2013 – Page 102 – Shall Not Be Questioned

On Using the Civil Rights Acts

Joe explains his philosophy in regards to the use of the Civil Rights Acts to go after gun controllers. The criminal elements of the Civil Rights Acts, to my knowledge, have rarely been used in the Second Amendment context (Cruikshank is the only case I can think of). I agree that they generally should be, and in general, I don’t think the criminal aspects of the Civil Rights Acts are prosecuted often enough generally, especially against government agents. The usual remedy under those acts are civil in nature rather than criminal.

But I do have a very serious concern with targeting advocacy. Advocacy, even for very controversial and unconstitutional ideas, is generally protected by the First Amendment. Advocating a repeal of the 13th Amendment, for instance, would be advocating against civil rights, and would be detestable, but it’s also protected speech. It shouldn’t be a violation of the Civil Rights Acts to advocate for a law, even if that law is arguably or clearly unconstitutional. To limit the ability to advocate on certain topics to carve out an exception to the First Amendment, which I don’t find acceptable.

Now, that’s not to say there’s no use for the Civil Rights Acts in the gun context. Ray Nagin and his police chief should be reachable under the acts. So should every officer that participated in the post-Katrina confiscations. You can advocate for a law to do X, even if X is unconstitutional, but you can’t actually deprive someone of civil rights, or if you’re a Mayor or Police Chief, order someone’s civil rights be violated. That’s reachable under both the civil and criminal provisions of the Civil Rights Acts.

Likewise, advocacy doesn’t rise to the level of a conspiracy. Generally for a conspiracy to be a conspiracy legally, at least one person in the conspiracy has to take some act to move the conspiracy forward. So, for instance, if hypothetically Nagin and his police chief were to be prosecuted, but they found out that Mayor Bloomberg (just as a hypothetical) was involved in the planning, even if Bloomberg never participated in the confiscation, and did not issue any orders to affect it, he would still be reachable under conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights.

On the issue of passing laws, we inherited the concept of parliamentary or legislative immunity from common law. There’s a lot of good reasons for its existence, but I’ve also heard good arguments that the various forms of sovereign immunity we imported from English law are wholly unsuitable for a free Republic such as ours. I’d be open to notions that legislators perhaps shouldn’t be immune if the laws they vote for later turn out to be held unconstitutional, but my concern would be that while perhaps legislators would be reluctant to pass laws that touched civil liberties, an unintended consequence likely would be the courts approaching review of legislative enactments with even more deference than they currently do, which is far too much in my opinion.

So I would like to see the Civil Rights Acts used more, both the civil and criminal aspects, but I think we have to be careful about carving out exceptions to the First Amendment, and criminalizing mere advocacy.

Targeting Training

Cam Edwards linked to this story complaining about the offer of firearms safety training from the NFL Players Association (sic) with the Sig Sauer Academy at the NRA Headquarters Range. An unnamed NFL general manager was outraged that the Association would offer classes to teach people who might own firearms how to use them safely and instead wanted to demand a “non-gun ownership course,” presumably to lecture these adults on why they should give up their constitutional rights.

The Association notes that estimate gun ownership rates among NFL players is estimate between 25%-75%, so they thought that offering a safety class for players was wise–especially since they note that they don’t advocate on the issue one way or the other.

I don’t think that the attacks on even firearm safety training are an accident. I think it’s very much part of the anti-gun culture war where these elites are horrified that people who learn that safely shooting is a whole lot of fun.

I believe Cam will be talking about this tonight on his Sportsman’s Channel show at 5pm Eastern. It will no doubt be interesting to hear more on this topic. I wonder if we’ll see more assaults on our efforts to train more new shooters, even if the anti-gun crowd used to preach safety.

Then Why Talk to the Media?

UPDATE: I should clarify here that when I’m speaking of “the media”, I’m implying speaking of hostile media, like the WaPo, NYT, or other outlets that have chronically shown an unwillingness to cover the issue fairly. Obviously I’m not against talking to friendly media, or to reporters that have shown a willingness to be fair. But that’s not Sari Horwitz.

NSSF is warning of a media ploy to divide and conquer. I am absolutely sure that the WaPo spun a yarn with that story we highlighted, but the fact is the less gun groups say to the media the better. I am not anti-NSSF by any means, and I won’t condemn the organization like others are doing. I think this was bad judgement rather than bad faith on their part. We’ve talked to many folks at NSSF, and they are fine people.

