I appreciate everyone’s patience with the fact that I can’t really post much on Tuesdays and Fridays, which are the days I’m in the office. We just have too much going on right now, and the company has lost a lot of time because of the winter weather this season. When I’m home, I recover two to three hours every day not having to commute, so I can contribute more content to the blog.
The Week wants to ban the Second Amendment. They note that a “consolidated democracy” has never gone “Full Weimar.” What’s a consolidated democracy? And what’s full Weimar? The Weimar Republic was no picnic, but it’s what came after that was the problem. Someone is a bit history challenged. Ask Ukraine or Venezuela how democracy worked out for them?
The push from Coalition to Stop Gun Violence to get Visa to drop its NRA program is getting a decent amount of press, despite the fact that almost no one showed up to the protest. The burning white hot hate that CSGV has for NRA’s 5 million members couldn’t be more apparent.
E.J. Dionne’s Stand Your Ground fantasies. More on this from Andrew Branca at Legal Insurrection.
Another Connecticut newspaper arguing that 300,000 of their fellow citizens belong in jail. This is Irish Democracy at work. My hat is off to the refuseniks.
Remember, our opponents in the gun control movement believe you have an obligation to obey. You need to sit back and take whatever your government dishes out. Comply citizen!
Should we amend the Second Amendment? I’d like to. I’d suggest “The right of the people to buy, transport, carry, bear, practice with, repair, arms, which means firearms, ammunition, particle beam weapons, knives, swords, and any other weapon one can pick up and carry, shall not be infringed. Period! That means strict scrutiny. That means no balancing tests or judicial weaseling. We mean it.” But I’m pretty sure they’d find a way to screw that up too.
Unfortunately, I think the republican spirit is dead.
Off topic: Clayton brings up one of my pet peeves, the H1B program. It traps immigrants in often lousy jobs at substandard pay, and makes it too difficult for them to compete on the open market with everyone else. It’s a terrible program and it should be replaced with a visa that’s portable across jobs. That way they aren’t abused by companies as sources of cheap, compliant labor.
Personally, I think Piers Morgan, now departing CNN, probably helped our cause more than hurt it. Talk about someone you don’t really want on your side.
The sooner someone with mental illness gets treatment, the better the outcomes. Though, our elites and media prefer to ignore mentally ill people until they go on shooting sprees, and then blame the “gun culture.”
“Some Thoughts About Remington, Jobs, And Its Union”
California could see 1.4 million concealed carry licenses issued.
Another false flag? They are popping up like daisies.
The truth hurts: A parody of the Moms who demand action.
More from Reason about the Irish Democracy breaking out all over Connecticut.
Thanks for the references above to “Irish Democracy.” I’m surprised I had never encountered the term. I was half-expecting it to be derogatory. Turns out I’m a long time advocate and practitioner!
I wonder if it may not turn out to be a particularly appropriate analogy for the Connecticut example. When “Irish democrats” in Northern Ireland came out of the closet in the late 1960s and attempted to emulate American civil rights marchers, they caught the Brits by surprise. The Brits responded with force and violence, which was matched blow-for-blow (ironically by “republicans,” not “democrats”) and the resulting 30 year war is history.
The law’s constitutionality is a matter for the courts to determine, not the individual gun owner.
Umm, no. How is the court supposed to make a decision without an individual challenging the law?
The H1B program is bad, but not for the reasons you describe. If we really have an unemployment problem in this country (which I don’t think anyone is debating), we need to look inside the borders to hire.
It is possible to have a high unemployment rate, but have shortages of workers in key industries. I’m not convinced that’s the case now, but the H1B program has a worse wage suppressing effect than if we just gave them green cards and let employers compete for their labor. As it stands now, the H1B visa isn’t any good for either the American worker or the immigrant worker.
I wouldn’t object quite so strongly to the H1B visas if we actually applied current law, which requires those hired must be paid a wage competitive to a citizen or permanent resident, and that those hired must be to perform a job that the employer has attempted to hire a citizen or permanent resident to do, and that requires significant skills not available in the U.S. But that’s why the big employers keep law firms working full time to get around little details like the current law.
I agree: the republican spirit is dead. I think the future looks like Mad Max crossed with Seven Beauties.
Someone also might want to remind The Week that … Weimar Germany had pretty thorough gun control.
(I note their under-head: Imagine the Second Amendment didn’t exist, and try arguing for a constitutional right to gun ownership.
Well, yeah.
Imagine the First Amendment didn’t exist, and try arguing for a Constitutional right to free speech or religious expression or against a State Church.
Imagine the Fourth Amendment was gone, and argue for a Constitutional right against searches and seizures by the State.
You’ll fail at those, too.
Is the author really that stupid?)
(Sigivald,
Yes)
Remember that list of folks I posted the other day, the across the board NRA A rated House Financial services Appropriators who have jurisdiction over the post office? Know who they also have jurisdiction over? More traditional financial service organizations. Like the banks that issue Visa cards. Did I mention that every single Republican was A rated? Do you think Visa gives a rats ass what Michael Bloomberg crazies want versus ticking off the NRA champions that can really cause it financial harm?
…one can pick up and carry…
As long as we’re dreaming, might as well leave that out of it.
