Category: Gun Rights

I’m Uploading Here All My Pictures from the Event, with appropriate labels. Many of them you likely saw in Twitter if you were following my feed, but here they are for those of you who were not following along on Twitter. You can click on the pics to make them bigger, and to see my footnotes.

After the case, we headed to lunch with Sandy Froman and some of the folks from NRA’s General Counsel’s office. Headed over to NRA-ILA’s Federal Affairs office in DC after that just to be able to sit down for a few minutes. We got a chance to chat with Chris Cox and Rachel, our blogger Media Liaison. Then on to the reception where we spoke with some of the ISRA folks, some Calguns Foundation Folks, and Alan Gura.

We got a pretty wide array of gun rights opinion from many different parties. Everyone was very positive about the case, and was in high spirits. I think this was a great day for the Second Amendment, and I am thankful we have so many smart and dedicated practitioners out there fighting for it. Let us hope the outcome is as positive as our moods yesterday.

In some ways, it was bad for the blog for both Bitter and I to go down, since it’s exceedingly difficult to cover events live with a blog. I’m sure others have better coverage than we do by this point. I noticed some commentary at Volokh here, here, and here. I have thoughts on McDonald I’ll be sharing today, but I have a good bit to get caught up with, and I’m still really drained. Yesterday was a long day, and despite getting up at 4AM, we didn’t get home until 1AM this morning.

I am very glad I went, however, and got to see at least five minutes of history being made before my eyes. I am glad I had the chance to meet with so many of the players in this herculean effort. I even introduced myself to the Brady folks, who were outside the event lining up media interviews for after the case was heard. Paul Helmke was very gracious, and we actually spent about 10 minutes talking with Peter Hamm, who was equally gracious. No reason not to be cordial with the other side, because there is always plenty of room for politics later. This is how our Republic functions, after all.

I wouldn’t say we’re cheering Starbucks, since we’re not really asking them to take our side. We really don’t want them to take any position on this issue. That’s all we ask. It’s the Brady folks who want them to make a statement. That’s why I’m a little worried that this AP article here seems to misconstrue the issue:

“They’re trying to change the culture with this broader notion of gun rights,” said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University government professor who has written a book on the politics of gun control. “I think they are pressing the notion that they’ve got a rout going, so why not just get what they can while they’re ahead?”

We never tried to drag Starbuck into the gun debate. It was the gun control advocates who did that. All we want is for Starbucks to continue its current policy. We might be trying to change the culture on gun rights, but Starbucks was never intended to be a part of that. It’s the gun control folks who smelled an opportunity here, not us.

This time from the Chicago Sun Times, who gets that this is a 14th Amendment case, but says the Fourteenth Amendment “limits states from enacting laws that essentially subvert federal law.” That would be the Supremacy Clause, not the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment prevents states from abridging the “privileges or immunities” of citizens of the United States, or depriving them of “life, liberty or property without due process of law.” At least these are the two clauses at issue in McDonald. It’s not really incorrect to say that it “limits states from enacting laws that essentially subvert federal law,” but that federal law is the supreme law, namely the Bill of Rights as amended to our Constitution.

I will be broadcasting things of interest during our time here in DC on my Twitter feed, which you can find here. Bitter will also be tweeting over here, and she’s probably more of a spontaneous tweeter than I am. Most of the coverage of McDonald won’t begin until tomorrow, obviously, but we’ll be meeting up with some friends in the issue up until that time. At least one of us will be staying outside, probably both of us to be honest, due to the fact that I’m not too keen on camping out in DC in the freezing cold with dress clothes on.

Coverage here will be more after the fact, since I can’t lug a laptop around with me all day. I can, however, lug an iPhone, so live coverage will be on Twitter.

Yesterday morning and early afternoon, Bitter and I had some time to do our own survey of some National Parks, to see whether gun owners had thoroughly defiled them, and whether it did indeed sound like the opening day of deer season, as gun owners shot everything in sight. Let’s take a look at Teddy Roosevelt Island.

This park is situated on the Potomac, which means it’s technically in the District, but access is from gun nutty Virginia, and since gun owners there can’t help themselves with some drinkin’ and shootin’, we thought for sure we’d have to run for cover. Notice the Teddy Roosevelt statue on the Island is free of bullet holes (unlike the real TR), and there’s a distinct lack of empty brass casings on the ground. As far as noise, the loudest thing you’ll hear on TR Island is the sound of planes taking off from Reagan National Airport. We figured visiting this park just wasn’t really enough, since it is technically in the District. We decided that, since gun owners are so obviously the disrespectful types with no control over their most basic impulses, that we’d head over to Arlington National Cemetery, which is situated entirely within the Commonwealth of Virginia.Surely we’d be inundated by the sound of guns firing into the air as gun owners mourned all their dead confederate relatives. Now there’s nothing these impulsive gun owners hate themselves more than a Kennedy, so surely JFK’s grave would have been quickly defiled by bullet holes and empty shell casings, but it was in good shape, along with RFK and Teddy’s recent grave. Arlington was also quiet. Eerily quiet. Surely gun owners must be planning some kind of mayhem. We decided to head up to Bobby Lee’s old house, to see if maybe some of the good old boys got themselves an idea to storm up the hill and retake Arlington House in the name of the South. This seemed highly plausible, that maybe they’d save the Kennedy hatin’ for later, and get Bobby Lee’s house back first, but something clearly must have been wrong.

Quiet reverence is the best way to describe the scene at Arlington National Cemetery. We figured maybe it’s because Bobby Lee’s house is posted as a federal facility. But the visitors center was not posted, and you could enter the cemetery without having to go through it. We will note, however, that one park ranger was seen openly carrying a side arm. Obviously scaring children and gun control supporters in the process. But perhaps the real conclusion is that all the hysterics on the part of the media are, in fact, completely overblown. The sun will continue to rise and set on our National Parks, and people will enjoy them much in the same way they did before, rules allowing guns to the contrary.

Apparently he’s looking for a repeat of 1994. To me, the real worry is he’ll push this after we kick all the pro-gun Democrats out of office and replace them with Republicans who will be untested, or in some cases anti-gun outright. After 2010, he won’t have Harry Reid in his way either.

UPDATE: Sorry folks, this popped up in Google just recently, linking to the ABC story which is a year old. I just read the date and thought it was new. I didn’t notice the year.

Much like the last attempt, it got past the house, only to die in the Senate. It’s a really tough sell, even in Wyoming. There’s still the Arizona bill, however.

Looks like the Presbyterian Lay Community is pushing gun control again. This is likely why Heeding God’s Call was formed out of a project by CeaseFire New Jersey. Unfortunately for them, this is another case of elites taking positions that are contrary to many of their members. For those gun owners who are religious, it might make sense to get involved in church leadership so the kibosh can be put on nonsense like this.