Sebastian – Page 59 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Bloomberg Pledges 25 Million to Fight Concealed Carry

Looks like they’ve brought on some new staff to fight National Reciprocity. They are planning to play defense at the federal level and go on offense in the states.

Everytown for Gun Safety, founded and funded by the billionaire former New York City mayor, is hiring several new top staffers and turning much of its attention to state legislatures, while moving to a defensive posture in Washington as it tries to stop whatâ€™s known as â€œconcealed carry reciprocityâ€ from becoming law. That will include starting to score congressional votes, like the National Rifle Association does, to guide spending decisions more directly.

Who the hell cares if Everytown scores votes? How many dues paying members do they have? The answer is none. You can find in their Form 990 they don’t have any members except the Board of Directors. The big question every reporter should ask Everytown: what percentage of your organization is funded by Michael Bloomberg? The Form 990 also largely answers this question: Everytown spends almost nothing on fundraising. In 2013, they engaged two fundraising organizations which raised $100,000. That’s a drop compared to Everytown’s approximately 36 million dollar budget. Compare that with the Brady Center which raised 1.7 million in donations via fundraising for about 5 million in money raised overall. Why doesn’t Everytown need to spend more on fundraising? Because you don’t need to when you have one donor who can sign multi-million dollar checks.

The biggest thing they have going for them is that I don’t think the GOP really wants to pass this. Certainly, it is not a priority for them.

Can We Please Start Seeking Congressional Authorization to Fight Wars as Our Constitution Demands?

It doesn’t get any more right when it’s “our” side that does it:

All of this is true, but itâ€™s also true that the President launched the attack without approval from Congress and no clear and present danger to the United States or our allies.

The precedent for going to war under these conditions was set by the previous Administration, but that doesnâ€™t mean that the current Administration should necessarily follow it.

It was wrong for Obama to intervene in the Syrian Civil War without even so much as consulting Congress when Obama did it, and likewise Trump should seek approval from Congress if he’s going to continue it. If he can’t get approval from Congress, that should say something.

I do think the President can act without Congress in the face of clear, immediate threats, and Assad might be a butcher, but we ought to demand our elected leaders follow the law.

UPDATE: For the comments: how many of your lefty friends on social media are acting like Obama hasn’t been bombing targets in Syria for several years now?

Gorsuch Vote Goes Nuclear

The GOP pushed the button on the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, clearing the way for Neil Gorsuch to be confirmed.Â Personally, I think they ought to nuke the filibuster for everything. Well, not completely nuke, just go back to the old rule that a Senator has to hold the floor to filibuster. The way some people have been talking you’d think the filibuster rule was carried down from Mount Horeb on stone tablets. In reality the filibuster rule that does not require the Senator to hold the floor only dates to 1975. Before that, it’s use prior to the 20th century was almost unheard of. In the 20th century, before the 1975 rule, it was mostly used to hold up civil rights legislation. So this idea that it’s a longstanding, revered institution is mostly nonsense.

18th and 19th Century Firearms Technology and the Second Amendment

Dave Kopel has an excellent article over at the WaPo detailing the fact that the Founding Fathers could have indeed envisioned repeating firearms, because there were several examples of them that were contemporaneous with the founding, or predated it. Even Henry VIII had a long gun that used a revolving cylinder to fire multiple shots without reloading. The issue was not that repeating firearms were unknown, it’s that they had to be hand made and were therefore the province of the very wealthy.

I’ve never believed that any of the founders would be supporters of modern gun control, mostly because they were gun enthusiasts themselves. There’s always the temptation on the other side to try to channel the founding to their own ends, but the fact is at the time, civilian ownership of firearms was wholly uncontroversial.

What’s the Opposite of a Second Amendment Lawsuit?

New Jersey legislators are suing Governor Christie over New Jersey’s loosened concealed carry permit requirements. Note that Christie did not make New Jersey in any way, shape or form shall-issue. He just made it such that someone facing bonafide threats could qualify. That’s more like Maryland’s standard. It’s almost as if they don’t want the peons able to protect themselves at all! From ANJRPC:

â€œAlthough 43 states recognize the right to defend yourself with a firearm outside the home, New Jersey remains one of a handful of backward states that apparently prefer their citizens to become victims â€“ except for legislators, who themselves hypocritically enjoy the armed protection of State House security,â€ said ANJRPC Executive Director Scott Bach.Â â€œOnly in the Garden State do lawmakers actively block those facing serious threats from defending themselves. New Jerseyâ€™s days denying right to carry to its citizens are numbered.â€

Let’s hope they are numbered. Whether the case comes from the Third Circuit or some other, I don’t care.

The Gorsuch Shoe Will Drop This Week

Sounds like we’ll find out whether McConnell has to go to the nuclear option to get Gorsuch confirmed by Thursday. I think from a strategic perspective, Schumer would be making an awful mistake to force a nuclear strike over Gorsuch. It makes a lot more sense for the Dems to save that fire when the time comes to fight for one ofÂ their seats. Rumor has it that Kennedy might retire this summer, which would be more consequential than replacing Scalia with Gorsuch. This really doesn’t change anything on the Court.

Chuck Schumer is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. He’s probably one of the most coy politicians I can think of. If he’s not intent on blowing up his munitions stockpile to appease the angry base, he’ll arrange things so that enough red state Democrats and a few non-vulnerable blue ones vote for cloture to let Gorsuch eke by.

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty also notes Dems might want to hold off until later:

But imagine that Trump picks someone else. We can skip past the nominations of Judge Judy, Pirro, Dredd and Reinhold, but letâ€™s assume Andrew Napolitano is right when he boasts that Trump is considering nominating him for the Supreme Court. Or Trump nominates his sister, or he nominates any figure who leaves conservative legal minds unnerved from a thin record or other flaws.

In other words, imagine Trump nominating his own version of Harriet Miers.

In that scenario, not only would Democrats be likely to have the votes to filibuster the nominee, but they might have some Republicans willing to join as well. Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans will nuke the filibuster without a second thought when itâ€™s being used to block a sterling judge like Gorsuch.

That’s another good reason. Don’t believe it couldn’t get far worse.

Prep for Arizona Ballot Initiative?

Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly have formedÂ The Arizona Coalition for Common Sense. It looks like they mostly intend to push ending private transfers and sales. Last round Bloomberg barely eked out an electoral victory in Nevada, lost outright in Maine, and then lost in Nevada because the law was poorly drafted and demanded the FBI do something the FBI won’t do, which is run background checks on behalf of a point-of-contact state.

We’ve seen this pattern before. Bloomberg usually does push legislatively for a bill first, then comes in with the ballot only when the bill fails. Oregon’s Democratic legislature, for instance, preemptively surrendered on the issue, so no need for a ballot run there. Arizona’s legislature is not likely to play ball, however. Can we beat Bloomberg in Arizona, as we beat him in Maine?

Note they keep pushing the statistic that background checks are a 92% issue, when they have never come anywhere close to that at the ballot box.

Arrest for Guns in Schools

Firearms Attorney Joshua Prince notes that in the recent case of a man in Upper Darby getting arrested for having a firearms in school, the Chief of Police may have violated the LTC privacy laws by releasing his LTC status to the press. Also, the arrest would seem to be in violation of the recent Superior Court decision Commonwealth v. Goslin.

Chitwood is an absolute shit to gun owners, and I would love to see a nice judgement against him. I’m not sure I agree that the reporter, Stephanie Farr, would be liable, since she should be protected under New York Times v.Â US. It’s the bozo who leaked it that’s liable.

Nazi-Era Guns

Apparently a Canadian MP running for Prime Minister decided to do a photo op shooting a pistol, causing the Canadian outlet “The Hill Times” to opine that said MP, who was shooting a 1972 Walther P1, was firing a “nazi-era handgun.” Twitter, of course, immediately started having fun with the accusation. My comments:

Congratulations to Canadian gun owners: you’ve made it. You’ve become a constituency the politically ambitious feel they should pander to. Note this is different from getting them to actually do something for you (that will, sadly, always be pulling teeth), but if you keep at it you might have some victories ahead of you.
I’m always reluctant to comment on firearms in foreign markets. For different reasons, different firearms are more common or less common in other countries. So if you go by what you’d expect here, you might be wrong. I often wonder how often “experts” really means “friends I know who like guns.” Apparently there are a lot of P1s in Canada, which is a postwar variant of the P38. So not even a “nazi-era handgun,” anymore than a Volkswagon Beetle is a “nazi-era car” (a point made quite humorously on the Twitter thread).

It was a cheap shot by The Hill Times, and I’m glad to see if backfire. The story showing now has obviously been edited to not quite be so comically bad. I actually haveÂ a Mauser 98K manufactured by Sauer and John in 1938 (Russian capture, and in not great shape, so no big collector’s item). Am I now a nazi-sympathizer, as The Hill Times was obviously trying to imply here?

McAuliffe Vetos Carry for People Protected by Protective Order

The Virginia legislature put several carry bills before the Governor, related to allowing people who were the subject of a protective order (i.e. the protectee, not the person the order is against) to carry firearms without a permit for 45 days (giving them time to seek a permit, and offering relief from training costs). Surely such a modest measure would meet with little resistance from a governor in favor of common sense gun laws, correct?

Nope, veto.Â Now it’s back to the legislature for an attempted override. If Trump and the GOP were smart (I know, I know), they’d put Virginia back in play by building up population around Norfolk with some Navy spending, and moving some federal agencies from Virginia to Maryland.