Civil Rights

On Referendums

1 comment

The Republicans are looking to pick up six or more seats in the Senate tonight. Mitch McConnell looks to be winning in Kentucky, and he’ll probably replace Harry Reid as majority leader.

Tomorrow morning, the Republicans are going to be basking in optimism and satisfaction. That would be a tremendous mistake. They need to have viable plans in place right now, or they’ll be back in the wilderness in two years.

Pundits are calling this election a referendum on the President and his policies. That’s not the case. If anything, that would have been the 2010 election. The “take back our country” rhetoric and tricorner hats won Republicans a few seats, but the Tea Party forked the message and turned their narrow majority into a tool for little more than squabbling obstructionism. They seemed to think the public didn’t notice.

Next came claims they’d take the White House in 2012. That didn’t happen.

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Civil Rights

Henderson v. United States

The Supreme Court granted cert to this one last night. At issue is the disposition of a person’s firearms once he’s convicted of a felony.

The question presented is whether such a conviction prevents a court under Rule 41(g) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or under general equity principles from ordering that the government (1) transfer non-contraband firearms to an unrelated third party to whom the defendant has sold all his property interests or (2) sell the firearms for the benefit of the defendant. The Second, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits and the Montana Supreme Court all allow lower courts to order such transfers or sales; the Third, Sixth, Eighth and Eleventh Circuits, by contrast, bar them.

Henderson’s argument is here [pdf].

The government’s response is here [also pdf].

I have little doubt this will be dubbed a “felons with guns” case or somesuch, but that would be inaccurate. Henderson does not assert that he is entitled to keep his firearms:  he is claiming that he has the right to compensation upon surrendering them.

Dogs

Clio

1 comment

I’ve had Maia for just over two years, so it’s time for a new dog.

(A companion, not a replacement. It’s important to make that distinction clear when you bring your existing dog to the shelter.)

So, this is Clio.

The coloring suggests English Setter, but the nose and ears are something closer to a Labrador. We’re off to the vet tomorrow to get a better idea on age and lineage.

Civil Rights

Eric Holder Resigning

It may seem like odd timing, but it makes a perverse sort of sense. Come Monday, the Department of Justice will be required to release documents they previously withheld from Congress during the Fast & Furious investigation. Holder may be trying to distance himself from whatever fallout might ensue, but he remains in contempt of Congress for that bit of obstruction.

While it looks like he’ll escape any consequences from that (and it has for some time), one can only hope this will haunt his professional life. Two American law-enforcement officers and over 150 Mexicans died as a result of a botched operation that took place on his watch.

As it stands, we’ve got a midterm election coming up, and there’s a possibility of the Senate changing hands in January. If that’s the case (and I’m not sold on it), the President will have a difficult time appointing a favorable successor.

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Civil Rights

DC Has a Carry Law, and It’s Terrible

In response to their recent court loss in Palmer v. DC, the District of Columbia has drafted a law [pdf] allowing civilians to carry firearms. The city council is doing their best to flaunt the court order without veering into direct contempt, much as they did following the Heller decision.

Essentially, one might be able to get a permit to carry in the District, but the bill is structured in such a way as to make it virtually useless. Here are the major provisions:

Applicants must demonstrate “a good reason to fear injury” and “a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community.” Applicants must provide documented evidence of their plight. Said evidence may not be enough to sway the issuing authorities, who can deny the existence of a special need on a whim.

Applicants have to complete a course certified by the Chief of Police that includes at least 16 hours of training.

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Civil Rights

Sensenbrenner Wants to Shut Down the ATF

So, we’ve got a proposal on the table [pdf] to break up the ATF and fold its responsibilities into other law-enforcement agencies. The idea is to give the FBI authority to enforce firearms regulations while giving the alcohol/tobacco stuff over to the DEA.

I’d love to see it happen. Homer Cummings’ little post-Prohibition revenue collection agency has grown into the arbiter of our firearms laws, and it would be a gross understatement to say they’ve done a horrendous job of it.

This is the agency that funneled guns across the border to Mexico in the Fast & Furious operation, who distributed swag to their agents emblazoned with “ATF: Always Think Forfeiture,” and who were responsible for the debacles at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

Then there’s the problem of their “whites only” Good Ol’ Boys Roundup, which lasted more than a decade before being shut down.

Beyond the abuses lies the issue of gross incompetence.  

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E-cigarettes

On Prohibition

I’m a big fan of Kennesaw’s Swift-Cantrell park, and I was dismayed to see this sign posted yesterday.

I understand the ban on tobacco. Secondhand smoke is a very real hazard, and nobody likes to see cigarette butts or puddles of treacly tobacco on the ground. E-cigarettes are a different matter. They don’t generate litter, and exposure to bystanders is pretty much nil outdoors.

Furthermore, e-cigarettes aren’t tobacco. Ordinance § 66-2(c)(3) makes it unlawful to “sell, smoke, or consume tobacco products.” The Breathe Easy policy is overreaching.

Doug Taylor is the Parks & Recreation Director for the city. He can be contacted here. Please be civil and polite in all correspondence.

Civil Rights

ATF Pushing Ahead with 41P

A year ago, the President advanced a number of regulatory proposals on gun control. One of the more esoteric ones involved changing the way trusts are handled in regards to NFA firearms.

The original action date was to have been last June, but the BATFE was deluged with comments. While action appeared to have been pushed back to 2015, the Bureau has recently published a draft form [pdf].

Essentially, any “responsible party” of a trust or corporation must now file this form and seek approval from local law enforcement. That approval is impossible to obtain in many areas.

The BATFE stands to gain nothing. They’re saddled with the paperwork, but it doesn’t generate any revenue. As such, I doubt they’ll hire on more examiners to address the workload. The end result will be an exponential growth in wait times for NFA approvals across the board.

There’s no saying when 41P might be enacted, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the administration wants to rush this one in before the midterms so they can show some success on gun control.

Info Dump

Echopraxia by Peter Watts

Science fiction is often divided into two main genres: soft and hard. Soft science fiction tends to be more humanistic, with a greater emphasis on traditional story and character development. Ursula Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, and Cordwainer Smith are good examples.

Hard science fiction tends to focus on concepts, with more weight given to scientific rigor and speculation. Its lineage stretches from Asimov and Clarke to modern authors like Greg Bear and Alastair Reynolds. It’s not to say these guys can’t write stories, but this is primarily a literature of ideas.

That’s where Watts comes in. His books are defined by pessimism towards the future and a density of scientific detail. He wants to make a point as well as tell a story.

Civil Rights

Dear ISIS

Any time you want to stop the killings and coerced “conversions” of Christians would be great. For a bunch of guys who claim to be acting on the tenets of God or Muhammad, you’re defying both.

Consider Muhammad’s covenant with the monks of St. Catherine’s:

No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.

Further, from the Pococke translation:

Whosoever shall annul any of one of these my decrees, let him know positively that he annuls the ordinance of God. (…) No one shall bear arms against them, but, on the contrary, the Muslims shall wage war for them.

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Civil Rights

Fast & Furious: Unexpected Progress

Two years ago, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress. At issue was his refusal to turn over documents crucial to the investigation of the ATF’s disastrous Fast & Furious operation. The President invoked executive privilege and refused to turn over the information.

Shortly after, the website Judicial Watch made an Freedom of Information Act request for those documents. Nothing came of it, so they filed a lawsuit in September of 2012. That lawsuit was decided earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge John Bates, who ruled that the Department of Justice must provide a Vaughn index of the relevant documents.

The Supreme Court established the concept of the Vaughn index in Vaughn v. Rosen. An agency that wishes to withhold information must provide a detailed index and description of the information, state the statutory exemption claimed, and they must explain how disclosure would damage their interests.

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Civil Rights

10th Circuit Upholds Multiple Long Gun Reporting

In 2011, the ATF began requiring dealers in Southwestern border states to report sales of multiple semiautomatic rifles to individual purchasers. The ATF doesn’t have the authority to do this.* As such, the requirement has been challenged in the DC and 5th Circuit courts, but it was upheld in both instances.

Today, the 10th Circuit issued a ruling [pdf] affirming them.

Among the lovely chestnuts of wisdom was this:

A review of Project Gunrunner conducted by the Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) indicates that tracing guns seized in Mexico can provide “crucial” information in gun-trafficking investigations and generate intelligence regarding trends in gun smuggling. (…) [Assistant Director of Field Operations William Hoover] explained that trace information helps ATF “reconstruct the flow of weapons along the border, how and where they are being purchased, and who is purchasing them.”

Yeah, because that worked so well when Project Gunrunner was active.

* Here’s the multiple-handgun form [pdf].

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Civil Rights

Can We Now Carry in DC?

Miller has been involved with this for quite some time. She has more on the issue here. Lanier has also instructed police to allow any qualified nonresident to carry in the District.

(Edit: here’s Lanier’s actual order [pdf])

Here’s the first catch: nonresidents are free to carry, but DC residents can only carry a gun that’s registered there.  The registry in DC has been closed since 1976. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Heller was supposed to change that, but it’s still virtually impossible to get a handgun in the District. Gun shops are prohibited by zoning laws, so residents can’t buy a handgun directly. There is only one FFL willing to transfer handguns in from out of state.

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Civil Rights

Palmer v. D.C.

In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that Washington D.C. could not ban the ownership of handguns. The city responded by passing the hysterically-named Firearms Registration Emergency Amendment Act [pdf]. It created as many hurdles as legally feasible for would-be gun owners. and it prohibited the carry of firearms outside the home.

Alan Gura brought this case in response to the ban on carry. The District Court did its best to ignore it for two years. In 2011 Chief Justice Roberts intervened and ordered Judge Scullin to hear it. Then it seemed to disappear again.

As such, it goes without saying that today’s opinion [pdf] was unexpected. Cue the highlight reel:

In light of Heller, McDonald, and their progeny, there is no longer any basis on which this Court can conclude that the District of Columbia’s total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny.

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Civil Rights

Beretta Snubs Manchin

Beretta recently announced they’re moving their manufacturing operations to Tennessee. Maryland’s gun laws were quoted as the main reason.

Several states courted their business, including West Virginia. Beretta explicitly rejected West Virginia because of Senator Manchin’s actions in furthering the “universal” background check law in 2013.

From their statement, courtesy of Sebastian:

Before considering any other location for expansion of any of our facilities we consider first the consistency with which a given state has supported Second Amendment rights. (…) Regrettable [sic], as a consequence of that analysis and especially due to Senator Manchin’s recent legislative choices we have decided not to consider your state for future plans of expansion.

I’ve said before that Manchin and Toomey need to feel the heat for buckling under pressure, and it looks like someone’s holding them to it. Let’s hope the voters follow suit.

Civil Rights

Christie and Clinton are both doomed in 2016

They are both losing in the polls to Boba Fett and Darth Vader.

Joe Biden fared worse than Emperor Palpatine, and only a little better than Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar Binks, people.

And what of Rick Perry? Elizabeth Warren? It’s not pretty, folks.

My prediction: David Hasselhoff enters the race late in the game under the Green Party ticket and sweeps the election. Gary Hart will be his running mate.

Civil Rights Ordnance

About the Import Ban

2 comments

Yesterday, the President signed an executive order that places Concern Kalashnikov (formerly Izhmash) on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. That means the importation of their products has been banned. It’s rare for these orders to be rescinded, even by later administrations, so it’s probably permanent.

Somebody’s going to scream “back door gun control,” but that isn’t the case. This is a sanction on the Russian government for their actions in Ukraine. While the SDN list blocks assets and generally forbids Americans from dealing with the entity in question, products that have already been imported and paid for are unaffected.

How does this affect the domestic market? Not much at all. If you owned one before the order was signed, you can keep it. You can also sell it if you like. Retailers with existing inventory can do so as well.

Does this mean there’s going to be a shortage of rifles marketed as “AK-47’s?”

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E-cigarettes

Threat and Response

The good folks at Nicorette have been running these ads in the English media and on subway trains:

Nicorette Ad

If they didn’t feel their business model was threatened by vaping, they wouldn’t be running this campaign. Why the UK? It could be due to the fact that authorities there are all but endorsing e-cigarettes as a cessation tool. That cuts into business.

And is Nicorette any safer than vaping? Not by a long shot if you read the ingredients [pdf]. Electronic cigarettes contain propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, and nicotine. Nicorette QuickMist takes those ingredients and adds the following:

  • Anhydrous ethanol
  • Trometamol (which may cause birth defects)
  • Poloxamer 407 (which may cause liver problems)
  • Sodium hydrogen carbonate (baking soda)
  • Acesulfame potassium (basically Aspartame, with the attendant issues)
  • Hydrochloric acid

That last one should speak for itself.

Yet in the States, Nicorette has the wholehearted approval of the FDA and electronic cigarettes are on the chopping block.

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Ordnance

Mark It Zero, Smokey

2 comments

A couple of times a year, we hear a rumor that the Army is going to dump the Beretta M9 as a service pistol and go back to something in .45. Some people even claim we’re going to see the error of our heathen ways and welcome the venerable 1911 back into the fold with repentance and glee while the Holy Ghost of John Moses Browning forgives us for our folly.

