Follow the Money

Anyone curious as to where Americans United for Safe Streets is getting and spending it’s money need to look no further than here. Glenn Reynolds has noted they are an astroturf group. He’s not kidding. Look at the donation numbers and tell me that group isn’t Mike Bloomberg donating his money and doling it out to favored New York and DC based consultant and advertising firms. Look who else is giving too. Abby Spangler, 500 dollars. Colin Goddard’s Dad, 200 dollars. Josh Horwitz, 200 dollars.

What faith and dedication these people have in their cause! Mayor Mike is willing to donate serious money, but the rest of the gun control intelligentsia? I think it’s a testament to their lack of faith, I could raise more money for our cause by providing a link to NRA’s political efforts here, and encouraging people to donate 30 bucks. I have to question whether Mayor Mike is the only one who has any faith in the future of gun control. And even then, I’m pretty sure half a million to Bloomberg is the equivalent to change under the sofa cushion for most of us. We win because our third stringers are more dedicated than their first stringers.

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SAF Looking for Blog Love

I am positively anal about keeping my theme clean, and in the proper color scheme, which is why you don’t see too much in the way of side bars or icons on this blog. But in response to SAF’s request I have added a link to the side bar, which I actually already thought was there, but I never look at my links.

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The Stupid Party

I don’t understand how a man who may have the record for knocking on the most doors in a Pennsylvania election* can choose to ignore an NRA questionnaire when he’s a Republican running in a district with lots of working class or union middle class Democrats that borders two districts with huge gun clubs and in an area that supports lots of gun shops and even some commercial ranges.

Things we know:

  • Kevin Glasson did not respond to any of NRA’s mailings.  This landed him with a big ? next to his name and resulted in no assistance from NRA in the way of a postcard mailer.
  • He lives right next to a district where the now incumbent state rep – who ran a similar uphill campaign in 2008 – actually ran into a man who brought his NRA magazine out of the voting booth and declared that no one with a ? gets his vote.
  • *He personally knocked on 13,000+ doors, so he’s definitely got the man of the people thing going for him.
  • He’s a firefighter in the community.  That’s always a good thing in a race like this.
  • We already know that Democrats in the area were angry and more than happy to vote against their party.  It was such a dramatic turnaround that even the NYT covered the shift.
  • He only lost by 301 votes.
  • Challengers benefit the most from NRA backing.

Of all the types of Democratic demographics in this area (NJ transplants, rich liberals, working class guys, union diehards, etc), his district probably has the most of the type who would be willing to cross over on something like the gun issue.  By refusing to respond to NRA’s questionnaire, he didn’t even give them a choice between the two candidates.  Yes, this election is all about the economy and jobs, but there are still folks looking for information on other issues.  I had at least half a dozen union guys out of Philly and our district call me to tell me they would vote against their union this year and go all GOP.  They just wanted to make sure their Republican choices were all pro-gun.  I have to believe there were many more waiting on their NRA magazines to drop to find out about their local races in that district.  Just imagine what the reaction might have been if it turns out he was actually pro-gun and received an endorsement and orange postcard.  I wouldn’t be shocked if he could have found the 302 votes he needed that way.

If Glasson had won, it would have been nearly impossible to hold the seat through the next few election cycles.  However, he would have been in for redistricting votes and hopefully to help us move Castle Doctrine along.  I don’t want to pretend that the NRA endorsement is the magic bullet that will solve all of your election woes.  But, in a county where about 20,000 people have licenses to carry, it’s not unreasonable that 300 votes could have been swayed by an NRA grade.  But, that’s what you get with our local GOP folks.  This isn’t the first year that Republicans have refused to even communicate with NRA, and it won’t be the last.  If they are smart, they’ll learn.  But I’m not sure I give them that much credit.

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Down Goes Dino

National Review is reporting that Dino Rossi has conceded, and Murray was declared the winner. A real squeaker of an election, but I thought this comment at NRO pretty much captured it:

Rossi never gave the electorate a compelling reason to vote for him rather than Murray. He didn’t embrace the tea party, he didn’t exude energy and passion. He went negative throughout the campaign, and his attack ads complained about Murray’s attacks. Moreover, the Democrats just had to polish off their third edition of the how-to-defeat-Dino manual, which took about five minutes. There were even stories about how it was going to be such a sacrifice for the comfortable Rossi family to go to DC. I wanted someone who was chomping at the bit and foaming at the mouth to get to DC to knock some heads, not somebody who says, “sigh, well I really need to do this for the sake of the country, I guess, but I’d rather stay home.” The only county in Washington State that matters for statewide office is King County. If you can’t get in the high 40s in King County, don’t run, period. We have to find a Republican who is willing to go into that lion’s den and change some minds.

That sounds about right to me, though I can’t say I know Washington that well. It’s always seemed to me to be a bit like Pennsylvania, only with King County being a good bit more dominant in state politics than Philadelphia County. One things for sure, you have a squeaker of a loss once, I’m open to the idea of running a candidate again. Lose twice that way you’re probably not viable. The GOP in Washington State would seem to need to rethink its strategy. I think the GOP needs to rethink its strategy for every blue state.

My idea would be to run sane libertarians in blue states, people who are fiscally responsible but socially liberal. But will the GOP listen? Probably not.

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Castle Doctrine Officially Dead

We’ll have to try again next year. For this year, the Democrats have in charge of the House have announced there will be no more voting sessions this year. Next year the Republicans will control both houses. Let’s hope we can move a clean bill through both chambers, where Governor Corbett is sure to sign it.

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Denying 2A Rights for Habitual Drunkards

New Jersey law can prevent someone from keeping and bearing arms because of being a “habitual drunkard.” The Hunterdon County Democrat explains how this works in at least one case. Is such a restriction constitutional? I think the way this has been handled by New Jersey should be.

No one should lose or be denied a right in a case where it’s an arbitrary prior restraint applied by the police, or a mere administrative determination. But conceptually it’s difficult to see how this is much different than prohibitions against people who have been involuntarily adjudicated mentally defective. Provided the right cannot be removed except after due process through a court proceeding, and provided the prohibition lasts only as long as the condition, it’s hard to see under what grounds it differs from the prohibitions against the mentally ill.

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Legislative Priorities in the 112th Congress

I don’t know what NRA is thinking, but I’m thinking our two top priorities need to be:

  • Trying again for national reciprocity.
  • Federal preemption of state and local gun bans.

I know that NRA probably also wants to push ATF reform, and I agree this is important, but these two issues can be carried out using Congress’ Section 5 enforcement powers under the 14th Amendment. There is court precedent in the case of City of Boerne v. Flores, which stated that Congress did not have enforcement powers that were more broad than the Court has established. Justice Kennedy’s opinion from that case:

Legislation which alters the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause cannot be said to be enforcing the Clause. Congress does not enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is. It has been given the power “to enforce,” not the power to determine what constitutes a constitutional violation.

There have been subsequent cases backing up this one, which could make both of these legislative actions problematic. But I am not one to believe the Supreme Court’s rulings were chiseled on stone tablets brought down from Mount Horeb. There is language in Heller to support both of these. Let the Congress tell the Supreme Court what they think the breadth of the Second Amendment is, and let the Supreme Court tell the elected branches of government why that is not the case. Personally, I think they’ll be very reluctant to overturn Congress’ determination.

I believe these two items are more important than ATF reform because they put us on the offensive in the Courts, rather than the defensive. Rather than having to justify why certain restrictions are unconstitutional, we leave our opponents arguing why an Act of Congress is beyond its Section 5 powers under the 14th Amendment. ATF reform is great, but it doesn’t help us much in our struggle to define the meaning of the Second Amendment, which is the most important thing we’re facing right now.

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