Trump’s Pick to Replace Scalia

It’s Neil Gorsuch. You can check out his profile on SCOTUSBlog here. As John Richardson noted earlier today, he’s not written any opinions on the Second Amendment, but he’s in the same mold as Scalia, except for not being very fond of Chevron Deference, which is fine by me. We don’t know exactly where he stands on the Second Amendment, but given his overall judicial philosophy, I’d find it doubtful he’d be against us. That will need to come out in the hearings.

Speaking of the hearings, I fully expect this to go nuclear, meaning the Republicans will have to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees the same as they were eliminated for lower court nominees by the Dems. I think they should do it, because they can be absolutely assured the Dems will do it if they control the Senate again in the future. They pretty much said they would. Don’t give GOP lawmakers room to be fools and unilaterally disarm.

It’s important to remember, Scalia was the strongest justice on the Court for the Second Amendment. Replacing him with someone just as solid is just not going backwards. I would have preferred someone with a record on the Second Amendment. We never had records on Roberts or Alito, but they both voted with us when it counted. Alito and Thomas are strong on this issue. Either Roberts or Kennedy, or both, are softer supporters. We need to get one more vote on there before we’ll be moving ahead.

UPDATE: NRA is endorsing the choice out of the gate. My guess is they have talked to him, and the speed of the release means they knew about it before it was announced.

Good News for Pennsylvania

The PA Game Commission has approved hunting with semi-automatic rifles:

For deer and bear, full-metal jacket rounds are not permitted and semi-automatics used for big game are limited to a five-round magazine capacity. The measure also carries a sunset provision that expires on June 30, 2020 to allow for a board review the measure.

Limited five rounds in the magazine or five round magazines? Though, I’m guessing a blocked 10 or 20 round mag would work if not.

Mixing Issues: CeaseFire Takes Position on Refugees

I guess we’re not the only ones with this problem. Hey Pat, you know how we were telling you that none of the gun control people endorsing you were EVER going to actually vote for you, because none of them actually cared about the issue beyond its usefulness in promoting other progressive causes? Well …

CeaseFire PA Refugees

… can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 54

Thanks for your patience last week. Another client deadline. Same work I was doing before the holidays. But work is a nice distraction from places like Facebook, which show the country is becoming even more divided. I’m starting to think about avoiding Facebook altogether. People who supported Hillary just won’t get over it and go back to their lives. I like politics, but I don’t want a steady diet of it in social media, which to me is for keeping up with friends and family. In the past I’ve blocked people who only share anti-Obama memes and other ridiculous stuff. Now I’m having to block ridiculous anti-Trump memes, but it’s not just a small handful of people. I see very few people worried about the division this is creating. Our issue is kind of fading into the background, which is probably good because then we can make progress:

I’m afraid we’re going to see a lot more of this, as the political situation gets more out of hand. So far I have not been able to find that the shooter is facing any charges.

Reminder: Nearly all politicians, save the precious few who are shooters, arrive at their position on our issue solely out of what they feel will help them get elected. It’s that simple. So the key is making it in their interests not to do crap like this.

Iowa is looking to add a RKBA provision to their constitution.

Charles C.W. Cooke: Constitutional Carry Marches On.

Fake Activists in Florida? We’ve seen this before from Bloomberg.

John Richardson notes that NSSF is getting involved in suicide prevention efforts. At the end of the day, it’s probably better to have suicide prevention advocates working with us than working against us.

Gun owners may now be searched incident to a traffic stop in the 4th Circuit, even if they have a license. Trade one right for another!

Obama’s social security gun grab has been reversed by Congress.

Reason profiles Diane Sykes. If we can get her on the Court in place of one of the liberals, I think we’ll have a solid pro-Second Amendment majority.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, we’re starting to reap the rewards of not turning out in judicial elections and throwing them all to the Dems. Kathy Kane had a lot to do with screwing up our pro-gun majority on the Court as well. She may be rotting in prison, but Bloomberg got what he wanted.

When I knew I would be heading to Kentucky, the gateway to the South, experiencing the freedom of shooting was near the top of this Brit’s ‘do list.’

I stopped purchasing guns and ammunition after the election too, but this was the 2008 election. I’ve done precious little shooting in the Obama era… something I’d like to remedy in this Era of Trump.

Beware of 80% lower receivers that have detents, especially if they are for an auto sear. I think ATF has had a no detent policy for a while now. You can use a jig, but the drill holes have to be unmarked.

Another edition of “Your gun sucks and you’re holding it wrong”

Off Topic:

Megan McArdle: “The Democrats’ Rise Is Far From Inevitable.

First Metallic Hydrogen in the lab? Is that like transparent aluminum?

