Buying a Gun Easier than Voting?

Josh Horwitz has completely lost touch with whatever reality he once previously inhabited, and moved into an alternate parallel universe where Gun Control Act of 1968 nor the Brady Act were ever passed. While that’s not the case, certainly, I’m not sure why voting and gun ownership shouldn’t be relatively easy, considering they are both fundamental rights, according to our courts. I tend to believe if it’s constitutional to make me show government issued photo ID before purchasing a firearm, it’s constitutional to make me do the same before voting.

But that’s aside. The point of Josh’s article was to chide the gun owner in Michigan who went to the polls openly armed, and then carried through the school which was being used as a polling place. I tend to believe it’s constitutional to ban firearms at polling places and schools, with schools being listed specifically in Heller as being among the sensitive places.  But the fact is that it’s not unlawful to openly carry in a school in Michigan, so that should have been the end of the law enforcement encounter with the man who was carrying.

A man legally open carrying in a school or polling place certainly isn’t enough to try to tie the man, as Josh Horwitz often does, with the likes of “John Wilkes Booth, Timothy McVeigh, Sharron Angle and Ted Nugent.” The fact that Horwitz would put Sharron Angle and Ted Nugent in the same class as John Wilkes Booth and Timothy McVeigh shows his complete lack of any moral compass, and a sense of perspective so completely warped as to completely discredit anything he says. I’ll agree with Horwitz that you shouldn’t need ID to exercise the fundamental right to vote if he agrees you shouldn’t need ID to exercise the fundamental right to keep and bear arms.

9 thoughts on “Buying a Gun Easier than Voting?”

  1. I didn’t get the vibe that Josh is not ok with needing ID to vote. I got the impression that he’s a-ok with government issued ID in order vote, just not ok with gun sales without government issued ID.

  2. I tend to believe it’s constitutional to ban firearms at polling places and schools, with schools being listed specifically in Heller as being among the sensitive places.

    Heller did not strike down any current laws except those of DC, in main part because no other laws were under review except the DC gun ban. Don’t assume that all gun laws from the time of Heller are constitutional just because of Heller. McDonald proved that in Chicago.

    1. I’m not sure what you’re saying. I’m certainly not arguing that any gun laws that exist at the time of Heller are constitutional. What I’m saying is that the Court specifically mentioned being able to restrict guns in “sensitive places” such as schools and government buildings.

      It could probably be argued that was dicta, and lower courts aren’t bound by it, but it’s a tough statement to get around if you want to challenge the constitutionality of a ban on guns in schools.

  3. Say what?

    “While having power to neither grant nor remove an individual right, the Supreme Court has legally recognized some fundamental rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, including:
    .
    .
    The right to contraception (the right to use contraceptive devices)
    .
    .
    The Right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms for protection (Heller vs DC see also: McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025)”

    While I might be able to agree with the basic premise of Fundamental Rights, I have to take issue with these (among others). A “Right” to contraception? And the 2nd Amendment does NOT grant an Individual Right except by the grace of the Supreme Court?

    Just another example of how big a grain of salt you need when using Wikipedia as a source.

  4. I tend to believe it’s constitutional to ban firearms at polling places….

    Open carry, sure, due to the intimidation effects (when focused on voting a certain way), but while it might be constitutional I’ve very leery about allowing the government to declare they can be the only ones armed in the exercise of sometime so fundamental to our system. The potential for abuse, including at arms length (the contemporary example is Holder shutting down the prosecution of those club wielding thugs, the Godwin example is the authorities looking the other way at street etc. violence they approved of), is just too great.

  5. I can understand the need for a photo ID at polling stations: I remember one of my wife’s co-workers, when we were living in New York, complaining that when he showed up to vote, someone had already signed in his name, and so he wasn’t able to vote.

    In other words, photo ID is a tool against voter fraud, because you can be disenfranchised by someone voting in your name, or by having your own vote diluted by all those “voters” who are “living challenged” or even “existence challenged”. Thus, requiring a photo ID protects your right to vote. (When all is said and done, though, this only works as well as our government’s ability to prevent the creation of false IDs.)

    Contrast this with gun ownership, where it’s not exactly clear how knowing that someone is who they claim to be–or, at least, they happen to have a matching ID card–is going to make sure that you won’t sell that gun to someone who’s going to use it for ill purposes.

  6. Reading the first 32 comments to Josh’s post I would have to say he got a little schooling on gun rights. I had to check several times to be sure these were comments on a Huff Post item.

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