Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

We’ve landed on a revelation concerning Chris Christie.

“What role does the media play in terms of the violence we see on television and the movies? And the violent video games that I think desensitize our children to the real effects of violence. So I think we have to have a national discussion,” said Christie on New Jersey 101.5fm’s “Ask the Governor,” a monthly call in show.

When asked if gun control was an issue as well, Christie said “gun control absolutely has to be part of that discussion too.”

Christie said New Jersey has the second toughest gun laws in the nation, behind New York. “I’ve been a supporter of that as governor and will continue to be,” he said.

Jumping on the bandwagon, is he?  Or not.

In his first campaign for elective office in 1995, Christie based his bid for the state Assembly on supporting New Jersey’s assault-weapons ban.

Christie is a gun-grabber from way back.  He has Presidential aspirations.  But he will never be President because he doesn’t believe in the second amendment.  Well, in addition to the fact that he is a loud mouth blowhard.

We’ve discussed the notion that guns are evil.  Silly idea, that is.  Larry Pratt goes on the record on this very idea with Piers Morgan.

On the heels of the tragic Newtown, Conn. school shooting which left 26 people dead, this evening “Piers Morgan Tonight” invited Larry Pratt to the program to share his strong perspective on the firearm debate.

“Since we have concealed carry laws in all of our country now, people can get a concealed firearm. And yet, we have laws that say not in schools,” the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America said. “And so in the very places that have been sought out by monsters such as the murderer of these adults and children, we’re saying, ‘no, we don’t want you to be able to defend yourself. It’s better that you just sit there and wait to be killed.’ And we find that morally incomprehensible.”

Pratt says he’s deeply disturbed by the anti-gun supporters. It’s “deeply disturbing, that the desire to defend life has been so cast aside. And to whatever political correctness views guns as the ultimate evil. Evil’s in our hearts. Not in the guns.”

The staunch defendant of the Second Amendment tried to explain that the gun problems in America occur solely where guns aren’t allowed. “The problem occurs, sir, in those areas precisely where we have said no guns. The problem doesn’t occur where the guns are allowed freely to be carried to be used by people. There we have very low murder rates.”

Well, of course.  Gun free zones are anything but that to the criminals.  Pratt is to be commended for going on the record with an ignorant, preening, self-righteous douchebag like Morgan.  And as if directly on cue, we learn today that the shooter in Connecticut was a devil-worshipper (from a British newspaper, no less, because American newspapers don’t report the news any more).

The NRA wants to contribute and be helpful in the national conversation, apparently.  Listen carefully.  Negotiation and vacillation have never brought law-abiding believers in the second amendment any good whatsoever.  Like it or not, Pratt is telling the truth.

There is a crescendo in incivility, with gun owners being called everything from stone age vigilantes to tinfoil hat Bircher NRA peckerwood with a long gun.  This is the social media equivalent of the posturing over guns that is occurring on the political scene, but it matters because it emboldens the politicians.

Democratic Senators are threatening a new “assault weapons” ban, something openly pursued by Senator Feinstein immediately after the election.  But in addition to the known anti-firearms politicians, the movement has gained supporters from the ranks of those whom we all knew were anti-firearm, but who persuaded the electorate otherwise.

A growing number of lawmakers – including a leading pro-gun senator – called on Monday for a look at curbing assault weapons like the one used in a massacre at a Connecticut grade school, a sign that attitudes toward gun control could be shifting.

Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative West Virginia Democrat who has earned top marks from the gun industry, said Congress and weapons makers should come together on a “sensible, reasonable approach” to curbing rifles like the one used in the killings Friday of 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

A hunter and member of the National Rifle Association, Manchin said the availability of such high-powered weapons does not make sense and called on the gun lobby group to cooperate with a reform of the nation’s gun laws.

A 10-year U.S. ban on assault weapons expired in 2004.

“We’ve got to sit down. I ask all my friends at NRA – and I’m a proud NRA member and always have been – we need to sit down and move this dialogue to a sensible, reasonable approach to fixing it,” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

“Never before have we seen our babies slaughtered. This never happened in America, that I can recall, ever seeing this kind of carnage,” said Manchin, an avid hunter who once ran a campaign ad showing him firing a rifle at an environmental bill. “This has changed where we go from here.”

Historical scholarship may not be his strong suit.  In 1927, Andrew Kehoe used explosives to attack a local school in Bath, Michigan, apparently being disgruntled over paying higher taxes to fund that school.  Thirty eight children were killed, with one family losing three.  Nearly every family in the town of 300 lost a child.

