Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

In a well-intentioned article, Megan McArdle argues against Dianne Feinstein’s proposed new assault weapons ban this way.

There’s little evidence that the assault weapons ban achieved its ostensible purpose of making America safer; we did not see the predicted spike in crime when it expired in 2004. That’s not really surprising, because long guns aren’t used in the majority of gun crimes, and “assault weapon” is a largely cosmetic rather than functional description; the guns that were taken off the street were not noticeably more lethal than the ones that remained. It was a largely symbolic law that made proponents of gun control feel good about “doing something”.

But we should not have largely symbolic laws that require real and large regulatory interventions.  There should always  be a presumption in favor of economic liberty, as there is with other liberties; to justify curtailing them, we need a benefit more tangible than warm and fuzzy feelings in the hearts of American liberals.  But that is not the only reason that we should oppose ineffective, or marginally effective, regulations.  There’s also an important question of government and social capacity.

Every regulation you pass has a substantial non-monetary cost. Implementing it and overseeing that implementation absorbs some of the attention of legislators and agency heads, a finite resource.  It also increases the complexity of the regulatory code, and as the complexity increases, so does uncertainty.

Similarly, the Florida Assault Weapons Commission found no evidence of increased danger to the people of Florida from any specific kind of weapon.  But while the sentiment of McArdle’s commentary is laudable, the theme and thrust of the argument is not.

In Virginia, crime rates have continued to drop as gun sales soar.

Gun-related violent crime in Virginia has dropped steadily over the past six years as the sale of firearms has soared to a new record, according to an analysis of state crime data with state records of gun sales.

The total number of firearms purchased in Virginia increased 73 percent from 2006 to 2011. When state population increases are factored in, gun purchases per 100,000 Virginians rose 63 percent.

But the total number of gun-related violent crimes fell 24 percent over that period, and when adjusted for population, gun-related offenses dropped more than 27 percent, from 79 crimes per 100,000 in 2006 to 57 crimes in 2011.

The numbers appear to contradict a long-running popular narrative that more guns cause more violent crime, said Virginia Commonwealth University professor Thomas R. Baker, who compared Virginia crime data for those years with gun-dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“While there is a wealth of academic literature attempting to demonstrate the relationship between guns and crime, a very simple and intuitive demonstration of the numbers seems to point away from the premise that more guns leads to more crime, at least in Virginia,” said Baker, who specializes in research methods and criminology theory and has an interest in gun issues.

The ownership of weapons neither causes increased violence nor enables would-be offenders.  What McArdle misses here is that lethality isn’t the point.  Utility is the point.  Over the Thanksgiving Holidays I shot a 0.27 bolt action rifle with nice glass.  The design is intended for target shooting or deer hunting, but not (per se) home or personal defense.  The round is nice, and I like the lack of recoil compared to 7.62 mm or other .30 variants, but my AR’s sweet 5.56 mm round with its high capacity magazine makes it my weapon of choice for personal defense, or one of my several handguns with high capacity magazines if they are what I happen to be carrying or holding at the time.

Leaving aside Hamilton’s argument in Federalist No. 28 (which would only serve to strengthen my point), it is unwise to argue that the stipulations of the assault weapons ban are merely cosmetic or incidental.  Any weapon that has a detachable magazine that contains more than ten rounds is considered to be an assault weapon, and this includes handguns.  Now, it’s important at this point to rehearse the recent example of Stephen Bayezes of South Carolina.

A North Augusta gun store owner used a semi-automatic weapon when he opened fire on three men who broke into his business early Thursday, killing one and sending two others to the hospital with gunshot wounds, officials said.

The break-in occurred around 4 a.m. at the Guns and Ammo Gunsmith, located on Edgefield Road in North Augusta, said Aiken County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jason Feemster, a spokesman for the agency.

Stephen Bayazes Jr., 57, who lives in an attached apartment in the rear of the business with his wife, said he awoke to a loud bang and the silent store alarm going off.

Police said he got out of bed, grabbed his AR-15 weapon and found three men inside the store.

The men crashed a vehicle into the business and were smashing display cases and taking guns when he said he heard one of the men shout, “kill that (expletive deleted ).”

He told investigators he emptied a .223-caliber 30-round magazine and then retreated to his room to reload.

When he returned, he said he saw the vehicle pulling out from the business.

