The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
From What Starts with W. For those of you who might not remember, this is the case of the guy made to eat pavement for OCing a pistol down the streets of Philadelphia while in possession of a valid License to Carry. You can see the YouTube video that started it all here.
Apparently the verdict is not guilty. He was charged with reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct. I sincerely hope this helps his Civil Rights lawsuit.
John Richardson has some links and a video that speak to exactly what HR822 does and does not do.
Record low support, at 26%, for a handgun ban, since Gallup first started asking in 1959. Has to feel awful for our opponents to be on the wrong side of history and public opinion. Of course, ask them now they don’t support handgun bans, they never supported handgun bans, and who are you to suggest that was ever so?
Of course, that’s not even the worst news for our opponents. Here’ the worst news:
For the first time, Gallup finds greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53% to 43%. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57% for and 42% against an assault rifle ban.
We are getting our message out there folks. Now we just need federal judges to get the message.
So a stake has been driven through the heart of the Canadian Long Gun Registry by Steven Harper’s Tory Government. This is a momentous achievement for Canadian Gun owners. But what comes next? This article offers a key insight:
But it will be shortly ending. The Conservatives have signalled they will introduce legislation to abolish the registry, fulfilling a campaign promise – a promise its predecessor party first made in 1997.
They are finding, however, that breaking up is hard to do because over the years the registry has been a stalwart friend, a gift that kept on giving. They have used the “Liberal†registry to raise funds and create division in opposition parties.
Canadian gun owners should understand that politicians do nothing out of the kindness of their hearts, or because it’s the right thing to do on general principle. There might be a few individual true friends here and there, but as a lot they are motivated by self-interest. That self-interest, for the most part, revolves around winning elections.
So Canadian gun owners need another issue that can be that “gift the keeps on giving” for the Tories. The key is to never be satisfied. Now that Canadian gun owners have their victory, now is definitely not the time to go back to sleep. Now is the time to wake up. The National Post might offer some guidance in this area, namely attacking licensing.
But gun owners in Canada need some organization. While the Canadian Shooting Sports Association has a decent online presence, The Canadian Institute for Legislative Action needs some serious help. This is an area some volunteers would be helpful, so if any Canadian citizens are reading, and have some free time, go offer to help out Tony Bernardo. Right now their online presence screams one man operation. That has to change if you want to move forward.
UPDATE: More ideas here. I wish our media would help us strategize!
HR 822 has passed out of the house Judiciary Committee by a vote of 19-11. This looks like a party line vote.
The yes votes were Lamar Smith, James Sensenbrenner, Howard Coble, Robert Goodlatte, Steve Chabot, Darrell Issa, Randy Forbes, Steve King, Trent Franks, Jim Jordan, Ted Poe, Jason Chaffetz, Tim Griffin, Tom Marino, Trey Gowdy, Dennis Ross, Sandy Adams, Ben Quayle, and Mark Amodei.
No Votes were Dan Lungren, John Conyers, Howard Berman, Jerrold Nadler, Robert Scott, Maxine Waters, Steve Cohen, Hank Johnson, Pedro Pierluisi, Mike Quigley, and Judy Chu
Republicans that were not present were Elton Gallegly, Mike Pence, and Louie Gohmert.
We’re asking all readers who have an account on Twitter to please tweet some thank kudos to the yes voters on HR822. This is something Congress Critters notice, and it shows them we’re paying attention to what they are doing. We’re pleased to report the number of yes votes is too large to fit into one 140 character Tweet, so we had to break them up.
Countering some of the objections by our opponents that HR822 is violative of states rights:
This is an inalienable right that neither the federal government, nor any state government, may infringe upon. In addition, the 14th Amendment gives Congress the power to protect us from states that infringe on our inalienable, constitutional rights.
By the way, these are the same gun-ban groups that don’t give any consideration to states’ rights when they lobby for sweeping federal gun bans, ammunition bans, and magazine bans.
I don’t think states have rights anyway. People have rights. States have powers which are delegated to it by the people. I’m glad he’s calling out the disingenuousness of our opponents when they hang their hat on the 10th Amendment. They weren’t so concerned about state-by-state policy when they were busy banning scary looking rifles as equally in Pennsylvania as they were in Montana.
It looks like this past week was a busy one for the gun control crowd, busy giving us insights into their thinking, and windows into their minds. Professor Adam Winkler has been on a book tour to promote “Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” in which he brings up the subject of many early gun control efforts having racist roots. This infuriates Ladd Everitt, who confronts Professor Winkler at one of his events:
This is another example of the gun control crowd failing to understand our positions, or even really grasp the core of what we argue. I don’t think anyone who’s an opinion leader in this issue, that has discussed the racist roots of gun control, has suggested that Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, the Brady Campaign, or any of its supporters, are pushing gun control because they are racist, or that their efforts are motivated by a desire to racially discriminate. All we’re suggesting is that the racist motivations of past gun control efforts should be acknowledged and openly talked about. That is the Professor’s position as well, and it is also mine.
