A new poll shows that Colorado voters oppose tougher gun laws. Opposition pushes to 70% for men, with women barely getting a majority of 51%. That’s still a pretty significant gender gap, but support is still dropping among women, it’s just dropping much faster among men. This is good news. The article does note that Hickenlooper enjoys a 51-40% approval rating, which is pretty good. But there is significant hope that is Colorado activists can get ahead of Dudley Brown, there’s a pretty good chance they can get the 15 round limit raised to 30 rounds, and then get rid of it if the legislature can become more favorable.
Category: Gun Rights
Gun Ban for Elderly Proposed by Obama Administration
Sometimes you just have to wonder if the Obama Administration is trolling us at this point. The White House floated a proposal to strip Second Amendment rights from about four million of our nation’s senior citizens who receive Social Security benefits through a “representative payee.” This is personal for Bitter and I because her grandfather, at 90 years old, falls into this category, and he owns firearms that have been in the family for a long time. He’s plenty safe to handle firearms, however he has had someone else managing his affairs for him for some time. One can imagine someone elderly who might forget to pay bills if they managed their own affairs, but can still handle a firearm safely.
NRA has more to say about it here. And what is the purpose of this? Do we have an epidemic of octogenarians committing mass murder? Holding up banks? Hitting the streets and robbing people so they can get the money for their next hit of Geritol? There’s no public safety issue at work here. This is just meant to screw people for embarrassing the Administration on guns.
The thing I really hate about the Obama Administration is that it has no issue with being unjust or unfair; if you oppose its policies, you can expect it to try to stick it to you. Not stick it to Congress, or stick it to political rivals in DC, you will be made to pay. The Obama Administration has no issue taking out their anger on ordinary Americans. Bill Clinton’s Administration dealt us a number of defeats in the 1990s, and you did have the HUD deals, and other executive shenanigans, but even then I don’t remember Clinton sticking it directly to the rank and file like Obama does.
So what’s going to happen here? My guess is NRA can probably get another of the many budget riders it’s gotten out of Congress to defund any attempt by the Administration to implement this plan. I can’t imagine preventing 4 million SSA recipients from suddenly, overnight, becoming prohibited persons is going to be much of an ask to Congress.
Gunblog Variety Podcast: Oversight On My Part
I have four different devices I use for trolling for news and keeping track of what I want to post about. I hate it when I find a tab with something I meant to post about, but overlooked until the news was stale. Ordinarily, I usually just write that story up as a loss, but I’d feel bad if I did that in this case.
Several weeks ago I was on an episode of the Gunblog Variety Podcast, talking about this post. I had the episode open but didn’t find it until yesterday when I did my gun news post and went through all my tabs on every device. Checking my history, sure enough, I never did the post. You can listen to their latest podcast here.
I tend to feel that there’s an obligation to engage in cross promotion, so I didn’t just want to let this go. It takes a lot of work to do vlogging and podcasting, and I dropped the ball here. If you ever looked at my desk, yeah, the computer side of things isn’t much more organized.
Newsmax: Here’s a Crappy List of 100 Pro-Gun People We Could Think Of
Newsmax has published it’s list of 100 most influential people in the pro-gun movement. Newsmax is normally on the list of sites I won’t link, because they are the National Enquirer of the conservative news sites. But this was a stupid enough list I had to comment. Â It strikes me more as “Let’s list out 100 people we can think of or Google who are in the pro-gun movement and list them, and we can do it in the order we find them.” It would hardly be wrong to say that, Dudley Brown, for instance, is not influential, but when he actively sabotages progress on our issue, I don’t think it’s wrong to question his priorities. It also seems that all you have to do to get on their list is be a minor celebrity, well-known and own guns, or have once said a kind word.