Sorry, folks. It’s not going to happen.

The government bought nearly half a million M9 pistols in 2009. That’s not something they’d have done if the platform was on its way out. The sheer cost of replacing not just the pistol, but its whole support system of training, magazines, and other parts would be staggering. Then there’s the problem of using ammunition that’s completely incompatible with everything else NATO uses. Good luck getting Congress to greenlight that.

And what is this “Modular Handgun System” they’re gabbing about?

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Civil Rights

And Now Target

Target department stores have been the latest battleground in the public-image war between Moms Demand Action and the Texas open-carry rangers. The tone-deaf actions of the latter have already cost us on several fronts. As of today, it has happened again:

Our approach has always been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so. But starting today we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target — even in communities where it is permitted by law.

We’ve listened carefully to the nuances of this debate and respect the protected rights of everyone involved. In return, we are asking for help in fulfilling our goal to create an atmosphere that is safe and inviting for our guests and team members.

This is a complicated issue, but it boils down to a simple belief: Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create.

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Civil Rights

This Won’t Be Won in the Courts

Last year, the Colorado legislature hastily passed a package of gun regulations. The new laws include a ban on all magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds, and the requirement that all transfers of firearms between individuals go through a gun dealer and be subject to a background check. To say this was an unpopular decision with the voters would be an understatement.

Two sitting state Senators were recalled from office, and a third resigned in the face of an impending recall. The Governor himself seems to regret signing it.

A large group of plaintiffs brought a lawsuit, but the Colorado District Court has ruled that both laws are constitutional [pdf].

(…) the Court finds that although § 18-12-302 burdens the operation of semiautomatic weapons, the burden is not severe because it does not materially reduce the ability of a person to use a semiautomatic firearm for self-defense, nor does it reduce the effectiveness of self-defensive efforts [p.

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Civil Rights

Hickenlooper Goes on the Defensive

The headline reads, “Colorado governor tries to apologize for gun control measures, blames staff, then curses.” That’s actually a pretty good summary of the situation. Video of his statement is here.

You may recall that 55 of the 62 elected sheriffs in Colorado brought a suit to challenge the constitutionality of the gun-control bills Hickenlooper signed last year. You may also recall that state Senators Morse and Giron were ousted in a historic recall election over those bills, and that Senator Hudak resigned just as she was about to be recalled.

Now, when he has to save face, he tries to spread the blame and claim he just didn’t realize what a “kerfuffle” his signature would cause. Really? Does the fact that Michael Bloomberg bent him over a metaphorical barrel to sign them not suggest there might be some friction? Does the fact that the bills passed along strict party lines not imply some dissent?

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Civil Rights

Abramski v. United States

While technically a gun case, this one hasn’t generated much press. At issue is a purchase of a pistol Bruce Abramski made on behalf of his uncle. Mr. Abramski was prosecuted for making a “false of fictitious” statement in regards to the actual buyer of the firearm.

Under 18 USC §922(a)(6) it is unlawful to mislead a dealer regarding the actual identity of the purchaser of a firearm. Ostensibly, this is to prevent “straw purchases,” which are a major source of crime guns. The classic example is this:

Bob is legally disqualified from owning a firearm. Bob gives Steve money, and Steve buys the firearm on Bob’s behalf. Steve is a bad man who has just provided a bad person with a gun and he should feel bad.

Except that’s not accurate. Even if it was legal for Bob to own the gun in question, Steve would be committing a crime by claiming to be the actual buyer.

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E-cigarettes

Stingray Black Copper

Until recently, I’d been using a Magneto mechanical mod for my coil builds.  Various build problems aggravated me, and when it broke, I replaced it with a Stingray clone.

Stingray Bottom Cap

All of the contacts on the Stingray are copper, which enhances conductivity. I suspected this was a gimmick, but it does actually heat up more quickly.

Stingray Top Cap

The top cap has a floating firing pin, which allows any tank or dripper to sit flush. Here it is with a Patriot RDA. With a 0.9Ω coil, it generates massive clouds.

Civil Rights

Guam Goes Shall-Issue

The governor of Guam has signed Bill No. B296-32 [pdf] into law. As per Section 2, the police “shall issue a license” to carry a firearm if the applicant meets the requirements, which are fairly lenient. Aside from being legally eligible to own a gun, applicants must show some proof of training, which can be satisfied by a hunter safety course, an NRA course, or a DD214.

