2012 – Page 67 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Local Spike in Concealed Permit Applications

Looks like there’s been a jump in permit applications for the county (my the county), and for neighboring Montgomery County.Â From the Bucks County Courier Times:

Days after the Colorado shooting, applications for concealed weapons permits in Bucks County jumped 20 percent compared to the previous week …

… A total of 28,057 concealed weapon permits were active in Bucks as of July 1, an increase of 2,706 from a year earlier. That number represents about one permit for every 22 residents.

Now if every one of those individual who had a permit did something to help their gun rights, we’d be cruising smooth. But most of them don’t. How do we reach these folks? Clubs have traditionally been a big part of the pro-gun ecosystem, but as I mentioned in a previous post, the shooting culture at clubs isn’t keeping up with the overall gun culture, and young people aren’t joiners. So how does it work moving forward?

Context for SCOTUS Nominations

If you think that Supreme Court nominations shouldn’t be a factor in this year’s elections, here’s an interesting way to look at the future of any issue you care about that could face serious court challenges:

…the fact is that Supreme Court nominations matter more than ever, for several reasons.

First is the soaring value of lifetime tenure. When our republic was created, the average age of Supreme Court nominees was older than average life expectancy. That has changed dramatically with increased human longevity. And presidents are catching on, naming ever-younger Justices.

The result is that the average term of a Supreme Court Justice today is nearly twenty-five years â€“ spanning more than six presidential terms. Ronald Reagan last appeared on the ballot seven elections ago, yet two of his appointees (Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia) still serve on the Court. If Clarence Thomas remains on the Court until the retirement age of his predecessor, he will have served for forty years. If Elena Kagan remains on the Court until her current life expectancy, she will serve until the year 2045. …

We have not had a significant change in the Courtâ€™s philosophical balance since Thomas replaced Marshall more than two decades ago. In the six subsequent appointments, liberals replaced liberals or conservatives replaced conservatives. But in the next administration, the president may well have the opportunity either to shift the Courtâ€™s majority from conservative to liberal or to reinforce the conservative majority. And given the number of years most Justices now serve, the majority created or reinforced in the next administration may endure for a generation.

That’s freakin’ scary to think about what a long-term difference each of the candidates can make. I mean I emphasize to people that state elections matter more during census years because of redistricting that impacts politics for a decade.

Go read the entire article at by Clint Bolick. It’s quite an interesting look at the lasting impacts of modern court appointments.

Polling: The Affect of Two Mass Murders in a Row on Public Opinion

A majority of Wisconsinites either want weaker gun laws or want them to stay the same. The same is true of voters in Colorado. This doesn’t look like a groundswell of support for our opponents, nor does it represent a major shift in public opinion. One also has to wonder if folks answering that it’s OK to ban high-capacity magazines realize it’s the magazine in their Glock that’s being banned.

There was a lot of this in the past. Thirdpower is talking a bit about manipulating polling. Our opponents have long pointed to polling numbers to try to convince politicians that the American people were with them, only to get their asses handed to them at election time. The difference is there’s a substantial motivation gap when it comes to voting on the issue between our side and theirs, and the politicians know that.

The rest of the world …

… can go pound sand, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never understood the left’s concern with Europeans frowning on the state of our domestic affairs.

Charging the NRA With Treason

Yes, a hysterical reporter in Tennessee has called defending part of the Bill of Rights treasonous.

We Seem to Have a New Anti-Gun Blog

As can be expected, the proprietor seems to be quite angry, and willing to engage in personal attacks against gun owners instead of making reasonable public policy arguments. In truth, I share the author’s revulsion to bumper sticker sloganeering when it comes to political debates, but to pretend this debate has been only about bumper sticker sloganeering is to erect a straw man. Anyone remotely familiar with this topic, other than superficially, knows that the fight for the Second Amendment has had a great deal of depth to it. Sure, there is bumper sticker sloganeering that happens, but to focus solely on that is to ignore the breadth of the debate and scholarship on this issue is to miss the boat. While I’m happy to see our opponents busy erecting and tearing down straw men, it’s done little to advance their cause.

