Jacob takes a look at the sad state of the gun control movement. He points out they haven’t gotten any new gun control passed in New York in a decade. Thinking a bit, it’s really only been California and New Jersey they’ve been able to get anything done, and lawsuits are underway that will hopefully reverse even that in due course.
Category: Anti-Gun Folks
New Low for the Bradys
Just when you think they couldn’t get any lower, after unfairly attacking James D’Cruz’s interest in movies and books a few days ago in a press release, they are now trying to scare people with James in his halloween costume into donating them money. Yes, that’s right. I actually asked about the picture, and it’s a halloween costume. Of course, the Bradys went right past the picture of James in his JROTC uniform to get to the one that supposedly shows how off balance he is.
In addition, it’s probably worth pointing out that technically, that photograph is © 2010 by a one James D’Cruz, which would mean Bradys use of it for fundraising purposes falls outside of fair use, and therefore is copyright infringement. So not only are they maligning James’ reputation, but they are pirating a photograph from him as well. I think James’ should demand royalties. Granted, given the state of Brady fundraising, that might not be much, but at the least I think Paul Helmke owes James a Starbucks gift certificate or something.
Bradys Celebrating the Brady Act
Miguel points out that the Brady folks seem to be celebrating that they get it right half the time, because NICS has stopped 2 million transactions, and 1 million of them were felons! Now, it may be that that the other million are prohibited misdemeanants. That can happen if the misdemeanor is a domestic conviction, or it’s a misdemeanor that carries a possible sentence of more than two years in prison. These are also people unlikely to realize they are prohibited persons when they go to purchase a firearm, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they are overrepresented.
I seem to recall some analyses of NICS denials, that I wish I could find now, said that about 5% of NICS denials are appealed, and on appeal about half of those denials are overturned. How many people are getting unjustly denied by the background check system but never bother appealing to see if the data is erroneous? In truth we can’t know, but I doubt the number is zero. Many of those improperly denied may know they had been in trouble with the law before, but have their convictions erroneously classified as prohibiting offenses when they are not. Those types may not bother.
I’m sort of resigned to the fact that we’re going to have to live with some amount of gun control, and as gun control goes, the instant check system isn’t the worst of all things to have to live with. But just because I’m resigned to having to tolerate it, doesn’t mean I think it’s effective. Hard core criminals are going to get guns no matter what. I have little doubt that NICS has stopped some criminals from getting guns, but what kind of criminals? If you’re in a gang, in the business of selling drugs, or have an interest in robbing people, I’m not convinced that failing a background check is where your quest for a gun is going to stop. How many of those 2 million denied purchasers went on to buy a gun out of the back of a van? How many of them just had a girlfriend straw purchase a gun for them?
The Bradys always seem to be relatively horrified we don’t support these “common sense” measures. Maybe because there’s no evidence they are really making society any safer. To a woman trying to defend herself against an abusive ex-husband, it’s going to be little comfort to her, while she’s defenseless awaiting her NICS appeal, that the system gets it right most of the time. Â We generally don’t tolerate those kinds of prior restraints when it comes to other constitutional rights.
Solution to Violence
According to anti-gun groups in Connecticut, we could end violence with more gun control. How do they want to get more gun control? Give felons behind bars the right to vote to control the rest of us.
The National Rifle Association and rogue gun stores are two of the culprits causing gun violence to increase, the executive director for Connecticut Against Gun Violence said Saturday, adding that residents must speak up to — or vote out — officials to demand change and save lives. …
James Hanton lamented he can’t yet vote and spur change because he’s still on parole. Tucker and others at the meeting encouraged Hanton and those on parole to continue fighting gun violence and speak with friends and family who can vote about town officials’ actions.
“Stay with the movement and keep fighting,†Tucker said.
Keep fighting for what exactly? From another report of the same gun control group meeting:
“This is what we do,†Sheldon Tucker jumped in. … “Part of what we’re doing right here. A lot of the work that we did is the reason people on parole can vote. It wasn’t like that years ago, so we got together and we fought and we fought and we fought,†he said, punching one fist into the other open hand for emphasis. “Until you can vote, still become a part of that movement. And then maybe, people on parole can vote; people in jail can vote,†he concluded to many murmurs of agreement.