If you’re going to rewrite the 2A, why exclude crew served weapons? The history shows that the founders were ok with cannon and warships in private hands.
I would say that any weapon which is in common use at the company level or below, or in police departments, is protected.
I didn’t want to get too greedy.
Chris —
Because that’s pretty much the dividing line between what were referred to as “arms” and what were referred to as “ordnance” in 18th Century terminology. “Arms” were the weapons and accoutrements suitable to individual soldiers, while “ordnance” was generally stuff assigned to units as a support weapon.
In fact, “one man portable” is a little imprecise — grenade launchers (based on a Brown Bess lock, stock, and breech, with a big assed cup for the grenade) were ALWAYS listed as “ordnance” in military returns, as opposed to the muskets racked right next to them (which were “arms”), even though those grenade launchers are actually MORE portable for a single man than a 46″ Long land Pattern musket is. The difference is that the GL variant was ALWAYS issued as a “support” weapon — just as we issue M203 and M320 GLs today.
Arguments that the Founding Fathers didn’t have a problem with people owning and using cannon misses the point — they ALSO didn’t have a problem with people owning and wearing blue suede shoes, but that doesn’t mean they are protected under the Second Amendment, either. Since NEITHER are “arms” in the standard meaning of teh word in the 18th Century, NEITHER is explicitly protected by teh Second Amendment.
That does not, however, mean that private possession and use of “ordnance” isn’t protected: they could well have Constitutional protection under a different section. (Note — your blue suede shoes damned sure ARE Constitutionally protected under a variety of sections and prenumbras, including the First Amendment for most cases and the Ninth and Tenth in almost all other cases.) for that matter, they might well fall within a prenumbra of the Second Amendment, just not be explicitly protected or part of the “core” rights protected by the Second.
It’s just that cannon and the like are not protected as an enumerated right by the Second Amendment, unlike keeping and bearing arms.
And, even if cannons and such are not protected at all by the Bill of Rights (aside from the basic property rights), that doesn’t mean the Founding Fathers would have automatically assumed that they should be illegal just because they didn’t see a need to explicitly protect them — the Constitution isn’t a set of limits on the People, but the government. As an analogy, the US Constitution explicitly states that the Congress may borrow money against the credit of the United States — that doesn’t mean they have to borrow it, just because they have the authority to do so.
I see the point, but I think an argument could be made for a broader interpretation of “arms” also being textual.
http://brainshavings.com/what-the-2nd-amendment-means-by-arms-iii.html
Even if we accept the more limited definition of arms, clearly anything at the infantry squad (maybe even platoon) or police level should be protected. That would include SAWs, full auto M4s, M203 launchers, along with all the fun toys carried by local PDs on a regular basis (“patrol carbines,” no?). Light anti tank weapons and man portable air defense systems might also be in play.
Linking “common usage” to contemporary police and military forces is the best way to ensure the amendment is not made obsolete, and that its original purpose of ensuring a civilian forced equipped to take on contemporary threats (internal or external) remains viable. It also prevents destructive power in private hands from being excessively protected, for example, once we have the power of a 105mm cannon in a compact laser rifle (man portable, right?). State vs. citizen parity maintainace should be the priority.
One could even set up a hiearchy of protection, explicitly:
– Squad-lvl and beat cop weapons = strictest scrutiny
– Platoon & cpy level or SWAT weapons = intermediate scrutiny, interest balancing acceptable
– Weapons typically run by a field grade officer or not used by civil peace officers = rational basis protection only
The closest thing we have today to militia are police forces, so at the least you have to include what they are generally using as a gauge on what kinds of arms are protected. But I’m a bit skeptical the public would be accepting of anyone being able to buy a surface-to-air missile, even though they can be made man portable.
The National Guard are the organized militia, no?
Seems reasonable for the unorganized militia to be equipped similarly to the organized militia…
Precision guided munitions of all types — antitank weapons, SAMs, etc — raise interesting problems, don’t they? If you want to go with the whole “carried by a guy” rationale they’re clearly included. If you include company-level arms then they’re included.
If you limit the right to what cops have and national guard infantry squads have, then MANPADS and antitank rockets would be ruled out — for now. The NYPD has stated a desire to acquire MANPADS but at this time it seems they don’t have them. Yet. But if the point is parity, and the police feel a need to get MANPADS, or they become so common they’re deployed down to the team level in the organized militia, then they’re clearly arms in common use, no?
I think to make that work we’d have to adopt something similar to the Swiss system, or the old militia system we used to have. Otherwise you’d have one bozo go apeshit with a MANPAD, take down a 737 full of people, and then there’d be an outcry to do something from the something must be done crowd, which is unfortunately a large plurality of voters, if not a majority of voters.
Holder said state attorneys general do not have to enforce laws they disagree with, specifically when it comes to the issue of gay marriage.
“It is highly unusual for the United States attorney general to advise his state counterparts on how and when to refuse to defend state laws. But Mr. Holder said when laws touch on core constitutional issues like equal protection, an attorney general should apply the highest level of scrutiny before reaching a decision on whether to defend it. He said the decision should never be political or based on policy objections.”
The comments at The Week are running OVERWHELMING pro gun…and none of them are the pseudonyms that I normally see in pro-gun comments.
Excellent gun safety talk. Point number one. All guns are loaded.