The only gun Kehoe carried was used to light one of the explosive charges.  The only weapon used by Timothy McVeigh was explosives.  But the point is not to show that it can be worse.  Those poor souls who search for answers in guns, mental illness, and societal problems will search in vain.  The problem is evil, and it is one of the oldest philosophical issues known to man.

The proximate answer for those who would perpetrate violence on you or your loved ones is to respond by stopping them.  Shopping malls, schools, public buildings, parades and other activities and places are often “gun free zones.”  This means that only the criminals have guns, and thus they are unimpeded in their nefarious aims.

The Connecticut shooter, as I pointed out, could have perpetrated his evil acts with single action revolvers and bolt action rifles if he had desired.  No one could stop him, and that’s the problem.  No one could have stopped the criminals who attacked Mr. Bayezes and his wife without the use of a rifle that will be illegal under the Ms. Feinstein’s proposed ban, along with a 30-round magazine.  He emptied one magazine and retreated to find another.

Mr. Bayezes did what what we all should have done, for we all have a moral duty to defend self and family.  Sacrificing the best home defense weapon because someone may use it to perpetrate acts of evil is like being forced to return to horse and buggies because there are 40,000 vehicle accidents every year.

But along with the factual silliness of being worked up over fully automatic weapons (which were not used) and other misdirects, there are nonetheless very clear plans being deployed for sweeping bans.  The Democratic Senators want it, Obama has said that he wants it, and communist China agrees.  The voters in West Virginia who thought they were voting for a conservative or defender of the second amendment got hoodwinked.  Manchin has declared that he is no defender of the second amendment, and the Democrats are getting their support lined up.

The proposed ban may not end with guns.  Token conservative David Brooks has floated the idea of an ammunition ban.  No doubt the Democrats have included this in their plans, but it must make them feel confident to see a “conservative” agree with them.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that you can buy them now while they’re legal and keep them.  Feinstein has made it clear there will be no grandfather clause in her version of gun control.  Besides, grandfather clauses are problematic anyway.  The federal government may not need to enact confiscatory policies immediately.

For example, they may make all or some of our weapons illegal, along with their high capacity magazines, and then empower gun ranges, local law enforcement officers, and gunsmiths to confiscate any illegal component they find, while they also call the ATF.  You may end up in a federal penitentiary if you take your firearms to the range or use them in self defense.

Make no mistake about it.  There is a war on guns and ammunition.  It wasn’t stated by advocates of the second amendment, but it has landed squarely in our laps.  Obama will never have more power than he does now, right after the election, still controlling the Senate, and right after a horrible event such as in Connecticut.

Gird your loins and prepare for the battle if you care about the second amendment and your rights under the constitution and God.  Now is not the time to be weak, weary or squeamish.  In many ways the progressives and statists have been waging this war for years, while many second amendment advocates have sat on the sideline.  It’s time for everyone to play in the game.

UPDATE: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention.

Prior:

The Wrong Way To Argue About Assault Weapons

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

No One Needs ARs For Self Defense Or Hunting?

Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?

Dreams Of International Gun Control

In Come And Get My Assault Weapons, we talked about threats to “come after” the assault weapons owned by “Stone Age Vigilantes” such as me.  The bigotry and incivility only continues to escalate.  On Friday, Mother Jones’s Adam Weinstein said the following:

As a 3rd-gen. gun collector, I say you can have ’em. Now. And go after every tinfoil hat Bircher NRA peckerwood w/a long-gun, too. Now.

As I said before, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

As seen on Facebook.

But see Jeff, I think you’ve overlooked one problem.  If you don’t believe in “assault weapons,” then you don’t have any.  I have them, and you don’t.  How are you going to get them from me?

As Glenn Reynolds replied to similar threats, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

That’s the plea, of course, when gun control advocates wax on concerning their views about how to save the world, one gun at a time.  The articles written with this meme are too numerous to cite, but one recent commentary stands out as particularly bad.  The author inveighs at the end:

Perhaps now is a good time for a reminder that the flood of guns onto our streets and in our homes is a hazard to all of us. Our cultural tolerance of ubiquitous guns is killing us. If nothing else, perhaps one memorial we might offer for the memory of Kassandra Perkins is to begin to talk about guns in our culture, and what we can do to change things.

