Politics – Page 168 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Philadelphia Bucking Preemption Yet Again

This time they are going to refuse to recognize Florida licenses for residents unless the person also holds a Pennsylvania license.

The NRA has in the past sued over the cityâ€™s ability to pass its own gun legislation.Â Clarke joked about that likelihood, telling Gillison, â€œLook forward to being with you in court again.â€

At this point they know it’s illegal, they are just doing it to be pricks. Hopefully we can get real teeth to preemption so we can penalize the city for doing crap like this. I’d settle for an unambiguous preemption statute, with state funding cut for cities who have gun laws on the books. I don’t even care if they aren’t enforced, time to remove them. This crap has to stop, and stop now.

What a Waste

Article on the destruction of guns in Luzerne County. This is one nasty side effect of all the immigration from New Jersey and New York to Northeastern Pennsylvania. I’m disappointed to see this:

Financed by a $10,000 Project Safe Neighborhoods grant secured by state Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township, for use the 116th Legislative District, the District Attorneyâ€™s Office offered gift certificates for the Laurel Mall in denominations of $50 per long gun and $75 per handgun.

Eachus is A-rated. How many of those guns destroyed have historical value? Collectors should get first dibs before the guns are destroyed. You could make a program like this self-funding, essentially hooking up people who don’t want the guns anymore with people who do want them. Destroy the junk? Fine. But this is a waste, both of taxpayer dollars and potential historical collector pieces. Is this something an NRA A-rated politician ought to be enabling? I don’t think so.

Another Daily News Piece on Brian Aitken

This one is very sympathetic. At this point, it’s pretty clear that Governor Christie has the cover necessary to do the right thing. Governors hate this kind of thing, no matter what the issue. You don’t want to pardon a guy then have some 14 year old girl come out two weeks later and say she got knocked up by the guy you just pardoned, or have him go our and rob a bank. That’s largely why the clemency process has been formalized in most states, and delegated to boards to keep Governors away from it.

So I would hope that folks will keep the pressure on Christie’s office, but be patient. His people are likely going to have to dig to see what they can find, lest reporters find it later (and they will look). If I had to bet, I would bet Christie will commute his sentence, but leave the conviction itself intact for an appeal. That would be the least politically risky move from the Governor’s point of view, and would accomplish the goal of getting Brian out of jail. Christie can also use the excuse that it’s just not fair to the taxpayers to spend tens of thousands of dollars every year to keep this guy behind bars.

Second Amendment, Final Score in Congressional Elections

It took this long for all the races to be decided, but Dave Kopel has some final analysis with the help of Chuck Cunningham, ILA’s top federal lobbyist. It’s a good landscape to be working in. It’s interesting to see how few people are left who are soft on the issue, with most being either As or Fs.

Governor Christie on Brian Aitken

There’s been a lot of news in the Brian Aitken case lately. First there was a rally planned, then there wasn’t a rally planned. Then people started speculating what was up. I’ve been trying to get information on what’s going on. People are being very tight lipped, but there are many people working to get this guy some justice, and not all of it can be publicly broadcast. Governor Christie has this to say about the petition for clemency:

Needless to say this is a delicate matter. Anyone who’s followed Gov. Christie knows this isn’t a guy you can just push around. I’d like to think the Governor wants to do the right thing here, and issue a pardon, but wants to make sure he has his ducks lined up. The fact that this has appeared on the Governor’s own YouTube channel is hopefully a positive sign that he is at least taking this matter under serious consideration. Let us hope he does the right thing.

Hat Tip to Ian Argent

How We Catch Terrorists

A lot of folks on the Internets aren’t too happy with how the FBI is catching terrorists these days, by seemingly manufacturing them. I can’t say it’s a perfect method for catching terrorists, but I’m not sure what they are doing isn’t the least evil of the options available. First off, suggesting that the FBI is manufacturing terrorists is probably a bit of a hyperbole. Generally speaking, what constitutes entrapment is pretty well defined, and if the FBI wants to have a case, they will be careful to avoid it. So what are the elements of entrapment?

The idea for committing the crime came from the government agents and not from the person accused of the crime.
Government agents then persuaded or talked the person into committing the crime. Simply giving him the opportunity to commit the crime is not the same as persuading him to commit the crime.
The person was not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government agents spoke with him.

If this turns out to be entrapment, I’ll jump on board in criticizing the FBI’s methods. But I don’t really like the idea of violent jihadisÂ wandering around the United States, with only a lack of materials standing between themselves and the next Oklahoma City. If you think about it, the alternatives are probably worse than what the FBI is doing. What alternatives would there be?

More controls over explosives and explosive precursors. Given how many chemicals are explosive precursors, this method doesn’t enthuse me. Plus, much like gun control, it’s not going to stop someone determined. But it will definitely be annoying for people who lawfully use explosives or their precursors.
More domestic spying. If you’re going to keep close enough eye on them to catch them when they finally do hook up with Ahmed the Truck Bomb Maker, you’ll need to keep a close watch on them and anyone they associate with. Without thinking about the manpower issues involved here, it’ll be a big problem if one of these jihadists manage to slip away from his FBI watchers after securing an uncomfortable amount of Semtex.
Widen the GWOT to ensure terrorists have no places to train, hide, or get radicalized. This would be my preferred option, but it’s not politically or economically feasible. You’d have to send troops into Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen. The only way we’re paying for such an expansion of military action is either through massive tax hikes or adding even more to our deficit. That still doesn’t stop the problem of people who are already over here and already radicalized.
Doing nothing as long as terrorism is a low level problem. I’d probably be OK with this too, but the first time one of these guys manages to get his hands on something and executes another Oklahoma City, I can promise you there will be all kinds of restrictions put on not only explosives and precursors, but many civil liberties.
Institute extreme violations of civil liberties for Muslim Americans. I don’t find this option to be remotely acceptable, and don’t think anyone else should either.

So as much as it might feel better if we catch terrorists just before they are about to trigger the detonator on the truck bomb Ahmed built, setting the bar at that height seems to have an awful potential for someone actually pulling it off before agents can intervene. You can’t just think of what your reaction would be to a potential truck bombing. You have to think of what the now frightened population is going to let the civil servants get away with, and it can be guaranteed they will try to get away with as much as they can. Last time we went through this, our wonderful civil servants almost ended model rockery as a hobby in the United States, among other things.

So for now, provided the FBI isn’t unlawfully entrapping people, I’m fine with the FBI hooking up people who have the will to commit violent jihad with what they think is the means, and then busting them. It’s probably the lesser of available evils at the moment. It’s not the explosives that are dangerous, but the jihadist who has no issues murdering men, women and children as they go about their daily lives that’s dangerous. That’s generally been our philosophy when arguing against gun control right?

Bloomberg Looking to Run?

He’s certainly putting out messages that would indicate he’s thinking about it. The real question is who is he going to spoil? It’s possible the hope is he’ll pull away enough independent voters from the GOP to help out the Democrats in 2012. But polling has shown people don’t like Bloomberg all that much, and his close margin of victory for his third term runs shows even New Yorkers are tiring of him. The idea that he’s a serious contender is a non-starter, but that’s not to say he can’t be a spoiler. It’s worth nothing that Bill Clinton won two terms with a plurality.

Transparency, Government, and Gun Rights

Thanks to David Post for pointing to these excellent thoughts on the Wikileaks scandal, because I think it has a useful concept that also speaks to some recent happenings in the gun rights movement here in Pennsylvania:

On the other hand, human systems canâ€™t stand pure transparency. For negotiation to work, peopleâ€™s stated positions have to change, but change is seen, almost universally, as weakness. People trying to come to consensus must be able to privately voice opinions they would publicly abjure, and may later abandon. Wikileaks plainly damages those abilities. (If Aaron Badyâ€™s analysis is correct, it is the damage and not the oversight that Wikileaks is designed to create.*)

And so we have a tension between two requirements for democratic statecraft, one that canâ€™t be resolved, but can be brought to an acceptable equilibrium. Indeed, like the virtues of equality vs. liberty, or popular will vs. fundamental rights, it has to be brought into such an equilibrium for democratic statecraft not to be wrecked either by too much secrecy or too much transparency.

So how does this relate to the gun rights movement? Because it explains why it’s not really possible for NRA, or any other group that may be in a position to know legislatively sensitive information, to share that information with grassroots activists who aren’t made privy to it. I think the root of much of the tension is that negotiation and dealings happen behind closed doors, and there’s not enough trust that the people who are in the smoked filled room will do the right things.

There’s always the argument that perhaps there ought to be more transparency in the process, and I think there is merit to the argument that NRA hasn’t been transparent enough in what it’s doing when lobbying legislatures. But it can’t be perfectly transparent. There will be some point where John Hohenwarter goes into the smoke filled room, and you’re stuck having to live with whatever comes out of that process. There might be times when it’s someone else headed into the smoked filled room to negotiate on our behalf. But it’s going to be someone, and can’t be everyone. And that someone is going to keep his cards very close to his chest, if he or she is a smart negotiator.

That’s one reason I’m not sure what cooperation between pro-gun groups in Pennsylvania is really going to look like. Not all groups are going to be on equal footing in the minds of the elected officials who control access to the smoke filled room, which means not all groups will have the same information. Not all of that information will be of a nature that can be shared broadly without risking compromising the overall legislative agenda. If the first requirement for harmony is for everyone to be on equal footing, information and access wise, that’s a non-starter out of the gate.

So I suppose it comes down to who you trust? Do I trust John Hohenwarter of NRA? Do I trust Kim Stolfer of FOAC? Do I trust Dan Pehrson of PAFOA? I would trust any of them to do the best they could for gun owners behind closed doors, because I think they all sincerely care about the issue, and have the best interests of our movement at heart. That’s really all I can ask for. I don’t expect a poker player to win every hand at poker, and I don’t expect a lobbyist to win every vote in a legislative battle either. Obviously, someone visibly incompetent at playing would be another matter, but I don’t think we have anyone who fits that bill in Pennsylvania.

Fred Madden Throws A Rotten Bone

You remember Fred Madden? The New Jersey State Senator who rolled over for Governor Corzine to bring one-gun-a-month to the Garden State? Well, apparently he’s come up with a considerably less than ideal solution that doesn’t even begin to make up for it. Fred Madden is up for re-election in 2011. Gun owners in New Jersey need to show they can target an unseat someone like Madden. You only need a few heads on a pike before the politicians there start listening.

EZ-Pass Unintended Consequences

So we were told that the EZ-Pass system would make things more efficient, and with fewer toll workers to pay, more of your toll dollars could go to road maintenance. But one problem with EZ pass is that it hides costs from the consumer:

When Tolls Increase …

… on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in January, drivers aren’t going to see the new fares on their tickets, our friends at the Patriot-News report this morning.

The argument for snookering drivers?

Tolls are increasing 3 percent a year, so PTC officials say they’ll save money by not printing up a new batch of tickets every year. Besides that, about two-thirds of Turnpike drivers use EZ-Pass, and thus, probably neither know nor care how much they’re paying anyway.

When I paid with the ticket on the PA Turnpike every day, I knew exactly what the tolls were for pretty much all the exists out to Reading, because I forked over the change with ticket every day. Now with Z-Pass, I couldn’t honestly tell you what the tolls are on the PA Turnpike. This is going to give transportation authorities a lot more leeway in boosting tolls, since a majority of people will hardly notice. Sure, you can look, but it takes effort to find out.

This isn’t very libertarian of me, but I tend to disfavor tolls as a means for paying for roads. It’s not practical to toll every road, and for those of us who have to take toll roads, we pay for our road with the toll, while our tax dollars pay for the roads everyone else gets to drive on. To me roads are a public resource, and funding them with tax dollars is my preferred way to pay for them.