I believe saying something is an “NRA thing,” in regards to policy on some legislation, is ill advised, especially to a reporter. Steve Sanetti is absolutely right about the media ploy, so then why talk to them?Â The media’s goal is to try to make NRA look unreasonable, and out of the mainstream. Their goal is to isolate them, so it appears that we’re not showing a united front. Likewise, I fully accept that Alan Gottlieb may have only had a choice of how much crap was in the sandwich, but again, I think talking to the media about it is a mistake. The media is the enemy, and the less we say to them the better.

h/t Instapundit

Civil Rights Victory

The Campus Carry Ban in Colorado will be withdrawn. Now we just have to stop that ridiculous magazine ban. Instapundit has more. Publicola notes that there will be a filibuster in the Colorado Senate by Republicans. Also, he’s covering live again. Also keep an eye on Michael Bane.

I’ll be trying to cover as best I can, but I’m pretty busy today with other things.

Colorado Anti-Gun Bills Up in Senate

The Denver Post has live coverage of the debate & upcoming votes in the Colorado Senate on the package of anti-gun bills.

It’s interesting that they say the campus carry ban may be pulled today partially because of the national negative attention associated with the outrageous comments by lawmakers about rape victims. It’s not officially pulled yet, but several Democrats are trying to pressure the sponsor by telling the press that it’s dead. However, the sponsor is running around to the press saying that he’s got 10 hours to find votes.

The press is covering the various business angles to the issue, noting the recent threat by Outdoor Channel to pull production from the state. With 70% of voters listing the economy as the biggest issue influencing their vote going into the next election, Colorado lawmakers would do well to listen to the economic impact of gun control.

MAIG Lobbyist Loves Shooting “Assault Weapons” He Lobbies to Ban

We all know that the shooting sports are fun. It turns out that the lobbyists MAIG hires to promote gun bans know they are, too.

One of New York City Mayor Michael Bloombergâ€™s top gun-control lobbyists in Colorado appears to enjoy firing the very guns he is working to restrict.

Denver-based Headwaters Strategies lobbyist Adam Eichberg participated at a â€œwatermelon shootâ€ in September 2012 at the farm of Colorado state Sen. Greg Brophy (R.) where he fired a semi-automatic rifle with a high-capacity magazine.

A picture obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shows Eichberg smiling broadly as he shoulders a DPMS .308 rifle with a 20-round magazine.

Specifically, the lobbyist who appears absolutely overjoyed to be shooting off his 20 shots is calling for a ban on those same magazines. In fact, to top it off, the host of the shoot claims that Gov. John Hickenlooper begged for an invitation to come out and shoot “assault weapons” with those “high capacity” magazines he’s so eager to ban now that Bloomberg & Obama have promised political support.

The lawmaker who released the information about the shoot said he’s doing it because he has a problem with the way that they are calling for bans on mere citizens, while enjoying the same benefits of using these firearms in shooting sports:

Brophy said he is a friend of Eichberg, but could not let him or Hickenlooper slide.

â€œYou wonder if theyâ€™ve had a change of heart, or if theyâ€™re being hypocritical like we see in so many politicians where they donâ€™t want to live under the laws theyâ€™re pushing,â€ Brophy said.

Good for Sen. Brophy. I get that there’s business and there’s politics. But when you’re talking about restricting the right of average people who don’t benefit from police protection or Bloomberg’s billions making their way into your wallet, the typical divide between politics and personal goes out the window. These people are talking about abusing fundamental rights and putting lives at risk.

Dueling Ad Campaigns

NSSF released three commercials they produced with Colt, Stag Arms, & Mossberg that focus on the jobs angle of the gun debate. They are nearly identical, but here’s the Colt version which I liked best for the blue dome visual:

I’m almost ashamed to admit that as often as I drove by that blue dome when I was just getting involved with Second Amendment activism, I had no idea it was associated with Colt.

While gun control group leaders who react very emotionally to the debate may find this angle absurd, it’s really not. When MAIG polled Pennsylvania districts with Republicans they plan to attack (Reps. Fitzpatrick, Meehan, and Gerlach), they didn’t jump right into the gun issue. Instead, they asked “Which of the following issues will be most important to your vote for Congress inthe next election [first and second choice selected]?” Given the option to list two answers, not just one, the top issue was by far the economy. Nearly 70% of respondents (69% to be precise) said it was the big issue heading into 2014’s races. Where did gun control fall? It depends. When they worded it as “fixing gun laws,” it was at the very bottom with 3% – a particularly notable number since that’s a solid 2 percentage points below the poll’s margin of error. When they worded gun control as “gun violence prevention,” the number of people who say they’ll consider it in 2014 skyrocket to a whooping 8%, just two spots higher than “not sure” of any issue they’ll care about in the election. In other words, people care about jobs, they don’t care about gun control.