Exactly how there is a “flood” of guns on the street we don’t learn, and why it’s a hazard to us all isn’t explained.  I handle my firearms in a safe manner, as do most of the owners I know.  Furthermore, in spite of the sweeping net they wish to cast for all gun owners, I have never even once felt the urge to shoot any loved ones.  If the author or her commenters have felt this urge, they shouldn’t purchase a gun, and I support their right not to purchase a gun.  As I’ve said before, “Crime is a moral decision, value judgment and social and cultural phenomenon.  It isn’t related to the existence of guns, and if guns weren’t available, they will use hammers.  Gun control laws cannot raise children to believe in values.”

But while there isn’t time to address all of the awful arguments in this commentary, the comments are most interesting, and a few different types seem to appear.  First, there is the argument from ignorance.  Ann Olivier says “nobody needs an AK 4(7) for self defense. They should be outlawed.”  Of course, Ann knows no such thing.  She doesn’t know anything about what response to a home invasion is required of the homeowner in order to stay alive.

Don’t forget that I have documented 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man home invasions all over the country that could have been stopped with weapons and high capacity magazines.  Perhaps the most remarkable case came with Mr. Stephen Bayezes.  In order to survive the attack by three home invaders, he emptied a 30-round magazine and then had to retreat to his bedroom and grab another.  Mr. Bayezes needed a rifle and high capacity magazine, and it’s likely that in order to survive, Ann would too.

Analogous to the argument from ignorance is the argument from fantasy.  Tom Blackburn has this silly daydream.

He is sitting at a table in the bar when a gunman, armed to the teeth, starts shooting up the place. Our hero turns over his table and reaches for his own gun. Unfortunately, the table leg catches in the hem on his pants, and he can’t get his weapon out of his pocket. The gunman sprays his part of the room and our hero notices the table is not stopping the bullets. He rolls to his right, freeing up his pistol, which goes off, shooting a hole in his pants. Suddenly he is deafened by a fusillade fired by another armed self-defender, which attracts the gunman’s attention to his side of the room. He rolls further to his right to a spot behind the end of the bar, pulls himself up on one knee and draws a bead on the gunman. He fires just as a police officer, responding to the shots, steps in the way and wounds the officer. His fellow cops put down heavy fire on our self-defending citizen, hitting him in several places, while the gunman makes his escape.

Tom ends his fantasy with the notion that this gun owner “saw the light” and advocated “sensible” gun control policies, but the general thrust of the story has already been set.

While we don’t know the color of the sky in Tom’s world, we do know that it isn’t the same as the real one.  In Tom’s world, the police aren’t really ten to fifteen minutes away, there are right around the corner ready to respond to his every whim.  They are concerned most about his safety rather than their own, and thus they won’t wait on the SWAT team to arrive.  They will charge ahead into gun fire to save Tom.

And in Tom’s world, the NYC police department doesn’t discharge 84 rounds at a single shooter, missing with 70 of them.  The police are perfect shots, and they perfectly respond to all situations regardless of the level of stress.

In Tom’s world, those who carry firearms are just goobers who cannot tie their shoes correctly, much less be trusted to defend their own lives with a firearm.  In Tom’s world, they would much rather leave the shooter alone, duck behind chairs and pray that the shooter doesn’t aim for them than have some law abiding citizen respond to stop the carnage.  Tom would rather risk your life and the lives of your loved ones than allow you to carry a weapon to stop the death.  Tom doesn’t care about you.

It’s difficult to respond to this sort of pathology because it is based on irrational fear, bigotry and fantasy.  But rest assured, it is indeed based on fantasy.  The facts show that shootings are best stopped by individuals carrying weapons than by the police.  Tom is unaware that the Supreme Court has decidedly ruled that police are under no obligation to assist you or even to stop crimes during their commission.  They are obligated to respond once the crimes have been committed (past tense).

Another observation is that while this publication is ostensibly a Christian publication, it’s remarkable how few Christians have developed a consistently and holistically Christian world and life view.  The gospel becomes social work, soteriology becomes bettering mankind by laws and regulations (ironically, a distinctly Islamic view), and Christ was a passive doormat upon whom people could walk.  These things aren’t true, and a good starting point for understanding what the second amendment is about can be found in my own Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense.

