Snowflakes in Hell

Not just stifling dissent, but crushing it.

And to think, this University of Houston professor gets to shape young minds:

At Poe Elementary School, near Rice University, Marc Zimmerman, a 69-year-old University of Houston professor, said he voted for Obama, noting that the excitement surrounding the Illinois senator was contagious.

“I like being caught up in the wave,” he said.

Caught up in The Wave?   You mean like this one?

In the Wall Street Journal.  Tribe is a well respected constitutional scholar, so this isn’t a minor deal.  He’s come out in favor of an individual right in his book on constitutional law, so this is somewhat of a surprise. Heller’s attorneys seem to be a bit surprised too.  Tribe says:

But nothing I have discovered or written supports an absolute right to possess the weapons of one’s choice. The lower court’s decision in this case — the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found the District’s ban on concealable handguns in a densely populated area to be unconstitutional — went overboard. Under any plausible standard of review, a legislature’s choice to limit the citizenry to rifles, shotguns and other weapons less likely to augment urban violence need not, and should not, be viewed as an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of the people to keep or bear arms.

So we can interpret other liberties in the Bill of Rights to apply depending on geography and population density?  Drugs are a scourge of the inner cities as well.  Would Professor Tribe support standard of review for the fourth amendment which would allow house to house searches for drugs in urban areas, while leaving the fourth amendment well enough in tact in rural areas?  I think most of us here would agree the fourth amendment is already subject to too lienent a standard of review.  I see no reason to do the same to the second.

Worse than that, it would transform a constitutional provision clearly intended and designed to protect the people of the several states from an all-powerful national government into a restriction on the national government’s uniquely powerful role as governor of the nation’s capital, over which Congress, acting through municipal authorities of the District, exercises the same kind of plenary authority that it exercises over Fort Knox.

Fort Knox is a military installation.  Is Professor Tribe attempting to argue that it would be appropriate to apply martial law over The District? I would hope not.

UPDATE: Dave Kopel has more.

The audio tapes of the Heller case will be released on March 18th, the same day as oral arguments in the case, according to the WaPo.

Ace has been interviewing gun bloggers.  My interview is up here.

My sources are telling me Governor Kaine has vetoed both the Virginia restaurant carry bill, to allow people to carry in restaurants provided they do not consume alcohol, and the bill to allow firearms to be kept in a locked contained within a vehicle without a license to carry concealed.

UPDATE: Link with more information up at NRA now.

UPDATE: Countertop has more.  So does Pro-Gun Progressive

UPDATE: Sailorcurt too.

SayUncle points to an article that shows the real problem with possessory crimes; you need police state tactics to enforce them.  California has cross referenced its criminal and mental health databases with its gun registration database, and is going from door to door.

While I don’t think there’s any constitutional obstacle to taking away civil liberties after due process of law, many of California’s laws, particularly it’s mental health gun prohibitions, do not have sufficient due process for me to be ok with these kinds of tactics.  Either way, I think this is way too gestapo like, and it’s a prime example of why I have issues with those who want enable government to track everything we do, especially activities the political elites thumb their noses at.  How many of the people California is rounding up are really legitimately dangers to society?  If they are so dangerous, why are they on the streets?  Are highly dangerous criminals really legally registering their firearms with the state?  Pretty clearly these folks aren’t neatly falling into the category of “law abiding gun owner,” but color me skeptical they are a real menace to a safe society.  I’m willing to bet this has almost no effect on crime in California, and police resources would be better spent going after truly dangerous criminals.

Joe is asking folks to call and e-mail their state senators, and has a list.  This is a pretty bad and broad ban on so-called assault weapons.  Even if you don’t live in Nebraska, if you live near Nebraska, shoot in Nebraska, or have some kind of tie to the state, call.

Bitter notices in an unrelated article that legislators in Nebraska are feeling the heat from NRA members over proposed gun control measures.  Good!  It’s how this is going to go down in flames.