Note again.  He emptied a 30-round magazine and then had to go for another.  In Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?, I have also noted 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man home invasions all over the country that could have been stopped with weapons and high capacity magazines.  Unfortunately, Mr. Bayazes’ experience isn’t unique.

The utility of a light recoil weapon firing with a high capacity magazine saved his life.  It is immoral to relegate any law abiding citizen to the use of a weapon that doesn’t have the features he needs to defend himself or his family.  But for Feinstein it isn’t about self defense or morality.  Nor is it important to her that Virginia statistics don’t lend support for the notion that her proposed controls would reduce crime (Here the point isn’t about correlation and causation.  In order to demonstrate that gun control achieves its “purported” purpose, one must find evidence that it reduces crime, and it is the absence of this evidence that is remarkable).

Gun control at its root has always been about gun control.  Feinstein is a statist, and her laws and regulations will always and forever increase the power of the state.  Feinstein sees through McArdle’s argument on cosmetics, which is why her proposed ban includes semi-automatic weapons.  There isn’t anything cosmetic about the aims of the gun control advocates.

Arguing that their bans don’t adequately distinguish between weapons leads them to refine their ban.  Arguing that there is equivalent lethality between weapons denies aspects of utility and design, and only causes them to ban weapons that have specific utility for home and self defense.  And arguing that their regulations were ineffective only embarrasses them to pass even more onerous ones.

The correct way to argue against Feinstein’s proposed assault weapons ban is to argue that there is no constitutional basis for such a ban, and any new assault weapons ban would be at least as immoral and obscene as the last one was.

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to Michael Bane for the attention.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention.

UPDATE #4: Thanks to Mike Vanderboegh for the attention.

We’ve briefly covered the proposed assault weapons ban floated by Mr. Obama.  David Codrea adds detail.

The shootings in an Aurora, Colo., theater and the Sikh temple in Milwaukee, Wis., make it “likely that there will be calls in the 112th Congress to reconsider a 1994 ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices,” a November 14, 2012 Congressional Research Service report on “Gun Control Legislation” obtained this morning by Gun Rights Examiner reveals.

That’s hardly breaking news to those who monitor such things, but to see it coming out of an official report talking about a session that will end on January 3 of next year is indicative of a new-found confidence in the wake of the recent elections …

[ … ]

“This report also includes discussion of other salient and recurring gun control issues that have generated past or current congressional interest,” the summary continues. “Those issues include (1) screening firearms background check applicants against terrorist watch lists, (2) combating gun trafficking and straw purchases, (3) reforming the regulation of federally licensed gun dealers, (4) requiring background checks for private firearms transfers at gun shows, (5) more-strictly regulating certain firearms previously defined in statute as “semiautomatic assault weapons,” and (6) banning or requiring the registration of certain long-range .50 caliber rifles, which are commonly referred to as ‘sniper’ rifles.

Chris Cox notes that in the very near future, we may be in the fight of our lives.

… not long after Obama floated the idea of banning semi-automatic firearms, we learned that California Senator Dianne Feinstein was working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to draft new legislation that would ban semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns, so-called “high capacity” magazines, and rifles and shotguns with pistol grips. Reportedly, Feinstein wants to make it illegal not just to sell your guns and magazines, but to leave them behind in your will.

I know a lot concerning the intentions of the gun haters, but I didn’t know until reading Cox’s account that the hatred goes all the way to your children and children’s children.  If Feinstein gets her way, you won’t be able to bequeath your firearms to them.

I and hundreds of thousands of other firearms owners will indeed treat this as the fight of our lives.  The designs of the progressives are nefarious, but if those in the House of Representatives don’t stand strong on this (presumably, the GOP), it will redound to their own demise.

Here is a promise to House Republicans.  You currently own the House.  If you cave on this issue and allow new gun control measures, we will spare no expense and waste no time.  You will be defeated the next available opportunity and lose your seat in the House.

I know that I have readers in the House of Representatives.  I see your visits.  You’ve been warned.

The editorial board of The Daily Illini waxes know-it-all on concealed carry of handguns.

I’m sorry to bother my readers with such sophomoric writing (the form was very bad and stilted), but I had to quote at length for you to get the full affect of their arguments.

