Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

So says Professor David Gushee of Mercer University.  He says, “That’s not Biblical reasoning; that’s cultural reasoning.”

To which I responded this way directly to Professor Gushee.

Would you care to respond this my article on this subject (it’s one of many)?  Stay orthodox, please.  No deconstruction or other oddball views.

I haven’t heard back from the professor.  I don’t expect to.

DelmarvaNow:

Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis’ views about how to enforce the stringent gun laws Maryland passed last year have gone viral.

In a video and print interview with a student journalist, published to YouTube on Aug. 21, Lewis says he’s no fan of government intervention in limiting the constitutionally-protected right to possess firearms.

“As long as I’m the sheriff in this county,” he says in the video, “I will not allow the federal government to come in here and strip my citizens of their right to bear arms. I can tell you this, if they attempt to do that, it would be an all-out civil war, no question about it.”

In another video on YouTube, from Delaware television station WRDE, Lewis offered a clearer critique of Maryland’s latest gun control law, the Firearms Safety Act of 2013, which was passed in the wake of the December 2012 massacre of elementary school students in Newtown, Conn.

“Who am I to tell them what they should or should not protect their families with?” Lewis asked on WRDE. “Who am I to tell them they shouldn’t have a magazine with 30 rounds behind the door when some thug is trying to break into their home? … If you start coming into people’s homes to disarm them solely because you believe they don’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, you better stand by. It will be, without a doubt, a civil war.”

The number of Sheriff’s deputies any county has cannot possibly wage civil war on anybody else.  As for everyone else (i.e., gun owners), that’s a different story.  And yes, gun confiscations will cause civil war.

I think the Sheriff gets it.  All county Sheriffs are advised to take a lesson from Sheriff Lewis.  It may save you and your deputies from heartache in the future.

 ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

David Codrea:

I’m not going to sit here and try to patch up differences people have with Gottlieb. I’ve had them myself in the past, and I’ll be surprised if I don’t have them again. I have good friends who can’t stand him, and think I’m being duped by not joining them in that assessment, and for giving him credit when I think it’s due him.

Here’s the thing: I’ve talked to the guy many times, face-to-face, on the phone, and via email conversations, and it’s easy for those who have not to draw a portrait based on the impressions of others who may not have.

I had a good relationship with Aaron Zelman, too. Guess what: I didn’t agree with him on everything, either.

And I’m not going to condemn Claire Wolfe for taking an action I know to be principle-based and required no small amount of courage, even if I’m not embracing her conclusions. She would not take a paycheck for her final article. That tells you something.

I don’t presume to be smart enough or influential enough to play peacemaker in this. What I’m interested in doing is helping, and seeing that positive efforts toward liberty are promoted and supported. So all I can do is that which I’ve said from the start, from before the JPFO news became public knowledge: I will continue my efforts for the organization until such time as someone tells me they don’t want me to, or until I come to see that my faith has been misplaced.

If I feel further association is untenable due to changes in organizational principles, interference, censorship, control issues, you name it, I’ll bail too.

Please go read David’s entire assessment.  He ends with this: “And yeah, I get that all I may have done here is get supporters of both sides mad at me.”

It’s a hazard of the job.  I’m convinced that half of my readers (or more) stay pissed off at me most of the time.  I’ve got readers who regularly read my prose for the purpose of increasing their hatred of me.  David has run with the big dogs for a while now.  I’m doubt that he will be persuaded by reaction from the readers.

Here is my take – for whatever it’s worth.  I’ve gotten extremely mad at the NRA for endorsing Harry Reid before (or did they simply say nice things about him?).  It makes no difference to me.  Yet I’m still a member – begrudgingly.

One has to consider the limits of his patronage of a given organization very carefully.  Alan Gottlieb has a fundamental problem of perspective, and a fundamental divide with me given his (past) support of universal background checks.  Alan forgets why the progressives want it.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

And yet Alan was prepared to give on this non-negotiable point.  That tells me everything I need to know about Alan.

But I don’t have relationships with corporations or organizations.  If I did, I would have already divorced the NRA.  I have relationships with people, and two people I consider friends write for JPFO: David Codrea and Kurt Hofmann.