The list is insulting to the real people who have dedicated their lives to this fight, often out of the limelight and not in the expectation of getting any thanks for what they were doing. So here’s who ought to have made this list, in no particular order:
- Don Kates
- Dave Hardy
- Dave Kopel
- Robert Dowlut
- Clayton Cramer
- Nelson Lund
- Robert Cottrol
- Glenn Reynolds
- Stephen Halbrook
- Nicholas Johnson
And that’s just ten legal scholars I can think of off the top of my head, who have all done tremendous things for the issue. I could probably list ten more, all of whom belong on that list more than twenty others who have no place on it.
What about Alan Gura and Alan Gottlieb? I mean, I know Alan Gura argued only argued two landmark Second Amendment cases and all, but hey, Bruce Willis once said something pro-gun! Alan Gottlieb, whatever his faults, has still done a hell of a lot more on the issue than Whoopi Goldberg.
Or what about Chris Cox and his whole lobbying team? Everyone thought we were going to get it good and hard in Congress during the 2013 fights, and our opponents walked away empty handed. Not even worth an honorable mention?
This list was written by people with no understanding or appreciation of the issue. It’s one reason I will continue to not link to Newsmax, or take them seriously.
Correction: Constitutional Carry in Maine
I got sidetracked in yesterday’s post, since one of the Bangor papers headlines their articles with today’s date, making me think I was reading something current. In truth, Maine’s legislature addressed the Governor’s concerns, and Governor LePage is signing the revised bill today. Maine will become the 6th state to adopt Constitutional Carry. Congratulations Maine!
And the ball keeps rolling.
Taxing a Civil Right
Seattle is proposing taxing guns and ammunition. The tax would be $25 dollars on firearms, and 5 cents on each round of ammunition. This would probably put every dealer within city limits out of business, which is probably the idea. By all rights, this should be unconstitutional, because in the context of other rights, these kinds of taxes have been held as such, but the courts have shown almost no willingness to protect the Second Amendment as anything other than a second class right, subordinate to all the others.
I think Scalia and Thomas’s dissent in denial of cert for Jackson will act as signal to the lower courts that Heller and McDonald are going to be more like Lopez and Morrison; odd, outlying cases rather than landmark rulings which change everything. I hate to be pessimistic, but without change, it’s pretty apparent the Court will not be revisiting the Second Amendment.
That said, I think a pretty good argument could be made in Washington State courts that such a tax violates Washington State’s preemption statute, which has pretty strong language. Surely if a local municipality can’t regulate the sale of firearms and ammunition, it can’t accomplish the same by trying to tax sales out of existence. Washington State also has a RKBA provision, and there’s nothing that prevents Second Amendment claims to be considered by Washington State courts.
Constitutional Carry Update for New England
Governor Hassan has vetoed the Constitutional Carry bill that was passed by the New Hampshire legislature. It’s worth nothing that Constitutional Carry in Maine is still awaiting the signature of Governor LePage, who is now saying he won’t sign it because the age is 21 rather than 18. I can’t find fault with the Governor’s reasoning, but I have to wonder if this is a game, because LePage has been saying he won’t sign anything until the legislature repeals the income tax. This being a way to live up to his promise, while appearing to be more pro-gun than thou.
I’d call his bluff and pass one that’s allows carry for those 18 and older, but I don’t know if we’d still have enough votes. Perhaps we can get this overridden? They’ve certainly been willing to do it for other bills. Constitutional Carry is a difficult issue. It’s been harder to get these bills done and made into law. It’s only going to be continued pressure from our people that will help get this done.
The courts have taken us this far, and no farther
It’s become obvious in the past few years that the federal appellate judiciary is generally hostile to expanding firearms rights, and that SCOTUS is unwilling to push the matter. It’s been a question in my mind as to why that might be, and I am examining some of my preconceptions about which Justices voted to grant cert. and why.
I’ve assumed, as did most people, that the majorities in both cases included the justices who granted cert. But, what if that’s not the case? In particular, what if Justice Roberts did not vote to grant cert, and what if instead one or more of the dissenters voted to grant cert. in Heller to take the opportunity to stop, once and for all, the individual rights interpretation, and then in McDonald to prevent the application of Heller to the states?