Let’s ignore the silly reference to what Politifact says about anything (their analyses are far from trustworthy and their presuppositions usually obvious).  After charging the second amendment community with the unwarranted use of anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that weapons can save lives, they turn to backyard psychology (how people react under pressure) and associated anecdotal evidence about how weapons don’t make us safer.  Our arguments are merely anecdotal, but it’s okay for them to use whatever they wish, or something like that.

But notice how their axioms turn the argument on its head.  For some reason, we have to demonstrate conclusively that crime rate drops for the community at large (i.e., the greater good is served) before it’s acceptable to have a concealed carry law.  Note the use of the word “utility.”

Let’s turn the argument head up again the way it should be.  The constitution gives us a right to self defense, and doesn’t include merely a right to own a gun.  It includes the right to bear arms, and we have discussed the ubiquitous presence of firearms in colonial America before (including on the person) – that America that gave birth to our nation and its constitution.

I needn’t prove the utility of any right in order to legitimize the proper exercise of that right.  But continuing on with the argument concerning utility, one would suppose that if prohibiting the carrying of handguns decreased crime, those areas of the country that had such a statute would be able to demonstrate the utility of such statutes.  In fact, tell us how gangland Chicago is doing with their gun statutes, editorial board?  Show us the statistics for how gun laws reduce violent crime, and start with your own back yard.

As for what happened in the national election, I tend to feel rather like Mark Steyn.  There will be much to discuss in the coming days (the price for guns and ammunition will increase, war will come to the Middle East because Israel will not allow Iran to complete a nuclear weapon – with or without the U.S., the Strait of Hormuz will be closed and the cost of gasoline will skyrocket, the national debt will continue to pile up because the hated “rich” cannot possibly buy our way out of it, the dollar will continue to sink as our Keynesians at the Federal Reserve prop up the world’s economy by printing more money, etc.).  There is a veritable smorgasbord of deadly traps awaiting our naive country.  There will be time to cover all of that.  But on a positive note, there is a significant gun rights victory to celebrate from Louisiana.

Louisiana on Tuesday became the first state to establish the “strict scrutiny” standard regarding gun laws in its constitution.

Amendment No. 2, approved by 75 percent of the voters, requires strict scrutiny of any proposed restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.

It requires courts, if asked, to determine whether gun laws demonstrate a compelling governmental interest and are narrowly defined. If not, they are deemed unconstitutional.

Opponents claimed the standard would make it more difficult to regulate guns for the well-being of all.

Greater difficulty in regulating guns is what the majority of voters apparently favor.

The amendment got the most pre-election attention of nine on the ballot.

As I (a non-lawyer) tried to explain:

There is the rational basis test, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny.  On the rational basis test, it is important whether a governmental action is a reasonable means to an end that may be legitimately pursued by the government.  It may not even matter whether there is an actual interest at stake.  If a court can hypothesize a legitimate interest, then the challenge fails.

Under intermediate scrutiny, it is important whether a law or policy being challenged furthers an important government interest in a way that is substantially related to that interest.  Under strict scrutiny, there must be a compelling governmental interest as a basis for the law, the law must be narrowly tailored to achieved that interest, and if there is a less restrictive means of achieving that interest, the challenge succeeds.

This would be an important amendment.  Many states grant deference to local governments in the application of more restrictive laws.  One such example would be the changes made to my own state of North Carolina early in 2012.  Carry of weapons in state and local parks is now legal (and the Castle doctrine is adopted state-wide), but there are municipalities and cities that have chosen more restrictive regulations for their area.

Louisiana has just become the most gun-friendly state in the country.  And I continue to assert that the best defense against attacks on our gun rights occurs at the state and local level.  Louisiana is now an example for us all to follow, so we can move from celebrating the victory to emulating Louisiana.  And Bobby Jindal, who strongly supported the amendment, is looking mighty good.

Cases involving carrying weapons outside the home have been appealed to the Supreme Court in the past.  In part because of the wording of the decision and in part because of the various federal courts denying the right to carry outside the home (even in the wake of Heller and McDonald, see also here), I have claimed and always believed that Heller was a weak decision.  It has always needed clarification regarding the right to bear arms, not just own them.  Scalia equivocated in his verbiage in Heller, and even then there were dissenting Justices on the Supreme Court. 

Now, Alan Gura, of notoriety from the Heller case, is back in the news and may in fact be back before the Supreme Court.

