Yet another court has hinted that non-violent felons may be able to retain their Second Amendment rights. The Court ruled that as applied to Williams, who was a violent felon, was not unconstitutional, but said a non-violent felon might be able to prevail on 922(g)(1) being overly broad. What’s interesting to me is that Justice O’Conner was sitting on this panel by designation, and signed on to the unanimous opinion. It’s long been believed that O’Conner would have been a “no” vote on Heller had she not been replaced by Justice Alito upon her retirement from the Court. Her concurrence here is interesting, but offers little insight into how she would have voted on Heller, I think.
If you had told me …
… back in November of 2008 that in August of 2010, the head of the Brady Center would be upset with President Obama for parroting an NRA line of “better enforcement” I would have said you were nuts, but this is a strange world we live in. Things must be pretty gloomy at Brady HQ these days.
I will make a prediction that will cheer them up. Hillary is going to primary Barry in 2012. After the 2010 elections, she’ll be one of the first off this RMS Titanic of an Administration. She’ll write a book preaching about how incompetent this Administration has been, and sell herself as the savior of modern progressivism. She might even return the Brady’s phone calls. I’m pretty convinced if the GOP takes back the House, she’s going to set herself up to unseat Barry in the 2012 primary.
The Importance of the Kagan Fight
I don’t think that anyone who is an enthusiastic observer of politics ever really believed that NRA was going to successfully derail Kagan. The main problem is, considerably more so than on legislative matters, party plays an important role in those kinds of votes. A vote against Kagan would have been portrayed as a critical failure of the Obama administration, and the word “failed administration” would have been bandied about in the media even more than it already is. They say a rising tide lifts all boats, but a sinking ships will generally take the rats down with it too. It was asking a lot of Democrats to vote against Kagan, and ultimately we only Ben Nelson’s “no” vote on Kagan. But it had to be done, and I don’t think we ought to go light on Senators like Bob Casey, who obviously aren’t as pro-gun as they’ve been claiming.
But a big reason that it did have to be done was as much for the Republicans as it was for the Democrats. I can’t imagine the federal judiciary is any different than any other hierarchy; where every District Judge imagines himself a Circuit Judge, and every Circuit Judge imagines himself a Supreme Court Justice. In that sense it’s very critical that Republicans understand that gun owners find anti-gun judges to be unacceptable for appointment or elevation on the federal bench. It’s not only important for Republican politicians to understand that, but for the current judges sitting on federal benches to understand that we’re prepared to scuttle any hope they may have of career advancement if they don’t rule correctly when it comes to the Second Amendment. So despite the fact that Kagan will be on the Court, and will likely be a reliable vote against us, I think there was value in the fight in terms of getting the vast majority of the Republican Party aligned against her. I can promise that Ben Nelson would have been a yes if NRA not opposed, along with more than a few Republican votes that were “no” instead of “yes.”
The Anti-Carry Bill that Won’t Die
It looks like the anti-gun politicians have learned a little something from the worst of New Jersey’s political traditions. When their bills are about to go down in defeat, they yank them from the floor. That way there’s never a real “no” vote against them, and they can keep pulling them up periodically to test the waters for any new votes.
This bill has to be defeated. Until Philadelphia stops abusing their authority over carry licenses, there’s no room to even talk about this subject.
On Pacifism
Don Kates writes about Orwell’s disdain for pacifism:
And, notwithstanding his long and painful experience with war, Orwell was deeply antagonistic to pacifism. He dismissed pacifists as people who live in society and enjoy all its benefits in blithe disregard of the fact that these benefits only exist because others are at all times doing lawful violence on society’s behalf. The fact is that society IS violence (lawful violence), both overt and implicit. It is only through society’s superior capacity to engage in violence that we control the Charles Mansons, Ted Bundys, Ted Kazinskis and Andrew Cunanans of this world instead of vice versa.
The conclusion is that pacifists are parasites: people who enjoy the benefits of violence done by others but are themselves unwilling to soil their hands with it. Â Â Â Â
Home Made Submachine Gun
Kagan Confirmed
NRA statement on the matter can be found here. The vote was 63-37. More to come as I gather more info.
UPDATE: In the end, Ben Nelson was the only Democrat to vote against her. The only Republicans to vote for her were Graham, Gregg, Lugar, Snowe, and Collins. With those Republicans voting yes, filibustering her was not a possibility.
As I said, the Democrats are betting that NRA can’t mobilize anger over the Supreme Court. We’ll see about that. This would have been an easy vote for many Democrats like Webb, Warner, Tester, Baucus, Specter, and Casey.
Texas to EPA: o|oo
Use your imagination, but this is the most satisfying thing I’ve read in quite a while. This document is the State of Texas, in no uncertain terms, telling the EPA and the federal government they can go to hell when it comes to the EPA unilaterally attempting to regulate carbon emissions. More states need to just say no to the feds, on a lot more than just this.
2008 Called, And They Want Their Phone Back
This is a question I’ve wondered about for some time. Tam has the predictably amusing take on it. I’ve hated Blackberries from the moment I first put my hands on one. That went double when I had to support a few of them in a business environment. Crap, crap, crap. Yet they are very common in the business world, due to corporate America’s tendency to buy crap. By comparison the modern smart phones are light years better. I’m not surprised that Android based phones have overtaken sales of Blackberries. Good. Even though I may be personally partial to the iOS, Android is still 800x better than any Crackberry.
Even Apple needs to watch out, because Android is surpassing it in sales as well. The only way Apple is going to compete head-to-head with Google is to ditch AT&T and offer their phone on more carriers. Now that I have the iPad, my incentive to upgrade to an iPhone 4 is not that great. I’m waiting for the iPhone 4V, the V being for Verizon.