As long as David and Kurt are writing for them, I’ll continue to link there.  I know in my heart of hearts that both would rather starve than sell out gun owners, even though I know no such thing about Alan Gottlieb.  When the time comes that I see articles at JPFO advocating universal background checks, regulation of semi-automatic firearms, magazine capacity limits and the like, I’ll separate myself from them and link no more.

Like David, I believe that He and Kurt have a right to eat too.  I’ll help as much as I can, even thought it may not be much.  In the mean time, I feel no compunction whatsoever to support organizations or corporations with my money.  If you think differently, don’t waste your time trying to convince me that you’re right.

Listen, I’m doing as much as I can do sending the NRA my small amout just to see the progressives have a nervous breakdown thinking that the evil gun group is telling its members what to do and what to think.  That’s about as far as I can bring myself to go.  Any other help will be to an individual, not a corporation.

So there you have it.  On the one hand, I won’t send the JPFO my money.  On the other hand, I won’t seek a separation either.  I’ll take a wait and see attitude, expecting David and Kurt to lead the way telling us what they’re experiencing at that organization so that I can make a more educated assessment.

Mike Vanderboegh: Police shoot and kill an Ohio dad, 22, holding a BB gun in Walmart.  I say prosecute them for murder.  If I did that I would be in the state penitentiary.  They should be too.  One long term solution is to legalize open carry everywhere, at all times.

Matt Bracken has an outstanding piece up at WRSA on The Islamic Jihad Conquest Formula.  Matt hits the nail on the head.

David Codrea:

“A citizen will lose his appeal if the Attorney General can prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, not that the individual poses a risk, or that the person is a terrorist, or even that the person is under investigation; rather, the Attorney General must only demonstrate that the person has been placed on a terror watch list,” Titus continued.

“Once that has been proven, a process which affords the citizen no due process, no right to appeal, nor guarantees any reasonable notice or information to the actual fact that the citizen is on a terror watch list, the appeal is over and the citizen loses his Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms,” Titus elaborated. “The individual will not have a chance to introduce evidence of mistaken identity, abuse of Executive discretion or mount any other meaningful defense.”

Oh my.  This seems like more inside-the-beltway rulemaking gone awry.  Perhaps they put this in the federal register, perhaps not.  Perhaps they kept it out with approval of the rubber-stamp FISA courts.  Either way, you can bet that this is more infringement.

And speaking of David, he says he doesn’t like to go around link-whoring his articles.  He isn’t posting to Facebook anymore, but that’s fine with me because I make WoG a stop several times a day to see what David is saying.  David is a nice guy so he doesn’t like to link-whore.  I’m not, and I don’t mind it at all.  Traffic means that even if it is a poor article, my Google page rank increases, sending more traffic and increasing my voice of advocacy.  I do this for advocacy, not for ego (or at least, so I say).  I don’t really care what you think about me, but I want you to listen to my views because I want to change your mind.  But for David, he deserves to make a living at this, and I ask that you stop by every day to see what you can do to send him traffic.

Kurt Hofmann:

Frum notes that about 42 percent of police deaths this year were by gunfire. Whether that statistic is intended to justify the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown, or the outrageously heavy-handed efforts to quell the unrest (a task now being handed off by the heavily militarized police to the actual military, as the National Guard is brought in), we can only guess.

Frum also asks if anyone thinks that “things [would] be better in Ferguson if the demonstrators were armed.” Well, some of the brutalized demonstrators might.

Perhaps the most chilling of this series of tweets was his observation about the supposed law enforcement need for heavy body armor:

Fewer guns in hands of the policed ==> less need for body armor on those who do the policing …

Oh good grief.  We just can’t get away from Frum can we?  Visit Kurt’s piece to see his full analysis.  As for my comments, I think that David Frum is an idiot.  And I think he’s chicken little.  And I think he should feel bad about himself.

Even the NYT is asking Who Will Stand Up For Christians?  Well, not the Christian church.  As I have pointed out, they don’t give a damn.

David Codrea:

“Suppose, for example, that a new, unregulated and highly lethal weapon were developed before a statute was enacted,” the Center speculated, arguing “the weapon would not be protected because it would not be in common use.”

In other words, every new development in personal weapons technology will, by default, be denied to We the People by the very body charged with facilitating a citizen militia and expressly forbidden from infringing with the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That the authorities have it in common use won’t matter. So much for Founding intent. So much for freedom.

So no new weapons developments are included under the rubric of the second amendment?  Do these judges give their decisions even the slightest review for logic, constitutionality and feasibility (new weapons developments are often vetted and proven in the civilian market, or in other words, where the money is, before it ever gets to the standing army (which the constitution said nothing about).

Kurt Hofmann:

Surprisingly, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) counts itself among those who believe the brutal suppression of Ferguson is grossly excessive, according to their press release:

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) is closely watching the situation in Ferguson, Missouri and we are deeply disturbed by what we see unfolding there. Our hearts go out to the family of Michael Brown, Jr. as they deal with an unimaginable loss.

What makes this surprising is that CSGV has long defended virtually unlimited power of government, to the point of denying the legitimacy of armed resistance against a government rounding up citizens for the concentration camps.

Don’t bother them with issues of logic.  To them, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, whereas for most normal people, it’s the way life must be lived.

Mike Vanderboegh:

A leaked document from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis predicts increased “anti-government violence over the next year.” The document says the inspiration for violence is Cliven Bundy’s Bunkerville standoff with the Bureau of Land Management from earlier in the year.

I would have rather thought that the standoff at Bundy’s ranch was a symptom rather than the inspiration or catalyst?  I guess it goes to show how detached the elites are.

David Codrea:

Can you imagine how Rolling Stone would howl if someone from the “right” were to call for “Second Amendment remedies” against, say SEIU, or the Southern Poverty Law Center or Everytown? Or Organizing for Action? How does Yawn feel about his guy singling out “the corporatized wing of the Democratic Party” — the folks like Wenner, who put Obama, Pelosi and the entire leadership in office — for the same treatment?

They would howl and wouldn’t think a thing about the hobgoblins of inconsistency.  After all, progressives only think something is terrorism when they disagree with it.

In a 2013 e-mail, physics professor Bob Lange wrote that the Benghazi attacks were “not terrorism.” He explained, “It is not terrorism to kill representatives of a government that you are opposed to.” Bringing the conversation back to Israel, he noted, “If an Israeli soldier protecting a settlement is killed by Palestinian militants, it is not terrorism.”

Kurt Hofmann:

If, after all, government officials do not fear the wrath of an armed citizenry, the deterrent effect provided by the Constitutional guarantee of the people’s ability to deny a “government monopoly on force” has failed. If the government insists on ignoring both the Constitutionally imposed limits on its power, and disregarding armed citizens’ ability to enforce those limits, the only option remaining is for we the people to actively refresh the tree of liberty.

Sounds exactly right to me, and I agree with every bit of the sentiment expressed by Larry Pratt, including the unction (and good judgment) with which he communicated it.

I previously argued against John Lott’s procedure (especially when it is employed as an exclusive-use procedure) to demonstrate that gun ownership and crime are inversely proportional.  Go back and read this article again if you need.

Kurt Hofmann sent me this wonderful note in response to the article.  I have always claimed that my readers are better writers and I am (and especially so with Kurt), and so it behooves me to paste in his entire letter without further commentary from me.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that keeping and bearing arms suitable for self-defense is a bona fide individual right. If so, the fact that 100,000 people a year murder others with firearms, while one man alone uses a firearm to save a life, provides no basis for curbing the individual liberty to own and bear arms. Each individual must, because of his inherent, autonomous ethical freedom, be respected as an end in himself; no prior restraint may be imposed upon his right to own and bear firearms.

 

Actually we can go further. Under an individual right view, the fact that 100,000 people a year murder innocents with firearms, and no one uses a firearm to protect himself or others provides no basis for a prior restraint. Individuals must still be possessed of a right to own firearms because their ethical freedom contains the potentiality of using firearms for good. That is, people can use this tool for good, if they turn to it with a good will. 

NY Daily News:

In my “Albany Insider” column today, I wrote how Tom King, the head of the state Rifle & Pistol Association, was critical of the increasingly angry and inflammatory rhetoric at pro-gun rallies. King said he fears that the ugliness that has popped up at the rallies is actually hurting the pro-gun cause. He also said it’s time to stop the rallies, arguing that they won’t result in a repeal of the SAFE Act. He wants to instead focus on trying to get the law struck down in the court …

I won’t post his silly letter, but I thought it would be appropriate to highlight this paragraph.

Fellow gun owners I submit this to you for your consideration. We will never convert the 22% rabid anti-gunners, we don’t have to convert the 32% avid pro gunners but we must convert a sizable portion of the 46% of those somewhere in between if we want to retain our 2nd Amendment Rights long term. These are the soccer moms, the guys who say I’ve never shot a gun but would like to try it and the people worried about their safety. How do we do that? Not by standing on stage screaming obscenities at Cuomo and certainly at large rallies where people stand on stage, pound their chest and tell the attendees to prepare for war. That frightens the very people we want to attract to our side, the people who will insure (sic) 2nd Amendment Rights for our grandchildren.

As a sidebar comment, the people he wants to attract will not insure (sic) 2nd amendment rights for our grandchildren.  But second, this letter is as  emblematic of everything that’s wrong with the NRA as I’ve ever seen.  It’s the perfect example of how not to think about our rights.

The strategy he advocates is why we’re where we are, among other reasons like loss of our national moral conscience.  He wants first to turn to the black robes, and failing that (as it certainly will fail and has already failed), he wants to turn to popular opinion.

Like so many other NRA board members, he wants to be oh-so-respectable and loved by the people.  Don’t appear extreme and scary, says he.  Never mind the warnings that should be issued to the collectivists should they continue with their pursuit of confiscation and onerous laws and harassment.  Never mind that they could be declaring war as an unintended consequence of their lust for power.  Don’t be scary to the people we want to persuade.

I rarely cite polls or popular opinion because while they may matter to the exigencies of my life, they don’t matter to my rights.  I have weapons because God gives me the right to own weapons, not the second amendment.  The opinions of the people are as subject to the vicissitudes of ideology as the times in which they live, and the mind of man cannot be entrusted with the rights of mankind.  If Mr. King is placing his trust in the people, he is building his house on sand.

My rights are what they are by divine pronouncement.  It is righteous to own guns because it reflects the character of the Almighty.  Without this I’m no different than the statist thugs and collectivists who want to disarm me, except we happen to be on different sides of an issue.  It means everything … everything … to be right and righteous.

Until the NRA board of directors is as convinced of the foundations of their rights as I am, they will be a weak and neutered organization, fit for nothing much except a good magazine once a month.

UPDATE. David Codrea links some history on this.  Jacob is a real piece of work.  Come on into my house, Jacob, and let’s throw down.  I’ll call you out for being the sorry, pathetic, collectivist piss ant you are.  Or did I already just do that?

SFGate:

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Wednesday to halt Sunnyvale’s enforcement of a voter-approved ban on high-capacity gun magazines. The order signaled that San Francisco will also be allowed to enforce a virtually identical ordinance during court challenges.

Sunnyvale’s measure, approved by 66 percent of its voters in November, prohibits possession of magazines carrying more than 10 cartridges.

A group of gun owners sued to overturn the Sunnyvale ordinance and asked a federal judge to block its enforcement, arguing that tens of millions of Americans legally own guns with high-capacity magazines and may sometimes need them to repel criminal attacks.

But U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose rejected the request March 5, the day before the ordinance took effect, saying the ban would have little impact on the constitutional right to bear arms in self-defense.

A federal appeals court refused to intervene, and on Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who handles emergency appeals from California and eight other Western states, denied a stay without comment.

More often than not, when the SCOTUS refuses to hear a case, they know full well how it will turn out and conclude that the outcome wouldn’t be any different than the way it is before review.

Occasionally I like the decisions made at the appeals court level.  But more often than not I don’t.  But one thing I do not do is rely on the federal court system to protect my rights.

I am a second amendment and gun rights writer, but I only loosely call myself that.  Readers know that I don’t believe that I have a right to own firearms because the constitution says so.  I also don’t believe in so-called “natural law” or “natural rights.”

Ever since my seminary training in apologetics and philosophy, having seen John Locke thoroughly dissembled with logic, I don’t reference his views for anything.  No respectable philosopher today does.  Even among the legal community, John Whitehead is an exception.  In order for something to be “natural,” it has to be binding upon all men and capable of epistemic certainty.  To me, the concept of a natural right to own guns is no better than the notion of the new head of a pride killing the young lions so that the lionesses will come into estrus again – or the lioness trying to defend her young one.  What’s natural to one won’t be natural to another.

So why do I have a right to own guns, or high capacity magazines?  Because God says so.  That settles it for me, whether the constitution recognizes it or not, whether a judge certifies it or not.  You may not have my world view, and I’m okay with that.  But every man must come to his own conclusions and ascertain the ultimate foundation for what he does and what he believes.