On a roll in recent years, a gun-rights group pressed its advantage in a federal appeals court Wednesday, seeking to extend Second Amendment rights through a challenge to Maryland’s handgun permit laws.

“We’re not challenging the constitutionality of having a licensing system,” Alan Gura, a lawyer for the Second Amendment Foundation, told the three-judge panel in a case involving a Baltimore County man’s permit renewal. Rather, he argued that Maryland unnecessarily restricts the right to carry firearms.

Gura said the issue is a narrow one, but much of the argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit revolved around how to apply recent Supreme Court decisions to the public carrying of firearms, which could have far-reaching implications.

In two other cases Gura won, the high court struck down Illinois and District of Columbia laws that effectively outlawed handgun ownership. But the court did not directly address the right to bear arms for self-defense outside the home.

The Maryland case offers gun-rights advocates a chance to win a broader reading of the Second Amendment, upending the state’s handgun permit process along the way.

Under state law, Marylanders must show “good and substantial reason” to obtain a handgun permit. In March, a federal district judge struck down that requirement, ruling it unconstitutional.

The Maryland attorney general’s office, fearing a spike in gun violence, appealed the decision, and the federal court of appeals allowed the law to stand while the case is resolved.

Gura argued Wednesday that because the Supreme Court has held that bearing arms is a fundamental right, people do not need to give public officials a reason they should be allowed to exercise it. He asked the court to consider the implications of applying that standard to other rights such as speech.

“There’s no way we can apply such a restriction to the right to bear arms,” he said.

Although Mr. Obama stated his real intentions rather clearly during the debates, this wasn’t really necessary.  He told us how he felt about our second amendment rights even before that.  Recall that he nominated Andrew Traver to head the ATF, Traver working hard with the Joyce Foundation to develop recommendations for a new regulatory framework for guns involving among other things federal oversight (National Institutes of Health) of the firearms manufacturing industry.  Obama also nominated Caitlin J. Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who wanted to hold gun manufacturers responsible for crimes commited with their products (a position that even the New York Court of Appeals rejected).

The next President will appoint Supreme Court Justices.  He will also appoint judges to the appeals courts, and although I could easily come up with 101 reasons to vote Mr. Obama out of office, preserving our second amendment rights is as good a place to start as any.

Mr. Obama on the violence happening just blocks from his own home.

In one of the more dramatic moments of the half-hour special that covered topics on young voter’s minds ranging from the skyrocketing cost of student loans to guaranteeing equality for same-sex, Calloway read a comment from Chicago native Raven, who described her city as a “war zone.”

Calloway asked the president not only how he responds to charges from New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg that both Obama and challenger Mitt Romney are talking about gun violence but not suggesting any action, but also how he would personally respond to this epidemic if re-elected.

“Raven comes from my hometown and Chicago has seen a huge amount of gun violence, especially among young people,” said Obama. “What I’ve said is that we’ve got to have an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach. We have to enforce our gun laws more effectively. We’ve got to keep them out of the hands of criminals. We’ve got to strengthen background checks.”

Obama said his administration has done a lot of those things, but what also needs to be done is work with local law enforcement groups and faith groups and community organizations to ferret out that broader sources of violence in those neighborhoods.

“I live on the South side of Chicago,” said Obama, who maintains a residence in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood, in which tony homes sit just beside some of the city’s most economically challenged areas. “Some of these murders are happening just a few blocks from where I live. I have friends whose family members have been killed.”

Clearly a personal issue for Obama, the president got more solemn when talking about the upswing in violent deaths in the city after decades of decline. “What I know is that gun violence is part of the issue,” he said. “But part of the issue also is kids who feel so little hope and think their prospects for the future are so small that their attitude is, ‘I’m going to end up in jail or dead.’ And they will take all kinds of risks.”

With that level of nihilistic thought, the president said we have to ask if we’re providing those children’s parents with enough support from an early age, and are those kids getting early childhood education so that when they walk into school every day they feel they can succeed? “If they’ve got mental health issues, are they getting the kind of services and counseling that they need early on?” he said.

“Are we making those investments in those young people so that by the time they’re 11, 12, 13, 15 … they can make responsible choices because they feel they’ve got something at stake?”

Ah.  There it is.  Man is a tabula rasa.  Pour enough money, support, education and counseling into him and he’ll turn out okay.  Take the guns away and give them some money.  That’ll fix ’em.

