2011 – Page 131 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Five Takes on McDonald v. Chicago

Law review article by Prof. Glenn Reynolds and Prof. Brannon Denning. I am most interested in their fifth take, which looks at what the lower courts are doing and will likely do with the case. It is not very optimistic, but not terribly pessimistic either.Â They conclude by saying:

Will the Heller and McDonald decisions herald another constitutional revolution where no one showed up? Probably not. To a much greater extent than the Commerce Clause issues addressed in Lopez, the Second Amendment involves questions and issues that inspire fierce passion in large numbers of Americans, and in well-funded organizations both equipped and inclined to pursue follow-up litigation in both state and lower federal courts. So in concluding that this is, at most, â€œthe end of the beginning,â€ we do not mean to suggest that there will not be further battles â€“ only that those battles will now be fought on terrain, and in fashions, that constitutional lawyers will find familiar.

And some of those well funded organizations have the political muscle to make sure friendly Presidents and Congresses put the right people on the Court. NRA needs to be able to demonstrate it can play the role of kingmaker when it comes to federal judges, which they can’t do without us.

The goal would be to make it such that any federal judge who wants to be elevated to a higher bench had better not have a weak record on the Second Amendment, either in opinions from the bench or in their writings. I would imagine that judges are like anyone else who’s ambitious in their careers, in that every Federal Magistrate imagines himself a District Judge, every District Judge images himself on the Circuit Court, and every Circuit Court Judge imagines himself on the Supreme Court. If bad rulings on the Second Amendment end up being a ticket to a dead end career on the federal bench, that might tame some of the more ambitious judges, and force them to take the right more seriously than they might otherwise be inclined.

I’ve generally been more impressed with SAF’s litigation strategy than I have been with NRA’s. However only NRA has the power to influence which judges end up on the bench or get elevated. Both roles are going to be critical moving forward, if we’re going to win a broad, well-protected right.

Anti-Obama Ad

I thought this GOP attack ad against Obama was merely good, until it got to the end. Watch it.

The GOP has Obama riding a rainbow farting unicorn across the sky? Seriously? This is not the GOP I knew. But that’s OK, because I did not like that GOP much. I might not like this one much either when all is said and done, but kudos for using that.

h/t Instapundit

Tom Selleck on Gun Safety

Apparently he laid into an extra for mishandling a firearm. Hollywood has gotten better about depicting firearms more realistically. It sounds hard to believe, but when I go back and watch movies from the 80s, the gun handling is just so ridiculous and unrealistic as to be comical. It’s like they got a hold of props, and no one had any clue how to use them. Though perhaps we should be fortunate. An entire generation around the world was education on gunfighting by American movies, which probably comes in handy when we have to send our soldiers in to kill them.

If He Had Said Campaign, I Might Have Believed It

Miguel goes for the traditional April Fool’s joke in the gun blogosphere. One of these days it may not be a joke. The Center is in much better financial shape than the Campaign, however. But I don’t expect the Campaign to declare bankruptcy. Brady will just minimize the amount of activity they conduct under 501(c)(4) auspices. Most of what they do is legal for a 501(3)(c) to engage in, regardless. The Center, if I recall, is still losing money, it just has much further to fall. In addition, their 501(c)(3) status can help them get donations, since they are tax deductible.

Small World

I arrived home yesterday to see my neighbor getting into his car with someone. Waved hello, as I tend to do. I quickly noticed he was with a guy who looked awfully familiar to me. Scanning the memory bank to try to associate a name with the face, “That guy looks like someone I know. I think someone I’ve met once through blogging. ‘Smite a Hippie‘ is his nom de plume, I think.” I probably gave him an odd look, because it seemed hard to believe that someone I know through blogging just happens to be getting into my neighbor’s car. I am reluctant to say anything in case it’s just a matter of someone having a very similar face.

“You’re Sebastian, aren’t you?” the man I am now sure is Mr. Smite says. I affirm my nom de plume and say hi. It turns out he’s friends with my neighbor. I do not know if they were off to smite hippies, but if so, this is an activity I fully support, so I did not wish to keep them waiting.

Small world, for sure.

Economic Impact of Firearms Industry

The NSSF is trying to educate lawmakers on what the firearms industry brings to the economy:

Key statistics that are highlighted in the NSSF ad include the more than 183,500 jobs created by members of the firearms and ammunition industry, paying more than $8.2 billion in wages annually and having an overall economic impact of $27.8 billion.

