Constitutional Law

Brady on Heller outcome

Posted on June 20, 2008
Video here, Quite a series of retreats. Claims that the federal courts are right wingers, hopes that gun laws that don't inhibit self-defense will survive, acknowledgments that the case was carefully planned, etc. Griping about Justice Kennedy's questions? Brady is engaged in a MASSIVE retreat, on the eve of any decision...

Pro-gun rally in Chicago, July 11

Posted on June 20, 2008
Flyer here. If you have dialup, try here's a smaller file. Dr. Suzanna Hupp -- who is one compelling speaker -- will address the rally. Hat tip to Carl in Chicago, of course!

Modern legal scholarship

Posted on June 19, 2008
Here's a synopsis of an upcoming Villanova L. Rev. article. It isn't often that I can read a synopsis of an article and have not the foggiest what it is saying--- "Engaging with Michael Seidman?s contribution to the symposium, I close the essay in suggesting that when, as in Mark Tushnet?s suggestive orientation to ?the Other? just before the end of the essay ?Defending Korematsu?,? he sees the Other face to face, he extends an invitation to read in his most recent constitutional law scholarship a resurgence of the orientation to Others that was the ground of his scholarly work, and thus to conclude that one does not have to move from the realm of hermeneutics to that of metaphor, as Seidman suggests is necessary, to identify his commitment to what is paradoxically a certain kind of ?thick? constitutionalism, which conceives of it as something more than a bare practice for allocating political power in the nation-state, necessarily implying some ethical engagement between subjects who govern and those who are governed...

"Shooting Liberally"

Posted on June 19, 2008
An interesting NYC group. I doubt they're a false flag; they seem more interested in shooting than in politics. My good friend Mark Benenson, a Krag collector who wrote law reviews against gun control many years ago, was former Chairman of Amnesty International's US branch...

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Gun laws to be less restrictive in New South Wales

Posted on June 19, 2008
Article here. Looks as if, as is common in parliamentary systems, the largest party is still slightly less than a majority. And pro-gun Members formed their own party, the Shooters' Party, which is just enough to give the dominant party a majority if it votes with them.

Article on the Chicago handgun ban

Posted on June 19, 2008
In the Chicago Tribune. "But what's not often reported by the decidedly pro-gun-control media is that since Chicago's anti-handgun law went into effect in 1982, only two classes of people have had ready access to firearms: The criminals. And the politicians...

Nothing in Heller today

Posted on June 19, 2008
Court announced six or seven ops this morning, leaving ten to go. Next opinion day is Monday. Court is considered likely to add on an extra opinion day -- ten in one day is more than it likes to issue. Of cases argued in Feb. two remain, and of March, two, incl...

Bob Barr's candidacy

Posted on June 18, 2008
Here's a good post on it.

Brady Campaign not satisifed with California

Posted on June 18, 2008
Brady Campaign apparently considers California's many gun laws as just too lax: ""We make it too easy for dangerous people to obtain dangerous weapons,? said Kay Holmen, President of the CA Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence." Of course they're hard put to find something CA hasn't already enacted, so they propose (1) ammunition registration and (2) a requirement that guns be personalized so only their owner can use them...

Chris Cox interviewed re: Heller

Posted on June 18, 2008
Gunvaluesboard has a steps of the Court video interview of Chris Cox of ILA in regards the Heller case. The Court's next day for announcing decisions is tommorrow, starting at 10 AM EDT. I'll be up early and watching for it, altho I'd agree that the last decision day (Monday unless they add another one) is more likely...

VPC and a Joyce clone attacking Justice Alito

Posted on June 17, 2008
Right here. I like the way they style his dissent in a 2-1 Circuit ruling as "the lone dissenter." On a three judge panel, that's the only way you can be a dissenter. Page is sponsored by Freedom States Alliance (and in contradiction to that name, complains of his "extremely restrictive view of Congressional regulatory power...

Commas in the Second Amendment

Posted on June 17, 2008
An interesting paper over at GMU's The Green Bag. It points out that even at the time of the ratification, there were versions with one, two, and three commas, and that since Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court have varied in their usage...

Crime in South Africa

Posted on June 17, 2008
A doctor's look. Pretty horrifying. Good thing they have such strict gun laws, otherwise things would get out of hand. "Obviously, we're making an impact," said Judy Bassingthwaite, the national director of the leading lobby for curbs on gun ownership, Gun Free South Africa...