But I’m just wondering about that trip I took this last weekend to Jocassee Gorges.  We passed all manner of poor, impoverished folk on our way, and homes that would hardly have qualified to be in the inner city of Chicago.  They would have been condemned.  But the people weren’t uninitiated or killing each other.  They all had guns, and it was bear season (with dogs), and in Greenville, Pickens and Oconee county there were more than 800 bear hunters active in the area.  We were carryng guns too.  Here is a picture of Jump Off Rock at Jocassee taken by my son Joshua.

Guns and poverty, but no crime.  Well, enough of my anecdotal observations.  Let’s turn to something more scholarly (via Scotty Starnes).

The recession of 2008-09 has undercut one of the most destructive social theories that came out of the 1960s: the idea that the root cause of crime lies in income inequality and social injustice. As the economy started shedding jobs in 2008, criminologists and pundits predicted that crime would shoot up, since poverty, as the “root causes” theory holds, begets criminals. Instead, the opposite happened. Over seven million lost jobs later, crime has plummeted to its lowest level since the early 1960s. The consequences of this drop for how we think about social order are significant.

The notion that crime is an understandable reaction to poverty and racism took hold in the early 1960s. Sociologists Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin argued that juvenile delinquency was essentially a form of social criticism. Poor minority youth come to understand that the American promise of upward mobility is a sham, after a bigoted society denies them the opportunity to advance. These disillusioned teens then turn to crime out of thwarted expectations.

The theories put forward by Cloward, who spent his career at Columbia University, and Ohlin, who served presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Carter, provided an intellectual foundation for many Great Society-era programs. From the Mobilization for Youth on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1963 through the federal Office of Economic Opportunity and a host of welfare, counseling and job initiatives, their ideas were turned into policy.

The 1960s themselves offered a challenge to the poverty-causes-crime thesis. Homicides rose 43%, despite an expanding economy and a surge in government jobs for inner-city residents. The Great Depression also contradicted the idea that need breeds predation, since crime rates dropped during that prolonged crisis. The academy’s commitment to root causes apologetics nevertheless persisted. Andrew Karmen of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice echoed Cloward and Ohlin in 2000 in his book “New York Murder Mystery.” Crime, he wrote, is “a distorted form of social protest.” And as the current recession deepened, liberal media outlets called for more government social programs to fight the coming crime wave. In late 2008, the New York Times urged President Barack Obama to crank up federal spending on after-school programs, social workers, and summer jobs. “The economic crisis,” the paper’s editorialists wrote, “has clearly created the conditions for more crime and more gangs—among hopeless, jobless young men in the inner cities.”

Even then crime patterns were defying expectations. And by the end of 2009, the purported association between economic hardship and crime was in shambles. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, homicide dropped 10% nationwide in the first six months of 2009; violent crime dropped 4.4% and property crime dropped 6.1%. Car thefts are down nearly 19%. The crime plunge is sharpest in many areas that have been hit the hardest by the housing collapse. Unemployment in California is 12.3%, but homicides in Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Times reported recently, dropped 25% over the course of 2009. Car thefts there are down nearly 20%.

In shambles.  Just like Obama’s economy.  And just like the consulate at Benghazi.  And just like our strategy in Afghanistan.  And just like trust and confidence in government honesty after Fast and Furious.

There you have it.  Impoverished or rich, I think I’ll keep my guns.  They have nothing to do with the choice to commit violence.  That’s a moral choice.

Prior: Obama Calls For Renewal Of Assault Weapons Ban

Jeff Knox explains why the upcoming national election is important, but in the process, I think he proves a corollary (or maybe even contrary) point.

What all of this demonstrates is that Republican appointees to the Supreme Court are rarely “conservative” stalwarts and historically display only a 50 percent chance of supporting traditionally conservative positions, while Democratic appointees are historically 100 percent reliable in backing the Democratic agenda. Even Robert Bork, who is considered an ultra-conservative jurist and whose failed confirmation hearings were so contentious that his name has entered the vernacular as a verb (meaning to block a nomination by defamation), has frequently expressed an opinion that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to arms. I had the opportunity to argue the issue with Judge Bork himself on a radio program in the late ’80s and was sorely disappointed with his position.

