Washington, D.C. Discovers Constitution
David Weigel | March 10, 2007, 12:50am
Friday's big news, which broke a bit late for H&R:
A federal appeals court overturned the District of Columbia's long-standing handgun ban Friday, rejecting the city's argument that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applied only to militias.
In a 2-1 decision, the judges held that the activities protected by the Second Amendment "are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent" on enrollment in a militia.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the city cannot prevent people from keeping handguns in their homes. The ruling also struck down a requirement that owners of registered firearms keep them unloaded and disassembled. The court did not address provisions that prohibit people from carrying unregistered guns outside the home.
The decision marks the first time a federal appeals court has struck down a portion of a gun law on Second Amendment grounds.
That's huge. And one angle you probably won't hear: This is the direction DC public opinion has been moving toward for some time. Only one month ago Marion Barry, DC's statesman/punchline who now holds a city council seat, proposed a halt to the gun ban.
rob | March 11, 2007, 11:11am | #
Since joe's now gotten so paranoid that I'll continue to point out his latent homophobic/racist/misogynistic tendencies that he's taken to pre-emptive posting before I'm even part of a thread, I feel I should do my best to make his paranoid fantasies as real as I possibly can. He's really wedded to that cross he pretends to bear...
"Tell you what, post the same comment under my name, and then rob can call you a homophobe!" - joe
Wow, STILL smarting about being called out of your closeted bigotry and taken behind the wood-shed! It's sad to see you flinching every time anyone says anything even remotely related. Of course, even a dog flinches when he sees a rolled-up newspaper if he's frequently been popped with it for making a mess on the floor, so I suppose it shouldn't be surprising.
As for the topics at hand - both the ruling and whether DC deserves representation...
This is probably a mixed bag ruling and celebrations from either camp would be premature. Although that quote where Michael Moore talks about not taking hunting firearms away is a perfect example of a guy with his head up his arse.
As usual, throughout the thread, joe is wrong as usual on several points: 1.) that the NRA is somehow closely allied to far-right organizations rather than allying itself with whichever organizations happen to be going in the same direction on the matter at hand at that moment (this is a common fallacy about alliances - in reality, they never last forever); 2.) being to the right of joe is somehow synonymous with being a racist - (joe is a living, breathing example of how being on the left doesn't make one free of offensive prejudices); 3.) the belief that there aren't authoritarian jack-asses who very much want to enact legislation to ban fire-arm ownership (the strategies are available on the web, as is the proposed legislation, as has been pointed out to joe's sudden silence).
One last thing, I contribute to the NRA and the ACLU every year. If either of them started to worry too much about their public image rather than the principles involved, I'd be far less likely to contribute. joe's concern about the NRA's image is truly touching, tho...
LarryA | March 11, 2007, 4:17pm | #
But as to gun control, a question that's fascinated me for some time is one unfortunately not suited to Hit & Run's format: why? I'd like to see a really informed, non-hysterical discussion of the probable reasons the people pushing hardest for gun control do so. Is it just wishful thinking, as with liquor prohibition?
The people pushing hardist? They believe in the "divine right of government." When Rebecca Peters was debating Wayne LaPierre she made a statement (unfortunately passed over) something like, "When you become part of a government you give up certain rights." As in the political theory that individual behavior is detrimental to good order and must be subjugated. The Japanese philosophy that the nail that sticks up must be hammered back into place.
Such people have noticed that it's a
lot harder to hammer folks into place if they can shoot back.
Then there are those who have a personal reason; the Sarah Bradys of the world. You can't blame a madman for shooting her husband, so blame the cheap handgun he used. Get rid of all guns, and no one will shoot her husband.
But based on personal experience, the vast majority of people who support gun control do so because they have no positive experience with firearms. One of the common reasons I hear from people signing up for a First
Shots basic class here in our retirement community is, "The person I started dating keeps guns. I've never even
seen someone shoot a gun, except on TV. My friend wants me to learn how to be safe around them."
I can't count the number of times I've heard someone surprised say, "How can someone like you belong to the [shudder] NRA."
These are the folks who, if you can get them to visit a shooting range, say things like:
"This isn't what I expected shooters to be like."
"Boy, you people are
serious about safety."
"This isn't as hard as I thought it would be."
"Wow! This is
fun."
"Is there any more ammo?"
rob | March 11, 2007, 8:22pm | #
"Actually, no. You're just fun to play with. You so dependably rise to the bait, Sally." - joe
What I think is truly impressive about you, joe, is your perserverance in the face of the facts. On every thread where you are proven to be wrong on the facts, your response is always predictably the same, and predictably lame.
Anytime you want to respond to the numerous places on this thread where people have shown you to be demonstrably wrong, please feel free.
Let's review the tale of the tape, where joe gets beaten like a piñata by various and sundry posters:
BS Statement #1: "I think a lot of people will be surprised by how little reaction there is to this. You're just certain there are 'gun grabbers' hiding under your bed, ready to take to the streets after this ruling. I doubt it." - joe
Corrected by a smack of the rhetorical "rolled up newspaper": "More seriously, joe, your point is undermined by the editorials today in the NYT and WP, and the DC mayor's press conference about this topic. Those wheels all had to be turning within an hour of the decision, so it looks like the reaction is off to a strong start." – crimethink
BS Statement #2 (A refinement of the clearly refuted BS Statement #1 that is pure weaseling semantic posturing, and tries to make major press coverage out to be background noise, rather than just admit he was full of BS): "I didn't say there would be NO reaction. Certainly, we can expect some noise. But I doubt anything meaningful will happen."
Never corrected, really. No one even bothered to respond to that level of blatant weasel-wording to modify his clearly refuted prior statement - probably because no one wanted to debate joe's self-serving re-definition of "meaningful coverage."
