Every once in a while our favorite Brady Board member starts getting onto serious topics that warrant clarification. She seems to think HR822, the National concealed carry Reciprocity bill, is part of a larger strategy. It is, but not the one she thinks. So much like explaining to the vegan, exactly how you plan to butcher the calf, I’ll explain what HR822 is really about. First, her theory:
It’s simple, or maybe not so simple. Things are not always as simple as the NRA and its minions would have us believe. What the gun guys really want is to quash the intent of May Issue states and open up the possibility of residents in those states suing for equal protection by saying “If they get to, why not us?†See the Indiana case mentioned in my previous post. This bill is part of a legal strategy to overturn all permitting processes in the states. The fact that some states have no permitting requirements at all provides them with an excuse to sue under the “equal protection” clause in the constitution – a favorite strategy of the NRA. That way, they get what they really want through the courts.
This is not part of a grand conspiracy to overturn all permitting processes. There is currently no gun rights organization that has a serious litigation strategy that is attempting to target permit requirements for carrying firearms at this point, and HR822 is not part of any such future strategy. The primary, overwhelming purpose of HR822 is to force the states to recognize each other’s permits, so that the right to bear arms and the right to travel are not impermissibly infringed by state laws. The conspiracy really goes no farther than that.
Her speculation on the bill’s true purpose also fundamentally misunderstands the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Equal Protection does not mean that states may not have differing laws. Even if the Supreme Court rules that it is permissible to require permits to carry a gun, provided they are issued to the law-abiding in a manner not arbitrary or capricious, that would not create a cause of action under the Equal Protection Clause if some states choose to require it and others do not. It’s an absurd assertion to suggest that because Vermont has chosen not to require licenses, that must be required of every state as a matter of equal protection. There are certainly ways that clause can be implicated in right to keep and bear arms cases, but not in the way she suggests. Whether permitting can be required, and what kind of requirements are permissible, is a scope issue in the Second Amendment, and not an equal protection issue under the 14th Amendment.
But I can speculate as to how HR822 would benefit our Court strategy. Despite what our favorite Brady Board member has been told by folks who clearly ignored the parts of Heller that they wished hadn’t been written, the opinion was pretty transparent in stating that there was a constitutional right to carry arms, in addition to keeping them in the home. It left open the possibility the state may regulate how arms my be borne, including prohibiting the carrying of arms concealed (citing several state cases that said the same), but it’s abundantly clear from the opinion the Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects a right to carry guns for self-defense in some manner, even if not all manners, or in sensitive places.
So given the Courts have recognized the right to carry, and the right to travel, it’s quite a proper exercise of Congress’ 14th Amendment, Section 5 powers to pass legislation to protect both those rights. It sends a clear signal to the federal courts, especially the lower federal courts who have refused to take the Supreme Court’s rulings on the Second Amendment seriously, that the elected branches of government are firmly with the high court on the matter of carrying arms deserving protection of some sort. Since getting the courts to explicitly overturn restrictions on carrying arms is one of our immediately litigative priorities, having Congress weigh in only strengthens that case.
So this is not a massive conspiracy to get rid of permits using HR822 as a springboard. We aren’t thinking that far ahead with the Court strategy right now. This is a pretty transparently obvious effort to get the Courts to reiterate there’s a right to carry arms, and that states are limited in how they may regulate that right, and certainly are prohibited from outright abolishing it, such is the case in Illinois. If it indeed is a right, it’s certainly infringing on the right to be able to exercise it freely in some states and not others. It also certainly has implications on the right to travel.
When we butcher someone else’s sacred calf, we do it slow and methodically, and not with careless or reckless abandon. It’s a pity Japete doesn’t know us better by now.
I dunno – isn’t it better that people like Japete don’t know us better by now?
Jappy lives in her own, closed and closeted little world, building sparkly little notions out of cobwebs and rainbows.
Seriously. The conversation about HR822 went something like this:
Japete: HR822 does XYZ!
Smart People: No, it does ABC.
Japete: But that’s not doing anything! IT’S A CONSPIRACY!!1!
Smart People: *get censored for explaining*
Come on Sebastian, this woman is so stupid that she takes a halfway intelligent thought and turns it into a grand unified theory of ending all permits everywhere. She’s so dumb that she can see the actual point and has to turn it into something much scarier (well, to her).