Another Walk Down Memory Lane

I decided to take a look in the immediate post-election era to see what we were talking about here eight years ago. I think it’s kind of a fun thing to do. Basically, I was talking people on my side down from the ledge a lot. What worries me today is I only see the madness feeding on itself. Then, I believed that madness was a distraction, and would imperil serious efforts to stop the new Administration:

Morning after election: “That is all.  Get ready folks, we are in for some dark, dark times.” Actually, if you had told me then where we’d be now at the start of a new Administration, I wouldn’t have believed you. We opposed Obama when he came after us and we came out on top every time. I figured we’d win some and lose some. I think we were helped greatly by the fact that neither Obama nor Bloomberg have any understanding of the gun culture in this country.

Barack Obama is my President.” “What I mean by that is I’m giving him a chance.” I still think he sucked, but the “Not my President” crap I see from the left now is still just as obnoxious when I was seeing it from the right eight years ago.

I largely blamed the Bushes for destroying Reagan’s coalition. Nothing I’ve seen since convinces me to change that argument. If there’s one thing I will always be eternally grateful to Trump for is sweeping aside the Bush family.

Boy is this not true anymore: “There are extremes on all sides.  Part of the reason our system works is that it tends to dull extremes.” Obama was actually far more successful at transforming the country than I thought. Plus, this bit of snark: “I think it’s safe to say that the re-education camps, at best, will be a second term project.”

Initially there were bailouts. I was happy to see the Administration spending time on this because it would weaken it for fights to come. I expected the Dems to act in their own self-interest, rather than march their historic Congressional majority off a cliff, which is what they did.

Judicial minimalists were no friend to the Second Amendment then, and they still aren’t.

Good manners are in short supply these days, and sadly that’s true of much of our side as well.” Little did I know it would only get worse. One of Obama’s tactics is to troll his political opponents to throw them off balance, and make them behave irrationally. It was very effective, but also bad for the country. Trump learned from the master.

The Dems could stand to hear this today, but then I was talking to gun owners: “There are literally hundreds of bills that get introduced in Congress, or thousands if you count the legislatures of the several states, each legislative session.  Most of them aren’t going anywhere.

Gun control supporting folks in the media were calling us crazy for thinking then President-Elect Obama wanted to do gun control, except for the fact that it was in his transition platform. He actually left us alone, for the most part, during his first term, if you recall. Even signed a few pro-gun measures (admittedly under duress, since they were attached to “must pass” bills).

This is still very relevant: “We feel a deep pleasure from realizing that we believe something in common with our friends, and different from most people.  We feel an even deeper pleasure letting everyone know of this fact.  This feeling is EVIL.” This feeling is what made Zuckerberg filthy rich, and we’re all about this today.

Obamacare was starting to shape up. This is exactly what happened: “Enforced through the tax system, eh?  Well, at least that’s probably constitutional.  Either way, there’s no word on how they plan to pay for what is bound to be an enormously expensive program.  To me this is the worst of both worlds.  There will be no incentive to control health care costs with a system like this, and costs will spiral out of control.

Sarah Palin would eventually beclown herself, but the GOP response to her was a prelude to Trump, looking back now. More along those lines here.

You know, I’ve been saying that I don’t think people have to worry about Obama shipping anyone off to concentration camps in cattle cars.  I still stand by that, because I think Obama is hiring and appointing solid progressives, within our legal traditions, not murderers.” I could say the same thing about Trump’s picks today, except for the “solid progressive” part.

Paul Ryan, who is fairly hard Right, won big in areas of his district that went hard for Obama” Of course, now Paul Ryan is an establishment sellout! (yes, I’m being sarcastic).

Why It’s Not the 1930s Again.” Another thing Dem voters could stand to read now, only then I was saying it to GOP voters. More along those lines here.

Obama Will Overreach” Boy, he sure as hell did, didn’t he? People who wanted to see gun control after Sandy Hook could have easily gotten some if they hadn’t overreached. Hell, we preemptively offered to reform the background check system and apply it to all transfers, and they rejected that because it wasn’t radical enough. So we took our respective sides, fought it out, and they lost.

These same people are now Trump voters.

Interesting. Trump’s approval numbers were pretty low as President-Elect. I didn’t remember this, but it looks like Obama’s were too.

 

How I Opposed Obama Eight Years Ago

I was looking back over my archives. This is something I don’t like to do, because my beliefs have evolved somewhat, and my blogging style today isn’t quite the same as it was back then. In some cases I’d like to reach through the screen and smack my then self. But what I was talking about in the post-Obama inauguration period is a sharp contrast to the nuttery I’m seeing on social media today:

I also noticed the day before Obama’s inaugural is when I launched a Facebook presence for the blog. That’s also, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence, when dialog in this country started to head downhill.