I infer from the most recent two decisions (King v. Burwell and Obergefell v. Hodges), as well as previous statements and decisions, that Justice Roberts really does not want to change the status quo when he thinks that the legislature should act instead. So, he votes against cert. so the courts don’t have to get involved in what he sees as a political decision, but when the question comes up anyway, he votes pro-rights in a fit of constitutional conscience. Meanwhile, the anti-gun justices went 0 for 2 in convincing their fellows of the rightness of their position, so they’re no longer interested in taking the third pitch, leaving Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Alito alone to vote to grant cert.
This isn’t my only theory of Justice Roberts and the missing cert. vote, it could be that he saw Heller as necessary and McDonald as sufficient to put the question back to the states (or that as of late the states are making strides on their own and SCOTUS should not intervene).
At any rate, we need to stop relying on the courts and continue to move in the legislatures. At the state level, this is already happening. We’ve suffered some reverses (WA and OR), mostly due to Bloomberg, but there’s a limit to how effective money can be. The important thing is, not to go too far, too fast. The NRA is throwing its political weight behind national reciprocity, which has come tantalizingly close to passing in previous congresses that were less obviously pro-rights. Will it be enough to override a veto? Maybe not, but it sets a marker. If a lawmaker votes Yea on this and this president vetos it, that lawmaker has to explain why he changed his mind in a subsequent vote. Once national reciprocity happens, then we can start working on the real prize; forcing shall-issue and “self-defense is good cause.”. FOPA proves that the federal government can force shall-issue, after all, they forced it for retired LEOs. They ought to be similarly able to force states to match NCIS’s timelines for completing background checks and force the states to consider self-defense as a “good cause” or “in the interests of public safety.” All of that theoretically leaves the management of purchase and carry at the state level, while requiring them to treat the RKBA as an actual right. Congress has the enforcement clause of the 14th amendment to justify this, too, no need to muck around with Commerce Clause.
This won’t happen soon, and it won’t happen with a hostile administration in the White House. So, just remember, elections have consequences (as our Chief Justice just reminded us).
Actual Common-sense
Albeit with a side order of a”I’m a gun owner but…” and of course the condescension that the NRA wouldn’t support punishing people who actually misuse firearms, or that the laws he wants generally already exist, or would represent a loosening of the existing laws.
The post proposes (after a lot of political bumph) in a fairly sane way, that the NRA’s safety rules be enacted as federal law and that be it. And, shockingly enough, that safety education be left to a free market, not forced.
Punishing the people who actually misuse a tool, and leaving the innocent users in peace. It’s a radical idea whose time has come, I say.
I can quibble with some of his details (the safe storage requirement he wants is a little too much pre-crimey for me), but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything I’ve seen come out of anti’s recently. And a lot of it should be done by enacting uniform state laws, not action at the federal level. And a lot of his anecdotes would not be changed by changes in law, but by changes in culture – that people be prosecuted for negligent discharges, not allowed to call it an accident and go on. But that’s a problem with drunk driving (his comparison) as well. I have no issues with treating NDs as DUIs, assuming we don’t go to MADD-level idiocy. And he doesn’t mention that the reduction in DUI was achieved not only be increased penalties and enforcement, but by PSAs and other societal education.
Antis Back to Being Disillusioned?
I don’t take E.J. Dionne’s post in the Washington Post as a sign the other side is feeling all that good about things. Once it became apparent gun control wasn’t a hobby horse that anti-gun politicians could ride anywhere after the Charleston massacre, they quickly switched gears and got on the confederate flag hobby horse and took that to town instead. It’s always a good sign when our opponents are admitting that hearts and minds have to be changed before their issue is going anywhere. When I see our opponents whining like this, it’s music to my ears.
Sure, we have “hearts and minds” issues, like legalizing friggin’ machine guns, but I’d much rather than that problem than theirs. If their best argument is that guns will cause you to commit suicide, we should look up and thank our lucky stars, because even objectively, that argument sucks.