Random Ravings

The Heller Decision

Beau Monday — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:02:00 GMT

I was busy last week, and didn't post, but rest assured I knew about the Heller decision about 4 minutes after it was announced. And yes, I did a happy dance. As i told my dad later, I never had the Supreme Court decide on something that I so strongly believed in, and it was a bit overwhelming when I heard the decision.

Where to start. Wow.

First, the biggest thing in the decision was the fact that all 9 justices, including the most liberal ones, agreed that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right, not a collective one. Let me say that again: All 9 justices unanimously concluded that the right to keep and bear arms as bestowed by the Second Amendment is an individual right, not tied to service in a militia or other organized group. The “collective right” argument was the mainstay of the anti-gun movement, so it's incredible that the court struck down that argument quite thoroughly the first opportunity it has had to address it.

Some interesting quotes I read throughout the week:

The same folks who can read the Constitution and Bill of Rights and find an unassailable right to abortion and gay marriage can't find a right to possession of a firearm. http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/06/the-great-equal.html
(For the record, I support gay marriage and abortion. Because I'm a Libertarian. But the point is valid, given that guns ownership is mentioned as a right in the Constitution and the others are not.)
It's true that the dissenters' view of that right is somewhere between "minimalist" (to be charitable) and "incoherent" (to be accurate). But nonetheless, all nine Justices specifically said the right is individual, and thus rejected the "collective right" position on the Second Amendment, a position that's been the mainstay of gun-control groups, newspaper editorialists, and lower federal courts for decades, and one that was presented by those adherents as so obviously correct that those arguing for an individual right were called "frauds" and shills for the NRA.

Yet the collective right theory could not command a single vote on the Court when actually tested. It was, it seems, a paper tiger all along. (InstaPundit)
Of course, the originalism of both Justices Scalia's and Stevens's opinions are in stark contrast with Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion, in which he advocates balancing an enumerated constitutional right against what some consider a pressing need to prohibit its exercise. Guess which wins out in the balancing? As Justice Scalia notes, this is not how we normally protect individual rights, and was certainly not how Justice Breyer protected the individual right of habeas corpus in the military tribunals case decided just two weeks ago. (Wall Street Journal: News Flash: The Constitution Means What it Says)
Team Obama declared the DC gun ban as “constitutional” on November 20, 2007, during a period of time when he was busy sucking up to the hard Left and their confiscatory inclinations on the Second Amendment.

Suddenly, with the general election looming, Obama discovers that his campaign’s statement was “inartful“. This seems rather puzzling, because before he ran for public office, Barack Obama was supposed to be a Constitutional law expert. One might expect the “inartful” excuse on wetlands reclamation or some other esoteric matter of public policy, but the Constitution is what he supposedly studied at Columbia and Harvard. One has to wonder whether Obama has any competence even in his own chosen field to have seven months go by before realizing that he got the Constitutional question wrong. (Next in Bus & Driver: Obama’s position on guns)
On page 2 of Stevens' dissent, when referring to US v Miller and the National Firearms Act, he leads off with:

"Upholding a conviction under that Act, this Court held that..."

Of course, Miller was never convicted and US v. Miller certainly didn't uphold any convictions. That's just factually invalid.

How did Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer all miss that when US v Miller is the core precedent that the dissent was based on?
Ah, yes. The living constitution. Which is like a living contract between your mortgage company and you. I know we agreed on 6.5%, but the contract is living so now it's 19.4% and you're required to clean our local branch office.

The funny thing is that it is capable of evolving. The founders had a good first try, however not all their ideas have worked perfectly nor did they cover all the bases. They, being rather intelligent people, realized they couldn't be perfect so they came up with a pretty good system that allowed the people to modify the Constitution if the need arose. The modification wasn't to be done by a few judges, but by a vast majority of the people.

I don't know what I'm enjoying more. The fact that we actually moved a back a bit to the freedom this country was founded upon, or the fact that leftists' heads are a'splodin'. (Sharp as a Marble: When Historians Attack)

More later.

Source found for Med Cable Cuts - And aren't there 2 Koreas?

Beau Monday — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:30:00 GMT

2 of the ships responsible for damaging the undersea cables in the Middle East last February were caught with their proverbial pants down on satellite photos.

One was Iraqi, and the other was “Korean”.

Wait a second. Aren't there 2 Koreas? One that is relatively peaceful and the other that wants to blow our brains out with a nuke at their earliest possible convenience? I think it's relevant to distinguish between the two, don't you?

Story here: http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2008/04/12/remember-the-undersea-cables-that-were-being-cut/

Accessorizing with Macs

Beau Monday — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:07:00 GMT

I have never actually used a modern Mac. My exposure to them is limited to the IIe-era, and I understand they've come a long way since then,

What I don't understand is why the majority of Mac laptop users I've observed have used the platform merely for running Windows XP in Parallel.