Finally, back to the meme of the article, I’ve seen this same appeal almost every day for the last year.  And I’ve written on guns for just as long, as have most of the gun bloggers in my own blogging community.  Lisa Fullam, the author, wants to have “the conversation about guns.”  Lisa has apparently been absent for the last year.  We’ve been having this conversation, again, and again, and again, and again.  It isn’t that we’re not having it.  We disagree, and what Lisa and her ilk want is for us to agree with them.  And their real complaint isn’t that we’re not having the conversation, but that second amendment advocates are winning it.

From the Union Leader, Manchester, New Hampshire.

At a community meeting in Bedford Thursday, a resident asked the police chief under what circumstances a resident could use lethal force against a burglar.

“Say you’re asleep, you hear a noise, glass breaks, you hear somebody in there, you know they don’t belong,” said the resident, who didn’t provide his name. “Are you expected to ascertain whether they’re armed if you have the ability to take them out legally?”

Joking that he’s not a lawyer but has been accused of being one, Chief John Bryfonski sidestepped the question, saying it’s inappropriate for him to provide a legal opinion.

“The RSA is there,” Bryfonski said. “I think that folks should read it. Understand it. If they don’t fully understand the aspects of the use of force or deadly physical force by a civilian . . . then you should seek your own legal guidance.”

The meeting was called a week and a half after an assault at an upscale Bedford home. Dr. Eduardo Quesada and his wife, Sonia, were both hurt in the attack, which occurred after they entered their home. Quesada, an anesthesiologist at Elliot Hospital in Manchester, was in critical condition and remains hospitalized. His wife was released last week.

I’ll tell you what.  I wouldn’t live in a place where one has to wonder if a home invader is armed or attempt to ascertain his purpose before acting in self defense.  The Castle doctrine should be a part of the legal and regulatory framework of every state in the nation.

Any man who invades my home, assuming I can get to my weapon, is a dead man before the first question can be asked.  People tend to have very odd views of how such a thing is all going to go down, but there won’t be occasion for banter, conversation or ascertaining intent, and if you’re not careful and you have your weapon too far from your reach, there may not even be time to defend your own life or the lives of your loved ones.

Any legal framework that doesn’t recognize this and allow for defense of the home isn’t funny, or cute, or needful of legal counsel, or complicated.  It’s also not the occasion for stupid jokes.  It’s immoral.

Frankly, the objections to guns being trotted out by Bob Costas are disjointed and difficult to categorize.  As we’ve already seen, his initial objections had to do with guns in general.  He cited Jason Whitlock, and indicated that if Jovan Belcher had not had access to guns, he and his girlfriend would still be alive today.

But not long after those comments, he amended his stance to the following.  “Why do you need a semiautomatic weapon? What possible use is there for a citizen to have a semiautomatic weapon?”  Costas also inveighed that “he thinks there should be reasonable gun control so that people don’t…can’t go on line and build an arsenal of guns and put in their basement.”  I replied that I couldn’t help but think of the fact that Mr. Stephen Bayezes saved his life with a semi-automatic weapon and high capacity magazine.  And what exactly is the problem with more than one gun, located in the basement?  All it took for Belcher’s girlfriend to die was a single gun.  How is the issue of multiple firearms related to his initial diatribe?

Now the stipulations and qualifications grow and expand to include this set of issues.

Costas acknowledged that drugs, alcohol, and the debilitating mental and physical effects of football all could have contributed to Belcher’s breakdown, but explained that due to time limitations he focused on one particular aspect of the tragedy: guns.

From there he made pains to distinguish between the simple existence of guns and what he calls “gun culture.”

“I never mentioned the 2nd Amendment, I never used the words ‘gun control.’ People inferred that. Now, do I believe that we need more comprehensive and more sensible gun-control legislation? Yes I do. That doesn’t mean repeal the 2nd Amendment. That doesn’t mean a prohibition on someone having a gun to protect their home and their family,” Costas said.

But he also argued that, even if guns were harder to obtain, the most intractable problem facing the country is pervasive gun culture, which manifests itself in “the Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality” of people who believe that if only everyone carried firearms, mass shooters like James Holmes would be stopped in their tracks.

He also expressed concern over the specific popularity of guns among professional athletes. Recounting a story told to him by former Colts coach Tony Dungy, who was startled to discover that 65 of 80 players at training camp owned firearms, Costas asserted, “You can’t have 65 guys in their 20s and 30s, aggressive young men subject to impulses, without something bad happening.”

He continued: “Give me one example of an athlete – I know it’s happened in society – but give me one example of a professional athlete who by virtue of his having a gun, took a dangerous situation and turned it around for the better. I can’t think of a single one. But sadly, I can think of dozens where by virtue of having a gun, a professional athlete wound up in a tragic situation.”

So we have in order the following problems: (1) guns, (2) semi-automatic guns, (3) too many guns, (4) guns in basements, (5) the “gun culture” (whatever that is), (6) guns among professional athletes (given that they are a large proportion black, this sounds oddly racist to me).

It’s difficult to tell what to address with Costas.  His objections are a moving target, and he uses changing props, from Belcher, to the Colorado shooter, to the general culture and violence in young men.  If Costas settles down and makes himself clear and logical, we can address his concerns.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that he is disposed to clear, logical thinking, so his objections will have to remain a moving target.  Costas should stick to football and leave the policy to us.

Prior: Hi, I’m A Man And I Condone Wanton Violence

Briefly, recall what I said about the data from Virginia in which we learned that gun sales had soared, while crime had dropped.

Second amendment advocates aren’t making the case, generally speaking, that increased gun sales equals decreased crime.  As an anecdotal note, my own home might be safer with weapons, but that’s a different conversation. The case that must be made belongs to the gun control advocates, not us.  They must make the case that the increased availability of weapons causes an increase of crime.  Otherwise, what’s all this silly argumentation about the “scourge of guns” across our inner cities, and the “rivers of blood” caused by the “easy availability of illegal firearms,” and so on ad nauseam?  Their national conversation with us makes no sense whatsoever if they cannot trot out the data to make it meaningful.

In fact, they cannot.  It is the lack of this data that is remarkable.  The gun control advocates and their ideas fail at every point, and this is the reason behind Chicago being the crime capital of the U.S. in spite of the stringent gun control.  Crime is a moral decision, value judgment and social and cultural phenomenon.  It isn’t related to the existence of guns, and if guns weren’t available, they will use hammers.  Gun control laws cannot raise children to believe in values.

I don’t have to demonstrate that the exercise of my constitutional rights doesn’t affect anyone else in order to legitimize such exercise (think here the first amendment as a case study).  Nor do I have to demonstrate that the public good – whatever that is (it sounds too utilitarian for my tastes) – is served by said right in order to justify its existence.  But what does indeed have to happen is in order for the national conversation the gun control advocates want to have to make any sense whatsoever, they must demonstrate that there is data to justify their claims.

This is important to recall as we examine a recent article by Jeffrey Goldberg entitled The Case For More Guns (And More Gun Control).  Jeffrey makes a few errors of fact, such as the claim that the Colorado shooter was wearing body armor.  He wasn’t.  He was wearing a tactical vest, and that vest had neither soft armor nor hard plates.  Not, of course, that it is a problem to have body armor if someone wants to have it and can afford it, but it is an error of fact anyway.  There are other slight or moderate problems like this throughout the piece.  The Brady Campaign wants to come off as oh-so-sensible in their admission that we do actually have constitutional rights to own and bear arms, but in fact as anyone who has followed their activities can attest, this is disingenuous.  One remarkable element in Goldberg’s interviews is the tacet (if unintentional) admission by progressives and behaviorists as to the existence of evil, and the possibility that a gun wielding concealed carrier will just blow his top and begin shooting when he gets into a heated argument.  Not good form, unforgivable, and the society of humanists might just have to evict them for this outrage.

But on the whole the article is very interesting if for no other reason than Goldberg finds gems here and there and discusses this issue with enough people (including gun control advocates) that one gets a good sense of their arguments.  For me, the money quote is this:

In 2004, the Ohio legislature passed a law allowing private citizens to apply for permits to carry firearms outside the home. The decision to allow concealed carry was, of course, a controversial one. Law-enforcement organizations, among others, argued that an armed population would create chaos in the streets. In 2003, John Gilchrist, the legislative counsel for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, testified, “If 200,000 to 300,000 citizens begin carrying a concealed weapon, common sense tells us that accidents will become a daily event.”

When I called Gilchrist recently, he told me that events since the state’s concealed-carry law took effect have proved his point. “Talking to the chiefs, I know that there is more gun violence and accidents involving guns,” he said. “I think there’s more gun violence now because there are more guns. People are using guns in the heat of arguments, and there wouldn’t be as much gun violence if we didn’t have people carrying weapons. If you’ve got people walking around in a bad mood—or in a divorce, they’ve lost their job—and they get into a confrontation, this could result in the use of a gun. If you talk to emergency-room physicians in the state, [they] see more and more people with gunshot wounds.”