So, the requirements are basically the same as getting a permit in Florida. Guam falls under the appellate jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit, and they may be feeling the pressure after the Peruta ruling.

Guns Save Lives has more information on this.

Civil Rights

Irreconcilable Differences

We all know who the NRA is, right? They’ve made a statement on the ludicrous practice of carrying rifles into public businesses as a form of “activism.”

Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.

You may not know Charles Cotton. He’s an NRA board member and Executive Director for the Texas State Rifle Association. Alice Tripp is one of the TSRA’s lobbyists. These are the folks actually doing the work to get open carry legalized in Texas.

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Civil Rights

Still Not Getting It

“I told my daughter it’s not safe to be here. We gotta go,” says the guy who’s got the muzzle of an AK-47 sweeping his daughter.

First Starbucks, then Jack in the Box, then Chipotle. Now it’s Sonic. The Texas open carry crowd is practically phoning in content for the anti-gunners to ridicule us.

This isn’t activism. It’s a fun prank for some reprobates to occupy a lunch hour. The rest of us deal with the consequences forever. They need to knock it off, and we need to start telling them that.

Info Dump

Opportunism

Politicians didn’t waste any time calling for gun control following the Elliot Rodger shooting. The usual suspects like Dick Blumenthal and Peter King have already made their voices heard. So has Dianne Feinstein, whose renewal of the ineffective Assault Weapons Ban was snubbed last year.

We must ask ourselves if an individual whose family called police with concerns about mental health, who is receiving therapy and who has had several run-ins with police should be allowed to own multiple firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. When anyone, no matter their mental health or history, can so easily obtain any gun they want and as many as they want–we must recognize there is a problem.

You know what? I don’t disagree. Where I do take issue is the idea that more laws would have prevented this. Consider California’s laws for a moment. They are are among the strictest in the country, and they’re a virtual grab-bag of everything the gun-control lobby wants.

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Civil Rights

Affluenza

By now, you’ve likely heard of the Elliot Rodger incident. He stabbed three people to death in his apartment, then when on a shooting rampage that killed three other people. It’s big news because he’s the son of a Hollywood director, he left a juicy manifesto, and his victims were affluent white people.

Poor children are shot in Chicago on a weekly basis, and we treat them like a grim but acceptable statistic. Yet we obsess over the ravings of a spoiled narcissist who decided to punish the world because he couldn’t get laid.

Yes, Rodger was sick, but so are we all.

Despite having plenty of clues as to his mental instability, the police did nothing. Sandy Hook was supposed to open a dialogue on our shameful treatment of mental illness in this country, but it was drowned out by calls for gun control because the latter makes for easy politics.

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Civil Rights

We Just Can’t Have Nice Things

2 comments

Last year, Starbucks asked customers to stop carrying guns in their locations because people walked in with rifles slung over their shoulders. Last week, Jack in the Box asked customers to stop carrying guns in their locations because people walked in with rifles slung over their shoulders. This week, Chipotle asked customers to stop carrying guns in their locations because people walked in with rifles slung over their shoulders.

Are we seeing a pattern here, folks? Are we really that obtuse? This isn’t civil activism; this is a malicious sort of attention whoring that hurts the very cause these dinks claim to support.

And they have the audacity to pretend they don’t even get it. This isn’t happening because of some culture war. It’s happening because people can’t show simple discretion and manners. They get a picture to show to their friends on social media, and the anti-gun groups get to chalk up a very public victory.

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Civil Rights

C’mon, Dudley…

Ah, election season. Today’s obnoxious mail comes from our friends at the National Association for Gun Rights.

I think they meant Phil Gingrey. The guy doesn’t even have red hair, so it’s not accurate to refer to him as “gingery.”

Or it could be they’re too busy slandering real 2nd Amendment advocates to be bothered with trivialities like spell check.

Probably the latter. I really don’t expect much competency from an organization whose sole purpose seems to be nipping at the heels of the NRA. Frankly, Dudley Brown has his hands full making a fool of himself in Colorado. I’d appreciate him not splashing around in our pool.

That said, the primary race to replace Senator Chambliss is already as wretched as can be. While Gingrey has been an unwavering friend to the 2nd Amendment, I’m not fond of his support for CISPA or for FISA expansions. As far as I’m concerned, those are both huge fails on the civil liberties front.

