What I Fear is Hate and Stupidity

Saul Cornell and the Daily Beast are what they are and I expect no better from either. However, I find it amusing when a controlist (mis)quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion in Schenk v. United States upholding the conviction of a man who advocated resisting the draft. What is, arguably, one of the worst judicial offenses against the First Amendment is now being cited in attacks on the Second.

Of course, the fact that the Second Amendment is now treated as an individual right has almost no bearing on gun regulation, because no right is absolute. You can’t shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater, nor can you fire a gun in one.

Gun-Rights Advocates Should Fear History of Second Amendment

You are wrong Mr. Cornell. What gun rights advocates have to fear is what all civil rights activists have had to fear throughout history. We have to fear the hatred and stupidity of the ideologues in power trying desperately to preserve their privilege and control.

Didn't Hickenlooper Read the Bill?

I mean before he signed it into law.

He blames his staff "...for not anticipating the opposition on gun control." But, if his staff failed him so badly then he hired the wrong people. If he hired the wrong people for his own staff then his competency to be a governor is questionable.

Additionally, he doesn't seem to care that the law is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and under Article II, Section 13 of the Constitution for the State of Colorado:

The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons.

John Morse and Angela Giron both lost their positions largely because if that ill-thought-out law Hickenlooper signed. I can only hope the good people of Colorado continue the trend of removing incompetents in the upcoming election.

Colorado governor tries to apologize for gun control measures, blames staff, then curses

From a Bottle of Pills to God's Ear

Emerging momentarily from a drug induced haze, Living in Babylon poses an interesting question vis-a-vis a common anti-Second Amendment argument. I'm sure you've heard or read at least one variation on the notion that the Second Amendment is obslete because the authors could never have imagined what future developments would bring to firearms technology.

Using a similar argument, LiB asks all you ostensibly liberal First Amendment advocates, do you think the Founders ever envisioned this when they wrote the First Amendment?

Natural Harvest - A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes

Well, did they?

Oral Arguments in McDonald v Chicago translated

Into Text Messaging Dialect. 

It really is funny.

BATFE, Austin PD and the Gun Show

According to this posting at Whose paranoid are you, the fallout from the pressure put on Darwin Boedecker and the Austin Gun Show is embarrassing the even to the management at BATFE.

Nevertheless, as I said earlier, words like despised, flat out hated, and psycho is what I heard by the little bird. In fact, I made it a point to ask SPECIFICALLY if I heard correctly and was informed YES! Also heard that he is a headhunter, always looking for GLORY and the limelight- has to BE on top.

If true then what will the BATFEces do about it?

What if there is a fire?

From The West Seattle Herald

It is a fine thing to have a watchdog monitoring our constitutional rights. Bob Warden is to be commended for ensuring that our right to carry our concealed weapons everywhere is protected. The audacity of Mayor Nickels in trying to keep guns out of city parks and recreational areas has to be condemned and overturned.

How can our children and grandchildren’s safety be guaranteed on the playfields and in the swimming areas in the city unless anyone who chooses to carry a gun there has that right. No one should have their Second Amendment rights infringed at any time. It would be like limiting someone’s freedom speech to yell “fire” in a crowded theater as a joke.

Oh, right. You can limit the right of free speech in cases like that. Well, thank goodness the state doesn’t allow such limitations on guns. Way to go Bob.

Bruce Colwell
1220 SW 132nd Lane
Burien

If there is a fire I can choose to warn others by shouting "fire!"   When there is a threat to life and limb I can choose to use a firearm to stop it.   What the idiot above is really advocating (admittedly, he may not be smart enough to understand this) is to deprive citizens of the right to make those choices.  That is not a limitation on a right it is the complete abrogation of it.

Anti Second; Anti First

Conor Clarke in Can You Carry A Gun Near Barack Obama? tries to use the "fire in a crowded theater" argument.

...This isn't complicated. Let's say we have a crowded theater. And let's say I exercise my seemingly enumerated First Amendment right and shout the word "Fire!" And let's say that several dozen people are grievously injured in the ensuing chaos. (Let's further assume that many of these people are recipients of generous, reliable Medicare benefits, so the state bears a cost.)

The fact that this situation is so preposterous is exactly why the law prevents it from happening: courts have created common-law doctrines like "fighting words" and "clear and present danger" for the obvious reason that the exercise of a right can have dire consequences, and some consequences are too costly to bear. Will might think that in this circumstance the cost is not prohibitively high, but there's nothing silly about a suggestion to the contrary.

For Clarke and all the other anti gun rights ignoramuses out there, the correct quote is "You cannot falsely shout fire in a crowded theater."

It was penned by Oliver Wendell Holmes writing for the majority in Schenk V United States (U.S. 47 1919) in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled it was illegal to distribute fliers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment was permissible because opposing the draft presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war.

Misusing a clearly anti First Amendment decision in an anti Second Amendment argument reveals an ignorance of history and a lot about the real goals of the writer.

Nordyke v King En Banc

Volokh Conspiracy Ninth Circuit Will Rehear Nordyke v. King En Banc
Law.com Giving Gun Case Another Look

The whole gun rights blogosphere is abuzz with speculation on this. I'll post more as information comes in.

The ACLU Gets it Right!

From USA Today:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans man is suing the city and its district attorney for refusing to give back a gun that police seized when he was arrested on drug and firearms charges that were later dropped.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed the federal lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Errol Houston Jr., who was arrested last year following a traffic stop. The lawsuit says the district attorney's office declined to prosecute Houston but has refused to return his .40-caliber firearm.

WDSU Reports:
ACLU Sues Cannizzaro, Riley Over Gun Confiscation

"For the government to keep property that someone is legally entitled to own, there must be good cause, and the owner is entitled to due process," ACLU Executive Director Marjorie Esman said. "Mr. Houston has done nothing wrong. There are no criminal charges against him.

"His firearm, which he is and was entitled to carry, has been confiscated for no reason. It is past time for NOPD and the District Attorney to return it."

The suit claims that by keeping the firearms, the City is violating the plaintiff's Second Amendment rights and due process rights.

PDF file:http://www.laaclu.org/PDF_documents/Houston_v_CityofNO_Complaint.pdf

The National ACLU still maintains that the "Militia Clause" somehow converts the Second Amendment into a collective right. Anyone who paid attention in High School English knows that the first part of the Second Amendment -- "A Well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" -- is grammatically a nominative absolute and does not alter the meaning of "The Right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Perhaps the leadership of the Louisiana ACLU paid attention in school.