October 2012 – Page 3 – Shall Not Be Questioned

A Little Economic Liberty in Louisiana

IJ put out a release on their case representing monks who make caskets to support their monastery that has been targeted by funeral directors who are irritated by the competition.

The monks of Saint Joseph Abbey declared victory once again after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a blistering opinion stating that the five-year campaign of the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors to prevent the monks from selling their handmade caskets was either unconstitutional or totally unauthorized by Louisiana law. The federal appellate court took the unusual step of asking the Louisiana Supreme Court to weigh in on whether Louisianaâ€™s funeral law actually grants the state board the power to stop casket retailing. If the answer is yes, then the law is unconstitutional. If the answer is no, then the state board has been acting lawlessly against the monks and other entrepreneurs for years.

According to the release, the state Supreme Court has to get back to them by January 22, so this should move reasonably quickly. But, as I was reading this release to Sebastian today, this is where the shocking quotes come in:

The 5th Circuit left no doubt about the invalidity of the state boardâ€™s primary constitutional argument that industry insiders and government may team up to pass laws that suppress competition and clobber consumers: â€œneither precedent nor broader principles suggest that mere economic protection of a pet industry is a legitimate governmental purpose.â€ The Court was equally harsh in rejecting the state boardâ€™s argument that judges in economic liberty cases are supposed to rubber stamp whatever the government does: â€œThe great deference due state economic regulation does not demand judicial blindness to the history of a challenged rule or the context of its adoption nor does it require courts to accept nonsensical explanations for naked transfers of wealth.â€ (emphasis added)

As Sebastian said, it’s almost like the court is doing its job. I’ve posted a video that’s really just background in the case below.

Bloomberg Backing King in Maine Senate Race

He’s, of course, expecting Angus King to vote his way, which means against National Reciprocity.Â But of course, I’m sure he’ll be talking to the hilt about how he supports the Second Amendment and your hunting heritage. These people can’t win without lying.

Fifth Circuit Upholds 18-20 Year Old Gun Purchase Ban

NRA v. BATF. There is an impression that the Fifth Circuit is pro-gun, because it was the first to rule that the Second Amendment is an individual right. But it’s also worth noting that they upheld the PFA restrictions even though they offer the barest of due process protections. I will have more analysis of the opinion later, when I have time to read it.

UPDATE: Just giving a quick skim, it’s the same sad story. “We are very uncomfortable with this right, so we will go ahead and apply a low level of scrutiny to this which we will call intermediate, which, of course, is just perfect for upholding this statute.” The decision quotes heavily from Saul Cornell, the Joyce Funded scholar who attempted to undo the Standard Model of the Second Amendment.

UPDATE: Some discussion over at Volokh in the comments.

Borrowing Concepts from Abortion Rights to Save Gun Rights

Professor Johnson has a post up speaking of borrowing the “undue burden” concept from abortion rights in order to protect Second Amendment rights, much, I’m sure, to the horror of Justice Breyer if he were to read it.

Could the â€œSnorâ€™eastercaneâ€ Impact Pennsylvania Elections?

So the â€œsnorâ€™eastercaneâ€ maps are tilting a little too close to Pennsylvania for my liking, especially when some forecasters are concerned that if/when it does turn inland, it could be worse than Irene.

I got to thinking, what does this mean for the election? I realize that this is likely to hit a solid week before the election. However, we had parts of our suburban Philadelphia county that were out of power and still had trees blocking roads a week after Irene which was just rain, not snow. The more rural areas of any state that is hit could be out for quite a while since this is supposed to be a slow-moving storm.

If Pennsylvania takes the hit, then the areas that would be hit later and possibly longer are strong areas for Republicans. While this likely won’t impact the presidential race much since Mitt isn’t likely to win, it will likely make a big impact on the closer Senate race and, more importantly for gun owners, the largely ignored and unknown to many voters Attorney General’s race. This doesn’t even get into the many state representative and senate races across the state.

If it follows the bottom part of the cone and heads toward Virginia, well, that could impact the presidential race. During one snow storm that wasn’t totally crazy, but definitely heavier than average, none of the streets in my mom’s Roanoke subdivision were plowed for four days. During the 2008 primary, VDOT left motorists stranded on the overpasses that they failed to clear and treat during an ice storm for about a day – that was right near the DC line, not a rural corner. If there’s one thing I learned living in Virginia, that state does not handle snow clearing very well at all.

