Sebastian – Page 49 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Baltimore Gun Task Force

Glenn Reynolds notes, “How many members of Bloombergâ€™s mayors-against-guns group wound up in jail?”Â in response to the news that there’s only one officer left standing after a bunch of federal indictments in the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force.

My take? The US doesn’t culturally view such services as an important public good, so it is not a high status job in the mind of the public. If that’s the case, the people attracted to busting down doors for guns are those with bad incentives and attitudes. Bloomberg’s problem was that he self-selected a group of people that’s highly prone to graft and corruption, and the results were predictable.

Well, They’ve Been Out Branded by Bloomberg

John Richardson notes that Dan Gross is stepping down as head of the Brady Campaign. He will be replaced by co-presidents Kristin Brown and Avery Gardiner. Co-Presidents? Really? Does that ever work?

The problem the Brady Campaign has is that it’s been outcompeted by Bloomberg. Brady has the problem of being dependent on fundraising from the general public, and the issue has a limited pool of donors. Bloomberg’s money has probably enabled Everytown et al to hoover up a decent chunk of Brady’s donor and support base. I haven’t given much thought to Brady these days, because they are largely irrelevant. Remember, the movement was on the outs before Bloomberg came along, and I can’t imagine things have gotten better for the groups without wealthy patrons.

The Law: Tis For The Little People

Despite being illegal under federal law, the US Virgin Islands have declared a gun confiscation. That’s not even speaking about the constitutionality of the whole endeavor. Granted, they are handled by the 1st Circuit, which is pretty gun unfriendly, but the judges would really have to reach to justify upholding this.

For those in the path of the Irma, and I myself have a lot of family, I just want to wish you all good luck. We’re all counting on you.

Is America Crazy?

Ace of Spades asks the question, and speaks to the reason I don’t blog as much as I used to:

Half of America now consists of barely-functional lunatics, and it’s best to avoid them for all sorts of reasons.

I know I’m a bad blogger for not jumping on all of these Freak-Outs. I have felt guilty sometimes about not jumping on the internet on a weekend — for example, during the Charlottesville incidents.

I do this for selfish reasons: I do not wish to be amidst madman shrieking and by being amidst them, become infected with madness myself.

But I sometimes justify this selfish aversion to doing my job as actually doing my job: As I do not wish to be infected by the viral lunacy consuming half of this country, so too do I not wish to be a vector of that lunacy, infecting other people.

I am now much more involved with my local gun club than I used to be. That started out of necessity, but I’m finding I like being able to do something to promote and preserve the shooting sports that’s not political, and that gets me away from the RSS feed, Facebook, and constant stream of news and commentary that must be followed to have something to blog about.

I’m also going to get back into camping. Maybe buy a canoe. I don’t know much about canoes, but it seems like something I might enjoy taking up, and we could use the exercise.

I don’t plan on quitting blogging, but these days I need more of a break from the news than I used to.

New California Regulations

From Bearing Arms:

The question is whether these new regulations would stand up to judicial scrutiny. I have no doubt that California courts will find these rules constitutional, but would it survive higher courts? I have to believe they donâ€™t, if for no other reason that this is a clear attempt to restrict an individualâ€™s right to keep and bear arms. That said, Iâ€™m not a legal expert.Â This is something for the legal experts to hammer out.

I give approximately no chance that state or federal courts will strike down these regulations. Remember, the 9th Circuit has, so far, successfully overturned Heller’s direct ruling striking DC’s safe-storage law. SCOTUS let them get away with it.

The only way this regulation is going down is if there is a chance on the Court. Otherwise it’s going to go the same way every other case has gone: there might be a temporary victory at one level of the court if we get the right judge or judges, but it’ll be undone. California prevails en banc, and SCOTUS refuses to hear the case.

California can do whatever it wants to gun owners. Pretty soon, New Jersey will be in the same position, once Christie is gone.

I Have To Agree on Armed Protests

SayUncle comments on the Second Amendment Foundation’s position on armed protests.

â€œWe are not a fan of armed protests and highly discourage that,â€ said Alan Gottlieb, the founder and executive vice president of the SAF. â€œFirearms serve a purpose, and the purpose is not a mouthpiece. Itâ€™s to defend yourself. If you are carrying it to make a political point, we are not going to support that.â€

I wouldn’t go to one of these protests unarmed, but it would be concealed. But I agree with Uncle: I wouldn’t go to one of these protests where both sides are idiots.