BS Statement #3: "Gun control is over, man. Groups like the NRA are going to raise as many alarms as they can to keep their coffers full and absolutists will still have plenty to crow about, as they always do, but the legal and political gun control ediface built up in the 70s and 80s was stopped in its tracks a decade ago, and it being pulled down. This ruling is just the latest stage." - joe
As Captain Holly points out, joe is mostly right here: “Gun control is a losing issue except in a few navy-blue states and cities. Deep down inside most people, when given the choice, would rather have a gun than not.”
But it’s not for lack of Democrats trying, as pointed out by LarryA pointing out House Resolution 1022, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy [D-NY]. Not to mention the ongoing attempts by various PACs mentioned in the thread. The stinky bit is that joe’s clearly inferred, but not explicitly spoken point, is that Democrats aren’t likely to attempt to enact gun control legislation. That’s obviously pure B.S., as pointed out by reference to HR 1022. But just because most Democrats have decided not to sacrifice any more of their power on their clearly losing pro-gun control issue doesn’t mean that the attempt to push through legislation and powerful Political Action Committees aren’t still trying to get gun control enacted. Besides, anyone who claims gun control is over is blatantly ignoring all of the gun control laws that are already/still on the books. (Like the Gun Control Act of 1968, for instance…)
BS Statement #3: "The NRA has aligned itself with some pretty hard-right groups and positions over the last decade and a half. It's the equivalent of opposing the war vs. supporting International ANSWER."
Called out by Barry, (“Perhaps you can name them?”) joe just fires up the snark machine, because he has no actual facts to back him up and lamely tries claim that the NRA has not allied itself with NOW or the ACLU. Then he gets really smacked with the “rolled up newspaper” by Barry, who points out that “The NRA has aligned itself with NOW and the ACLU, too, in the last decade and a half.”
BS Statement #4 :“No, too far. Not KKK stickers, but the far right of the culture war. They've become so invested in guns as a cultural wedge issue that they've created a rather unfortunate brand for themselves.” – joe
Joe is already “modifying” his position here – ok, he’s weaseling as fast as his furry little legs can carry him, because he’s been caught out by his prejudicial belief that anyone to the right of him is secretly racist.
“Granted, this is only a personal anecdote and he was only one guy, but I had no idea ANYONE thought that supporting the RTBA is racist..." - andy
joe, in direct response, is obviously inferring that hard-right, racist, and NRA go together: “The NRA has aligned itself with some pretty hard-right groups and positions over the last decade and a half. It's the equivalent of opposing the war vs. supporting International ANSWER.”
Barry with the facts, yet again, puts it to joe by de-bunking the entire concept that the NRA is an inherently right wing, and therefore somehow vaguely aligned (at least as far as their public image goes) in the same side as racists BS:
“Re the NRA & the KKK: The sad irony is that the NRA was actually founded in part to fight the KKK. Seriously.” [Actual facts then followed.]
Completely backed into a corner, and proven wrong in about as definitive a manner as possible, joe retracts his statement in such a way as to not have to apologize for trying to tar the NRA and everyone to the right of him with the “racist” paint brush in his BS Statement #5:
“If anyone read my comment as implying that the NRA was allied with the Klan, that wasn't my intent.” – joe
No, his intent was to argue that such a ridiculous misconception is somehow understandable, rather than the product of nutty left-wing rhetoric.
Finally, joe gets something right! “The media response to this is interesting. The WaPo and NYT are freaking out, but I cannot find a lefty blogger who is against this ruling.” – joe
Maybe the younger lefties who actually use the Internet have absorbed the idea that this one is unwinnable, which is pretty much the DNC strategy, anyway? Doesn’t stop some Dems from trying, any more than it stops certain Republicans from trying to tromp on other firmly established rights…
joe, of course, firmly believes he has proven himself right at each of these turns, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If someone had actually called him on his BS, he’d simply have declared “victory” and tried to accept the “surrender” of the people who corrected him.
The funny thing is that there are posters at HNR who share none of joe’s political leanings who defend him, despite his rhetorically slimy and intellectually dishonest approach to nearly every thread he posts on.
"Seriously, I don't know if you're a racist or not. But there are only so many lines that connect William Jefferson and the voters of Washington, D.C." - joe
If you're wondering about wayne, surely you understand why people have called you out on the same subject, right joe? (The sound of crickets...)
Libertreee | March 12, 2007, 8:16pm | #
I know I am late to these posts, but I must say that there are some misconceptions I believe in the federal jurisdiction concepts expressed in previous posts.
1. Yes, you can be denied your "constitutional rights" if you live in Washington, DC (or the other "states of (ie belonging to) the United States (in its limited local jurisdiction. It is called an accident of birth. See how new Libertarian Bob Barr overturned an entire election with a vote of Congress!
2. Some folks have it just the opposite of what it is in fact: Washington DC IS the income tax zone, it had an income tax since before the 16th Amendment (called in the Title 26 the "Normal Tax"....
3. It is the 50 States that are the income tax free zones, for most people anyway. Pollock and other cases still rule that the 16th Amendment gave Congress no new power of taxation. The income tax as it is fraudulently collected by the feds if you do not voluntarily pony up money for the wonderful things the national government does (Iraq, Patriot Act, EPA, DEA, etc cannot be a direct tax on your wages because of the US Constitution.
4. However, the Constitution truly does not apply to Washington DC or the federal territories like US Virgin Islands (as pointed out above) Guam, Northern Marrietta islands, etc. So the income tax can and does apply to those critters. It is the 50 states that are, lawfully, the no income tax zones.
5. It will be interesting to see if SCOTUS takes this dissenting argument up. If they agree with the dissent, the income tax honesty movement will have a major victory, and the gun rights movement will have to wait for a case originating in the 50 states.
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