I am just plum out of energy from the weekend. This was one of those events, much like NRA Annual Meeting, where you’d rather stay up and talk to people than go to bed. An early start to the events meant only a few hours of sleep a night. I had to start a new work engagement today, so that added up to not much energy for posting, despite having a lot to say. Let me relay some further impressions.
I hadn’t seen Clayton Cramer in person since Heller. To say he’s a font of knowledge about American History is a serious understatement. The depth of research he’s done on behalf of the issue is remarkable, and he can recall obscure facts on command at a detail rarely achieved.
The other fun fact from the weekend is that Professor Nick Johnson, who is co-author on the new Second Amendment law textbook–the first of its kind–along with Professors Michael O’Shea, Dave Kopel, and George Moscary, is a member of the local shooting club I am an officer for, and lives relatively close to me in Bucks County. Apparently he’s had Professor Moscary as a guest at the club, who commented to me how nice the facilities are.
It’s a small world, folks. My club has its roots in the working class neighborhoods of Levittown, and yet you never know when you might find yourself shooting next to a distinguished professor of law. I’ll be speaking more about Professor Johnson’s law review article later, which attacks some common misconceptions about the civil rights movement’s view of non-violence, which is a challenge to the now prevailing view. It’s really quite fascinating.
I suspect you meant something other than ‘can obscure facts at will,’ since that doesn’t fit with the overall tone of the post.
Indeed. I have corrected. Thanks for catching that.
I am way too tired. I should get some sleep, but I have some things to do to prepare for tomorrow, and to also do for my club.
Ha, after looking at Prof. Johnson’s bio I’m doubly ticked I didn’t get a chance to get over and see you guys. He’s areas of specialty are exactly the same as mine: environmental law and gun rights!!!
In other news, I noticed under “related posts” you had a link to The Aging Shooting Sports. Its worth pointing out that my oldest son (who attended one of the VCDL Bloomberg Gun raffles with Bitter and I when he was 5 years old) just signed up to shoot on the Junior Rifle Squad at our gun club. Its a highly competitive program, that starts the kids early in the shooting sports. From what I’ve gathered, all the kids on the team who have made it through till they graduate high school – AND ATTENDED A SCHOOL WITH A RIFLE TEAM – have won scholarships to shoot in school.
Interestingly, my wife will let him shoot. But will not let me take him hunting yet.
Thanks for the kind words!
One of the useful networking aspects of this event was meeting a California lawyer who is preparing a 42 USC 1983 challenge to California’s discretionary issuance statute. He has done a lot of research on the history of the law–but I had some goodies that he had not seen, that made his day.
The statement of the man who persuaded the governor to sign that law that it would be effective at disarming Chinese and Mexicans.
The statement made at the 1849 state constitutional convention that California did not need a RKBA provision in the state constitution, because the Second Amendment already protected that individual right.
I am feeding him more data on the topic; all of these in conjunction with Hunter v. Underwood (1985) should be lethal (assuming that federal judges actually follow existing precedent).