Last year, I saw tweets and Facebook updates from people in Connecticut who were out of power for the better part of a week because of storms. Even if they could get out of their neighborhoods, they few places around them had power. That’s not impossible to imagine, either. While Sebastian and I regularly walk up to our polling place, and we’d be willing to freakin’ shovel a path for ourselves and our neighbors up there this year if we had to, what if they don’t have power over a widespread area? How would counties handle that? More importantly, if they had only a few polling places open, how would voters be notified of the changes if few had power?

The good news for any weather issues is that the enthusiasm gap favors the candidates who happen to be pro-gun in this immediate area. However, the bad news is that the areas likely to have any damaged fixed or power restored last is more friendly territory for our candidates. It’s an interesting, and not impossible to imagine, scenario with a very large weather system like Sandy.

Drawing a Blank on the Bill of Rights

I doubt most Americans could name you which of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights protect which rights, but most Americans aren’t members of Congress:

“I’m drawing a blank on the Second Amendment, but I think it’s the weapons, isn’t it? The NRA?” he said, according toÂ The Monitor.

If I ever get to establish Sebastianland, the first rule for holding office in Sebastianland will be to name each of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights and tell me what right they protect. I think that should be basic, required knowledge for being a member of Congress. How can I expect a person to uphold their oath of office if they don’t even know the document?

I sometimes think the biggest flaw in the Constitution is that we didn’t have more provisions to try to keep morons from holding public office. If you had to devise a constitutional system that filtered for morons, how would you do it?

h/t to Cam Edwards of Cam & Company

Domestic Murders

Apparently CSGV doesn’t care about an uncomfortably large number of domestic murders. Â You’ll often hear from the other side that their cause is reducing gun violence, and not other forms of violence.Â I get that people can pick their cause, and I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with that. But I also tend to think, translating this into another context, it would be like an organization dedicated to reducing drunk driving fatalities by trying to regulate Fords, and not concerning itself with regulating Hondas, Toyotas, or Chryslers. Sure, it’s legit, but it’s odd, and it would make me question whether the organization in question was really just out to get Ford.

Jihadist Gunwalking?

Clayton points to an article in the Washington Times that suggests the Obama Administration was walking guns to the jihadists. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Of course, I thought the same thing about walking guns to Mexico, and that turned out to be actually happening.

The Problems with Making Up Your Own Facts

Our local Congressional race is between an incumbent freshman Republican and a challenger from the Democrats who is trying to make women’s issues a key part of her campaign. Except rather than being knowledgable on the actual issue, Kathy Boockvar has decided to just make up her own facts in the midst of debates. This can backfire, something she should learn today.

For example, she was talking about birth control and said that she believed 99% of Americans use birth control. 99% of Americans. Think about that for a second. She didn’t misspeak, she made her comment very clear – she argues that 99% of Americans use birth control. Now, I assume she factored into that “fact” that any man in a sexual relationship with a woman on birth control pills is also “using” birth control. I’ll accept that. I agree with that. What I don’t accept is her assertion that children are actively using birth control.

No, I’m not talking about 16-year-olds using birth control methods. I have no issue with that at all. I’m talking about her version of statistics. 99% of Americans. The Census says that nearly 7% of Americans are under the age of 5. That means that in Kathy Boockvar’s world of made up statistics, toddlers and pre-schoolers are in need of birth control. This is why you don’t make up statistics on the fly when you’re running for office.

Of course, I don’t expect that Boockvar has any desire to actually correct her statement, even though she has tried to make such issues the highlight of her campaign. When asked in the last debate about her specific ideas for tax reforms, she refused to answer by saying that she doesn’t believe in making promises or giving those kind of answers. Today, she was asked for specifics on what votes she claimed Fitzpatrick has made to deprive veterans of support, and she just answered that he took many, many votes without being able to give any examples. In her campaign, facts are optional and accountability is non-existent. Not to mention, her made up facts are really freakin’ creepy.

Snoreastercane

It’s the storm of the century of the year. I might be happy that I got that generator when I did.

“Nearly every single major weather model now shows the eventual â€œphasing,â€ or capture, of Hurricane Sandy by an intense polar airmass“

When snow comes before all the leaves are off the trees, especially if it’s a wet and sticky snow, very bad things happen. We’ll make contingency plans for the blog in the event of a serious, prolonged outage.