Last month I wrote a bit on how we could begin to restore liberty and limited government in this country by seizing key social institutions back from the progressives:

If we want to reverse the progressive slide, we have to make progress in academia, particularly in topics that tend to feed the political elite, such as political science, law, and economics. The good news is, we’ve pretty much won on economics, and I think we’re making progress in law.

This post by Ilya Somin over at Volokh talks about progress we’re making in the legal realm:

Steven Teles’ important new book, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement, does an excellent job of analyzing and explaining the growth of non-liberal public interest law. He notes that the success libertarian and conservative public interest law groups was not foreordained. Indeed, early efforts in the 1970s and early 80s were mostly dismal failures. How did the founders of IJ and CIR turn things around? Teles notes two important causes: the second generation of libertarian public interest firms learned from the the strategies of their liberal predecessors and distanced themselves from business interests.

Read the whole thing.  IJ and CIR are worthy organizations that have shown demonstrated progress on the issue.  This is a generational fight, but I believe if we work hard enough, it’s winnable.

Interesting article.  Luckily, Pennsylvania has company, and we’re not even really the worst.  People are fleeing Michigan in droves.  Followed by New Jersey.  Pennsylvania is 42nd in terms of percentage of outbound moves.  California has lost the most in sheer numbers. Why?

“When California faced a Mount Everest-sized $14 billion deficit in 2003, one of the major causes for the red ink was the stampede of millionaire households from the state,” Laffer and Moore note in their report. “Out of the 25,000 or so seven-figure-income families, more than 5,000 left in the early 2000s, and the loss of their tax payments accounted for about half the budget hole.”

People don’t like high taxes?  Who knew?

The Golden State also has tarnished itself among less-wealthy persons. Moore said migration trends based on moving company data show California had the second-highest domestic population outflow of any state in 2005 “despite the beautiful weather, beaches, and mountains.”

California budget officials are predicting another $14 billion deficit this year, although the state has some of the highest tax burdens in the nation. The state budget has ballooned from $79.8 billion in fiscal 2004-05 to $102.3 billion this fiscal year, a jump of 28 percent.

Makes you wonder if Californians were really better off voting for Arnold, who has ruled more like a Democrat than a Republican, than they would have been with Cruz Bustamante.  The California political establishment likes big government, and those that don’t are voting with their feet.

Pennsylvania is in trouble too.  We have a particularly difficult time keeping young people in this state, enough that it was a campaign issue for Rendell.  It’s amazing when I go to DC, the difference in demographics.  Bitter is one of the older persons in her workplace, and she’s seven years younger than me.  At 34, I’m one of the youngest here at mine, and it’s been the same story at every workplace since I left college.  People my age got their degrees and went elsewhere.  Same with my shooting club.  You don’t see too many guys there under 50, let alone 40.  I worry that young people aren’t taking to the traditional shooting sports, but then I think “Maybe the reason you notice this is because there just aren’t any young people left in your state?”  If that’s the case, we’re in a lot of trouble.  I suspect with Pennsylvania, it’s mostly a lack of opportunity driving young people away.  Why are there few opportunities here?  Because Pennsylvania has among the highest corporate taxes in the country, and it’s a horrible drain on businesses.

Today is the big day for Hillary.  Texas and Ohio primaries.  I’m giving a big presentation today, so I don’t have much time to think about it.  I will leave you in the capable hands of Marshall Manson, who thinks the Democratic primary won’t end today.  I certainly hope so.  The more they fight each other, the less likely we are to have to deal with either of those two in the White House come next January.

It’s not just a Philly thing anymore.

Taking a look at the new Walther SP22, I notice this at the bottom:

Important Note: The SP22 is not available for sale in California. Void where prohibited by law.

I wonder if California’s laws in this matter, which seem to ban ordinary .22LR sporting pistols, is the kind of law that Ray Schonke finds to be reasonable.  Kudos to Walther (and by association Smith & Wesson) for not subjecting the rest of us to California’s nonsense.