When I read these articles, and I look up the records that show James Hanton convicted of burglary and larceny on multiple occasions that caused a couple of juries of his peers to demand he be locked up for 3 1/2 years, I really wonder how the leaders of groups like Connecticut Against Gun Violence can say with any sort of straight face that the NRA is to blame for crime in this country. For what it’s worth, Hanton is out on the streets after less than two years in jail. You’d think he’d see good in the fact that he’s out of prison rather than whining that he can’t vote yet.
Classy
So blinded by disdain for people exercising their rights, the California chapter of the Brady Campaign is going to protest a toy drive for poor kids just because it’s being organized by an open carry group. Way to keep it classy guys.
Withdrawn Brady Amicus
I thought I’d take a second to go over some choice sections from the amicus the Brady folks withdrew from D’Cruz. In this brief, they cherry pick from Heller in an attempt to argue that there exists no right to have a firearm outside your home:
The Court’s holding is also specifically limited to the right to keep firearms in the home: “[i]n sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.”
But since the District Court can read, and has presumably been to law school, the court will presumably understand that the Heller holding is limited to the home because that was the scope of the question before the Court. The District Court will also remember this passage from Heller:
Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment.
Possess and carry, Brady folks. Not just possess. But surely the word “bear” in the Second Amendment was meant to be limited to only a military context:
If “bear arms†means, as we think, simply the carrying of arms, a modifier can limit the purpose of the carriage (“for the purpose of self- defense†or “to make war against the Kingâ€). But if “bear arms†means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, the carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add “for the purpose of killing game.†The right “to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game†is worthy of the mad hatter.
Of course, the Bradys are quick to footnote in their brief:
For example, the Heller Court discussed “bear†as meaning “carry†simply to support its position that the Second Amendment’s use of “bear arms†“in no way connotes participation in a structured military organization,†and, therefore, the Court opined, the phrase did not indicate that the Second Amendment was limited to militia matters. 128 S. Ct. at 2793. The Heller Court did not state that the Second Amendment protects a right to carry arms in public.
Except you can find plenty of places in Heller where it’s strongly implied:
In Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243, 251 (1846), the Georgia Supreme Court construed the Second Amendment as protecting the “natural right of self-defence†and therefore struck down a ban on carrying pistols openly. Its opinion perfectly captured the way in which the operative clause of the Second Amendment furthers the purpose announced in the prefatory clause, in continuity with the English right…
There are several places in Heller where the court speaks of the Second Amendment in the context of carrying arms in public. The Brady assertion that this is merely “tea leave reading” is ludicrous. If the Court wanted to close the door on carrying firearms it could have easily done so.
In addition, the Brady’s have manufactured a new standard of review of in their brief. No longer do we just have strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, and rational basis review. Now we have a new an exciting standard called “reasonable regulation” test. This test is found nowhere in Heller or McDonald, but we have it here:
The reasonable regulation test is a more heightened form of scrutiny than the rational basis test that the majority opinion in Heller rejected (and is more demanding than the “interest balancing†test suggested by Justice Breyer in dissent) because it does not permit states to prohibit all firearm ownership, even if there is a rational basis to do so.
They cite Eugene Volokh’s paper for this, even though I can find this test nowhere in it, and even though Eugene was skeptical of the constitutionality of the ban on 18-20 year olds from exercising their rights. The Bradys say the big advantage of this only-slightly-stronger-than-rational-basis review is that is gives legislatures the deference they so richly deserve. But no matter, every gun law survives strict scrutiny anyway, according to the Brady folk:
Sections 46.02, 411.172(a)(2), (a)(9), and (g) also would survive intermediate (or even strict) scrutiny were the Court to apply that standard of review because it is substantially related to an important government interest. Indeed, a number of courts have found that the protection of the public from gun violence is an important government interest.
