Politics – Page 42 – Shall Not Be Questioned

2014 Guv Races and Guns

Guns are going to be a big issue in the Connecticut governor’s race. I’d like to see Malloy’s political career served up on a silver platter. Â He didn’t win by a huge margin, so maybe it’s possible to knock him off. I’t we manage any of the big four: Hickenlooper, Malloy, O’Malley, or Cuomo, it’ll be a big victory. If we get two, even better. If we get three, that might be enough to re-teach Democrats “the lesson.”

If I had to pick any of the four I’d want Hickenlooper most of all, probably followed by O’Malley, then Malloy and Cuomo. Reason? We were always living on borrowed time in the other states. If we can’t hold Colorado, other states will start to fall like Dominos.

It’s looking pretty bad for Corbett in 2014, and who knows how bad that’s going to affect down ticket races. I would have thought Pennsylvania would start turning anti before Colorado. A lot of Pennsylvanians have no idea how good they have it, and how quickly that’s going to fly south if they don’t wake up.

Call 911 for Medical Help, Get Arrested

What if someone stabs you in the neck in your own home? You might call 911 for assistance, right? Well, doing that will end up with the police breaking open your gun safe in New Jersey – just so they can see if you have anything they can nab you on, rather than the person who assaulted you.

That’s just what happened when a man called 911 after his wife stabbed him in the neck. They police demanded that he open the safes so they could remove his securely stored firearms. He didn’t cooperate, so they called in a crew to force them open and then arrested him for having too much black powder and ammunition, according to the article. The police also admit that they aren’t closely cataloging the guns, just tossing them in barrels and they’ll get around to it later.

Fourth Amendment Protections Taken Seriously in Arizona

In a case where being polite and cooperating with police quickly turned into commands that a reasonable person would not have felt were optional so that they could leave, the Arizona Supreme Court said that in order to conduct a frisk of a person, “officers must reasonably suspect both that criminal activity is afoot and that the suspect is armed and dangerous.”

The case stems from a stop where multiple officers approached a man who was on the street having a conversation with a woman. They admit that he was polite to them and cooperating fully, and prosecutors apparently tried argued that such polite behavior at the beginning of a stop is a sign of consent to a later search. One of the officers spotted a bulge on the waistband and asked if the man was carrying a firearm. The man admitted that he was, and that’s when officers started commanding him to put his hands on his head, disarmed him, and then later arrested him once they found out he had a prior felony. (The article doesn’t say what that prior record was about.) The Court said that the stop was illegal and therefore they threw out the conviction for being a felon in possession.

Gun issues aside, I’m quite impressed with this quote from the opinion in the article where the Court’s decision said, “police interactions with members of the public are inherently fluid, and what begins as a consensual encounter can evolve into a seizure that prompts Fourth Amendment scrutiny.”

Bloomberg Buying Fake Grassroots Again

According to this letter to the editor, the writer was contacted by Bloomberg’s group to protest the GOP Senate candidate in Iowa. Bloomberg’s people offered to pay for parking, admission, buy them food, and provide him with a t-shirt to wear.

He notes that it seems a little odd that the Democratic Party is attacking the candidate for “special interest money” while looking the other way for groups supporting the Democrats who are paying people to appear involved in their community. It’s not surprising to those of us who watch politics, but it’s a reminder that many people would be shocked by the hypocrisy and find it news that Bloomberg goes so far to try and buy elections.

This is a remarkably effective letter, and I would like to see more of them when people come across examples like this in their communities.

Quote of the Day on Executive Overreach

National Review’s Yuval Levin hits on what I really don’t like about the Obama Administration:

In one sense, the approach the president is said to be contemplating does fit into a pattern of his use of executive power. That pattern involves taking provocative executive actions on sensitive, divisive issues to isolate people he detests, knowing it will invite a sharp response, and then using the response to scare his own base voters into thinking they are under assault when in fact they are on the offensive. Thatâ€™s how moving to compel nuns to buy contraception and abortive drugs for their employees became â€œtheyâ€™re trying to take away your birth control.â€ This strategy needlessly divides the country and brings out the worst instincts of people on all sides, but it has obvious benefits for the administration and its allies. Liberals get both the substantive action and the political benefit of calling their opponents radicals and getting their supporters worked up. Obamaâ€™s legalization of millions would surely draw a response that could then be depicted as evidence of Republican hostility to immigrants, rather than of Republican hostility to illegal executive overreach that tries to make highly significant policy changes outside the bounds of our constitutional order.

