Category: Guns

Sent to me by one of my liberal readers:

What matters isn’t what the public believes. What matters is the issues that the public is willing to get out and vote for. By and large, people don’t care badly enough about gun control to throw out legislators who don’t do what they want. But the small minority of gun nuts do care very badly–and they get out and vote in partisan primaries with that same passion.

This is the nuts and bolts of it, and one reason I’ve always strived not to just be another blog out there reaffirming confirmation biases. When most people don’t agree with you, the only way you can win is to ensure there remains few people passionate enough about gun control to actually vote on it.

We’ve made tremendous strides in this issue over the past few decades, to the point where the number of issues we don’t enjoy at least a plurality of favorable public opinion are few. But one reason I’m always very wary of tactics designed to antagonize rather than persuade is because being antagonized is what causes people to get off their asses and act. There’s always a tendency among our people to believe that there’s more public support for our issue than there really is. The article is correct to note that this doesn’t matter as long as there’s still a big enthusiasm gap, but let’s not pretend the other side doesn’t have a large pool of potential supporters they can draw from if only there’s enough money to reach them.

That’s where Bloomberg comes in, and where he can do the most damage. They are starting small, not asking for much of a commitment. That’s why you see them circulating a lot of petitions and easy stuff which don’t take a lot of thought or effort. We’ve seen when it comes to higher levels of engagement, they take more than *ahem* a little encouragement.

My big concern is money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy elections. Bloomberg can easily outspend us. If we don’t make up for it with our own enthusiasm, we could end up in big trouble, and it could very likely come quickly and without much warning.

 

Thanks to Bearing Arms for pointing to Dick Metcalf digging ever deeper whining about the premature demise of his career. He also shows a poor understanding of the standard model of the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, Metcalf noted, “not that it shall not be regulated.” Rather the first four words of the amendment, “a well regulated militia,” not only allow but mandate regulation.

We’ve been over and over this, again and again. The prefatory clause is simply a justification for acknowledging the right. There are other such prefatory clauses in the Constitution, such as:

“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

People have argued, in front of the Supreme Court, that the prefatory clause meaningfully modifies the nature of the power in question, and the Supreme Court rejected the idea. Only two justices tried to argue that the prefatory clause limited the power to only those things which promoted the progress of science and useful arts. The structure of the Second Amendment is nearly identical. The prefatory clause, which states the case for acknowledging the right, does not meaningfully limit it, anymore than the patent and copyright prefatory clause limits Congress’ power. That’s without even needing dissect the 18th century meaning of “well-regulated,” which in this case means regulated like a clock, and not regulated like a chemical plant.

“Everything is regulated, but everything is not infringed. Not all regulation is infringement. Is your right to drive a car being infringed by a speed limit?”

There is no right to drive a car. Some may say there ought to be, and I would be among those who would agree with that, but current law treats the “right” to drive a car on public roads as a “privilege.” If it was recognized as a right, things might be different. Also, a speed limit only regulates what you may do with a car. No one would argue the Second Amendment is so absolute as to preclude how one may employ a firearm. You have no Second Amendment right to rob a bank with a gun. No one would argue that you have a Second Amendment right to shoot across your neighbor’s yard, or shoot across a public road or waterway absent any exigent circumstances. That’s very different than some of the regulations Metcalf has advocated for, which would amount to a prior restraint when it comes to other rights.

Those are debates we can have. Some have argued that the prior restraint doctrine from First Amendment law might not be completely applicable to Second Amendment law, and I don’t see people calling for Dave Kopel’s career on a platter. The problem with Metcalf’s article, and his continuing statements in the media was/is ignorance. I can point to numerous examples of people getting away with the kind of things he’s been saying without getting skewered. Metcalf’s problem is he’s adopted many of the shopworn arguments of our opponents. No one argues the Second Amendment is absolute, or that we could reasonably expect the courts to find it as such. There’s plenty of room to argue about this or that. But when you adopt the same rhetoric and tired arguments as our opponents, people are going to react badly. That’s what Metcalf did, and has been continuing to do.