2012 – Page 48 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Misinformation About Louisiana RKBA Ballot Measure

There’s a lot of folks who seem to think this is gun control, because it changes:

Section 11. The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person.

to:

Section 11. The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms is fundamental and shall not be infringed. Any restriction on this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.

A bit further down on the original link above:

For a â€œRightâ€ to â€œnot be infringedâ€ there can be NO â€œrestrictionâ€ placed on it whatsoever. NONE. Privileges can have restrictions placed on them. â€œRightsâ€, as defined in the Declaration of Independence of 1776 cannot be â€œrestrictedâ€ in any manner, as they are â€œunalienable,â€ which means not â€˜alienableâ€™â€¦.not able to be taken away, transferred orÂ RESTRICTEDâ€¦!!

This was a fear of mine, that the uninitiated would have no idea what strict scrutiny meant, legally. Now we have that, and people latching onto the word “restricted,” and interpreting this provision as some form of gun control. Nothing could be farther from the truth. By demanding strict scrutiny in the constitutional provision, it is a detailed, specific instruction to the courts to give the right the highest protection the courts currently offer when considering the scope of fundamental rights. To date, most courts have adopted intermediate scrutiny so that they may engage in balancing tests to justify numerous restrictions on the right, and the Louisiana Supreme Court effectively gutted their RKBA constitution guarantee back in 2001:

“The State of Louisiana is entitled to restrict that right for legitimate state purposes, such as public health and safety.”Â State v. Blanchard, 776 So.2d 1165, 1168 (La. 2001).*

So really, this is a choice between any restriction the state wants to place, which is the current status quo, or any restrictions being subject to a very high level of scrutiny by the courts. Clearly the latter here would be far better.Â I really hope that people will spread the word and help relieve the ignorance at work here, especially if you know folks in Louisiana, or see people spreading this.

Unfortunately, the unscrupulous among us will also see a fundraising opportunity here, and will likely play on this ignorance to drum up support for their organization. But it’s very important that this get passed, both for the sake of Louisiana, and to send a message to the federal courts about how Americans expect their rights to be treated. If this ballot measure goes down in a sea of ignorance on the part of gun owners, the other side will be guaranteed to spin this as Americans believing that harsh restrictions on state power to regulate guns is just peachy.

* Source: Defend Your Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Louisianaâ€“Vote â€œYESâ€ on 2!

1979

People keep joking about it being the Carter years all over again, but this is getting kind of weird.Â Instapundit has much the same reaction. I’ve been looking at carpet to redo my home office, and you know what else is back? Shag carpet. They are calling it frieze carpet now, but it’s the same crap our parents were spilling their bong water on in the 70s.

The Superior Google Technology

We have a Google Voice number that answers for our NRA Election Volunteer activities. As part of that, it’ll e-mail you what it thinks is a transcription of your voice message. As much as swear at Siri for not getting things right, Google’s technology isn’t any better. There’s a certain state of the art, which isn’t that great, and no one really has advanced much past it. Take this nonsensical transcription:

HiÂ Kate,Â MyÂ nameÂ isÂ Dave Abuser. IÂ letÂ meÂ know. I’mÂ notÂ gonnaÂ member. IÂ hopeÂ you’reÂ fitÂ withÂ you. MyÂ address isÂ XXXX whenÂ youÂ bothÂ Road, NewÂ World.Â AndÂ myÂ phoneÂ numberÂ is XXXXXXXXXX too.Â ThanksÂ Kate,Â we’reÂ gonna getÂ theÂ grass. Bye.

When I listened to the audio, it makes absolutely perfect sense. I’ve XXX’d out parts it got right enough to protect the innocent, but you see how bad Google is at transcription.Â My actual name is close to, but not Kate, and the person certainly was not an Abuser. I am an NRA member, and so is he, but neither of us are “gonna member.” I am certainly not fit, and if I was, it wouldn’t be with you.Â Maybe Google just can’t understand the Philly accent very well, but it’s not even remotely unintelligible to someone raised here.

I will say, I’ve already gotten more response this year than in any year I’ve had this “position” since I started a few years back. At least 5 calls since the magazine went out a few days ago. Previously I was lucky to get one or two. So I’ll take Google transcribing “We’re gonna get this guy out,” as “We’re gonna get the grass.” I just hope Google doesn’t share their transcriptions with the DOJ.

UPDATE: Seems I’m not the only one who is amused.

Another Illegal Mayor Against Gun Rights

It looks like a recent member of MAIG is under arrest for a wide variety of corruption and theft charges.

Prosecutors say [Myron] Rosner committed grand theft by using money from his campaign account for personal ads on the bus benches. Another charge involves allegedly free bus bench ads given to Rosner so the company would not lose the city account. Prosecutors say it was understood that Rosner would not repay the cost of those ads.

They say that other charges include bad campaign checks and other finance violations.