It’s not that he’s liberal. I’ve been through liberal presidents in my lifetime. Despite Clinton being far more damaging on guns than Barack Obama could ever dream of, I never developed the visceral dislike of Clinton Administration that I have for the Obama Administration. Maybe that’s partly psychological. The Clinton years were good. I look back fondly on that time in life. In contrast, the Obama years have been hellish both financially and in always feeling like we’re living on the razors edge just a hair’s breath away from losing everything we thought we believed about this country.

Philosophically, I think Barack Obama is a fairly conventional progressive in the mold of Woodrow Wilson; another ends-justify-the-means president who isn’t above flaming the worst instincts in the populaceÂ if it benefits the promotion of his political agenda. But I also can’t help but to take a swipe at Republicans here.

You know what makes Republican cries of overreach ring hollow? Maybe because your guy did it over the howls of the left during the last Administration? I would be the first to agree that Bush’s crimes with executive overreach pale in comparison to Obama’s, but Bush set the stage. You reap what you sow. I’m deeply angry at the Obama surveillance state, but it was Bush who laid the foundation for it. Let’s not kid ourselves.

Many people on the right call on President Obama to be impeached for a his overreach. Like the author of this piece, I am more sympathetic to handing out green cards more liberally than the majority of conservatives. But if he unilaterally, and without legal authority, implements amnesty without action by Congress, I believe he ought to be impeached. That would be a bridge too far for me when it comes toÂ illegal executive actions. I know the consequence of that is President Joe Biden. I’d take it.

However, you know what makes impeachment politically impossible for the Republicans? You know what makes Obama invite the very idea? Progressives wellÂ remember what happened the last time Republicans decided it was a good idea to impeach the last Democratic president over the very important topic to the future of the country: lying about whether he did or did not get a blow job from another consenting adult.

Impeachment is serious business. It should only be for very serious things. But when the GOP made President Clinton only the second President in the US to be impeached by the House, over being dishonest about blow jobs, they cheapened the very idea. Along comes a president who has actually done some things I think may deserve impeachment, and sorry guys, you surrendered the moral high ground.

So Obama won’t be impeached. And you can thank Newt Gringrich for that.

The Best Article on the Yeadon Doctor Shooting

Many of you have probably read the story that broke yesterday evening about the doctor who saved his life and is credited with saving numerous others by pulling out his own legally carried firearm and shooting a mental patient who had just shot his caseworker and tried to shoot the doctor. But I have to say for a case that’s still unfolding today, the Daily News has probably the best story I’ve seen on the situation and people involved.

They highlight that the shooter was known as a threat to himself and others, having been involuntarily committed by his local police department two times in the last 5 years and has a known criminal history of firearm and drug offenses. It will be interesting to see if he stole the firearm he used given that he does have a history that includes robbing a bank, according to their research.

They tracked down neighbors at his last known address and none of them were remotely shocked. They said he was clearly deeply troubled, and a friend of an ex-girlfriend of the shooter even said that the guy was a heavy, heavy drug user and claimed he got violent with the girlfriend and kicked her in the stomach while she was known to be pregnant.

In other words, this is a violent, drug addicted mentally ill person who, while in “care,” was allowed to roam the streets and continue committing crimes up until he murdered a woman who was trying to help him in cold blood and tried to take out the doctor, too. The police chief stated that he believes the shooter would not have stopped with the people in the room, and he credits the doctor with keeping the tragedy from turning into a mass shooting.

The shooter was clearly prohibited from possessing firearms, and Pennsylvania already has mandatory background checks on private sales of handguns. You’d think this would make it clear to the other side that the problem lies with our mental health and legal systems. But, no, they still blame the gun even though one in the hands of a lawful owner helped save lives.

Joe Manchin Costs Jobs with Gun Control

This letter would seem to indicate that Beretta considered relocated to West Virginia, having been wooed there by politicians no doubt looking to bring jobs. But Beretta indicates they were “looking first and foremost for a widespread and stable place of political support in any potential location,” and Joe Manchin’s recent actions on gun control were enough to give them the heebee jeebees. It’s not like West Virginia needs jobs or anything. Working class people struggling for good manufacturing jobs ought to take note of where Democratic priorities lie.

So It Has Come to This: Obama Gets Me to Cheer Mike Bloomberg

The Obama Administration has taken such an egregious action that is has me actively cheering gun control wallet-in-chief Mike Bloomberg. From today’s edition of Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt, on what he’s calling a de-facto travel ban to Israel, quoting Bloomberg:

â€œThis evening I will be flying on El Al to Tel Aviv to show solidarity with the Israeli people and to demonstrate that it is safe to fly in and out of Israel,â€ Bloomberg said in a prepared statement emailed by former City Hall spokesman Marc La Vorgna shortly after 8 p.m.

