Category: Politics

Unlikely

Over at Subguns.com, an accusation that politicians are registering machine guns and selling them to finance their campaigns.  The whole theory seems to hinge on this:

The Hughes Amendment had an interesting side effect. If you read Chapter 18, 922 (o) it is not a ban per say but demands Government approval for the manufacture and sale of a machine gun after May 19,1986, the date of enactment. There have been rumors floating around for years that certain politicians have been registering machineguns and selling them. 

922(o) is pretty short and sweet:

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun.

(2) This subsection does not apply with respect to—

(A) a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or

(B) any lawful transfer or lawful possession of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date this subsection takes effect.

But you can’t really just read 922(o), which is part of the United States Code, and represents an Act of Congress.  You also have to look at Code of Federal Regulations Title 27, particularly 479 Subpart G, which are all the regulations promulgated by ATF under its authority granted by Congress for the purpose of registration of machineguns.  There is no Congress Critter exception to the ban.  It has been completely unlawful to register a fully transferrable firearm since May 19, 1986.  If this is going on, it’s illegal, and people could go to jail.  Color me skeptical, though.

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The Night of the Hildabeast

Now that Hillary has won Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, and seems to be on somewhat of a comeback heading into Pennsylvania, I am faced with a dilemma.

John McCain has the election sown up.  My vote as a Republican would be meaningless, short of feeling better by lodging a protest vote for Ron Paul.  What might not be meaningless would be to vote for Hillary in Pennsylvania’s primary, in hopes of keeping the bloodletting among the Democratic candidates going all the way up until the convention.  I will call this The Breda Strategy, since even though I understand Rush Limbaugh has been calling for this, Breda is where I first got the idea.

I kind of like this idea, because it’s a way to avoid voting for McCain in the primary, but still help him out in the general election.  But can I do it?  Can I really pull the lever for that harpy?  How will I feel if I help her win the primary and she actually beats McCain?  I’d say I have a month to decide, but Pennsylvania’s primaries are closed, and the time to switch registration is fast approaching.

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Obamamania

And to think, this University of Houston professor gets to shape young minds:

At Poe Elementary School, near Rice University, Marc Zimmerman, a 69-year-old University of Houston professor, said he voted for Obama, noting that the excitement surrounding the Illinois senator was contagious.

“I like being caught up in the wave,” he said.

Caught up in The Wave?   You mean like this one?

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California Uber Alles!

SayUncle points to an article that shows the real problem with possessory crimes; you need police state tactics to enforce them.  California has cross referenced its criminal and mental health databases with its gun registration database, and is going from door to door.

While I don’t think there’s any constitutional obstacle to taking away civil liberties after due process of law, many of California’s laws, particularly it’s mental health gun prohibitions, do not have sufficient due process for me to be ok with these kinds of tactics.  Either way, I think this is way too gestapo like, and it’s a prime example of why I have issues with those who want enable government to track everything we do, especially activities the political elites thumb their noses at.  How many of the people California is rounding up are really legitimately dangers to society?  If they are so dangerous, why are they on the streets?  Are highly dangerous criminals really legally registering their firearms with the state?  Pretty clearly these folks aren’t neatly falling into the category of “law abiding gun owner,” but color me skeptical they are a real menace to a safe society.  I’m willing to bet this has almost no effect on crime in California, and police resources would be better spent going after truly dangerous criminals.

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Signs of Hope for the Liberty Minded

Last month I wrote a bit on how we could begin to restore liberty and limited government in this country by seizing key social institutions back from the progressives:

If we want to reverse the progressive slide, we have to make progress in academia, particularly in topics that tend to feed the political elite, such as political science, law, and economics. The good news is, we’ve pretty much won on economics, and I think we’re making progress in law.

