I’m hoping this means we can finally start having a serious discussion about violence in Philadelphia. It’s long overdue.
Hat Tip to Dave Hardy
Category: Politics
What Does It Say About Republicans?
Tam points out that half of our Heller dissenters were put on the bench by Republicans. By any measure, shifting the federal courts more toward the center has actually been one of the Republican party’s most stellar achievement, and even here, the best we can really say is “Well, Republicans tend to get it right about half the time.” Really, the federal judiciary should be owned by conservatives right now, but it isn’t. Yet moving the court rightward has been an accomplishment.
Republicans: even doing our best work, we’re still pretty damned incompetent.
Gun Rights and Property Rights
Ilya Somin has a sobering post comparing gun rights to property rights:
With very few exceptions, the effort to strengthen protection for property rights was categorically opposed by the Court’s liberal justices. Any property rights case that got to the Court almost starts with four guaranteed votes in favor of the government. This has two important effects.
First, any division in the ranks of the conservative justices is likely to be fatal for property rights in the case at issue. For example, Justice Anthony Kennedy voted with the liberal justices in Kelo and several other important property rights cases, leading to important setbacks for property supporters.
This is why we must vote McCain to keep Obama out of the oval office. McCain is far from perfect, but neither were the two Bush’s, which we would be facing a loss on Heller had it not been for electing them.
As with property rights, the ideological division on the Court also leaves any gains vulnerable to future reversal in the event that a Democratic president is elected. The liberal justices’ opposition to gun rights is also shared by the vast majority of liberal judges on the lower courts. If Obama (or any other Democrat) becomes president, they will likely appoint justices who share these views. Even if Obama does not make this issue a major priority in his nomination decisions, the fact that he will want to nominate justices who are liberal on other constitutional issues will ensure a strong likelihood that they would also embrace the dominant liberal position on this issue. This happened in the case property rights as well. Opposition to property rights was probably not a major factor in Clinton’s choice of Ginsburg and Breyer. Indeed, Clinton was among those who later vehemently denounced the Kelo decision. Nonetheless, these two justices turned out be property rights opponents (even in Kelo) precisely because Clinton did make a priority of appointing judges who are generally liberal, and such judges are likely to be anti-property rights.
Seriously, McCain sucks, except for the alternative. Let’s not get complacent here, or this day will be all for naught.
Mayor Nutter Responds to Heller
He says that law evolves, but he also says:
“What we’re seeing on the streets of Philadelphia is not self-defense. It is sensless violence and slaughter.”
Nutter says it’s not lawful ownership but illegal activity that is the source of the gun violence in the city.
Really? Because my friend might have a different view on this one. Sorry Mayor, just because your lapdogs in the media aren’t reporting cases of self-defense against the criminals whom you have allowed to run amok, doesn’t mean they aren’t happening.
Crickets …
… over at the ACLU. You’d imagine that one of the most prominent decisions regarding the Bill of Rights in years would at least be deserving of a mention.
UPDATE: Looks like they did release something, but it’s not prominent.
Making Lemonade
Bryan Miller isn’t too displeased with the ruling. I don’t know why, because as the hottest selling target rifle in country today, it’s hard for me to see how the AR-15 doesn’t pass the “common use” test, but they are banned in New Jersey. Nor do I see how New Jersey’s licensing restrictions, which I do believe meet the definition of “arbitrary and capricious”.
Mr. Miller has won no victory here. You can bet that New Jersey’s licensing scheme will be under the gun in future cases. It’s “assault gun” ban definitely will be at some point. One has to imagine unless Justice Scalia penned the opinion “MACHINE GUNS FOR EVERYONE!” they’d be declaring victory, regardless of how much of a loss it actually is. We have lost no ground, and much of what the gun control movement has worked for is in jeapoardy. Sure, the Supreme Court is likely to uphold challenges to the instant check system, and restrictions on felons, but I don’t think any of us thought that The Court would go that far. Everything else is not decided. I would not be feeling so great if I were Bryan Miller.
One Gun a Month in New Jersey Update
One gun a month passed the New Jersey Assembly by a vote of 47-28 and 4 abstentions. The vote was held around 6:00 tonight.
One Gun a Month in New Jersey
Point. Counterpoint. For those of you unfamiliar with the process of purchasing a firearm in New Jersey.
- First you need to get a license, called a Firearm Owners ID (or FID for short) card. To apply for an FID, you have to call your local police department, who may only staff firearm permitting division part time, so they might not be open every day, or at convenient hours. The cost is five dollars.
- In addition to a FID card, you will need a permit to purchase a handgun. Applications are also filed with the local police department. Pistol purchase permits are only valid for ninty days after they issue. The cost is two dollars.
- You will need to be fingerprinted. This costs 25 to 50 dollars. You only have to do this for a first application, but many police departments insist this is not the case.
- The law states that the police have thirty days to conduct a 13 point background check, and issue or deny an FID application or permits to purchase handguns, but the fact is that it often takes months, and the courts in New Jersey are uninterested in holding issuing authorities to the law.
- You are required to submit to the police a list of two references, who are not related to you. They will inquire with these references as to your disposition, drinking habits, mental health, and whether the reference would have any issue with their buying a firearm. I have been listed as a reference for New Jersey people on FID applications, and I was appalled at the personal questioned asked. Even in Pennsylvania, for a license to carry a loaded firearm concealed on one’s person, the sheriffs that do check references are far more discrete and respectful.
If requiring this for each and every handgun purchase has not been sufficient to stop criminal trafficking of firearms, it’s beyond insane to believe that adding one more requirement, one that rations the number of purchase permits police may issue, is going to be what does the trick. Criminals don’t obey laws about robbery, murder, and aggrevated assault. They definitely aren’t going to obey regulatory laws, no matter how “more illegal” you make them. We sound like a broken record with this, but many just don’t seem to want to accept it.
My New Hero
Why can’t we run this guy, instead of McCain?  Seriously. And he’s NRA “A” rated too.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=LPc9xG1sajI[/youtube]
The delivery is top notch, I think.
Al Gore Hot Air
Apparently Americans for Prosperity was planning to take their “Hit Air Balloon Tour” right over Al Gore’s house in honor of his ever growing energy consumption.  Seems they had the permits all lined up, and out of nowhere, the permits got revoked:
Sure enough, just a few hours before our event was scheduled to kick off, the Nashville Parks and Recreation Department has been in touch, claiming that the permit they approved doesn’t allow us to launch our balloon from the city park where we’re holding our event — even though we told them repeatedly exactly what we planned to do.
Roy Wilson, the director of the Board of Parks and Recreation, has even reportedly told one of our staffers on the ground that Nashville police officers will be on hand and will physically restrain members of our crew if they attempt to launch the balloon.
And if that weren’t enough:
UPDATE 3:00 pm Eastern time: Roy Wilson at the Nashville Parks Department must not have liked our earlier post, since he just completely revoked our permit — even though his department’s own rules state that he can’t do that unless we break a law or one of the department’s rules, which we haven’t done and have no intention of doing. Then he hung up on our legal counsel.
In the meantime, good news to report — we’ve secured a private location for this afternoon’s event. We’ll be in a field at the corner of Sneed and Vaughn Roads — just about a mile and a half from the original event location.
You’d almost thing that someone didn’t want to deal with being publically embarassed. After all, he’s Al Gore. He’s hunting down and trying to kill manbearpig. Who are we little people to queston the great one?