The World Gone Mad

Maybe it’s just because I’m used to being disappointed by the occupant of the White House, it’s hard for me to get as worked up over the Administration change as much as everyone on Facebook. I was reading Sarah Hoyt’s article about “Surviving the Cult” and glanced briefly at the comments. This really caught my eye:

I feel like I’m being constantly gaslighted by people I have, well, had, some respect for, joked with, met, and suddenly they’ve all gone crazy left as though they’re trying to win some kind of loon contest. And I must have just been really naive not to have seen it years ago.

Yep, and while I’m aware that this has reenergized the loony right, the center seems to be disappearing. Embrace the crazy! It’s quickly becoming the zeitgeist of our age.

Back in the Lawsuit Business

Cases are starting to be filed and hopefully moved again, including this one in Massachusetts. I don’t want to say I’m wary, but I am. Replacing Scalia with someone solid on the Second Amendment doesn’t get us anywhere; it prevents us from sliding backwards. Trump’s leading candidate for replacing Scalia is Neil Gorsuch from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

We did litigate the Colorado magazine limitations in the 10th Circuit. The District Court upheld the ban, but that ruling was thrown out by the Circuit Court because they argued none of the plaintiffs had standing to sue. Judge Gorsuch didn’t have anything to do with that case, so the best we can do is the quote from SCOTUSBlog link above:

Together §§ 922(g) and 924(a)(2) operate to criminalize the possession of any kind of gun. But gun possession is often lawful and sometimes even protected as a matter of constitutional right. The only statutory element separating innocent (even constitutionally protected) gun possession from criminal conduct in §§ 922(g) and 924(a) is a prior felony conviction. So the presumption that the government must prove mens rea here applies with full force.

I think more will have to come out in the confirmation hearing, but his position on that case makes him promising. We will have to replace one of the liberals to move forward. Otherwise I’m afraid we’re just going to create more bad precedent in the circuit courts that the Supreme Court will leave in place when they refuse to hear the case.

Civil Rights Progress

The 7th Circuit has been surprisingly good when it comes to Second Amendment issues, so it’s not a huge surprise that Ezell II has scored a victory. If you recall, Chicago tried to zone gun ranges out of the city. That was struck down in Ezell I. So the city basically rewrote the law so that gun ranges aren’t technically banned, but they are subject to a patchwork of regulation that amounts to a de facto ban. They also prohibited minors from using legal gun ranges in the city.

Basically, in Chicago you couldn’t teach your kids to shoot, which wasn’t an issue anyway, since there were no ranges in the city by design. The city’s new laws, designed to evade Ezell I, is now struck down in Ezell II. The opinion being delivered by Judge Diane Sykes. Judge Sykes is on Trump’s list of judges he told us he’s considering for nominations to the Supreme Court.

We affirm in part and reverse in part. The two zoning regulations—the manufacturing-district classification and the distancing rule—dramatically limit the ability to site a shooting range within city limits. Under the combined effect of these two regulations, only 2.2% of the city’s total acreage is even theoretically available, and the commercial viability of any of these parcels is questionable—so much so that no shooting range yet exists. This severely limits Chicagoans’ Second Amendment right to maintain proficiency in firearm use via target practice at a range. To justify these barriers, the City raised only speculative claims of harm to public health and safety. That’s not nearly enough to survive the heightened scrutiny that applies to burdens on Second Amendment rights.

The age restriction also flunks heightened scrutiny. We held in Ezell I that the Second Amendment protects the right to learn and practice firearm use in the controlled setting of a shooting range. The City insists that no person under age 18 enjoys this right. That’s an extraordinarily broad claim, and the City failed to back it up. Nor did the City adequately justify barring anyone under 18 from entering a range. To the contrary, its own witness on this subject agreed that the age restriction is overbroad because teenagers can safely be taught to shoot and youth firearm instruction is both pruent and can be conducted in a safe manner.

What really pleases me is that the judges took note that the zoning rules allowed law enforcement ranges on any commercial property, and the city notes those ranges operated safely. They looked at that and balked at how that argument wouldn’t apply somehow to civilian shooting ranges. In a small way, they looked at police exemptions and called bullshit on it. This is what I think courts should do. If they are exempting the cops, something is fishy.

And if more were needed, the City concedes (as it must) that law-enforcement and private-security ranges operate in commercial districts throughout Chicago near schools, churches, parks, and stores; the City acknowledges that they operate quite safely in these locations. Common sense suggests that law-enforcement ranges probably do not attract many thieves, but the City’s theft-protection rationale for these zoning rules is so woefully unsupported that the distinction between law-enforcement and commercial ranges doesn’t carry much weight. The City doesn’t even try to argue that commercial ranges create greater fire or environ- mental risks than law-enforcement ranges.

The whole opinion is pretty decent. Scalia was passionate about the issue because he was a shooter. I’d like to see a shooter replace him. I don’t know if Judge Sykes is a shooter or not, but from what I’ve seen from her, I’d definitely find her to be an acceptable court pick by Trump.