So I encourage Mr. (Ms.?) Weapons4Sale to hang about, and engage in some healthy debate. At best we will probably have to agree to disagree, but at least we would have come away with an understanding, a real understanding, of the other side’s positions and arguments. A well-educated activist, being necessary for effectiveness on any issue, should know their opponents arguments and positions well enough to be able to argue their positions as well or better than they can. To fail in that task is to fail to understand the importance of knowing the mind of your opponent. When I’ve successfully made those kinds of predictions, it’s because I’m constantly thinking what I would do if I were them, and if you know your opponent well, you can put yourself into their shoes. The gun control movement’s unwillingness to engage in this kind activism, and instead choosing to continually erect and tear down straw men, and engage in ad-homenim attacks against gun owners, guns and gun rights, has hurt it deeply. For this we should all be thankful.

We Are Entering a Dangerous Time for our Gun Rights

Our opponents have been speaking of a groundswell of support coming to their side since the two mass shootings, and getting uppity that our day in the sun will soon be at and end, and that they will proceed to destroy our precious right. That’s a lot of nonsense, but that’s not to say things are all coming up roses. As long as the Democratic Party had to protect its blue dog flank, speaking about gun control, even for deep blue state politicians, was going to be problematic.

The Blue Dog flank was all but destroyed in the 2010 midterms, and the base of support Democrats often enjoy among Independents is looking weak. The Democrats can’t honestly afford to have an unenthusiastic base, so they are circling the wagons and trying to defend what they have. Governor Quinn is now enthusiastically supporting another Assault Weapons Ban in Illinois, and facing off against the NRA, ISRA, and downstate gun makers. Andrew Cuomo, once a staunch supporter of gun control and architect of the strategy in the 90s for HUD to sue gun makers, eventually settling with Smith & Wesson, has been timid about supporting gun control as Governor so far. That no longer appears to be the case.

Democrats in blue states are re-embracing gun control. Cuomo’s plan would appear to be an attempt to snatch the number one Brady spot from California, and California is obviously advancing more draconian gun bansÂ of its own. Some folks might suggest that this is bad news only for the states whose gun laws already suck, but a prevailing Democratic culture of gun control is going to screw us over the long term here in Pennsylvania. Everyone in this state should be particularly concerned that we lost Tim Holden, a solid pro-gun Democrat, to a far left radical anti-gunner in a primary:

Democrat Matt Cartwright, a Scranton lawyer, said he does support an assault weapons ban, saying Americans don’t need such weapons in their homes. He would also support “reasonable” ammunition purchase limits, according to a statement released by his campaign.

Cartwright said he is strongly in favor of Americans’ right to bear arms.

This isn’t a Philadelphia Democrat, folks, this is Schuylkill County! I’ve long believed Pennsylvania is a hair’s breath from becoming strongly anti-gun, just like New York and New Jersey. Why? The western part of Pennsylvania has traditionally been our bulwark against gun control in this state, and the western part of Pennsylvania is rapidly depopulating. In addition, both Northeastern Pennsylvania and Southeastern Pennsylvania are taking a lot of transplants from New Jersey and New York. The Philadelphia suburbs are growing and becoming more left-leaning and Democratic. Even Philadelphia has stopped losing population. Pennsylvania as a whole is getting less purple, and more blue, and given that Democratic political culture is starting to swing anti-gun, our gooses may end up cooked. The political center of the fight for gun rights in Pennsylvania is going to swing from the West to the East, and while there are plenty of gun owners in the suburbs here, I’ve never gotten the impression very many of them will stand up and fight, or quite honestly lift a finger to help promote a healthy shooting community. We are poorly equipped for the fight that’s coming, and we’ll be able to depend on our western brethren less and less as changing demographics keep reshaping this commonwealth.