The point of Universal Reciprocity is exactly what she said. It’s to demolish the “may issue” states political will to keep their may issue rules. Once the residents of New Jersey find out that I can carry while driving down the New Jersey Turnpike on my way to Central Park (F-U Furious Mike!) they will demand that they be allowed to have a license too. After about a year of unqualified, unsafe, and unwanted rednecks toting hidden, loaded guns while prancing in public, pretty much everyone will have to admit that concealed carry isn’t a danger, even in New Jersey. Then they will get their shall issue permit system. And the world won’t end.
Then gun control as a movement is finished forever. Once the last bastions of gun control are forced to deal with large scale concealed carry, and the attendant political activism of the carriers, it’s all over for Brady and MAIG, and the three or four other people who suck at the Joyce Foundation teat.
You know as well as I do that the movement for concealed carry lives on as a vibrant and active community long after the first LTCF or CHP is handed out. And once those cards start getting passed out, the opposition’s groups dry up and blow away like tumbleweeds. If you doubt me, try going to Ceasefire NJ’s website.
Japete is facing Armageddon, and she’s so damn stupid that she needs to invent a whole conspiracy beyond what will actually destroy her movement. You aren’t explaining butchering to a vegan, you’re trying to explain deductive reasoning to a barnacle.
Heather:
I think that can be taken as a generic template for the vast majority of her blog. That is, the ones that aren’t just rambling, incoherent nonsense. I responded to this one because it actually smacked a bit of coherence.
Sean:
I don’t think New Jersey will get shall-issue CCW unless it’s forced on them through the courts. The state is just too heavily Democratic.
You aren’t explaining butchering to a vegan, you’re trying to explain deductive reasoning to a barnacle.
I think that’s rather insulting to barnacles.
I basically started out being reasonable with her, and giving her the benefit of doubt. Now I pretty much use her as a foil to show she really has little idea what she’s talking about.
That woman has done nothing in her blogging career to refute the assumption that she’s about as intellectually serious as a sack of bricks.
Naw, a sack of bricks has weight, heft, and if it falls on you, it’ll hurt. Japete’s intellect would like to grow up to be a sack of bricks.
I’ve come to the conclusion that any time she says anything that smacks a bit of coherence, it’s by sheer luck. Monkeys, Shakespeare, etc. Thus far, my theory has not been proven incorrect. ;)
Never really thought of myself as a “minion” before; I’ll have to print up some new business cards.
I was going to write a minor disagreement to Sebatian here – but by the time NJ gun owners realize they can organize politically to change things, the question will be mooted by the courts.
The three areas in which NJ gun laws must change to make NJ a decent place for gun owners are all within the power of the court system:
a)make all the pemits shall-issue immediately on application.
b)strike the AWB and hollow-point ban
c)strike the 7-day waiting period on handgun purchase.
All of these are obvious infringements on the right to keep and bear arms without being a bridge too far for the current SCOTUS. Alternately a clever Congress can effectively force most of this under their currently-viewed powers (define self-defense as a “justifiable need” for issuance of permits via 14th amendment, and prevent states from restricting sales of items in interstate commerce in the same fashion that they have pre-empted sales bans on airguns). I don’t think Congress can do anything about the waiting periods short of their functioning in the amendment process.
“There is currently no gun rights organization that has a serious litigation strategy that is attempting to target permit requirements for carrying firearms at this point, and HR822 is not part of any such future strategy.”
You are half-right. HR822 is not part of litigation strategy. But there is a gun rights organization that has a serious litigation strategy that is targeting permit requirements for carrying firearms!
Since California has some of the worst anti-gun laws in the nation, California is the front-line battlefield of pro-gun litigation.
http://calgunsfoundation.org/
That’s why I started donated to Calguns and SAF regularly, even though I am in PA. I’ve given up on looking for any traction with NJ – Calguns looks hyperactive by comparison.
Start donating folks. It’s time.
Now how do we get 822 through the house and then the senate?
When I see folks on njgunforums say “Well, maybe Aitken deserved what he got, because he had hollowpoints in his trunk, and maybe normal-capacity magazines,” I feel a little despair.
Japete is just confusing “full faith and credit” with “equal protection” and refusing to accept what Heller says about constitutionality of RTKBA restrictions.