â€œBen Gurion is the best protected airport in the world and El Al flights have been regularly flying in and out of it safely,â€ Bloomberg continued. â€œThe U.S. flight restrictions are a mistake that hands Hamas an undeserved victory and should be lifted immediately. I strongly urge the FAA to reverse course and permit US airlines to fly to Israel.â€

It’s not like anyone flying to Israel isn’t aware there’s a war going on. If people want to take their chances, it’s no business of the FAA’s. I agree with Geraghty that this is back channel pressure on the Israelis to comply with US demands. You know, US demands that it basically not defend itself.

I’ve said over the dinner table that if the drug cartels in Mexico were launching rockets over the border into El Paso at the same rate Hamas has been launching them out of Gaza, in a few days there would be no living cartel members. If the US Army wouldn’t invade Mexico and clean house, Texans would. There wouldn’t be all that much concern for collateral damage, as long as all the rockets and heavy weapons were found and destroyed quickly. A hostile Mexican government would likely be deposed. We all know we would do that. Even most liberal Americans faced with rocket attacks would demand action.

Yet this Administration apparently expects the Israelis to “show restraint.” They are. The fact that it took this long to go in shows remarkable restraint — restraint that Americans would never exercise in the same situation.

Dual Citizenship Laws

Tam was wondering how two Americans, recently killed in the hostilities in Gaza, were legally serving in the IDF while retaining citizenship. I am far from an expert in this, but there have been a number of Supreme Court cases involving this topic of dual-citizenship for those of you interested. But my understanding boils down to this: you generally won’t lose your citizenship unless you renounce it or take some action in a manner that shows intent to give up citizenship. US law and policy is generally favorable for people holding dual-citizenship, residing abroad, and serving compulsory military service, which Israel requires. I also think you can even join a foreign military voluntarily, since routine oaths are generally not sufficient to cause the loss of citizenship.

What’s interesting is that the State Department policy that allows one to keep citizenship as a result of a “routine oath” is just that — State Department policy. The case law is less clear as to when one renounces one’s US citizenship or not. Take the case of Vance v. Terrazas, where a dual-US/Mexican national lost his US citizenship when he signed a form having to reaffirm his Mexican citizenship when he went to college there.

What does this have to do with guns? I direct you to question 11(j) on ATF Form 4473, “Have you ever renounced your United States citizenship?” I’m not sure there’s much case law on prosecutions for lying on 11(j), but I could be wrong.Â I think serving compulsory military service of your dual country is probably fine, but if you voluntarily joined a foreign military, or took any action that could be interpreted, through preponderance of the evidence, that you had intent to give up your citizenship, you could find yourself facing a long time in federal prison if you answer that question incorrectly on 4473. It’s a good idea for dual citizens to be cognizant of any oaths or actions that may have been taken that could be interpreted as intent to surrender citizenship.

Philadelphia Legal Smackdown

Remember two years ago when it came out that Philadelphia disclosed personal information about some license to carry applicants in violation of state law?

They were people who were initially denied licenses and were in the process of appealing the denial, and many of them seemed like highly questionable denials.

Well, several of those folks did call lawyers who worked to sue the city and ended up with a great settlement.

From Josh Prince, one of the four attorneys on the case:

…the City will pay $1.425 million to the class and will be separately responsible for the costs of administering the settlement… Further, and of similar importance, the City has agreed to a number of policy changes…:

Not to disclose LTCF applicant information either electronically or in-person;

Annual training of the Philadelphia Police Department and Philadelphia License and Inspection Board of Review on the confidentiality of LTCF applicant information;

Customer service training for the Philadelphia Gun Permit Unit;

Posting a copy of the LTCF Application Notice on its website and where LTCF applications and appeals can be submitted or obtained, as well as, providing a copy to anyone who has his/her LTCF denied or revoked;

The City will not required references on the LTCF application and will not contact any references listed on the LTCF application;

The City will not require lawful immigrants or US Citizens with a US Passport to provide naturalization papers;

The City will not require any applicant to disclose whether he/she owns a firearm during the LTCF application process;

The City will not deny an application because the applicant answered â€œnoâ€ to any question regarding whether the applicant had been charged/convicted of any crime where the applicant received a pardon or expungement from the charge or conviction;

The City will process all LTCF applications within 45 calendar days;

The City will remit $15.00 to any applicant who is denied within 20 days;

The City will not require LTCF applicants or holders to disclose to law enforcement that they have an LTCF, that they are carrying a firearm or that they have a firearm in the vehicle; and

The City will not confiscate an LTCF or firearm, unless there is probable cause that the LTCF or firearm is evidence of a crime. In the event an LTCF or firearm is confiscated, the officer must immediately provide a property receipt, which shall include the pertinent information

All of the attorneys in this case deserve huge kudos: Benjamin R. Picker, Jonathan Goldstein, Jon Mirowitz, and obviously, Josh Prince.