Prof. Volokh on Large Capacity Magazine Restrictions

I’ve never really understood why we want to offer the federal judiciary grounds for finding restrictions on commonly owned arms constitutional. I’m generally a pretty big fan of Professor Eugene Volokh’sÂ Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which has been cited by multiple courts in Second Amendment cases. But when it came out I wrote a series of posts offering some criticism on Prof. Volokh’s paper, where I thought he needlessly ceded ground with a federal judiciary eager for reasons to uphold the status-quo on guns, and find as much as possible constitutional. Because magazines holding more than ten rounds are overwhelmingly preferred by both police and armed citizens for self-defense, it’s difficult for me to see how they can be restricted under theÂ HellerÂ common use test. When it comes to banning arms from civilian hands, the state should face the highest possible burden in showing either the arm is not a personal arm, and doesn’t fall under the right, or that it is, as Heller noted “dangerous and unusual.” Magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are certainly not dangerous, and nor are they unusual, at least not in relation the dangerousness of firearms generally. Prof. Volokh suggests as much in his paper. Given that they are commonly used, they ought to fall under Second Amendment protection according to Heller. I just don’t see any reading of Heller that indicated we needed to concede that ground.

I don’t believe we ought to encourage the courts to use these kinds of balancing tests where courts get to evaluate the lethality of the weapon at hand, and then evaluate how minor or major the burden on self-defense the challenged restriction presents. The rights and interests of the citizen is almost always going to be trumped by the interest of the government when the courts engage in this kind of balancing act.

I prefer a few brighter line tests, some of which Heller has suggested already.Â I also strongly believe in Prof. Nelson Lund’s supposition,Â that you have to look at police use when determining whether an arm ought to be protected, because otherwise the government’s default move is going to be to ban any new technology before it becomes in widespread use, such as many states have done with electric stun weapons.

Something I’ve Thought About

Caleb is looking to hire a new writer. I’ve thought about bringing on writers to take some of the load off me, but this blog doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay anybody. I could bring a writer on as an unpaid Intern, and then maybe get an Intern for the Intern, but then I’d have to find a name for him.

Dave Kopel on Piers Morgan

Unfortunately, the clip doesn’t have much of Dave Kopel in it, but here’s some from the transcript. He goes below the belt on Morgan, which is richly deserved:

KOPEL: Well, of course it doesn’t mean what you just said. But we — I think Americans look at the experience of England where we — you went from a country with zero gun control laws in the early 20th century to now something that’s acknowledged as having the most severe gun laws in the western world.
And in that period, you went from a very, very low crime area to a place where the crime rate really went up by 50 times and now according to a joint study by the U.S. Department of Justice and the British Home Office, the UK has a higher violent crime rate, significantly, than the U.S.
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: Yes, but let jump in —
KOPEL: According to the United Nations —
MORGAN: Hang on, hang on, hang on.
KOPEL: — Scotland is the most violent country in the industrial world.
MORGAN: You used this — you used this with me last time.
KOPEL: You have more violence because you have no self-defense.
MORGAN: You used this with me last time. It’s completely untrue. The reality about the British gun situation is actually, particularly because of the new handgun rules brought in the mid-’90s after the Dunblane atrocity. In fact, gun crime and murders from guns are on a rapid decline throughout Britain. And, you know, I think —
(CROSSTALK)
KOPEL: We’re talking about total crime.
MORGAN: Wait a minute.
KOPEL: Totally destroyed our —
MORGAN: You also throw at me — you also throw at me Norway, and said, look, it even happens in Norway.
KOPEL: No, you’re confusing me with John (INAUDIBLE).
MORGAN: The reality about Norway is, Norway had a massacre. Most countries at some stage have a crazy person who commits an atrocity. But Norway in an average year, the last audited figures, I think, from 2005, it had five killings from guns. America last year, what, 11,000, 12,000? There is a massive difference here.
KOPEL: Well, Dan, I think, made a point that other countries with no guns have higher homicide rates than the United States. But the point is, you think — you’re fixated on guns. In America, we look at the harms of guns like them being on the wrong hands and also the benefits like crime deterrents.
The reason that Britain has a much higher burglary rate than the United States and the most British burglaries take place when the families are home is because Britain has outlawed self-defense with a firearm. Studies of American —
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: That is ridiculous.

Here’s the clip from CNN: