Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 889 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

More Constitutional Amendment Suggestions

Randy Barnett has a different variation on a federalism amendment. Section two is the one I find most interesting:

Section 2. Whenever two thirds of the Governors of the several States concur, they may rescind any law or regulation of the United States, or they may propose amendments to this Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.

I actually would suggest something even a little more radical. To allow the state legislatures of just 1/5th of the several states, which would be ten states currently, to propose repealing federal laws by putting the matter to a referendum vote. So if ten states vote to, say, repeal ObamaCare, it would go on the ballot to be voted on by the people. It would look something like this:

Section 2. Whenever one fifth of the legislatures of the several states shall concur, they may propose toÂ rescindÂ a law the United States, which shall beÂ rescindedÂ for all intents and purposes, whenever the people in two thirds of the states shall approve through direct vote, to be held on the election day for members of the United States Congress, according to the law of each state in which the ballot measure shall be held.

I think the barrier to amending the constitution needs to be pretty high, but I’m not too concerned about the people being able toÂ rescindÂ federal laws, especially if they are unpopular. What do you think?

Dozens, Thousands, What’s the Difference?

CNN apparently reported that “dozens” or maybe “hundreds” of people attending the Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nevada, which featured Sarah Palin as the speaker. You can find pictures from the American Border Patrol here, which show just how small the crowd really is. As Bruce notes, “[I]t’s not a lie to describe 10,000+ people as ‘dozens’. Just as its not a lie to say Nome, Alaska is ‘within walking distance’ to Miami – it’s just a shitload of walking.” These people are going to be in for a rude awakening come November.

The Chicago Way

So what’s the big deal about Sarah PalinÂ sayingÂ “reload” when someone has clearly educated Obama in the Chicago Way.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0RLyxP13o[/youtube]

Say what you will, but I consider this progress in terms of bringing Obama around to the idea of gun rights.

Hat Tip to Instapundit.

Annals of Drunkenness

There’s drunk, and then there’s this.

First Amendment Implication in DC Court Ruling?

A very good discussion going on at Volokh on the DC ruling. It gets into the comments a bit about whether guns painted a certain color could be ban. It’s argued that could be a first amendment issue. Someone in the comments brings in the funny with:

What we need is for someone to come up with a â€œBong hits 4 Jesusâ€ durocoat.

I’m sure that the folks at Lauer will get right on that. Oh, if you don’t get that reference, just click here.Â UnfortunatelyÂ that argument lost :)

Stick to History Professor

I demand the arrest of Thomas William Heyck, professor of History at Northwestern University for thisÂ vicious and seditious attack on the Second Amendment. Because clearly the right to free speech only applies to goose quill and parchment! None of this newfangled Internets.

The Great 0.0000013%

The media doesn’t seem to want to let go of this story of threats of violence and broken windows in the wake of health care. It fits their narrative of the Tea Party and other various persons opposed a government takeover of health care being dangerous extremists, so why not hype it up?Â ConvenientlyÂ ignored is the fact that there are just as many bozos on the left doing this stuff, and that have been doing this stuff, for years. Just be thankful it wasn’t a free trade agreement getting passed out of Congress!

But I also notice when the call goes out, the great three percent turns out to be the great 0.0000013%. That’s not enough people to have a decent game of baseball let alone enough to fight a revolution. I stand by my assertion that the entire movement is a way to remain emotionally satisfied while sitting on one’s posterior and doing nothing to actually help vote these bozos out of office, and keep voting them out of office until we start pushing back Leviathan.

Heller II Fails First Round

In US District Court in the D.C. Circuit, DC’s restrictions on guns as they currently are have been upheld. You can find the opinion here. I think this is wrong, but it’s worth noting that the original Heller case, then known as Parker v. DC failed at the District Court level too, but won on appeal. No guarantee this happens here, however.

For a lot of reasons, I’m not too enthusiastic about proceeding forward at this point with challenges to assault weapons bans. Let’s get the court to say a bit more about the right first, before opening that whole can of worms. I agree the common use test here should easily protect them, but just because it’s correct doesn’t mean that’s what the courts will do.

UPDATE: Just skimming, this is an awful ruling. No attempt was made to determine whether DC’s state public safety goals with their ridiculous gun control scheme could be achieved with a lesser level of infringement. It’s hard to see what gun control law would fail this level ofÂ scrutinyÂ applied by the District Court.

Bursting Bubbles

Steve at the Firearms Blog covers what appears to be the firearms bubble bursting. In any bubble you will tend to have speculators. If many of the people buying up AR-15s were doing it in anticipation of selling at higher post-ban prices, then the industry will go through some very tough times as those speculators sell their inventory and cut their losses. If they were mostly new shooters, well, one thing about AR-15s is they are like Lays Potato Chips. You can’t just have one. If I were betting money (also known as investing) I would probably err on the side of believing there were speculators, and there will be a lot of guns and ammo on the market as people cut their losses. I think the firearms industry will be in for some tough times, though I expect parts of it to continue doing well.

Constitutional Amendment Time

I think freedom loving people need to start thinking about amending the constitution. We’re fast approaching a point where that might even be possible if people get angry enough. I’mÂ glad to see Randy Barnett already thinking about it over at Volokh. He’s proposing an amendment hat goes like this:

The legislative power of Congress shall not be construed to include mandating, regulating, prohibiting or taxing the private health insurance of any person; nor shall the power of Congress to make all laws which are necessary and proper to regulate commerce among the several states be construed to include the power to mandate, regulate, prohibit or tax any activity that is confined within a single state and subject to the police power thereof, regardless of the activityâ€™s economic effects outside the state, whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom, or whether its regulation or prohibition is part of a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme.

My feeling is that a proposed amendment needs to be a very simple idea, boiled down into a few issues as possible. I also think it needs to avoid tying the issue of the day (now HCR) up into it. I would simplify it a bit:

The power of Congress to make all laws which are necessary and proper to regulate commerce among the several states shall not be construed to include the power to mandate, regulate, prohibit or tax any activity that is confined within a single state and subject to the police power thereof, regardless of the activityâ€™s economic effects outside the state, whether it employs instrumentalities therefrom, or whether its regulation or prohibition is part of a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme.

I’d just cut the health care issue out of it. That would make the individual mandate pretty clearly unconstitutional, and leave the issue of HCR out of it. It’s probably better of people don’t think about what the effects are, because this would also weaken a lot of popular federal legislation. The other thing I might consider is that I believe it would be appropriate for federal regulation of commerce among the several states to allow Congress to prevent states from discriminating against products which met a federal standard. For instance, if Congress passes a law that suggests if you do X, Y, and Z, you can call it organic food, California can’t then come in and ban those products because they want Q, R, and X to be done too. Otherwise states could do significant damage to the interstate market in goods by creating ridiculous regulatory requirements. California is quite good at this.

Also, someone in the comments suggests we ought to amend the constitution to allow for referendums, but only on the subject of repealing laws or treaties. If it were so limited, I would agree that’s not a bad idea.