Despite the landmark victory in the Heller case, the constitutional right to bear arms for defensive purposes is still constantly under assault. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg recently testified in the Senate over a supposed “terror gap” in gun laws.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told a Senate panel Wednesday that he strongly supports congressional efforts to close a “terror gap” in the nation’s gun laws, which currently allow persons on a federal terrorist watch list to buy guns and explosives legally in the United States.
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in the wake of the latest alleged terrorist plot against his city, Bloomberg (I) pointed to a new Government Accountability Office report showing that individuals on the terrorist watch list were able to buy firearms and explosives from licensed U.S. dealers 1,119 times over the past six years.
“That is a serious and dangerous breach of national security,” Bloomberg testified. The FBI should have the authority to block such sales, “but right now, they don’t,” he said. “It is time to close this ‘terror gap’ in our gun laws.”
It’s not hard to sympathize with the national security argument here, but I think mayor Bloomberg is wrong for several reasons.
First of all, the no-fly list is notoriously problematic. The list contains over 1 million names, all of which are most certainly not terrorists. Moreover, there is a huge difference between flying and owning a gun. That difference rests primarily with the fact that the latter is an expressly granted constitutional right. Rescinding such rights cannot be done merely by adding someone’s name to a list. If that’s all it takes to void the constitution, then this is no longer a nation of law.
Besides the fact that it’s unconstitutional and places a huge burden on the likely hundreds of thousands of Americans who have found themselves on that list despite lacking any terrorist sympathies, it wouldn’t offer any meaningful protection anyway. The idea that real terrorists wouldn’t be able to purchase guns on the black market is absurd. The end result would be that the people you actually want to restrict access to still get weapons, while law-abiding citizens are forced to deal with another (unconstitutional) burden on their basic freedoms.
This is not the first time an effort has been made to deny Second Amendment rights to citizens arbitrarily placed on some list. Assuming it fails, one can only hope it’s the last.
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Despite having some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, violence in Chicago has gotten so bad that some local politicians are calling for deployment of the National Guard. It’s bad enough when gun control advocates can’t recognize the failure of their own policies, but now Mayor Daley has taken the anti-Second Amendment agenda to a whole new level. Literally.
Along with several other mayors across the globe, Mayor Daley and Philadelphia Mayor Nutter have signed a resolution which fails to recognize the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and threatens to undermine fundamental rights.
The resolution called for national governments, international human rights groups and public health organizations to help the world’s cities address global gun trafficking and gun violence. It also called on the U.S. to take a leading role “by imposing greater oversight and accountability of the gun industry” with stricter regulation and enforcement of gun trafficking.
The resolution vowed that wherever possible mayors would “seek redress against the gun industry through the courts of the world – including local, state and federal courts, and international courts – for damages caused to our countries, cities and communities by global trafficking of illegal guns.”
“Can you imagine what would happen if gun manufacturers were taken into the World Court and challenged on the issues?” said Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter.
Make no mistake, this is a direct assault on the right to bear arms in the U.S. As a elected officials within the United States, these mayors have an obligation to uphold and defend the Constitution. Instead, they are attempting to subvert it by advocating appeal to world bodies that have no democratic accountability in this country. There are few things imaginable that are greater grounds for impeachment.
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A rather masterful takedown of Bill, who doesn’t seem to be “looking out for the folks” anymore when it comes to the right to defend themselves:
Hat-tip: Gateway Pundit
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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in McDonald v. City of Chicago today. The petitioners look to have Heller incorporated via the 14th Amendment and applied to the states.
Aside from this question, the case has also brought up the Privileges or Immunities Clause, which was long ago gutted by the Slaughter-House cases. Gura and his libertarian faction have sought to overturn these cases and have the 2nd Amendment incorporated via Privileges or Immunities (Cato has a case for reviving P&I), while others have wanted to focus on the simpler case of using Due Process.
Based on accounts of the hearing today, the Court seems unlikely to revisit the Slaughter-House cases. Thankfully, it is likely to incorporate via Due Process and finally extend 2nd Amendment protections to all Americans.
Update: Reason has more here and here.
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While quite possibly setting a new record for hyperbole in a press release, The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus argues that it is “radical” to grant college students the Constitutional right to defend themselves by bearing arms.