Gilchrist said he did not know the exact statistics on gun-related incidents (or on incidents concerning concealed-carry permit holders specifically, because the state keeps the names of permit holders confidential). He says, however, that he tracks gun usage anecdotally. “You can look in the newspaper. I consciously look for stories that deal with guns. There are more and more articles in The Columbus Dispatch about people using guns inappropriately.”

Ooooh.  Sounds ominous, no?  Sounds as if Goldberg has landed on someone who has authority and backbone  to go after the evil gun lobby and the data to back it all up.  But wait.  This little issue of tracking “gun usage anecdotally” seems like it might be a bit problematic.  Goldberg has the scoop.

Gilchrist’s argument would be convincing but for one thing: the firearm crime rate in Ohio remained steady after the concealed-carry law passed in 2004.

Well there you have it.  The gun control lobby’s case remains stillborn, and thus their national conversation with us remains self referential and nonsensical.  It is a myth, a phantom, and they believe their case in spite of – not because of – the facts.  Since there is no real case, they turn to this wonderfully emotional appeal at the end of the article.

“In a fundamental way, isn’t this a question about the kind of society we want to live in?” Do we want to live in one “in which the answer to violence is more violence, where the answer to guns is more guns?”

Note the construction of the phrases to achieve maximum effect.  I have a different way of expressing the same question.  In a fundamental way, isn’t this question about what kind of society we want to live in?  Do we want to live in a society in which we are able to defend ourselves against the designs of criminals and those who would wish us harm, or do we want to be defenseless against their acts?

I know what kind of society I want.  I don’t think it’s the same one as the gun control lobby.

From NY Daily News:

A federal Court of Appeals panel has rejected a constitutional challenge to New York’s handgun licensing law, a ruling state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is hailing as a major victory for public safety.

In Kachalsky, et al. v. Cacace, et al, five people from Westchester and The Second Amendment Foundation argued that the state’s gun laws — which require a demonstration of “proper cause” to obtain a concealed-carry permit — violated Second Amendment protections. To qualify under New York’s licensing laws, the applicant has to show “a special need for self protection distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

In the case, one plaintiff simply argued the Second Amendment entitled him to carry his weapon without restrictions, in part because “[W]e live in a world where sporadic random violence might at any moment place one in a position where one needs to defend onself or possibly others.”

Two others said they were entitled to the permits because they were gainfully employed citizens in good standing, while another cited his status as a federal law enforcement officer with the U.S. Coast Guard.

The final plaintiff “attempted show a special need for self-protection by asserting that as a transgender female, she is more likely to be the victim of violence.”

The three-judge panel of the court’s Second Circuit, noting that “New York’s efforts in regulating the possession and use of firearms predate the Constitution” and continued with the 1911 Sullivan Law, said none of the plaintiffs demonstrated a qualifying need for self-protection beyond that of any other member of the public.

“As the parties agree, New York has substantial, indeed compelling, governmental interests in public safety and crime prevention,” the ruling says. “The only question then is whether the proper cause requirement is substantially related to these interests. We conclude that it is.”

Schneiderman called the unanimous decision “a victory for New York State law, the United States Constitution, and families across New York who are rightly concerned about the scourge of gun violence that all too often plagues our communities.”

Here is the decision.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with a “scourge of gun violence,” and they know it.  What we know is that there is this nice little summary statement at the end of the decision that looks quite a bit like presupposing the consequent.

… we decline Plaintiffs’ invitation to strike down New York’s one-hundred-year-old law and call into question the state’s traditional authority to extensively regulate handgun possession in public.

Ignoring the split-infinitive in the sentence, they began with the idea that New York could legitimately “extensively regulate handgun possession in public,” and unsurprisingly, that’s exactly where they ended, after paying due homage to New York’s “one-hundred-year-old law,” as if the age of the law has anything to do with its constitutionality.

This is a setback in the march towards recognition of our God-given rights, and unfortunately, fully expected from a New York court.

UPDATE: I had forgotten that Alan Gura was attorney in this case.

Alan Gura, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said: “We’re evaluating our options. I’m confident at some point the Supreme Court will weigh in on the issue.”

“The courts, like this court, have offered that they need more guidance from the Supreme Court,” he said, referring to a passage in the ruling that the Heller decision “raises more questions than it answers.”

Which is what I’ve always said about Heller.  To me the second amendment is clear, and Heller only muddled it.  I guess we’ll have to continue the fight in perpetuity, no?