Shall Not Be Questioned

He was quoted in the ABA law seminar just one post ago, and now I find Prof. Chemerinsky in the OC Register. Now keep in mind this was a law professor that was being sold as a legal expert on this topic:

California law generally prohibits individuals from carrying concealed weapons. Such laws are common throughout the United States.

Excuse me? This isn’t true in California, and it’s not true at all in the rest of the country. A total prohibition was not the issue in Peruta, it was the interpretation of what constituted “good cause” to apply for a carry license. Illinois remained the last hold-out on the issue for several years, and they recently started allowing licensed concealed carry when the 7th circuit court of appeals struck down the prohibition. How can an “expert” on the Second Amendment not know this?

From 1791 until 2008, the Supreme Court always had held that the Second Amendment means what it says and that it protects only a right to have firearms for purposes of “militia” service.

Name the case where the Supreme Court said this? There isn’t one. Even the Miller Court did not go this far. I’m not going to rehash all this, because all the relevant scholarship on the matter was presented to the Heller court, and we prevailed. This is now settled law, and Chermerinsky is on the other side of it.

Moreover, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the court clearly indicated that laws prohibiting concealed weapons are constitutional. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, used laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons as an example of the type of regulations that are permissible under the Second Amendment.

Read Heller. Please dear God would you people read the f**king opinion honestly? In Heller, the issue of concealed weapons was discussed several times, and every time in the context of the state having the power to regulate the manner of carry. In every one of those cases, concealed carry was allowed to be prohibited because open carry was the more socially acceptable method of carry, and was readily available to people “carrying for a particular purpose—confrontation.” In Heller, a right to carry a firearm for self-defense outside the home was assumed. The other side continually cherry picks a few sentences out of the decision without any willingness to consider the decision as a whole. Unfortunately for us, there have been plenty of federal courts that have all too willingly embraced this cherry picking approach.

In the ABA Journal: How to tackle gun violence without violating 2nd Amendment rights? Legal leaders share strategies. Let me fix that for you: “How to tackle gun violence by nibbling at the Second Amendment around the edges. Anti-gun leaders share strategies.” It shows how delusional the other side is:

The challenge of crafting a legal response to gun violence without violating Second Amendment rights was tackled by the next panel. Juliet Leftwich, legal director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said that public revulsion over the 2012 Newtown, Conn., tragedy, in which a gun-wielding assailant killed 20 children and seven other adults, may have reversed a 30-year trend of weakening gun regulation.

Really? You passed new laws in a few states where you always had the power to burn us any time you generally wanted. The only real pickup was Colorado, and that started a backlash that would effectively kill the gun control movement post-Newtown. And even if the states friendly to gun control, they failed in New Jersey, and they failed in California. There’s such a thing as making lemonade from lemons, but there’s a fine line between that and outright delusions.

Chermerinsky noted that in general, courts tend to uphold laws regulating guns. “I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of decisions that have struck down gun regulations,” he said.

It’s not a numbers game. We can lose all decade long in the lower courts, but if we win key appellate cases, that has real impact. Illinois now issues concealed carry licenses, and the first are being mailed out as we speak. That was a direct result of the 7th Circuit ruling. California and Hawaii are inching ever closer to shall-issue due to a major win at in the 9th Circuit. Sure, we haven’t one in every circuit, but Illinois, California and Hawaii going shall-issue is what Joe Biden would call a “big f**king deal” and there’s honestly no other way you can spin that. The gun control people might win more cases, but we’re winning some very important ones.

UPDATE: I’d note that they held their conference at the National Constitution Center. I’ve reported on this organization before and their questionable stances on the Second Amendment. I won’t necessarily ding them for hosting an event, but since NRA has been known to do legal seminars in Philadelphia, I look forward to the National Constitution Center hosting one of those as well, just as a demonstration they are open to the view of the Second Amendment accepted by the Supreme Court.

They are starting to pick up some more press coverage, but the vast majority of it was at the starting point in Connecticut. They did draw some coverage from the NY Daily News when they passed through Harlem.

Originally they were scheduled to rally at Central Bucks West, but CGOPA had people call  CB West school district and ask them to reconsider allowing their high school to be used for a political event, and the school district agreed and booted the event. That forced them to, at the last minute, search for a new venue. They moved their event to a church.

Since I earlier criticized CGOPA, I at least owe them some praise when they do something I think is good. Leaning on the school district and forcing them to scramble at the last minute, sowing confusion among our opponents, was a smart thing to do. Also, deciding to cancel the counter-protest was also the right thing to do, since they moved their rally to a church.

UPDATE: Some coverage of the event in New Jersey, that just appeared.