Snowflakes in Hell

Says Paul Helmke:

The “slippery slope,” however, is now gone. The U.S. Supreme Court took it off the table yesterday in their D.C. v. Heller opinion. Government is now barred from “taking away” the guns of law-abiding Americans.

Because of this Court decision, proposals such as Brady background checks on all gun sales, limiting bulk sales of handguns, restricting access to military-style assault weapons, and strengthening the power of law enforcement to shut down corrupt gun dealers can now be debated on their merits without them being seen as a “first step on the road to gun confiscation.”

Yeah, except the slippery slope argument was only ancillary.   I’m still going to argue that you’re wrong, and that the laws are unconstitutional.  This changes nothing for us, but it does change a lot for them.  Now all these proposals have to answer to a very high level of scrutiny, because, you see, they infringe on fundamental constitutional rights.  Time will reveal this.

Well, this is one way to kill lawsuits based on standing.  But hey, if towns start shedding their handgun bans based on Heller, I don’t see how that’s not a good thing.  Do the Brady’s still want to keep calling this a victory?  Bryan Miller?  Mexico is calling.

NRA has filed suit in California, Chicago, and several of its suburbs:

The San Francisco lawsuit challenges a local ordinance and lease provisions that prohibit possession of guns by residents of public housing in San Francisco. NRA is joined in that suit by the California Rifle and Pistol Association and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

The Chicago case challenges a handgun ban nearly identical to the law struck down yesterday in Washington, D.C. The other Illinois suits challenge handgun bans in the suburban towns of Evanston, Morton Grove and Oak Park.

All five suits raise the issue of the application of the Second Amendment against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, known in constitutional law as “incorporation.” Because Washington, D.C. is not a state, incorporation was not specifically addressed in yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, but the decision did repeatedly equate the Second Amendment to the First and Fourth Amendments, which have applied to the states for 80 years.

We have won the battle over the meaning of the second amendment.  Now we begin the battle over incorporation.  NRA’s strategy, no doubt, is to try in several federal circuits as to have the maximal likelihood of success in at least one of them.

With the “common lawful use” test spelled out in the Heller decision, we’re going to want to eventually challenge the bans on assault weapons in California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Maryland and Connecticuit.  In order to do that, we need more than anectdotal evidence that AR-15s, and various other firearms outlawed under these state bans are, in fact, quite common, and are of the type protected by the second amendment.

So now that you’ve spend a lot of time and energy researching the decline in hunting, why don’t we think about ways to get our friends in California and New Jersey contributing to Pittsman-Robertson again by sending copious amounts of .223 and 7.62×39 downrange?

Randy Barnett has discusses some thoughts.  By this standard he proposes, governments must allow some form of carrying a firearm for self-defense.  They may be able to regulate, and license certain manners of carrying a firearm, but there must be some means to allow for the right to happen.

I look forward to one day carrying a firearm down the streets of New York City should this come to pass.  I think it will happen in my lifetime.

Did he really say that?  Why, yes, he did say that.  At American-Manifesto:

“Right to carry states are 48 of the 50 states right now…If there are clear restrictions on people [felons and the mentally ill] and to make sure that they know what they’re doing with the gun, that they pass the background checks, that the local police have signed off on it, that’s something that doesn’t cause that many problems.” [emphasis added]

Are the Brady’s retreating on concealed carry?  Can you believe he even said that?  I guess he was tired indeed, or maybe the Montezuma was getting to him.

Joe Grace, executive director of CeaseFire PA, continues his string of declaring victory while being devoured by the jaws of defeat.

Alan Gura is forging ahead to challenge the Chicago handgun ban, along with ISRA, and SAF.  We wish him luck.  NRA says they will file some suits in California as well.

Megan McArdle says that guns are a feminist issue.  Bitter and I couldn’t agree more.  Someone forgot to tell Justice Ginsburg though.

Seen at Volokh:

So, carrying swords and pistols, for the purpose of dueling, will likely remain illegal? I for one, am disappointed.

Ahab has a link to Wayne LaPierre and Paul Helmke on MS-NBC’s hardball.

UPDATE: I’m willing to bet that Paul and Wayne can probably at least agree that Chris Matthews is a horse’s ass.

… and all I got was this lousy headache.  Yeah, from this.  Drunk blogging climaxed right around this post, which you might have guessed from the swearing, and my not being my normal, analytical self.  Of course, that’s not to say I still don’t stand behind what I wrote.

From the Juliet Leftwich (great name for a gun grabber, isn’t it?) lead counsel for Legal Community Against Gun Violence:

“We are concerned the resources are going to be diverted to the defense of laws already on the books”

That’s music to my ears.  Welcome to the post Heller world!

Ilya Somin has a sobering post comparing gun rights to property rights:

With very few exceptions, the effort to strengthen protection for property rights was categorically opposed by the Court’s liberal justices. Any property rights case that got to the Court almost starts with four guaranteed votes in favor of the government. This has two important effects.

First, any division in the ranks of the conservative justices is likely to be fatal for property rights in the case at issue. For example, Justice Anthony Kennedy voted with the liberal justices in Kelo and several other important property rights cases, leading to important setbacks for property supporters.

This is why we must vote McCain to keep Obama out of the oval office.  McCain is far from perfect, but neither were the two Bush’s, which we would be facing a loss on Heller had it not been for electing them.

As with property rights, the ideological division on the Court also leaves any gains vulnerable to future reversal in the event that a Democratic president is elected. The liberal justices’ opposition to gun rights is also shared by the vast majority of liberal judges on the lower courts. If Obama (or any other Democrat) becomes president, they will likely appoint justices who share these views. Even if Obama does not make this issue a major priority in his nomination decisions, the fact that he will want to nominate justices who are liberal on other constitutional issues will ensure a strong likelihood that they would also embrace the dominant liberal position on this issue. This happened in the case property rights as well. Opposition to property rights was probably not a major factor in Clinton’s choice of Ginsburg and Breyer. Indeed, Clinton was among those who later vehemently denounced the Kelo decision. Nonetheless, these two justices turned out be property rights opponents (even in Kelo) precisely because Clinton did make a priority of appointing judges who are generally liberal, and such judges are likely to be anti-property rights.

Seriously, McCain sucks, except for the alternative.  Let’s not get complacent here, or this day will be all for naught.

Go see the video Jacob has up, and be outraged.  He also has the Brady Campaign reaction.