On the other side, Bloomberg is putting up money to run another ad with six Pennsylvania mayors, among others, to push for more gun control.

They are encouraging people to call Congress, so feel free to call…

Bloomberg is going to spend far more money than the gun industry and the pro-Second Amendment grassroots could ever spend, so it’s important we out-organize them. But still, it’s nice to see attempts to get more ads out there on our side that address serious issues voters care about.

Judiciary Committee Starts Voting

We’ll try to keep up to date on the voting as it happens.

First up is the trafficking bill, as reported by the LA Times. Vote was 11-7. Grassley was the only GOP defector, due to a promise that the bill contain a provision to stop gun walking. Hey, Senator Grassley, you know what makes gun walking illegal? Existing federal laws. Not everyone is fooled by what this bill is about:

“My concern is this bill is a solution in search of a problem,” said Sen.Â John CornynÂ (R-Texas). “Straw-purchasing for purposes of directing guns to people who cannot legally obtain them is already a crime. And so we double down and say this time we really mean it, when in fact the real problem in many instances is the lack of prosecution of existing crimes by the Department of Justice.”

On to the other measures. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Schumer introduces S.374, the “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013,” which will of course have nothing to do with responsible gun sellers, and is likely designed to screw us.

UPDATE: John Richardson has the final word on today’s voting.

Division of Government

One key theme of Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster speeches was that the filibuster was about reinforcing the advise and consent function of the Senate against the Executive. There was quite a bit of discussion going on in my social media corners about how Congress should stand up to the President more – regardless of who is in power. In general, it got people talking about the limitations of government and how government should be effectively run. It was all rather refreshing to watch.

But that got me thinking about another nomination process issue that has been overlooked. The last couple of weeks, folks have been talking about the fact that unlocking your cell phone is now a felony with a penalty of up to 5 years in jail. Yes, 5 years in jail for wanting switch cell phone carriers. Who the hell made that decision? Well, the Librarian of Congress, James Hadley Billington, is ultimately charged with the task.

That got me looking up just who the hell the Librarian of Congress thinks he is if he is ultimately tasked with making regulatory decisions that make people who want to switch cell phone companies into felons. He was nominated in 1987, more than 10 years before the DMCA would even become law and leave such decisions up to the Library of Congress. He was approved on a voice vote, and the issue of his nomination has never been revisited again as far as I can tell in a few searches of Thomas. I would argue that once a man is given such power, it would probably be wise to haul him in for questions about how he plans to do with his new authority to make Americans using common technology into felons, and maybe revisit who should have this role.

Of course, some might argue that because I was using a pretty handy tool of the Library of Congress to do some digging on the Librarian of Congress, maybe the Library just stepped out of bounds on this one issue. Well, as Reason highlighted this week, a retired guy with just a high school diploma and some computers has created a database of historic newspapers with 22 million newspaper pages with just the expense of some equipment he bought himself and an internet connection. Meanwhile, the project to do the very same thing that Billington has created costs taxpayers $3 a page and only managed to archive 5 million newspaper pages. Even with the credibility of the Library of Congress behind it, Billington’s historic newspaper project sees less than half of the traffic of the archive of an amateur.

I guess with all of the enthusiasm that accompanied Rand Paul’s reminder of Senate checks and balances, I wonder if questioning past appointments who haven’t faced nomination scrutiny in more than a quarter of a century will ever be on the table. In the case of the Library of Congress, there are clearly questions about their copyright policies if Americans can become felons for wanting to unlock the cell phones they legally purchased and there are also clearly some questions about smart spending of resources. Maybe it’s time to again question the authority of someone who has been in power with little oversight for 26 years.

The Coming Fight

Another good article in Politico about the coming floor fight. They make the mistake of thinking the NRA is a singular behemoth, rather than an organization backed up by millions of concerned Americans. They note, “Gun control groups are also prepping for a longer fight.” I’m really quite tired of every election being the most important ever, but you can see from the recent escalation after the 2012 loss, the 2014 elections are shaping up to be exactly that. In losing many past “not to be lost” elections, we’ve squandered quite a bit. We can’t afford to squander anymore. If we go down in 2014 and suffer heavy losses in key races, it’s going to be the end of us. It’s going to be an all hands on deck situation, or we’re going to suffer losses that make the 90s look tame.