“The economic growth of America’s firearms and ammunition industry continues to be a bright spot in our country’s still ailing economy,” said NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane. “Our ads will help remind America’s lawmakers of this important fact.”

Probably a good message to a Congress concerned about jobs. Even Chuck Schumer doesn’t want to be on the other side of that issue. This is especially good timing, considering our opponents were up on Capitol Hill recently, and we know they were trying to break weaker members of the GOP on the gun issue, probably in order to tell people their proposed legislation was bipartisan.

Positive AK Story

Not something you see every day in the media. Even a lot of shooter would deride the Kalashnikov as a gun for target shooting, but it’ll shoot better than the average shooter is capable of. I have never been a particularly good shot with an AK, but I’ve seen people who can consistently ring an 8 inch plate at two hundred yards with one. It’s a cheap gun to own (though, they’ve gotten a LOT more expensive than when I got mine, though they’ve also gotten better) and a cheap gun to shoot. They seem to be a gun a lot of people buy because it’s politically incorrect, but later sell because they don’t shoot it much. I’ve held on to mine.

Friday Funny

I have to admit it, Air New Zealand has come up with a safety video that inspired me to watch while not even on a flight. If the first time I saw this was on an early morning flight, I might be a little scared.

Willow Grove JSB (Formerly Naval Air Station) Closes

A local aviation related story is that one of our historic military landmarks for the area has closed:

Seven military aircraft powered up their engines and taxied slowly along the runway, as if hesitant to leave the ground.

Yet one by one, the hulking C-130 turboprop, the nimble A-10 Thunderbolt, and an assortment of other helicopters and jet fighters took off – hurtling down the 8,000-foot stretch of pavement for what would ultimately be a one-way trip.

“Willow Grove, thanks for the 68 years of dedicated service,” a radio trafficker’s voice squawked as the last plane disappeared into a gray afternoon sky.

Then, the runway lights went dark.

Given that the entire history of modern aviation is only about a century old, Willow Grove has been around for most of it. I went to air shows there as a kid, and more recently, back when they were doing that. The Pentagon has wanted to close it for a while, but local Congress Critters always lobbied to keep it open. What will happen to the base is uncertain, but there’s been talk of using it as an alternate airport to take pressure off of Philadelphia International Airport, which is the 11th busiest airport in the world.

On FAA Budgeting Matters

This is one of those times I’ll wander away from guns and into my sort of side-interest in aviation.Â Someone e-mails Instapundit in regards to an FAA bill:

There is also an automatic assumption that â€œprivatizingâ€ air traffic will somehow always be more cost effective than what we are already doing. Itâ€™s an article of faith, much like Socialists/Communists always seem to think that their system will work (despite a century of mass graves, economic failure, and oppression) if only the right people were running things. The world already has a wide variety of air traffic control systems in use. There are public, private, and public/private air traffic systems all around the world. The US system has the lowest cost per operation in the developed world. We also have the safest system, while running more traffic than the rest of the world combined. Rather than automatically demonizing people that are trying to improve what is already the safest, busiest, and most cost-effective air traffic system in the world, Iâ€™d ask your readers to find the working business model out there in the world that will out-perform what we are doing now. Not just an automatic assumption that a private enterprise just has to be more efficient, but a system in use somewhere else. Iâ€™m not saying it canâ€™t be done, but I am from Missouri on this. Show me. Or should we just assume that it will be more efficient if the right people are running it?

Glenn notes that Canada has a private ATC system, and I believe Eurocontrol is a private consortium as well. I’m not well familiar with how these systems operate, but I suspect there’s still a very high degree of public control.

One fear I would have of privatized air traffic control would be that the large scheduled carriers would dominate any consortium. Those large carriers would have no incentive to allow general aviation or even smaller scheduled or non-scheduled carriers to use their system at anything close to a reasonable price. A completely private system would essentially be handing a public resource, namely the skies, over to private interests who have bad incentives to monopolize the resource as much as possible.

Typically when we do things like this, such as for rights-of-ways for wires and pipes, we regulate them as public utilities. This kind of regulated market is not really a free market in any recognizable sense, and given that, it’s hard to see the case for privatization from a free market perspective.