Snowflakes in Hell

Countertop thinks the smart money is on no.  He mentions:

They could either appeal to the Supreme against odds that might eventually make their job much more difficult and result in a decision that would likely undermine much of what they worked for over the last 4 decades OR they could accept the decision and return to DC and pass draconian gun laws, nearly as restrictive but ultimately allowing some right (however negligible) to register new guns while at the same time imposing tremendous regulatory hurdles to any gun shop actually opening up in DC (and therefore undermining that right) and developing a permit approval system that combined with the usual level of D.C. incompetence, effectively accomplishes the same thing as the current ban.Now, if you were Adrian Fenty and Sarah Brady what would you want. The clear loss that amounts to a stake driven through the heart of your barely breathing policy positions? Or a loss that they can easily spin as supportive of hyper aggressive gun laws?

I could see things going that way.  But I also wonder what they really have to lose by going to the Supreme Court.  I think there’s not much risk that the Supreme Court decision in the Parker case is going to be any more broad than the D.C. Circuit’s.  The city can always go back and implement almost-but-not-quite prohibition after the Supreme Court ruling, just as they could now if they choose not to appeal.  The ruling will, of course, mean individual right is now law in all the circuits, but incorporation will still not have been established, so I doubt it will have much meaningful effect.

But thats assuming we win, which I think I wouldn’t give higher than 50/50 odds on.  We only know we have two solid votes in our favor.  We think, but we don’t know, that Alito and Roberts would go along with an individual rights view.   That leaves one more justice to win over, and I wouldn’t want to bet on any of the remaining.  If D.C. wins, and I think that’s just as likely as us winning, it’s a huge victory for the Brady’s over the long term.  We lose one of our greatest rhetorical assets in this debate.  They might want to roll the dice.  At this point, they are kind of dead politically, and a rejection of the second amendment by the Supreme Court could resurrect their movement in a serious way.

Strategically though, it would make sense for them to back down for now, do their near-ban, then go back to the courts with a weaker ban, and probably a different, and not quite so clean a case.  If I were the city, or the Brady’s, this isn’t the ground I’d want to fight on.

But I think there’s a good chance they might want to roll the dice, and go for broke.

Michael Bane says Parker “scares the crap out of me”. It scares me too, but at this point, I think I’m almost equally frightened of the prospect of either D.C. not appealing the case, or the supreme court refusing to hear it. If either of those two things happen, then the Parker ruling stands.  Surely the issue will come before The Court again, probably with a case that not even half as good as this one.

Whether we like or not, this train has been brought up to steam over the past thirty years by the scholars and academics who worked hard to establish that the second amendment protects an individual right. Now it’s left the station, and there’s no bringing it back. At this point, the best we can do is hope it doesn’t run of the rails.

I stumbled across an post over at another blog discussing why the editor doesn’t belong to the NRA.  In the discussion in the comment, a subject came up that I’ve heard many times in regards to defending restraints on rights:

You have the right to vote, but you still have to register and prove you have the right to vote in a particular area.

It’s an interesting line of argument, and certainly one often used, so I pointed out:

The second amendment supports one’s fundamental right to self-defense, and is an enumerated right. Voting is actually not considered a right under common law, or in US constitutional law, which is why the constitution has five amendments that specifically limit how states may restrict voting. If it was a right, the way we think of speech, assembly, religion, self-incrimination, what have you, no amendment would be required to limit state powers in this regard except for the fourteenth amendment.

In other areas of constitutional law involving rights, prior restraints on exercising those rights are generally regarded as invalid, and the courts place the severest burden on the state in these types of cases. This law would be a prior restraint, with no due process protections. You are, in effect, severely limiting one’s right to self-defense, or at least to have access to tools that are useful for that purpose. It’s a presumption of guilt. It’s the citizens burden to prove otherwise that he is not guilty. It’s a complete mockery of our constitutional system to do something like this.

I think critics of the administration are quite right when they point of abuses such as the Jose Padilla case, where a US citizen, who was not captured in a foreign theater of war, and therefore can’t be considered subject to military jurisdiction as a prisoner of war, was nontheless thrown into a military prison and deprived of his rights under the constitution.

What I don’t get is how what Gonzalez and Lautenberg want to do is any different.  We’re still speaking of depriving someone of a fundamental right without any due process.  Sure, the right to bear arms may not seem important, but suppose you’re a shop owner of Arabic decent, and you suddenly find yourself getting threats, because, well, for some reason someone decides they want you out of their neighborhood because they don’t like muslims.  You decide it would be best to keep a firearm in your shop for self-defense.  But oh, your name is the same as a known terrorist.  Sorry, no gun for you, but if you fill out this form and file an appeal, we’ll think about letting you exercise your rights.  Hopefully in the mean time, no one will carry out their threat.  If you call 911, maybe we’ll get there before you’re lying murdered in your shop.

I would think there would be more outrage on the left over something like this.  But alas, no.  The other commenter seems to be rather annoyed by my line of argument, and resorts to condescension rather than seriously refuting my argument.  Strolling around the lefty blogs to see the reaction to this latest pile of steaming crap from the Bush Administration has left me rather more convinced they don’t have any serious arguments.

Eugenge Volokh asks the question.  I figured I’d offer an answer.  I already commented roughly the same thing over there.

I suspect an individual rights ruling would give the Democrats some cover to retreat farther from gun control in the 2008 elections. The Democrats aren’t going to want to get backed up against the Bill of Rights on the issue. The die hards in the party will switch their rhetoric to “It’s an individual right, but…”, but more moderate democrats will have some extra political cover from the courts.