The Supreme Court currently breaks down like this: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 79 years old and continues to surprise prognosticators (including me) who have been predicting her imminent retirement for years. Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy are both 76 years old, and both appear to be in good health for their age. Stephen Breyer is 74 and also healthy. Clarence Thomas is 64. Samuel Alito is 62. Sonia Sotomayor is 58. John Roberts is 57, and Elena Kagan is 52.

It is extremely likely that at least one of these justices will retire within the next four years, and it’s quite possible that as many as three could step down. If Barack Obama is re-elected, it is a virtual surety that any justice he appoints will be relatively young, staunchly “liberal” and have an unfavorable view of the Second Amendment. If Democrats retain control of the Senate, confirmation of an Obama appointee is also almost guaranteed. Even if Republicans manage to take control of the Senate, the odds are almost nil that any but the most extreme radical would be rejected.

If Romney is elected, the odds of him appointing a pro-Second Amendment conservative are no better than 50-50. A Democrat-controlled Senate reduces those odds to somewhere between 25 and 30 percent, while a Republican-controlled Senate raises the odds to around 60 percent. 
In a best-case scenario, the likelihood of seeing reliable, pro-Second Amendment justices seated on the Supreme Court are not great, but each step away from that best-case reduces that likelihood dramatically.

Whether our second amendment rights are further codified or eroded in the coming years is yet to be seen.  Ruth Ginsburg sees reversal of Heller Versus D.C. on the horizon with a “future, wiser court.”  But that’s only part of the battle.  In the future, local politics may be even more important, since the federal government is only one guarantor of our rights as firearms owners and users.

If the particular state in which you reside is unfriendly to firearms rights, they may have Supreme Court decisions upon which to base their intrusions.  But if more friendly to our rights, at least there is a battle to be waged between states and and intrusive federal government.

This isn’t determinative, and it doesn’t obviate gun rights problems, but it does give us a firmer foundation upon which remediation of federal problems may occur, even if difficult and even if the fight is a long one.

Prior: Louisiana, Guns And Strict Scrutiny

Louisiana may be about to become the most second-amendment friendly state in the country.

It is all about the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in the fight over Amendment No. 2 to the state constitution.

“Amendment No. 2 is a simple amendment. It’s just two lines,” said George Peterson of American Freedom and Supply in Jefferson Parish.

In its two sentences, Amendment No. 2 calls the right to bear arms “fundamental” and adds that any restrictions on that right would be subject to “strict scrutiny.”

Those two words could have a major legal impact.

“It would not only prevent the legislature from enacting new gun laws that would be for the public’s protection, it could also potentially be used to strike down laws, for example, that don’t allow people to bring guns on college campuses, or into grocery stores or bars or churches,” said Eyewitness News Political Analyst Clancy DuBos.

That means more than 80 current gun laws could be more easily challenged in court. The Bureau of Governmental Research opposes the amendment, calling it “alarming” and a public safety issue.

“Louisiana has the third highest death by firearms in the United States. New Orleans has one of the highest murder rates,” said BGR President Janet Howard. “There is just no good reason, as far as we can see, to create uncertainty in this area and make it more difficult to regulate guns than it currently is.”

Supporters, though, said “strict scrutiny” is all about common sense.

“A legislator from some parish or whatever wants to make something that’s non-sensical — like banning assault weapons or sales in a certain parish — you’d have to be under strict scrutiny to see if that’s actually reasonable,” Peterson said.

It is a scrutiny that will now fall on voters, as they decide on Nov. 6th, whether or not the proposal is reasonable.

A lawyer would have a better chance of a clear explanation of this than would I, but here it goes anyway.

There is the rational basis test, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny.  On the rational basis test, it is important whether a governmental action is a reasonable means to an end that may be legitimately pursued by the government.  It may not even matter whether there is an actual interest at stake.  If a court can hypothesize a legitimate interest, then the challenge fails.

Under intermediate scrutiny, it is important whether a law or policy being challenged furthers an important government interest in a way that is substantially related to that interest.  Under strict scrutiny, there must be a compelling governmental interest as a basis for the law, the law must be narrowly tailored to achieved that interest, and if there is a less restrictive means of achieving that interest, the challenge succeeds.

