in perfect key announces, ‘dead’.”
Despite the fact that Sousa believed that “These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country,” there are more than a few recordings of Sousa’s band that have survived. Here’s one of them, pressed on a Blue Amberol Cylinder and played on an Edison Fireside Model A. The model A was introduced in 1909.
If you don’t have Old Picture of the Day on your RSS feed, you should add it.
New Brady Chief?
Days of our Trailers notices that the job listing they posted lists the position as no longer available. That’s a good indication the Brady Campaign has made a decision on new leadership.
Astroturfing
Astroturfing |ˈastrÅËŒtÉ™rfiNG|
Noun
A form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a “grassroots” movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event.
Welcher …
… can apparently be used to accurately describe our former governor. I’m glad those days are over.
More on Mandatory Vaccinations
Lots of good comments on the previous thread on vaccination. I found one in Megan McArdle’s comments that I found compelling:
It can only affect other people who have also chosen not to be vaccinated. Your choice not to be vaccinated affects only you and other people who have made the same choice. People who choose to be vaccinated are unaffected by your decision.  There is no externality.
Let me being by clarifying that when we’re speaking of mandatory vaccinations in the United States, we’re generally speaking of children, and “mandatory” being a condition of attending public schools. We’re not, to be clear, talking about strapping people to a gurney and making them take their government injection, nor throwing people in jail. I wouldn’t support any measure that went that far.
The issue I have with the above posters line of reasoning is that often, for various reasons, some people are unable to become vaccinated, either because of being very young, or having other health issues that prevent it. Vaccines are also not always effective for every person, and some people tend to lose immunity after a while. Those individuals can successfully free ride off herd immunity in the case where the vast majority of people are vaccinated against the disease. For herd immunity to work, vaccination rates generally have to hit about 95%.
I fully recognize that US vaccination policy represents a loss of personal liberty, and personal autonomy, and I think that’s unfortunate. But I think we are far better off as a civilization that we’ve effectively eliminated the diseases of smallpox and polio, both of which required very substinative efforts to get everyone vaccinated. Here’s an interesting Harvard Law Review article on the history of mandatory vaccination in the United States, along with information about the late debates.
A purely libertarian solution might be to allow someone infected by another who chose not to be vaccinated to recover damages. Unfortunately, the nature of disease is such that, in most cases, that’s not going to be possible to prove. I do think a case can be made that sexually transmitted diseases are distinct from diseases spread through airborne contact and casual contact. The law review article I linked to above gets into that debate. I tend to agree with Megan’s distinction, that if the disease is spread through engagement in normal human activities, there’s not much of a distinction. Diseases like rabies, tetanus, lyme disease, yellow fever, or certain diseases for which animals are a vector, are for your own good, and I don’t believe the government ought to have the power to mandate those.