Case in point: Returning from RSA, I was sitting behind a Mac user that was using her vaunted MacBook Air to type a simple Word doc. In Windows XP.

Seriously? Folks, there is even a Mac version of Word. Does XP really present such a compellingly superior user experience that you cannot be troubled to run the Mac version of Word on Apple's own operating system?

I was left to conclude that the user had a MacBook Air just for the “cred”. For whatever reason, they felt compelled to do their actual work using XP.

I'll never get Mac users.

Some animals are more equal than others

Beau Monday — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:02:00 GMT

“All animals are equal“ was the first version of the farm's “rules” in the movie Animal Farm. It was soon revised with “some animals are more equal than others“ when the ruling class (pigs) found it inconvenient to adhere to all the rules they were imposing upon the rest of the farm.

This attitude runs rampant in politics, especially when it comes to gun control. Here are some examples:

Diane Feinstein - Staunch advocate of a wholesale ban on guns, once saught to ban guns entirely from San Francisco. “Banning guns addresses a fundamental need for all Americans to feel safe.“ Yet, when she felt threatened, she got a concealed weapons license, purchased a .38 revolver and carried it around with her. “I know the urge to arm yourself because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. I’d walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me.” While she takes steps necessary to preserve her own life, she actively seeks to forbid the rest of America from doing so. She's more equal than us, apparently.
Ted Kennedy - Good old Ted. We have so much fun with this guy, it should be against the law. “Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my gun“ is one of my all-time favorite bumper stickers. Proposed legislation that would have made it illegal to buy, manufacture or import handguns. Bodyguard busted for carrying an unregistered handgun, 2 machines guns, and 140ish rounds of ammunition into the US Capitol building. I guess if you can afford to pay for bodyguards with automatic weapons, you don't need to worry about your right to protect yourself with a concealed weapon. More equal than us.
Carol Mosely-Braun - Active anti-gun supporter. Owns a .22 caliber handgun. More equal than us.
Stephen Solarz - Introduced federal legislation to ban handguns. Bodyguards arrested with handguns, brass knuckles and a blackjack, at the US Capitol Building. More equal than us.

Apparently only the ruling class elite get to avail themselves of their inherent right to defend themselves. They are more equal than us, after all.

Ted Nugent on Gun Control

Beau Monday — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:26:00 GMT

Ted Nugent isn't exactly a role model of mine, but his stance on gun control aligns pretty closely with my own, and he's learned to enunciate “our” beliefs much more effectively than I ever have.

Here's a quote from Ted during a recent appearance on a radio show in Texas:

I don't need a constitution, I don't need a Bill of Rights, I don't need a document of any type; I don't need an organization like the NRA, or Gun Owners of America, or The Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership; I don't need you. I don't need another human being to authorize me to defend myself. Or to explain what “Keep and Bear Arms” means. KEEP means "It's mine, you can't have it." BEAR means "Yes, I have it right here." Bear doesn't mean it's locked up in the safe, bear doesn't mean it's unloaded and disassembled, doesn't mean it's in my truck or has a padlock on it. Bear means "Yes I have it right here". I'M BEARING IT.

And "shall not be infringed" is a message to would-be tyrants, kings, emperors or slave drivers, who we left Europe to get away from to have an experiment in self government, where these pre-existing god-given rights are burned in the soul of every free man that has ever been born. And it starts and ends with my absolute irrefutable right to defend myself. And unless I am keeping and bearing arms, I am helpless.

They banned guns in Rwanda. They banned guns in Darfur. They banned guns in Somalia. They banned guns in Nuremberg in 1938, and then of course, people had no choice but to GET ON THE TRAINS.

His entire 16-minute segment can be heard here, and it's worth a listen.

Why so much commentary on the 2nd Amendment lately?

Beau Monday — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:38:00 GMT

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past week, you probably know that the Supreme Court heard arguments last week regarding a law in Washington DC that flies directly in the face of the 2nd Amendment. It has been some 60 years since the high court has agreed to hear a 2nd Amendment case.

The case in question is Washington DC v Heller. Heller, a resident of Washington DC, and an armed security guard by day, applied for a permit that would enable him to keep his duty sidearm intact while he was at home. Under DC's current handgun ban, enacted in 1976, it is illegal to own an unlicensed handgun, even within your own home. Washington DC stopped issuing handgun licenses immediately once the law went into effect, resulting in a defacto ban on handguns. Oh, and they also became the Murder Capital of America 8 months after the ban went into effect. Thumbs up, asshats! I guess all those murder victims were pushed out of windows, seeing how handguns were banned during that time. Maybe DC should look at banning windows next, seeing how effective their handgun ban has been in controlling violent crime in their city.

