Category: Guns

MikeB, our token gun control blogger who doesn’t seem to be a paid shill, talks about a challenge to the Senate to take down the metal detectors.  Personally, I would have no problem if with the Senate allowing firearms, but can they constitutionally prohibit them?  He asks:

What’s your opinion? Would you feel unsafe in a highly secure building which disallows weapons? Do you think the same folks who favor guns in national parks and on college campuses would agree to allow concealed carry in the Capitol Building?

Generally speaking, in situations where security is done properly, I don’t feel unsafe having to leave my pistol at the door, though it annoys me when I’m forced to leave it at home or in the car.  Last April, at the Second Amendment Rally in Harrisburg, there were a few guys who lamented being disarmed in the Capitol building.  I generally don’t worry too much about my security in a place crawling with Capitol Police officers, who have a lot more tools at their disposal to deal with situations than I carry anyway.

The constitutional standard for “government buildings,” where the government may prohibit carrying of firearms should be based on the “sensitive” language in Heller, combined with being able to create a reasonably secure facility. For instance, the government may prohibit arms in a court house, because government has a legitimate security concern, and the security afforded at such facilities is a reasonable substitute for personally provided security.

That’s considerably less true if you’re dealing with a washroom at a campground at a National Park, or a remote ranger facility in a National Forest.  It’s also less true at a post office, or some other non-secured government facility like your local Social Security office.  Would the Senate qualify as such a “sensitive” place?  I could see the argument.  It’s been attacked by kooks before.  Does it have controlled entrances with metal detectors?  Check.  Heavily police or security presence?  Check, the Capitol has its own police force.  So yeah, I think the government can constitutionally prohibit people from carrying in the U.S. Capitol building.  The real question is should they have to provide checking facilities?  They do at the Pennsylvania Capitol, as is required by law.  I think there’s a good case to make that they need to, if they are going to restrict the building.

But I don’t think it’s serious to suggest that the Senate banning firearms within the Capitol building is equivalent to the entire state of New Jersey declaring me entirely unworthy of exercising my right to personal defense by carrying the arms of my choice, or New York deciding that I can’t even bring a pistol with me to protect myself at my vacation home in the Adirondacks (if I had one).  The challenge might be smart political rhetoric, but there’s a much better case to be made for restricting arms carried in the U.S. Capitol than, say, the entire state of California.

Self-defense is one of those areas there’s often a fairly significant gap between elite opinion and popular opinion.  That’s no better illustrated than in the comments at the story I linked to previously here.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet the people there being hardest on DePaul are other people who have LTCs who don’t appreciate DePaul’s reckless behavior making the whole community look bad.

But it shows what happens when the authorities don’t take maintaining the peace seriously.  Anyone who frequents the Schuylkill River Trail knows that youths are a common problem.  Most of these problems don’t rise to the level of deadly force, but with cases like this, if the authorities do nothing, that’s often just a matter of time.  Additionally, if problems like this fester, it reduces popular respect for the law, and before too long, juries are going to start letting guys like DePaul walk.

I heard a local attorney tell a story of a guy in my county, who back during the crime wave in the 1980s, popped a guy from his house, who had broken into his shed.  By the Pennsylvania Consolidates Statutes, that’s pretty unambiguously murder, but during the 80s the Bucks County DA declined to bring charges, probably knowing that there wasn’t a jury to be found in the county that would have been in the mood to convict under those circumstances.  Once you can’t find a jury to convict someone for a specific crime, for all intents and purposes the act becomes legal.  If the government fails to maintain public order, populist opinion will typically yeild to the people doing it, often not in pretty ways.  While I am a strong advocate for self-defense, I don’t advocate vigalantism, but that often ends up happening when the state cannot perform its basic functions adequately.