But I will go slightly farther than perhaps Professor Winkler would be willing to go, and suggest that even today, gun control, in effect, can have racial consequences, even if it is not motivated by racial considerations per se. I will give you an example, in using the issue of “Florida Loophole,” in Pennsylvania. The City leaders have lamented that people in high-crime neighborhoods are being issued Florida licenses, presumably because they have been turned down for a license by the City of Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania law allows police to deny a license to “An individual whose character and reputation is such that the individual would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety,” which the City of Philadelphia has interpreted quite broadly, even going to far as to suggest unpaid parking tickets are sufficient to deny permits under this clause. Philadelphia will also deny your license if you have ever been arrested, even if the arrest was minor and long ago. There is an appeal process to contest a license revocation, but it costs time and money. A typical suburban resident has sufficient access to the legal system to be able to successfully challenge an unfair denial, so suburban jurisdictions, even ones who probably would not issue licenses at all if they had a choice, tend to use this criteria fairly. Philadelphia routinely gets away with unfair denials because its residents are poorer, and don’t have the same access to the legal system. A Florida license, for which Florida only counts convictions, rather than arrests, is a cheaper alternative for being able to legally carry for self-protection. But City officials have been champing at the bit to get the “Florida Loophole” closed, leaving those residents with no recourse.
It’s worth noting that suburban applicants are going to tend to overwhelmingly be white and middle or upper class. City applicants stand  better chance than not of being African-American, given they are the city’s predominate ethnic group. It is outrageous to me that some Americans have better access to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms than other Americans. I have no doubt the motivation to close the “Florida Loophole” is not racial. Indeed, many proponents of closing the loophole are African-American, including Mayor Nutter and Commissioner Ramsey. But the end of result of what they advocate is that African-Americans in Philadelphia, who live in high-crime areas and who may be lower-income, will have less access to their constitutional rights than the white folks in the suburbs. This is what I mean when I suggest the law has racial implications, even if it is not racist in its motivations. The implication should concern any American who believes in the Bill of Rights, and equal protection under the law.
Ladd Everitt proposes we airbrush this from the debate, probably because it makes him uncomfortable. To be sure, I don’t think Everitt is a racist; i’m sure he’d be happy to disarm both black and white equally. But we don’t live in a country where a gun ban is possible anymore. Given that, I think it’s important to ensure that all Americans, regardless of color or income, have the same access to exercise their rights as everyone else. The Florida issue has uncovered a fundamental unfairness in the way Pennsylvania law is written, and how it is being implemented. It should be fixed. I’m willing to talk about the Florida issue as part of that solution, but I am absolutely not willing to airbrush the racial implications of the current status-quo. All law-abiding Pennsylvanians should have equal access to their right to carry a firearm for self-protection. I would like to think that’s a base principle we could all get behind, and leave the disagreement limited to whether the standard needs to be tougher, more lenient, or just less subjective.
Professor Winkler and I may be at opposite sides of that particular debate, but his willingness to take our side seriously, and make serious arguments in return, is a breath of fresh air in an issue dominated by the Ladd Everitts, Joan Petersons, and Abby Spanglers of the world. And that’s not even speaking of the boneheads on our “side.”
The Record-Courier reports Justin Lew Harris of Gardnerville carried his 56-year-old mother out of the church Monday as she loudly objected to the ceremony.
All, OK, so far. Generally speaking, you can use force to remove trespassers, right?
Harris, 35, faces disorderly conduct and coercion charges. He was released from the Douglas County Jail on his own recognizance Wednesday.
Because these charges are related to a domestic violence incident, if he’s convicted, he’ll be prohibited under the Lautenberg Amendment. Clearly by carrying mom out of the church, he’s a dangerous wife beater deserving of losing a fundamental constitutional right. At least that’s what our opponents think.
The disorderly conduct charge ordinarily would be very minor, and I think even in this situation would not be disabling in regards to Lautenberg. But the coercion charge involves an element of physical force, which qualifies, and we’re talking about his mother, which makes it domestic. Our dishonest and unsavory opponents want you think about wife beaters, but the domestic violence ban just as surely covers this conduct as it does someone who slaps his wife.
And why this guy is facing charges at all is a whole different discussion that really speaks to state overreach.
Apparently Elena Kagan has been on several hunting trips with Justice Scalia. We knew from before she had visited a range, but looks like she’s dove deeper. While I consider this positive news, a few trips hunting and to the range is a long way off from tossing a ban on carry, or assault weapons. That said, with the game as close as it is, I’d settle for just having one more vote that may not want to go so far as to overturn Heller and McDonald.
This time in St. Louis, but still using Philly as an example. We’ve documented previously that these articles have been popping up all over. The purpose of this article is to help defeat HR822, it would seem. It’s worth noting that HR822 does not extend to residents in their home states, so both before and after HR822, this Florida issue is still completely a matter of state prerogatives.
The city argues that it needs latitude in determining who is a threat, because of long-standing problems in the court system. A Philadelphia Inquirer report last year noted that while prosecutors in other big cities win felony convictions in half of violent-crime cases, in Philadelphia, prosecutors had been winning only 20 percent.
It seems to me that this is the real problem to fix. You can’t have a revolving door justice system and expect to turn your city as a whole into a kind of low-level prison, where we all have to deal with more restrictive laws because the City can’t serve basic functions such as controlling crime. It is also absolutely inappropriate to consider arrests, rather than convictions, in determining who is permitted to exercise a constitutional right.