So, while Heller was permitted to carry his sidearm in the course of protecting the Washington elite, he was not permitted to carry it (or even keep it in his home) for protecting his own life or the life of his family. What kind of hypocracy is that?

He sued the city, and eventually won on appeal. The appellate court decided in Heller's favor, and below is the summary of their findings:

[...]we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment's civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.
[...]
Once it is determined - as we have done - that handguns are 'Arms' referred to in the Second Amendment, it is not open to the District to ban them ... That is not to suggest that the government is absolutely barred from regulating the use and ownership of pistols. The protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment.

Heller won his case, and Washington DC's gun ban was suddenly unconstitutional. After failing to convince the appellate court to re-hear the case under a conflict of interest claim, DC lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case. Which they did, last Wednesday.

Should the Supreme Court uphold the lower court's ruling, which seems likely after hearing the oral arguments last week, it will turn every state and local handgun law on its ear.

Who is Afraid of the Federal Government? Our Founding Fathers, that's who

Beau Monday — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:52:00 GMT

[This is the third of my short essays on aspects of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. Again, I am not a constitutional scholar, just a guy in his pajamas doing his part to influence public policy. Ain't democracy swell?]

Disingenuous people today will tell you that the 2nd Amendment was not intended to be an enabler of overthrowing the federal government, and it in fact refers to the need for an organized army for defensive purposes.

When in actuality, that's exactly what the 2nd Amendment's intent was. Allow me to demonstrate.

In The Federalist Papers (I really hate carting out Federalist Papers references every time, but they really are the most insightful documents relating our our constitution), Alexander Hamilton devotes no fewer than 8 articles on the subject of the dangers of a standing federal army. Some of the Framers (Thomas Jefferson among them, I might add) were so concerned about what the federal government might do with a full-time standing army, that they proposed making it illegal to maintain an army in times of peace. Which Hamilton thought (rightly) was asinine, by the way.

Hamilton argued, again anonymously, in The Federalist Papers that the Framers had already considered this, and sufficient controls were already in place to prevent the federal government from going off on the locals, the primary control being that the Army is raised by the Legislative branch, which is comprised of officials periodically elected, and not the executive branch, which is stuffed with appointees. Furthermore, the Constitution further stipulates that funding for any standing army must be renewed by this legislative branch every 2 years. To quote Hamilton, explaining this latter provision of the Constitution:

“The legislature of the United States will be obliged, by this provision, once at least every 2 years, to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on foot; to come to a new resolution on the point; and to declare their sense of the matter, by a formal vote in the face of their constituents. They are not at liberty to vest in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence.“

[...]

“As often as the question comes forward, the public attention will be roused and attracted to the subject, by the party in opposition; and if the majority should be really disposed to exceed the proper limits, the community will be warned of the danger, and will have an opportunity of taking measures to guard against it. Independent of parties in the national legislature itself, as often as the period of discussion arrived, the State legislatures, who will always be not only vigilant but suspicious and jealous guardians of the rights of the citizens against encroachments from the federal government, will constantly have their attention awake to the conduct of the national rulers, and will be ready enough, if anything improper appears, to sound the alarm to the people, and not only be their voice, but if necessary the ARM of their discontent.“ (Emphasis: Hamilton)

He further argues that, should an abolition on maintaining a peacetime army be inserted into the Constitution, it would be too fraught with interpretation to be unenforcible. For when, indeed, is a fledgling nation, surrounded by enemies on all sides, truly “at peace“?

He goes on to argue that having States in control of the forces necessary to fend off foreign incursions is simply not practical, and would tend to foster jealousies and other conflict between states, using their local militias to harry their neighbor states. In fact, the original Articles of Confederation that the States abided by while a Constitution was being formulated, expressly forbade any state from raising its own army.

Read this astonishing excerpt from Number 28, in which Hamilton expressly acknowledges the People's inherent and irrevocable right to affect change in their government using force if it becomes necessary:

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government...“

But Hamilton goes on to argue that it is impractical for small groups of dissidents to overthrow a state-run army, because a state could more easily crush such resistance as it was forming:

“...and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The smaller the extent of the territory, the more difficult will it be for the people to form a regular or systemic plan of opposition, and the more easy it will be to defeat their early efforts. Intelligence can be more speedily obtained of their preparations and movements, and the military force in the possession of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the part where the opposition has begun.“

Read that again. Hamilton is telling the people that they should embrace the constitutional premise of a federalized army because it allows the people a better chance of overthrowing the government should the need arise. And that the state militias should be reserved by the people as a tool (but not the only one) of expressing that discontent.