VA to pay settlement in VA Tech shootings

Posted on June 17, 2008
Story here. UPDATE: suits for wrongful death are created by statute (at common law, if you were dead you couldn't sue, and your survivors had no right to, either, because they hadn't been directly hurt). The statutes are sometimes rather narrow -- rather than recovering for a lifetime of lost wages, some say you recover only what the deceased would have likely given you -- which will be high for a child of the deceased, but low for a parent...

More on Red's Trading Post

Posted on June 17, 2008
They're relocating, since the city is buying its present location. Sounds as if they figure they'll stay in business. Hat tip to reader Clark Myers

Op-Ed on Parker/Heller

Posted on June 17, 2008
Bob Levy has an Op-Ed in the Washington Times.

Calling Dr. Freud

Posted on June 16, 2008
From the Boston Globe": "The naughty thrill of reaching under the socks, the shock of actually touching the thing, finding it cold, as if on ice. Such is my memory of furtive encounters with my father's handgun. At the time, Dad was an FBI agent. Where he stowed his weapon when off-duty was absolutely out-of-bounds, which defined its appeal...

Suit against Torrance CA over CCW refusal

Posted on June 16, 2008
Pdf of the complaint here. Plaintiff is a city employee whose job requires carrying large sums of cash, and whose employing agency endorsed his application for a CCW permit. The Torrance chief of police turned it down, stating it was his policy not to issue permits, period...

Interesting thoughts on Supremes

Posted on June 16, 2008
Article here. Theme is that the Presidential candidates act as if the Court were composed of four minimialist conservatives (McCain's ideal), four empathic liberals (Obama's ideal) and Justice Kennedy moving back and forth, when it's much more complex than that...

nothing in Heller today

Posted on June 16, 2008
Next day to announce opinions is Thursday.

Heller brief

Posted on June 15, 2008
Just as an experiment, I had 50 copies of the A2A brief reproduced, for less than the printer charged ($10 each, as I recall!). If you'd like one autographed by your humble servant, as a memento of the case, just click on the link in the left margin. If there is any major interest, I'll suggest to coauthor Joe Olson that A2A do it en masse, and suggest to other progun groups that they reproduce theirs, as well...

NJ legislative commmittee reports out .50 cal ban

Posted on June 15, 2008
NRA press release here. Legislation in pdf here. I can't say how much of this is already NJ law, but as I read it also (1) bans muzzleloaders above .60 caliber (meaning you can have Civil War but not Revolutionary War re-enactments and even with CW can't use ...

Sheriff protests Jesse Jackson protest at DS Arms

Posted on June 15, 2008
Story here.

If it would save even one life...

Posted on June 15, 2008
Story here. In California, unarmed passers-by come upon man fatally beating a toddler, and are unable to stop him. He is stopped only when officers arrive and shoot him. Hat tip to reader Jim Kindred...

Prof. O'Shea on Heller

Posted on June 14, 2008
Over at Concurring Opinions, Prof Mike O'Shea has his take on what to watch for. It's quite detailed, and I can't think of anything unsaid that might be added.

LA Times -- NRA's clout waning?

Posted on June 14, 2008
Here's the story. Understand, I've been reading stories that NRA power is declining since the 1970s. As its membership went from 600,000 to 4-5-6 times that, the stories kept coming. But this one is a chuckle. It argues that NRA's power is waning because gun owners have completely defeated the opposition! "Congress hasn't passed major legislation to restrict gun use in 14 years...

Brady Campaign--more on Heller

Posted on June 13, 2008
Check out the Brady Campaign Blog. It's a generic discussion of their top dog, Paul Helmke's surrender in Heller. It sounds a little bit embarassed. That would be understandable. After all, earlier this year Helmke posted of the "the long-standing view of virtually every Federal court ? that the Second Amendment has an obvious militia purpose, and is no barrier to the adoption of gun control laws by legislative bodies...

Civil War incident

Posted on June 13, 2008
The NRA was founded, as a friend pithily put it, "to teach Yankees how to shoot Southerners" -- the critical event being when the Union officer who would found it discovered that not one of his men could hit a barrel-head at moderate distance. (He also discovered that there was no American military manual on shooting, in terms of hitting a mark...

PA busts for open, legal, carry

Posted on June 12, 2008
Snowflakes in Hell has the story. As I can read it, a group of open carry activists ate dinner, one or more was arrested (in a state where open carry is legal), and they filed suit.

Brady Campaign hoists the white flag on 2A?

Posted on June 12, 2008
From ABC News comes one of the most remarkable political concessions I've heard in my life, and a statement I'd never expected to see in three decades of Second Amendment work: GUN CONTROL GROUP BRACES FOR COURT LOSS The nation's leading gun control group filed a "friend of the court" brief back in January defending the gun ban in Washington, DC...

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