This would be an important amendment.  Many states grant deference to local governments in the application of more restrictive laws.  One such example would be the changes made to my own state of North Carolina early in 2012.  Carry of weapons in state and local parks is now legal (and the Castle doctrine is adopted state-wide), but there are municipalities and cities that have chosen more restrictive regulations for their area.

Thus, carrying a weapon like I do, I have been in communication with the head of the parks and recreation division for Mecklenburg County to track what changes have been made and whether signage will be revised to recognize the legitimacy of carrying a weapon – concealed or openly – in the parks and public walkways near where I live.

Louisiana doesn’t have to worry with that, as long as the people pass the amendment to the state constitution.  The right to bear arms will be recognized as fundamental, strict scrutiny will apply, and many local regulations will be struck down.  They are about to become the most gun-friendly state in the nation.  Even if you don’t live in Louisiana, it’s important to celebrate victories.

From Emily:

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens demonstrated the importance of America’s upcoming presidential choice as he spoke Monday to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Justice Stevens told the assembled gun grabbers of the urgent need for Congress to adopt laws restricting the right to keep and bear arms.

As the author of the dissenting opinions in the Heller and McDonald cases, which affirmed the right of individuals to keep handguns in the home, Justice Stevens said the high court precedent still allows new laws rolling back our rights.

The 92-year-old jurist explained the landmark gun rulings leave room for restrictions on the right to carry outside the home, bans on certain styles of firearms, elimination of carry rights in “sensitive” places and background-check requirements for private gun sales.

“The Second Amendment provides no obstacle to regulations prohibiting the ownership or the use of the sorts of automatic weapons used in the tragic multiple killings in Virginia, Colorado and Arizona in recent years,” the Ford nominee said, incorrectly lumping together semi-automatic and automatic weapons, which already are highly regulated.

He added, “Maybe you have some kind of constitutional right to have a cellphone with a pre-dialed 911 in the number at your bedside, and that might provide you with a little better protection than a gun which you’re not used to using.”

Stevens forgets his history.  As I’ve observed before, “There are always caveats, stipulations and complications when it comes to interpreting and applying the constitution.  But a plain reading of the text requires that if our understanding contradicts the fundamental exigencies and vicissitudes of life as it existed in the colonial times that hatched the constitution, then our understanding is in need of modification.  Weapons were ubiquitous in the colonies for sporting and recreation, protection against animals, protection against people and protection against governmental tyranny (“The British never lost sight of the fact that without their gun control program, they could never control America”).  Each was in its own way a threat to the safety and health of strong families.”

So Justice Stevens ignores the warp and woof of American history, and without that familiarity and understanding, no one, including a Supreme Court Justice, will be able to make sense of our founding documents.

But more immediately, the Supreme Court ruling in Castle Rock Versus Gonzales decided that the police do not have a duty to protect citizens.  Justice Stevens – forgetting (or ignoring) his Supreme Court history – is recommending the defenestration of a clear right (i.e., the Second Amendment) in favor of one that is an utter fabrication of his own imagination, i.e., “some kind of constitutional right to have a cellphone with a pre-dialed 911 in the number at your bedside.”

Such is the case with washed-up, has-been progressives who simply refuse to acquiesce to the nature of the American system.  Bitterness defines them.

From ABC News:

At the end of a long answer to the question, “What has your administration done or planned to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?” Obama said this:

“My belief is that, (A), we have to enforce the laws we’ve already got, make sure that we’re keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill. We’ve done a much better job in terms of background checks, but we’ve got more to do when it comes to enforcement.

“But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets. And so what I’m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns.”

Of course he did.  It’s who he is, it’s what he is about.  And notice that he protracts the problem of violence to cheap hand guns as well.  Well hell, let’s just ban cheap hand guns too.  That will fix the problem.

I’ve already made my views known.  Forcing a family to consider what may for them be an inferior weapon for their protection (e.g., a lower capacity magazine or more human-machine interactions in order to make a weapon function) is immoral.  It also won’t fix the problem of evil anywhere, including the inner city, but the notion that he can’t fix evil with a law or new regulation doesn’t comport with his world view since he is a statist.

Thus should all gun owners, lovers of freedom and believers in righteousness work against both the election of Obama and his evil regulations.  My views have been made known, but Obama had successfully hidden his to the ignorant masses until now (since the masses won’t pay attention to anything that didn’t happen yesterday).  At least it’s good that we’re all being transparent.  This is a breath of fresh air.