What you’re going to end up seeing are states passing laws against protesting while armed or starting to use laws on the books against parading while armed.

Internal Strife at Everytown

Looks like Kate Ranta is on the outs with Everytown. The reason? Everytown started to move in on the FoP, and some of their kookier members lost their shit because the FoP do not support their mission of disarming Americans with sufficient zeal.

Any readers out there who are cops should read this article, and have zero doubt these people will absolutely disarm you if they get half a chance.

On Thursday, I resigned as an Everytown Survivor Fellow after being blocked by the Survivor Network Facebook page for voicing my concerns about the sponsorship.Â My conclusion is that dissenting voices have no place in these organizations. You toe the line or youâ€™re out.

Of course. They don’t need you. Bloomberg gives them plenty of money. Not having to worry about what grassroots members think helps them stay on message. If you’re no longer useful to them, they don’t want or need you.

Eclipse Watching

The lack of posting is because I was away on vacation. We decided to go camping along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I had previously done this trip back in my 20s, but called it quits at Asheville. This time I endeavored to go to the true summit of Mount Mitchell, and finish the entire length through western North Carolina. Brief stop in the Smokeys, then onto Nashville were I watched the eclipse with my Uncle in Gallatin, Tennessee.

Weather was perfect, both for Mount Mitchell and for the eclipse. Totality does make all the difference in the world. It was quite a spectacle. I saw the standing waves in the first minutes of totality’s recession. Approaching totality the light was strange. Shadows were fuzzy and sometimes crescent shaped. It was like the whole earth was being lit by a very white LED light.

Other than that, I was glad to get back into some camping. Things will return to normal around here as soon as I get my bearings back.

Can’t Both Sides Lose?

Henry Kissinger is rumored to have said, in regards to the Iran-Iraq war, “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.” That pretty much sums up how I feel about what happened in Charlottesville. For those of you who are wise enough to avoid social media, it has been non stop “fascism and nazism descending on America because a few hundred idiots got together and Charlottesville and did what idiots tend to do.

I’m told variously I have to speak out. No I don’t. I down own kooks. I don’t own those people any more than people who voted for Bernie own that dude who shot Steve Scalise, or people who voted for Hillary who own this guy. Let’s establish that we all think murdering people is wrong, that violence is bad, socialist authoritarianism, whether national or international flavor is bad, fascism is bad. I’ve always been more of a pragmatist than a hard ideologue, so I’m OK condemning a whole host of isms.

So no, I definitely don’t own a few hundred loser white supremacists or antifa protesters who decided to get out of mom’s basement for a day and beat each other up over a statue.

I’ll leave you all with Ace of Spades:

But as John Sexton points out, you can’t expect a culture to praise all sorts of Identity Politics — flat-out racist groups and gender supremacists — but say that one group doesn’t get to play by the same rules.

Either it’s all poisonous garbage, or it’s all got something of merit to it.

I believe the former. But the media — and the establishment right political class — cannot continue with this incoherent claim that Identity Politics are permissible for e everyone except The One Group Which is Truly Odious and Cursed by God.

People will not accept that. No one will accept his subordination without a fight of some kind.

I agree. It’s all poisonous garbage, and if we don’t abandon it for the good of the country, it’s only going to get worse.

Standing

Standing has always been a useful concept for courts who don’t want to hear or decide on the specifics of a case, to have a convenient way to dispose of the case without having to reach there. So the FBI has been taking NICS check data and cross referencing it to the Terrorist Screening Database for a number of years now.

Here you have two theories of standing. One is that because the cross reference didn’t in any material way affect your ability to buy a gun, you have no standing to sue. Only someone who is singled out for different treatment because of the cross reference has standing. The other theory is that because your purchasing information has been used in a way not authorized by law, that the mere act of having your data cross referenced to another database creates standing in and of itself.

Guess which theory of standing was adopted by the federal courts so far? If that theory holds, no one would have standing since the FBI doesn’t use the screen to influence the person’s NICS status. It presumably just creates an alert. The cross reference might be illegal on the part of the FBI, but no one can challenge it.