Politics – Page 73 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Will He? Won’t He?

If there’s one thing to say about the press, you never know what to believe when it comes to what kind of spin they may want to add to the White House’s comments.

No Lawyers – Only Guns & Money highlights a report from Politico that shows WH spokesman Jay Carney sounding like the semi-auto rifle ban is a priority for the President who demands swift action. But then you read the Washington Post account and they tell Dianne Feinstein not to hold her breath because Carney apparently explicitly refused to say that Obama would lean on moderate Democrats to find the votes for her gun ban.

Certainly, the bigger threat is in the bill masquerading as “background checks.” But, it’s clear that there’s still an agenda out there for pushing the gun ban.

Recognizing Cultural & Political Shifts

I think it’s important to learn from a cultural shift that’s happening on an issue that’s both personal and political. It’s also one that has the potential to deeply divide a political party with one side believing that accepting a perceived “new” right will undermine everything they hold dear about their political ideology while others in the party are more open-minded to the change and even support it. One might assume that I’m talking about the issues of personal firearms ownership & self-defense and how they are viewed by Democrats outside of urban centers versus those in entrenched liberal areas. Actually, I think the issue I’m going to highlight is how the Democrats could view the cultural shifts on gun ownership through lessons the GOP should be learning on the issue of same-sex marriage.

If you follow any DC-based conservatives on Twitter at all, you’ve heard of CPAC. It has long been considered an event for conservatives to gather and talk about issues that make them identify as conservatives. For a few years, under the leadership of now-NRA president David Keene, CPAC allowed GOProud–a group of gay conservatives–to be co-sponsors and attend the event. After Keene left the helm of the group that puts on CPAC, they suddenly banned GOProud.

This year was no different in terms of a formal ban on the group, but another co-sponsoring organization was given the right to use a room to host their own panel. CEI opted to do an entire panel called “A Rainbow on the Right.” Photos show that the room was absolutely packed to the gills. Most of the folks in that photo are clearly young. They are the future of the movement. Meanwhile, CPAC officially hosted a panel with the National Organization for Marriage shortly before the Rainbow panel. The same link above compares the photos. That room was nearly empty. It featured rows and rows of empty seats.

Then, today, Senator Rob Portman officially came out in support of same-sex marriage. He notes that by supporting state decisions on marriage, and by ensuring that religious freedom is respected even while civil marriage rights are expanded, it’s an inherently conservative position on the side of limited government and individual freedom. It’s no secret here that both Sebastian and I support government recognition of same-sex marriages, so we both consider this really great news.

As I looked at the this debate this morning with the visible GOProud support, the lack of interest in the traditional marriage panel, and the op-ed that is likely sending many older folks on the right into a tizzy, I couldn’t help but see parallels in the left’s desperation to cling to gun control. For example, I was surfing the hashtags for the Pennsylvania Progressive Summit recently when I learned they were having a panel on gun control. During the panel and immediately after, the only tweets I saw at all from that panel all came from the official Summit account. Reading the tweets from actual activists during the session time period and immediately following, they were all focused on the student debt and right to work panels. In other words, they weren’t even in the room. There was not a single tweet during or immediately following the panel on gun control that came from a real activist even though there was an entire panel dedicated to the topic. That shows me that they have the same kind of enthusiasm gap on their side for the gun issue. And, like the gay marriage issue dividing some folks on the GOP side of the debate, the embrace of extreme gun control by party leaders from deep blue urban areas has cost members of their party from areas outside of those enclaves votes that cost elections. When Democratic Representative Dan Boren retired from Congress, he told the press that he didn’t feel the national party scene would allow him to continue to be “a local Democrat,…an Oklahoma Democrat.”

At some point, the “traditional” sides of each of these issues within each movement will need to accept the inevitable. Whether it’s gay rights or gun rights, many people are taking the attitude that if the decisions of another aren’t hurting them, they don’t feel the need to control it.

Gun Owning Parents Targeted

Apparently, one New York lawmaker is horrified that 11-year-olds might possibly see guns safely displayed and purchased by law-abiding citizens. So she wants to ban that.

I just intro’d bill to prevent kids under 12 from going to gun shows.Kudos to @agschneiderman for agreement on Model Gun Show Procedures.

— Linda B. Rosenthal(@LindaBRosenthal) March 14, 2013

She obviously believes that gun owners with kids cannot be trusted since they might possibly pass on that tradition of firearms ownership. To respond to this “threat” that gun ownership may still happen in the next generation, she’s trying to make introducing your children to safe and lawful use of firearms a crime one step at a time.

Bloomberg vs. Obama on Gun Shops

While MAIG & Mike Bloomberg are trying to make it sound like it’s no big deal for people to find an FFL to handle every single firearm transfer. MAIG seems to be the go-to group for the White House, and yet President Obama has previously called for a ban on any FFL within 5 miles of any park or school.

Below is a graphic I created in 2008 as an example of what such a ban would mean for one area gun shop to show the impact for our suburbs. The areas covered in red would be off limits.

GunShopClosures

This proposal backed by the President would effectively shut down nearly every single gun store in the nation. While I realize that the gun shop ban hasn’t been in the latest round of gun control proposals, it has been a serious proposal by the President in the past. Considering that the background check bill floated in the Senate doesn’t open up the system for individuals looking to transfer a firearm, but rather forces them to go through FFLs, it isn’t inappropriate to consider whether a future step would be to target these gun shops for closure so that it is nearly impossible to transfer firearms at all.

Woman Has Firearms Seized in New Jersey

I’ve seen this story about a woman having her guns seized by police popping up in a few places. New Jersey routinely abuses people’s right to keep and bear arms, and I’d be willing to give this woman the benefit of doubt. But I’d also suggest there could be more to the story than that. She’s claiming she never issued a threat, or even said the word gun at a meeting. The police say otherwise. Who’s telling the truth?

