States can not only ban guns, they can ban self-defense. That's what a court just ruled. And we're told it is the "conservative" position:
Today, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, appointed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago by President Ronald Reagan, took the same hands-off as Sotomayor. They joined a 3-0 ruling that upheld weapons ordinances in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Illinois, and rejected challenges by gun rights advocates.
Don't let the raising of the Reagan mantra persuade you. The reverence gun owners have for the man is based more on illusion than substance. He was no friend of gun owners, supporting waiting periods, semi auto bans, and bans on open carry.
If we're going to take a "conservative" view, there are plenty of quotes from the Founders. If we want a "conservative" legal view, there can be no better source than William Rawle, the man George Washington wanted to be attorney general, and whose "View of the Constitution" was once the standard reference at both Harvard and Dartmouth:
No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give the Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under a general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any pursuit of an inordinate power either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.
Slaves to stare decisis, the 7th Circuit expects us to believe that the creature, that is, the law, takes precedence over the creator, the people, in this unbelievable speculation from the decision:
Suppose a state were to decide that people cornered in their homes must surrender rather than fight back—in other words, that burglars should be deterred by the criminal law rather than self help. That decision would imply that no one is entitled to keep a handgun at home for self-defense, because self-defense would itself be a crime, and Heller concluded that the second amendment protects only the interests of law-abiding citizens...
Our hypothetical is not as farfetched as it sounds. Self-defense is a common-law gloss on criminal statutes, a defense that many states have modified by requiring people to retreat when possible, and to use non-lethal force when retreat is not possible...An obligation to avoid lethal force in self-defense might imply an obligation to use pepper spray rather than handguns.
The court speculates dangerously. And as long as we're talking hypotheticals, suppose some gun owners say "Enough," and mean it?
Legal avenues for redress have not been completely closed off--yet. Some are of the mind that Judges Posner and Easterbrook have done us a favor by increasing the chances the issue will be resolved favorably by the Supreme Court. As I noted in an earlier column, the Ninth Circuit ruled the Second Amendment is "incorporated against the states," so that increases the likelihood that the Supreme Court will hear the matter.
Note I didn't say "decide". No matter what opinion they issue, that ultimate authority rests elsewhere.
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California Court of Appeals upholds .50 caliber ban
[Via The Volokh Conspiracy]
Here's the decision. It appears Justice Scalia's Miller-based "common use" restriction that he injected into his Heller opinion is making things problematic.
Here's the nugget:
These are not the types of weapons that are typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes such as sport hunting or self-defense; rather, these are weapons of war.
Yeah, that's what they're supposed to be.
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." (Tench Coxe in ‘Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution' under the Pseudonym ‘A Pennsylvanian' in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1)
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." (Tench Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.)
The Second Amendment ain't about duck hunting. And if you want to know where that "sporting purposes" abomination came from...
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Olofson appeal rejected
WorldNetDaily has the story. As a point of clarification, their link to my Guns Magazine article no longer works. You can read that column here.
Whether the fight will continue is unannounced at this time.
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Dinner bill presented
No, not the check, a bill. One has been introduced in the Ohio legislature to remove the prohibition on lawful concealed carry of firearms in dining establishments that serve alcohol. And it was drafted by none other than Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner Daniel White.
Here are three recent columns on the subject he has written. I encourage you to read each of them.
Time to remove Ohio's ban on self-defense while dining
Bill to remove Ohio's ban on self-defense while dining introduced!
Predicting the anti-gun response to restaurant carry bill
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Oregon Brady expansion bill passes out of committee
Per Oregon Firearms Federation:
The NRA's Oregon consultant, who had previously expressed opposition to the bill, changed his position and declared the NRA neutral on the bill.
We now move one step closer to the complete big brother, centrally located, Federal database of people who will be denied gun purchases.
Media representations aside, "the gun lobby" is not a monolith. Real differences exist between factions. Gun owners owe it to themselves to be aware of them and to find out why that is.
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Sine Die But we NEED your help
Per Gun Owners of Nevada:
The 75th Nevada State Legislature is finished and we have much to be thankful for but we also have one last bit of work that must be undone. AB46, the Nevada Version of the Veteran Disarmament Bill sits on the Governor’s desk and it must be stopped. Your calls and emails to the Governor in opposition to AB46 are essential.
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: An Atlanta police officer supports the right to bear arms
- Austin: Justifying deadly force (Part 1)
- Boston: Boston Police Department, Peace Officers or Paramilitary Group for Ingsoc?
- Charlotte: Armed self-defense: Beyond the basics
- Cleveland: Predicting the anti-gun response to restaurant carry bill
- DC: Virginia gun owners should crash the party on June 9th
- Denver: A post from 2038
- Los Angeles: Abortion Doctor's killer was Militia?
- Minneapolis: Giving Judge Sotomayor a fair hearing
- Seattle: ‘Shoot to wound’ advocates have watched too much television
- St. Louis: The Tiller murder, and the fragility of liberty
- Wisconsin: Gun rights advocates make progress
Comments
This ruling confirms Sotomayor's position.