Can you doubt that the Founding Fathers weighed heavily the powers they were granting to the government via this constitution, and built in protections (up to and including full-blown revolution) to dislodge a government acting against the interests of the union?

The argument against The Bill of Rights

Beau Monday — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:38:00 GMT

[This is the second of my short essays on aspects of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. Again, I am not a constitutional scholar, just a guy in his pajamas doing his part to influence public policy. Ain't democracy swell?]

Why was the Bill of Rights not included in the original Constitution? Was it an oversight, corrected quickly by its inclusion via a series of Amendments?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you read the early writings of The Framers, there was great debate on if a Bill of Rights needed to be drafted into The Constitution, as a number of states had felt necessary to do in their state constitutions. But the Constitution was a document granting powers to the federal government, not to the people it governed. The “People” were considered to have inherent rights, and as such a Bill of Rights would be redundant, and some framers even viewed a Bill of Rights as an invitation to abuse rights *not* granted in it. To quote Alexander Hamilton, anonymously arguing against the need of a Bill of Rights in The Federalist Papers (No 84):

“[T]he people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations. 'We the People of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.' Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our States bills of rights, and would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.“

[...]

“[A Bill of Rights] would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorful pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?“

While Hamilton and the other like-minded Framers succeeded in omitting any “Bill of Rights” in The Constitution, the Bill of Rights was eventually tacked on to The Constitution, as the first 10 of its Amendments. To our detriment, some would say (myself among them).

Alexander Hamilton's express concerns about the fact that the Bill of Rights couldn't possibly be inclusive enough to catalog all the inherent rights of individuals, and would be fundamentally abusable, certainly rings ominously prophetic these days where the federal government is listening in on private phone conversations, performing wholesale video surveillance, and banning evil black rifles.

I cling to the 2nd Amendment now, because it's all we have left to cling to. Flawed as The Bill of Rights is, we're left supporting it because its absence in today's political climate would be disastrous. The concept that people have inherent rights is gone from our modern government (and, dare I say, popular opinion). If it hasn't been expressly granted to you via the federal, or in some cases, the state constitutions, a “right” is simply a privilege that the goverment has deigned to allow you to temporarily enjoy. For now.

I wish we had more Alexander Hamiltons in our midst today, because I look at the growing attacks against even these 10 rights, and wonder how long even they will stand.

An Individual Right

Beau Monday — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:49:00 GMT

The arguments over The Second Amendment confound me. I am no constitutional scholar, but I have read enough about the founders and their debates to understand what their intent was with The Constitution, and the subsequent Bill of Rights. To wit, I will be posting a number of short essays on the subject, and this is the first.

A common argument is that the "people" referred to in the 2nd Amendment does not mean individuals, but rather an organized group of people conscripted into duty for the purpose of protecting the nation or state.

OK, sure, taken out of context, I could see how you might argue that. However, taken in context with the other rights granted by the first ten amendments, that arguments suddenly pales. If you look at every other amendment in the first 10, they are all, without reservation, protections the people have against government oppression. 1st Amendment? Freedom of religion, press and speech. 3rd? Protection from government troops occupying your residence. 4th? Protection from unreasonable search and seizure. 5th: Right to due process of law, protection from self-incrimination. 6th: Right to a speedy trial. 7th: Right to a trial by jury. 8th: Right to reasonable bail, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment. 9th: Protection of other rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights. 10th: Powers not specifically granted to the federal government are retained by the states, or by the people.

Given 9 other rights here, each blatantly granting individual protections to the individual from the government, how can anyone argue with a straight face that the 2nd Amendment alone is some collective right, and not an individual one?

Consider also, that the phrase "the people" is used in the exact same context in the First Amendment, yet nobody would dare argue that the right to free speech or the free practice of religion is anything other than an individual right.

Given this, it is obvious that the 2nd Amendment was granting the right to bear arms to individuals, just as the other rights guaranteed by the 9 other amendments are individual rights.

People don't stop killers, people with guns do

Beau Monday — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:42:00 GMT

When a gunman entered a Colorado church with 2 handguns, a rifle and over 1000 rounds of ammunition, it was a private citizen, lawfully carrying a concealed weapon, who saved countless lives by engaging and neutralizing the killer with her handgun.

To quote the church spokesman: "If we had not had an armed person on our campus, 50 to 100 people could have lost their lives yesterday."

While you rarely hear about it in the news, quite a few mass killings have been prevented by the lawful use of force by ordinary citizens licensed to carry concealed weapons.

People don't stop killers, people with guns do. Think about who you are disarming with your "Gun-free zones". It's not the mass murderers.