As the former mayor of North Miami Beach, MAIG proudly used him in their letters to Congress when lobbying for more restrictions on the law-abiding while he was setting up his re-election campaign to violate multiple laws.

Almost a Test Case

Currently the law in Pennsylvania about guns in primary and secondary schools is a grey area. Having firearms in schools is generally prohibited, except with an exception for guns possessed for lawful purposes. Given Heller, self-defense is a lawful purposes, perhaps the most lawful purpose, for possessing a firearm.

But just because that’s what you or I think doesn’t mean that’s how prosecutors or judges are going to see it. Looks like a School Board member almost got busted for having a gun in a school, but the Bucks County District Attorney’s office are going to decline charges. The grey area will live. I’d like to see this issue decided one way or another, though I certainly wouldn’t volunteer to be that case, and hope no one else will either. Two things likely helped this guy. One is that he’s a public official, and while it’s wrong, public officials tend to not want to prosecute other public officials. Two if you’re a DA going to go forward with a precedent setting case, you’d likely want the circumstances to be as horrible as possible, like some dipshit who carried in a school and left it in a bathroom (and wasn’t a cop), or who had a negligent discharge (and wasn’t a cop) What you have with our school statute is a way a sympathetic judge or jury could screw your chance of getting a conviction, and I don’t think prosecutors usually like taking that kind of chance.

Oh, To Be a Low Information Voter

There are a handful of times when I wish my first thought about a campaign or candidate was not, “Hey I wonder how they feel about my rights?” I had one of those moments today.

A Supreme Court Justice candidate in Michigan is the sister of an actress from the West Wing. She managed to pull the key characters together to film a campaign video, and I hate to admit that it’s pretty funny – likely because it’s pretty light on politics and name dropping.

I loved the West Wing. I especially loved Ainsley Hayes who was a conservative alumna from an all women’s college in New England. It really was an enjoyable show, even given the obvious bias in the politics.

So, yes, I admit that with this video, it would kind of be tempting to be a low information voter. Fortunately, I don’t live in Michigan. I also can’t break myself of the habit of trying to find out more about actual candidate positions. (Hell, I even asked someone from Michigan if NRA usually grades in these races, but they said they didn’t think so. If you’re a Michigan voter, check the grades that should be posted soon to be sure!) Of course, I also doubt that if I was a low information voter that I would have watched West Wing at all or found any humor in the video.

Excuses, Excuses

Sorry for the lack of posting, but this morning I was cast in a role as an extra in a film, and we just got finished shooting.

Got Nothin

Spent most of today in the office today rearranging things to take this all into the final stretch, assuming we find some real-estate soon to put all this stuff. I felt bad ignoring the blog, but it didn’t take long to realize there was nothing to blog about anyway. Got caught up with other blogs pretty quickly, and looks like no one else has much to blog about either. It’s a real problem when you write about RKBA when no one is talking about it in public life. Let me rummage through and see what I have here.

I generally try not to pay great attention to polling numbers, because I think there’s a lot of tea leaf reading that goes on here on all sides. I’m skeptical they are rigged, however.Â I think there’s literally nothing to see here. I’d bet this is a fundraising scheme. If the person had been there, at the end they would have patched you through to someone who asked you to make a donation. If you answered Obama, or just stood there with a dumb look on your face, they probably would have dropped you eventually.

Speaking of polls, and why they aren’t to be trusted, we have this poll, which says 66% of Americans believe everyone should be required to pay some amount of income tax. From a post by Ilya Somin, we have a poll which shoes that 66% of Americans believe no one should pay more than 19%, and a whopping 88% believe no one should pay more than 29%. Now, if you think about cutting taxes on the wealthy to 29%, and especially 19%, while simultaneously raising taxes on the poor some modest amount, and how politically viable that is, you’ll understand why the gun control crowd’s reliance on polls to show their views are uncontroversial doesn’t hold any water with politicians who know better. People will tell pollsters anything. What matters is what happens when it’s time to make policy, and both sides rally, and the media prints and broadcasts, the bloggers blog, the forums forum, the pundits pundit, etc, etc. A poll on specific gun policy or tax policy doesn’t mean crap. Most people know next to nothing about both, including people who own guns and pay taxes.

The Ultimate Poll on the Second Amendment

Louisianans will be voting on a strengthened Right to Keep and Bear Arms ballot measureÂ this November. Needless to say if we lost on this, it would be a minor disaster, so if you know people there, or live there, help spread the word. This is also meant to send a strong message to the courts about how the people expect their rights to be treated. Practically every court has called for intermediate scrutiny for the Second Amendment, rather than strict, because it allows them to do the kind of interest balancing that should not happen with a fundamental constitutional right.

Fast & Furious OIG Report

It was released less than half an hour ago. Just out of curiosity, I opened it and did a search for two words: inaccurate and false. In case you’re now curious about my findings, the two returned a combined 178 hits.

That means they appear about every 2.5 pages.

Doesn’t Obama promise us the move transparent Administration ever? Somehow, I don’t think that quite works out.