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Civil Rights

Heller v. DC

Following the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in DC v. Heller, the District of Columbia was forced to allow handgun ownership. They quickly cobbled together the Firearms Control Emergency Amendment Act of 2008, into which they put as many obstacles as they could. They retained a very intrusive and burdensome registration system that wouldn’t pass constitutional muster in most other places.

Dick Heller and the 2nd Amendment Foundation brought another suit challenging several of the District’s regulations, and thus far, the courts have been uncooperative. Today’s decision in the US District Court [pdf] doesn’t leave us with much hope.

Judge Boasberg approached the proceedings with a hostile and dismissive mind. The Supreme Court found that rational basis was off the table when considering laws abridging the right to keep and bear arms, so he simply calls it intermediate scrutiny.

Given that the Supreme Court urges judicial deference to legislative predictions as well as to legislative judgments regarding conflicting evidence,it is plain that Plaintiffs are mistaken about the burden of proof in this case.

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E-cigarettes

Senate Hearings on E-cigarettes

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will be meeting Thursday to discuss potential regulations on e-cigarettes. The bad news is that they’ve already been subjected to a great deal of misinformation. The good news is that Senator Isakson is on the committee.

He can be reached via email here. Please keep things positive and polite. More to the point, keep them short and succinct. These communications are read by busy and underpaid staffers, and yours needs to stand out if they’re to bring it to his attention.

Focus on the positive aspects. If you’ve quit smoking tobacco, mention how effective these are. Tell him you aren’t inhaling 4,000 toxic chemicals and that you aren’t exposing those around you to secondhand smoke. Point out that you will not be a burden on the already-strained health-care system.

Reasonable regulations that reduce access to minors are good law, but overbearing restrictions and taxes on adults will interfere with what may be the greatest public-health invention in decades.

Civil Rights

Good Thing I Skipped Indianapolis

4 comments

Does the NRA know there are gun owners who aren’t chest-beating hard-right conservatives? Seemingly not, because they’ve done a good job of scaring those people away.

Case in point: Sarah Palin’s keynote address at this year’s annual meeting.

Her speech was a collection of cliched slogans delivered in a way to best work the crowd, but little of it had anything to do with the 2nd Amendment. Instead, she used the podium as an opportunity to bash various White House policies, bemoan the lack of prayer in schools, and demean “clownish little ‘Kumbaya’-humming fairy-tale-inhaling liberals.”

Just when the crowd was fawning over her, she delivered the coup de grace, saying “if I was in charge, they would know waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists. [07:15]”

What the ☠☠☠☠? No, really, what the ☠☠☠☠? Who cleared this? I’m sure it sounded witty when she rehearsed it for the Local Tea Party 118 in the dressing room, but it just gives our opponents ammunition to mock us.

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Civil Rights

Cert Denied for Drake

The Supreme Court has refused to hear arguments in Drake v. Jerejian. For the third term in a row, they’ve dodged the issue of bearing arms outside the home while the lower courts continue to defy and eviscerate the Heller and McDonald decisions. Furthermore, we have a fairly clear split since the 9th Circuit’s ruling in Peruta.

As it stands, the right to self-defense is unique among civil rights. In many locations, one must demonstrate “good cause” or “justifiable need” to exercise it. Apply that logic to freedom of the press or peaceable assembly, and we would have universal outrage. The right to keep and bear arms should be no different.

The Court has been given motivation and reason to address the issue. The only reason I can imagine for blatantly avoiding resolution is fear of controversy. If that’s the case, anyone concerned with civil rights, regardless of their feelings on guns, should be very concerned.

Civil Rights

Backlash

Everytown for Gun Safety is less than two weeks old, and it’s already falling apart. Tom Ridge has announced his resignation, and he was supposed to be their star recruit.

I looked forward to a thoughtful and provocative discussion about the toll gun violence takes on Americans. After consultation with Everytown, I have decided that I am uncomfortable with their expected electoral work.

That’s nothing new. He’s not the first politician to be misled by Michael Bloomberg’s recruitment speeches, nor the first to walk away in disgust.

Meanwhile, Everytown associate Shannon Watts has nothing better to do than harass the Lamar billboard company because Todd Kauranen of Slide Fire staged a silly picture with her. Since Slide Fire doesn’t show remorse, she’s going after a company that rented them billboard space in the past.

Also, since the picture didn’t portray her in a positive light, it constitutes violence towards women.

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