A ruling along liberal/conservative lines, with Kennedy joining the liberals I think will most definitely fire up the gun vote quite a bit. But I think the same result will happen even if the the split isn’t as much along ideological lines. I would expect the issue of Supreme Court nominees to be the real issue, rather than specific gun control proposals. The main thing gun owners will want to see is that the candidate will nominate justices that will overturn the Parker decision.

I think where the ideological correlation of the vote will end up coming into play is in what party gains the most from it. If it’s along ideological lines, that will probably tend to play into the hands of the Republicans.  If it’s not, either party could gain.

I should also note that I think a defeat at the Supreme Court, over the long run, is a disaster for us, because of the difficulty, even if you can alter the political climate for a very long time, in getting existing precedent overturned.   It’s not impossible, but it’s an uphill battle.  Over the long run, the idea that the 2nd Amendment is meaningless will take hold, and we’ll be doomed.  The gun controllers will have the political cover they need, and we’ll lose our greatest ally, which is the Bill of Rights itself.

I can hardly blame folks who believe Parker is too big of a gamble.  This will either be our greatest victory, or our greatest defeat.  Here’s hoping the former.

This is big in the news here, since Fort Dix is close by. It sounds like these guys had a plan, but I wouldn’t say they had a good one. It seems to me that assaulting a large military base with conventional small arms would mean a very quick beginning and end to one’s terrorist career, with not much to show for it.

UPDATE: Formerspook has a different take.  He’s 100x more of an expert on than I can even pretend to be:

Finally, the aborted plot seems aimed at one of the key security “weaknesses” found on many military installations. While bases are often depicted as armed camps in books or on TV, in reality, many installations maintain only “routine” arrangements inside the perimeter, with most security assets concentrated around “high value” assets, such as the flight line at an Air Force base. The conspirators at Fort Dix apparently planned to blow through the main gate at Fort Dix (against outgunned MPs and civilian security guards), then concentrate their attacks in lightly-defended areas where soldiers gather (dormitories, BX, bowling alley, base club, etc). It’s a simple plan, but the terrorists could have inflicted significant damage before security teams responded. The obvious solution is more security, closer to potential entry points and “soft” targets.

So it would seem commenter GeorgeH brings up a good topic.  Why are the military afraid to allow soldiers to be armed on base?  We’re not thinking enough about how to fight assymetric wars, where everyone could have to become a soldier and fight, with little regard to areas that are supposedly “safe”.  It would seem to me that allowing soldiers to carry weapons on base would be a no brainer.

The DC circuit has refused to rehear Parker vs. DC en banc, with all the circuit judges presiding. On to the Supreme Court! (maybe)

Hat tip: SCOTUSblog

I said it is, Uncle disagrees.   I had thought I had posted on this in the past, but I think I meant to and never did.  I actually think driving ought to be a right, as an element of the right to travel, but it isn’t currently seen that way.  You have a right to travel, but not operate a motor vehicle.

When arguing against gun controllers, it’s worth pointing out that it is, legally, considered a privilege.  That’s why it gets different treatment.  It’s important to make people understand that distinction in the law, even if we might not agree with driving being treated that way.

Do I agree with that classification?  No.  I think another neat question to ask is, if the right to travel includes the right to operate machinery on the public roads and skies, what does that right look like?  How may it be limited?  Can you still license it?

They did it in Virginia a few months ago, now they are doing it in Tennessee now too.

It’s all the rage in journalism. To publish concealed weapons license holders so that gun thieves know exactly where to go! Oh, same with estranged ex’s and various other people that license holders might not want finding them.

Folks in Pennsylvania can rest assured I’ve not yet found any county sheriff who would turn this kind of data over to reporters.

UPDATE: More from Michael Bane

This is crazy:

A coalition of students, environmentalists, Christians and thirsty people have written a letter to Mayor Street asking him to get rid of all the bottled water the city buys.

Philadelphia, as you may know, has a pretty decent water supply, not full of arsenic or lead or blood or floating heads or whatever. The push is organized by Corporate Accountability International, who is leading the push against “the marketing muscle of bottled water corporations.” Indeed!

Emphasis mine.  Philadelphia water tastes like total crud, generally.  I’ve never been able to stand it.  It seems to be rather than worrying that the city is buying bottled water for its employees, they should worry more about the city wasting money on unmerited lawsuits against the state in regards to the well established fact that they may not make their own gun laws.

This weekend Bitter and I had to switch me going down to her coming up, because I was told I had to show up to qualify on pistol for the gun club that weekend.  If I couldn’t make it, I’d have to wait until fall to get in.

It was pretty easy.   You had to hit a fairly giant 100 yard target at 15 yards.  They were mostly looking for safety.   If you could land 9 out of 10 shots on the paper, you qualified.  There were a few people that had problems qualifying.  I was told that they get people who pretty much exclusively shoot clays that have to qualify, and can’t shoot pistol to save their lives.  Everyone has to qualify on pistol though, and show they can competently handle one.

I’m mostly satisfied with their rules.  Most of them are common sense.  They do allow concealed carry, you just can’t shoot from a holster.  You’re not allowed to shoot the weapon you’re carrying, except in an emergency.   You’re limited to 5 rounds in a firearm.  One or two rounds on the clay range.

The reason given for round limitations was in case the gun had a malfunction that made it go full auto; to avoid sending a bullet in an unsafe direction.   This can happen, but I think it’s rare.  Personally, I would like to see the club open up the plinking range to full magazines, and allow people to fill revolvers, which can’t have that problem.  On outdoor ranges I’m generally more accepting of magazine limits just to someone can’t fire off a really long string when other people are ready to check targets.  The indoor range I’m currently a member of has no magazine limits and there’s never been a problem.

I get voted in Wednesday, pay the fee, and get my access card.  After that, I can shoot 24/7, and have use of some pretty nice facilities.