You live on the Serengeti desert in a Machiavellian world of eat or be eaten, with no concept of right and wrong, or you know whereof you act, and you know why what you do and what you believe is morally righteous.  And If you were relying on a federal judge to warranty your rights, you’ve been disavowed of that mistaken belief as we speak.  Is that clear enough?

Eugene Volokh is discussing the very recent Ninth Circuit decision on the right to bear arms outside the home.  See also here and here.  Eugene’s comments are well worth reading.  Here is one interesting excerpt from the decision.

… with Heller on the books, the Second Amendment’s original meaning is now settled in at least two relevant respects.  First, Heller clarifies that the keeping and bearing of arms is, and has always been, an individual right.  See, e.g., 554 U.S. at 616. Second, the right is, and has always been, oriented to the end of self-defense.

See, e.g., id. Any contrary interpretation of the right, whether propounded in 1791 or just last week, is error. What that means for our review is that historical interpretations of the right’s scope are of varying probative worth, falling generally into one of three categories ranked here in descending order: (1) authorities that understand bearing arm s for self-defense to be an individual right, (2) authorities that understand bearing arms for a purpose other than self-defense to be an individual right, and (3) authorities that understand bearing arms not to be an individual right at all.

To illustrate, a precedent in the first category that declared a general right to carry guns in public would be a great case for Peruta, while a decision in the same group that confined exercise of the right to the home would do his position much damage.  By contrast, those cases in the third category — which, like the dissenting opinions in Heller, espouse the view that one has a right to bear arms only collectively in connection with militia service and not for self-defense within or outside the home — are of no help.

It’s very important to understand what they’re arguing and what they’re not.  But first, let me rehearse my view of the Second Amendment.

Recall that I view the Second Amendment as primarily and first of all a restriction on the power of the federal government.  It was meant to frame in, or circumscribe the centralized powers.  Therefore, it needed only one reason to restrict that power, that reason being stated as concerning the militia.  The Second Amendment is not restrictive, it is inclusive.  I’ll return to that in a moment.

Later, the Second Amendment was applied to the States through incorporation, and thus it applies to all U.S. citizens regardless of State.  However, this should have been superfluous at the time, since most States (Illinois being one exception, having been corrected only recently) recognized the right to bear arms in State Constitutions.  It should have been … but it wasn’t because of collectivist designs on control.

God gives me my right to bear arms.  Man can and should only recognize and respect that right.  I do not have to be a member of the militia to justify my right to own weapons (the Second Amendment gives only one reason that the centralized powers cannot infringe on my rights to bear arms – there are many others).  Again I say – and always remember this – God gives me the right to weapons and to use them for self defense.

Such notables as my friend Bob Owens have asked the question, loosely paraphrased, if militia membership is required, then what kind of training should we be engaged in?

No, and a thousand times no.  Paraplegics, the elderly, shut-ins, and all manner of people who cannot be a member of the militia have just as much of a God-given right to weapons as does a healthy, 19-year old strapping young man ready for service.  It does no good to say that we’re all member of the unorganized militia, because my 90 year old grandmother in-law cannot get herself out of bed.  It’s a lie and a subterfuge to say otherwise, and it avoids the hard question about the ultimate root of my rights.

Now back to what the Ninth Circuit said.  While I am in both categories (i.e., right to bear arms for self defense and also for resistance to tyranny), again, it’s important not to misconstrue their words.

The case before them had nothing to do with the militia or resistance to tyranny.  It had to do with the right to bear arms at all times for personal self defense.  Thus, decisions, case law, and legal texts that have to do with anything but this are irrelevant to their decision.  They lack probative worth in this context.

I think that this is right, and I think that this is generally a good decision.  Let me make a careful note that I am not finished reading the decision, and I may stumble upon something outlandish.  I’ll point it out if I do.

David Codrea says that he doesn’t cede the decision whether we have a right to bear arms to the Ninth Circuit.  Properly so.  God gives it to me, and what God gives me, no court can take away.  But for the trashy decisions handed down by the Ninth Circuit, this one is surprising and delightful to read (so far).  And I do like their focus on the historical context of the constitution rather than on what judges have to say about it from their ivory tower perches today.

For more reading on this subject, see my Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense.