Month: March 2008

Ricker Quote of the Day

He’s been commenting on gun blogs so much, maybe I can start a regular feature:

I do not describe the regulars who read a blog named the “The Bitch Girls” to be the AHSA target market. I think it should be clear from my comments here and on other “whacko” blogs that AHSA is reaching out to a more educated, sophisticated and straight thinking hunter and shooter demographic. Unfortunately, a “bitter” female with a gun and a chip on her shoulder probably would not find AHSA’s message of civic responsibility much to her liking.

He means a target market he hopes is smart enough, educated enough, and sophisticated enough not to notice who leaders in his organization like to hang out with?

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Clayton Cramer’s Take on Oral Arguments

Found here.  Unfortunately, Clayton didn’t manage to get inside, but I heard that Bitter was able to get him in front of the media cameras a few times, which is good.  Alan Gura managed to use one of Clayton’s discoveries during the oral argument phase.  Good show.

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More on Machine Guns

From Dave Hardy:

I think EVERYONE associated with this case who knows anything about appellate argument — and I’ve talked to many in that class — agreed that if you cannot come up with a 2nd Amendment test that lets the government do a lot of things with full autos, you lose. That’s bottom line. You can have a second amendment for things other than full auto, or you can have no second amendment. Take your pick, there is no third alternative. Life isn’t fair. I was very relieved when the Court showed signs of taking the view that Heller is asking to own a .38, not a Thompson, so we can deal with the full auto issue if and when someone brings a case (which I hope will be about ten years down the road).

I think ragging on Gura for this is not very productive.  The guy just, in all likelihood, won a case that gives us a second amendment that means something.  I was not happy that so much of the oral arguments focused on machine guns, but what are you going to do? He was the one up there, and not us.  It’s a lot easier to think “He probably could have answered that question without mentioning machine guns” when you’re sitting there listening rather than on the spot being grilled by justices in the highest court in the land.

That said, I’ll leave the comments open for folks who want to outline ideas for how to make the distinction between arms that are protected by the second amendment, and arms that aren’t, that meet the standard laid out by Dave above.

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Thoughts on 2008

Well folks, it looks pretty good that we’re going to win on Heller.  If I were a betting man, I’d put money on it.  Not a guarantee, but the odds look pretty good.  But go back and listen to the oral arguments; who are the justices that most are supporting us in the questioning?

  1. Justice Scalia – Appointed by Ronald Reagan
  2. Justice Thomas – Appointed by George H.W. Bush
  3. Justice Alito – Appointed by George W. Bush
  4. Justice Roberts – Appointed by George W. Bush
  5. Justice Kennedy – Appointed by Ronald Reagan

This should give you all some idea of the importance of elections.  Where do you think we’d be on the Heller case if Al Gore or John Kerry had won in 2000 and 2004 respectively?  Given that none of these justices seemed to express support for a really robust second amendment right in the quesetioning, at least one that would make all of us happy, how do you think the right will be constructed in subsequent cases before The Court if we just let Obama or Hillary select the next two, possibly three justices to put on the high court?

For all my complaints about George W. Bush on the gun issue, and despite my blief that Bush is hardly to be considered a conservative, we would not be looking at a very strong possibility of winning this case if gun owners had not put him in the oval office in 2000/2004.  We actually need a stronger court, not just at the Supreme Court level, but at the circuit court level too, for the cases which will inevitably be fought after this.  I think Heller will be decided narrowly.   If we want to fight the next battles and win, and avoid getting an individual right without meaning, we need to make sure McCain is in the oval office in 2008.

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Looking a Little Upset There Petey

Peter Hamm is looking a little angry these days.  I’m pretty sure Justice Kennedy didn’t help his mood any after it was all over.  I think in this picture he was confronting some of our megaphone wielding bozos who were provoking a confrontation outside of the Courthouse.  Petey got angry, but to the best of my knowledge, he didn’t threaten to shoot any of them.

Note to pro-gun activists: Leave the megaphones at home.  We’re not dirty hippy protestors.  You don’t want to be a hippy, do you?  The object of rallying like that is to get your happy, smiling, articulate face in front of the media.  Megaphone amplified anger doesn’t persuade people, and persuading people is the object of the game.

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Downrange TV Heller Coverage

Michael Bane also has some coverage over at Downrange TV.  You can hear oral arguments here.  It’s a little better than the C-SPAN feed that NRA links to.  Also see here for commentary by John Lott, Jim Shepherd, Michael Bane, and Dave Kopel.  There’s also coverage of the press conferences behind that link too.

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Pennsylvania “Castle Doctrine” Vote

I received the following from the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs:

The House debated the “Reporting Lost & Stolen” amendment till 11:00 last night. It was mostly a speech by Rep. Parker (Phila.) about why this was needed and how it was not an infringement on our rights to buy a firearm. A few other representatives spoke against it, then Rep. Cutler asked to have the amendment withdrawn saying it was unconstitutional based on court rulings that said a convicted felon could not be charged for not reporting, because he would be incriminating himself.

Before Rep. Cutler finished, and any votes could be taken, discussion was cut off because of their rule to end session by 11:00pm.

They were to pick up where they left off at 11:00am this morning. (7 more amendments were filed on the bill last night.) However, when they got to the floor at 11:00, the Democrats were short by about 8 legislators, as they were all in Philly for the Obama rally this morning. When the Republicans made a motion to bring a bill up for vote, the Democrats had to quickly recess for some emergency. They kept everyone waiting around all day to give the 8 missing members a chance to return. When that didn’t happen, they eventually recessed for the day.

They do not return for session until March 31st.

Rumor was that they didn’t have the votes to pass their amendments, so they were going to try to table any further votes on amendments so we couldn’t get any of our amendments voted on either. We’ll have to wait till they return to see what develops.

Thanks to the NRA and John Hohenwarter for working with us on these issues!  And thanks to everyone who took the time to contact their legislators on these issues.

It’s good news they don’t think they have enough to get the amendment passed, but it sucks we have to wait until March 31st.

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