Contrary to the claim of their name, The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus isn’t actually campaigning to keep guns off campus. How can they? Banning guns didn’t do anything to stop the Virginia Tech massacre. Their objective is merely to keep legal guns off campus, so that only trouble makers and those intent on bloody murder will be armed.
They should change their name to The Campaign to Lead College Kids to Slaughter.
See here for a list of dangerous colleges that advocate the outlaw of self-defense, so you know where not to send your kids.
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Really, what public good is served by this?
Thanks to the leftists at the Bloomington Herald-Times, criminals will now know which homes are armed and which ones will be easy pickings. In their moonbat zeal to shame those who dare exercise their constitutional rights into a progressive submission by publishing a database of Indiana CCW permits, they have enabled the nere-do-wells of Indiana to weed out those who can (and likely would) put up a fight.
…Since I do not have a subscription to the H-T to view the database, others viewed it and stated it just lists streets which people with gun permits are residing. Not exact addresses – so far. Which is deceiving because longer streets with more residences would obviously have more permit holders living on them.
Tyrants love lists.
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I’m now officially giving that label to (not so) Great Britain. No country can match the sheer volume of jaw-droppingly stupid items that it produces on a near daily basis. It has become a cesspool of excessive multiculturalism, nanny-state paternalism and runaway liberalism. Witness:
A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for “doing his duty”. Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year. The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year’s imprisonment for handing in the weapon. In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: “I didn’t think for one moment I would be arrested.”
… Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a “strict liability” charge – therefore Mr Clarke’s allegedly honest intent was irrelevant. Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.
… Judge Christopher Critchlow said: “This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge. “The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”
Let this stand as a warning to any who consider following down their path.
Hat-tip: Cato@Liberty
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Anti-gun hacks exposed:
Leave a commentIn Philadelphia, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania find, possessing a gun is strongly associated with getting shot. Since “guns did not protect those who possessed them,” they conclude, “people should rethink their possession of guns.” This is like noting that possessing a parachute is strongly associated with being injured while jumping from a plane, then concluding that skydivers would be better off unemcumbered by safety equipment designed to slow their descent. “Can this study possibly be as stupid as it sounds?” asks Stewart Baker at Skating on Stilts. Having shelled out $30 for the privilege of reading the entire article, which appears in the November American Journal of Public Health, I can confirm that the answer is yes.
…
The one explanation the researchers don’t mention is the one that will occur first to defenders of the right to armed self-defense: Maybe people who anticipate violent confrontations—such as drug dealers, frequently robbed bodega owners, and women with angry ex-boyfriends—are especially likely to possess guns, just as people who jump out of airplanes are especially likely to possess parachutes. The closest Branas et al. come to acknowledging that tendency is their admission, toward the end of the article, that they “did not account for the potential of reverse causation between gun possession and gun assault”—that is, the possibility that a high risk of being shot ”causes” gun ownership, as opposed to the other way around.
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A year after the Heller decision found an individual right to bear arms, the Supreme Court is again considering the question of gun rights. The court granted cert. in McDonald v. City of Chicago, and will hear thequestion of whether or not the 2nd amendment applies to the states, and not just the federal government, through the process of incorporation via the 14th amendment.
Alan Gura, who successfully argued the Heller case, will be the lead attorney on the side of McDonald, a resident of a high-crime Chicago neighborhood whose application for a gun permit was turned down by the city with arguably the toughest restrictions in the country.
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A 16-year-old boy in Maryland committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with his step-fathers gun. The father demanded that the step-father take responsibility, and has launched a crusade – culminating in a $50,000 jury award – to prove that he is at fault. Underlying his efforts is a clear anti-gun subtext.
Does it really make sense to place responsibility for a teenager’s suicide (we’re talking about a deliberate act here, not an accident) on the availability of a gun? Logic suggests not. An individual determined to commit suicide will use whatever means is available. Guns are easiest and are not surprisingly used in a majority of suicides, but plenty of people find other methods.
If the step-father did not have a gun, surely he has knives that could have been used. The absense of the gun in question would not have made suicide impossible, or even unreasonably more difficult. It is therefore illogical to conclude that the step-father, simply by having an accessible gun, is responsible for the child’s act. We must not allow the need to assign blame for one tragic act compound the situation with an even more tragic assault on personal liberty.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science and work in public policy, but please don't hold that against me.