Old farts and fat socialists can rule from their (insert favorite epithet here) as much as the want, they are wrong. My rights do not come from intellectuals who have read Das Kapital and gone to college. Molon Labe, and bring your lunch, so I'll have something to eat, while seated on the bodies of your lackeys. These be-robed jackassess are one hot afternoon away from a very abrubt life-style change.
Let me roll over and offer the other cheek from my grave.
Luckily, my right to self defense is not derived from the laws of man.
Can someone PLEASE interpret the 14th in ignorant-Statist (lawyer) language for me? It clearly says in there that we're citizens of the US (feds) AND state we live in. I am an Ohio-American.
It also says that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"
I am dead serious. How the hell can you read that simple text and come to the conclusion that the 2nd doesn't apply to the states?
That amendment (CHANGE™ for judges like these) guaranteed rights to freed blacks, did it not? Why are all these judges (like Sotomayor) continuing their racist views?
So....these outstanding jurists on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals can't understand the plain language of the Constitution, obviously didn't read the Federalist papers or any other writings of the founders, want to force me to believe that the Second Amendment is not incorporated under the 14th Amendment, and still expect me to believe that McCain-Feingold campaign finance IS incorporated? Wow. I knew Reagan was no great friend of American citizen gun owners, but he had to have already been under the Alzheimer's influence to appoint any of these doorknobs to the court.
Richard Posner, because of his philosophy, is a danger to liberty. He is a big fan of Oliver Wendell Holmes, who probably did more to destroy liberty in America than any other justice. Holmes said, "I sneer at the concept of natural rights." Posner, who is a philosophical pragmatist out of the post-modernist school hates principles, preferring to rule on each case however he feels at the moment.
Sadly, Posner is sometimes presented in law schools as a conservative. If conservative means adhering to principles or working for liberty, he is the opposite of a conservative.
By attacking concepts and reason, he attacks the intellectual basis of liberty, and his whims can take your liberty at any time.
Reagan was the President who stopped sales of NEW fully automatic weapons to the Citizens of these United States, as of 1986. That alone drove up costs of fully automatic weapons beyond the grasp of 95% of Americans.
I read the opinion. It's about 5 pages long. Very short and a very easy read.
All that opinion means is that legislatures have broad powers to create law, even bad law. A legislature can ban marijuana. That's legal. A legislature could ban personal automobiles. That would be legal too, but unpopular. A legislature could ban self-defense. That would be legal too, and dumb, and probably get the legislature replaced. Just because self-defense is accepted in common law, doesn't mean it can't be made illegal in statutory law. The 2nd Amendment reads that guns cannot be banned, the self defense concept may be in the "penumbra" of the amendment, but it is not explicit. And as you might know, conservative judges reject the "penumbra" argument. So yes, legislatures can ban self defense. And you can replace them.
Legislatures cannot ban self-defense, the most they can do is to punish it, which means they then become the assailant and the focal point of self-defense activity.
The British learned that the hard way. Our modern American politicians are a whole bunch of courage short of pushing it that far if we make them understand their personal consequences. Bar that, and they are a whole lot of brainpower short of figuring it out for themselves and direct unpleasant conflict will be inevitable.
If a federal jurist can be as ignorant and stupid as Posner and not be impeached and removed from the bench for gross incompetence then it is probably inevitable that there will be blood shed as the final appeal to reason, law and the constitution. That is the view the founders had of the second amendment. As the final appeal to reason, law and the constitution in defense of the liberty therein provided.
Be wary of the educated ignorami, such as Posner, Sotomayor, Shumer, or even your next door neighbor who believes in state authority over everyone's life. There is something about serving an apprenticeship at the feet of the effete collectivist instructors in our colleges that convinces the graduate apprentice that he is far superior to his fellow man and need not use anything but his self-aggrandizing emotion in forcing his will on others.
These people have no concept of justice and never think that they may be subject to its harsh realities if they trespass too far.
Posner: Yes, I regard myself as a libertarian, in a sense that has virtually disappeared from the American public scene. It is basically the Millian [J.S. Mill] sense… But I think of myself as someone who believes that the government should intervene only where private activity is palpably harmful or where there are external benefits…Where there are external benefits, there is a case for government intervention.
Eight years ago, when I first read about Posner’s philosophy in "Reason" magazine, it struck me as being inconsistent that a man could both embrace libertarianism and support government intervention in the market.
There is no such conflict evident now. With this decision, the man has revealed himself to be a full-blown statist.
"Reagan was the President who stopped sales of NEW fully automatic weapons to the Citizens of these United States, as of 1986"
Was there not a 1930 something law that banned full auto sales to the general public?
HI:
Cliffs Notes version--The National Firearms Act (NFA '34) required a $200 transfer tax for full auto, short barrel shotguns, silencers.
The so-called Firearms Owner Protection Act's (FOPA '86) Hughes Amendment outlawed civilian transfer of any select fire weapon manufactured and registered after May of that year.
Suggest you look up "Gun Law in the United States" on Wikipedia for a good overview, then look at the NRA-ILA website for federal and state gun laws.
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