They keep trying to pretend Heller and McDonald are without consequence, but this brief is insulting to even my paltry legal intelligence. I can’t imagine the District Court would have thought too highly of it either. Perhaps it’s best that they had to withdraw it.
Brady Desperation Getting Nasty
Having flubbed their amicus brief in the case of D’Cruz v. McCraw must have really stung the Brady folks, because yesterday they released this bit of nastiness directed at 18 year old James D’Cruz. This is clearly desperation on their part, to resort to ad-hominem attacks on teenagers. But I guess that’s easier than filing an amicus brief properly. Just to give you an idea of how pathetic this attack is, I recognized some of the quotes in here, and decided to do a bit of research. The first quote the Brady’s cribbed from D’Cruz’s Facebook:
“Death is but a doorway”, October 6 at 5:28pm,
The full quote is “Death is but a doorway, time is but a window, I’ll be back.” That quote is from Vigo the Carpathian. Who is Vigo the Carpathian? The chief villain in the movie Ghostbusters II. I can see why the Brady Campaign is concerned with James quoting Vigo. Vigo was a powerful magician:
Clearly if we don’t stop James from being able to own a handgun, it’s only a matter of time before he’s being controlled by the spirit of a 17th century Moldavian tyrant that is alive and well  in a painting in the Manhattan Museum of Art. But some of these other quotes are scary, right?
“in this field of hundreds begging for their lives, we shall spare none,”
That is a quote from William Tecumseh Sherman. We usually like to encourage an interest in history among young people, but I will concede that James’s fondness for quoting Sherman may be disturbing to some Georgians, and perhaps a reason to keep him away from matches and gasoline, lest he fail to govern his impulsively and try to burn Atlanta to the ground. The other quotes are from various books and movies. One obviously cribbed and paraphrased by a screenplay writer from that famous out of control psychopath Earnest Hemmingway, “There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”
It’s amazing how low the Bradys are willing to go these days. But cribbing quotes out of context from some kid’s Facebook has to take the cake. I am glad they decided to do this before a holiday, and when North Korea is busy trying to start a war, because it’s likely no one is going to pay any attention to it.
Paul Helmke Seems to Have Woken Up …
… and thought it was 2004 this morning, because today it’s all about assault weapons and overheated rhetoric:
Yes, Virginia, if you believe in Santa Claus then you’ll believe there is a significant difference worth debating between the killing efficiency of a fully automatic assault weapon and a semi-automatic assault weapon. But understand, the finger-twitch variation is not enough to reduce the bloody heaps of bodies that keep piling up in communities across our fruited plains. The National Rogue Association knows that. And so, thankfully, does Andrew Traver.
They are desperate to make banning semi-automatic firearms an issue again, and they have just the guy to help them out in Andrew Traver. I’ll be honest, I never would have guessed back in 2005 when the PLCAA made ATF a position subject to Senate confirmation, that our opponents would be champing at the bit over the prospect of feasting on the badly needed victory of being able to get an ATF Director.
Brady Withdraws Amicus Brief
Looks like they screwed something up in the Texas case challenging 18-21 year olds owning and carrying firearms. I am glad our opponents are off their stride. One thing that has been worrying me about this case is that it’s trying to get concealed carry some measure of protection, and I’m not sure 18-20 year olds are the foil with which I’d try to win that fight. There is dicta in Heller that concealed weapons may be banned. We’d obviously like that to mean the state has power to regulate the manner in which arms are carried, without banning them carrying arms altogether. The one beneficial aspect to the venue chosen for this case is that open carry is illegal in Texas. So for 18-20 year olds, there’s no other option.
Reckless Teens
The Bradys, borrowing a tactic from the porn industry, have chosen to characterize denying fundamental constitutional rights to 18 to 21 year olds as “dangerous and reckless” to assert that “teenagers should be allowed to carry loaded semiautomatic weapons on our streets and playgrounds.”
Why not? We let them carry fully automatic weapons on the streets and playgrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan, don’t we?