Wearing The Other Side Out

There is something to be said for not wasting the energy of gun rights activists who only have enough enthusiasm for our issue for a handful of political activities. However, I do also think that there’s something to be said for annoying the heck out of anti-gun lawmakers at every turn. This is especially true of those who live in areas surrounded by anti-gun lawmakers.

Take Rep. Jim Moran. As Jim Geraghty notes on Twitter, his refusal to answer a question from a pro-rights woman in the audience of his anti-gun townhall almost makes it look like the idea of armed women defending themselves from abusive men hits a nerve with Moran or something. Here’s the video:

According to someone I know who attended, the audience was about 2/3 pro-gun. Based on the uproar in the audience supporting the woman, I’d say that sounds about right.

Rep. Moran isn’t a serious political target because he’s very safe (even though he put out a statement on the issue saying that it should just be considered an “embarrassing situation” for the victim – talk about trying to shame female violence victims!), but headaches like this townhall response make it less likely they will have public events on the issue in the future.

A Win for Non-Delegation

Over at Volokh, they are covering the high capacity soda ban being overturned by a New York judge. The grounds would seem to be that the power to do so was improperly usurped from City Council, and thus violated separation of powers. This pleases me, because I think the judicial weakening of the non-delegation doctrine was one of the greatest injuries to liberty undertaken by the courts. It’s a pretty simple concept: if someone thinks something ought to be illegal, the legislature should have to pass a law.

Gun Owners Swarm Hartford

Today is another day of lobbying for gun owners and the people who work for the gun industry in Connecticut. NSSF has some great photos of just floors and floors of the Capitol filled with gun owners visiting their lawmakers.

These lawmakers who wonder if just one or two anti-gun votes will be enough to make the issue go away need to be reminded that they will always have to answer for these votes at the polls, and the anti-gun groups will still attack them for not doing enough. As Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Illinois) tells us in this video, they want to bring back local gun bans and so much more after this initial flurry of bills.

I do have to admit that I love Rep. Schakowsky’s dedication to the issue – she’s so passionate, she can’t tell you the name of the gun control groups she’s is part of back home. She’s also so dedicated to a serious discussion of the issue, she won’t actually address the pesky little problem of McDonald in passing local gun prohibitions.

Seen on the Internet

The miserable adventures of John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Graham has been solid with us on the recent gun fight, and even McCain hasn’t been acting as cozy with our opponents as he has in the past. I really appreciate that. But Paul’s filibuster was a much needed shot in the arm for a party feeling utterly defeated. I’d rather have the GOP headed into a gun fight feeling a better about themselves. Paul dealt the worst public relations blow to Obama since the election, and people like a winner. Even the left was joining in. Graham and McCain ought to know a good thing when they see it.

UPDATE: This is pretty funny too :)

UPDATE: Now he’ll be a big target of the media. Yeah, probably, but what the GOP needs is someone who can get around the media, and get Americans paying attention, and Paul’s filibuster managed that.

On Using the Civil Rights Acts

Joe explains his philosophy in regards to the use of the Civil Rights Acts to go after gun controllers. The criminal elements of the Civil Rights Acts, to my knowledge, have rarely been used in the Second Amendment context (Cruikshank is the only case I can think of). I agree that they generally should be, and in general, I don’t think the criminal aspects of the Civil Rights Acts are prosecuted often enough generally, especially against government agents. The usual remedy under those acts are civil in nature rather than criminal.

But I do have a very serious concern with targeting advocacy. Advocacy, even for very controversial and unconstitutional ideas, is generally protected by the First Amendment. Advocating a repeal of the 13th Amendment, for instance, would be advocating against civil rights, and would be detestable, but it’s also protected speech. It shouldn’t be a violation of the Civil Rights Acts to advocate for a law, even if that law is arguably or clearly unconstitutional. To limit the ability to advocate on certain topics to carve out an exception to the First Amendment, which I don’t find acceptable.

Now, that’s not to say there’s no use for the Civil Rights Acts in the gun context. Ray Nagin and his police chief should be reachable under the acts. So should every officer that participated in the post-Katrina confiscations. You can advocate for a law to do X, even if X is unconstitutional, but you can’t actually deprive someone of civil rights, or if you’re a Mayor or Police Chief, order someone’s civil rights be violated. That’s reachable under both the civil and criminal provisions of the Civil Rights Acts.

Likewise, advocacy doesn’t rise to the level of a conspiracy. Generally for a conspiracy to be a conspiracy legally, at least one person in the conspiracy has to take some act to move the conspiracy forward. So, for instance, if hypothetically Nagin and his police chief were to be prosecuted, but they found out that Mayor Bloomberg (just as a hypothetical) was involved in the planning, even if Bloomberg never participated in the confiscation, and did not issue any orders to affect it, he would still be reachable under conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights.

On the issue of passing laws, we inherited the concept of parliamentary or legislative immunity from common law. There’s a lot of good reasons for its existence, but I’ve also heard good arguments that the various forms of sovereign immunity we imported from English law are wholly unsuitable for a free Republic such as ours. I’d be open to notions that legislators perhaps shouldn’t be immune if the laws they vote for later turn out to be held unconstitutional, but my concern would be that while perhaps legislators would be reluctant to pass laws that touched civil liberties, an unintended consequence likely would be the courts approaching review of legislative enactments with even more deference than they currently do, which is far too much in my opinion.

So I would like to see the Civil Rights Acts used more, both the civil and criminal aspects, but I think we have to be careful about carving out exceptions to the First Amendment, and criminalizing mere advocacy.