This post by Ilya Somin over at Volokh talks about progress we’re making in the legal realm:

Steven Teles’ important new book, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement, does an excellent job of analyzing and explaining the growth of non-liberal public interest law. He notes that the success libertarian and conservative public interest law groups was not foreordained. Indeed, early efforts in the 1970s and early 80s were mostly dismal failures. How did the founders of IJ and CIR turn things around? Teles notes two important causes: the second generation of libertarian public interest firms learned from the the strategies of their liberal predecessors and distanced themselves from business interests.

Read the whole thing.  IJ and CIR are worthy organizations that have shown demonstrated progress on the issue.  This is a generational fight, but I believe if we work hard enough, it’s winnable.

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High Taxes Driving People to Move

Interesting article.  Luckily, Pennsylvania has company, and we’re not even really the worst.  People are fleeing Michigan in droves.  Followed by New Jersey.  Pennsylvania is 42nd in terms of percentage of outbound moves.  California has lost the most in sheer numbers. Why?

“When California faced a Mount Everest-sized $14 billion deficit in 2003, one of the major causes for the red ink was the stampede of millionaire households from the state,” Laffer and Moore note in their report. “Out of the 25,000 or so seven-figure-income families, more than 5,000 left in the early 2000s, and the loss of their tax payments accounted for about half the budget hole.”

People don’t like high taxes?  Who knew?

The Golden State also has tarnished itself among less-wealthy persons. Moore said migration trends based on moving company data show California had the second-highest domestic population outflow of any state in 2005 “despite the beautiful weather, beaches, and mountains.”

California budget officials are predicting another $14 billion deficit this year, although the state has some of the highest tax burdens in the nation. The state budget has ballooned from $79.8 billion in fiscal 2004-05 to $102.3 billion this fiscal year, a jump of 28 percent.

Makes you wonder if Californians were really better off voting for Arnold, who has ruled more like a Democrat than a Republican, than they would have been with Cruz Bustamante.  The California political establishment likes big government, and those that don’t are voting with their feet.

Pennsylvania is in trouble too.  We have a particularly difficult time keeping young people in this state, enough that it was a campaign issue for Rendell.  It’s amazing when I go to DC, the difference in demographics.  Bitter is one of the older persons in her workplace, and she’s seven years younger than me.  At 34, I’m one of the youngest here at mine, and it’s been the same story at every workplace since I left college.  People my age got their degrees and went elsewhere.  Same with my shooting club.  You don’t see too many guys there under 50, let alone 40.  I worry that young people aren’t taking to the traditional shooting sports, but then I think “Maybe the reason you notice this is because there just aren’t any young people left in your state?”  If that’s the case, we’re in a lot of trouble.  I suspect with Pennsylvania, it’s mostly a lack of opportunity driving young people away.  Why are there few opportunities here?  Because Pennsylvania has among the highest corporate taxes in the country, and it’s a horrible drain on businesses.

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Texas Tuesday

Today is the big day for Hillary.  Texas and Ohio primaries.  I’m giving a big presentation today, so I don’t have much time to think about it.  I will leave you in the capable hands of Marshall Manson, who thinks the Democratic primary won’t end today.  I certainly hope so.  The more they fight each other, the less likely we are to have to deal with either of those two in the White House come next January.

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Obama’s Waffling on Guns

Cam Edwards outlines some Obama’s contradictions on guns:

But if he holds with the statement that he believes in the individual right to keep and bear arms, but the D.C. Gun Ban somehow passes constitutional muster, I think it’s fair to ask (as Jacob Sullum suggested when I interviewed him today) Senator Obama to name an example of a gun control law that he thinks does or would violate the 2nd Amendment. As it stands, Obama’s turning an “individual right” into something the goverment can violate at will.

It’s hard to really condemn Obama on this when President Bush’s own administratation will be arguing the same thing in front of the Supreme Court in a few weeks.  Obama is just lip service.  Bush is lip service, and is willing to throw us a few table scraps every now and then.  I think we deserve better out of Bush that we’ve gotten, and if gun owners fail to push McCain over the top, McCain will only have Bush to blame for it.

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