Politics

Sen. Murray supports states rights (when it’s convenient)

/ hsoi

Joe Huffman has a nice little back and forth between himself and his US Senator Murray.

Joe’s original email was regarding support for the Thune Amendment. Says Sen. Murray:

Legislation to regulate the use of firearms is and should remain primarily a state issue.

Joe’s response:

Since you are of the opinion that legislation to regulate the use of firearms is, and should remain, primarily a state issue I presume I can count on your support of efforts to remove firearm regulations at the Federal level. I would like to suggest you introduce legislation to undo the continuing infringement of our rights inflicted by the following Federal firearms laws:

• National Firearms Act of 1934
• Gun Control Act of 1968
• The Hughes Amendment
• The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act

Once those are infringements have been successfully resolved I will be glad to provide you with a list of other Federal firearms laws that need to be eliminated as well.

Go read the whole thing.

Well done, Joe. I’m doubting you’ll get a response, or if you do that it will be anything more than boilerplate “thank you drive through”. Still, one can have a little hope that a worthwhile response may come from the Senator.

Wow, they did their job

/ hsoi

It’s nice to see the “news media” actually doing their job.

OBAMA: “I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it.”

THE FACTS: […] budget experts have warned about various accounting gimmicks that can mask true burdens on the deficit. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget lists a variety of them, including back-loading the heaviest costs at the end of the 10-year period and beyond.

OBAMA: “You haven’t seen me out there blaming the Republicans.”

THE FACTS: Obama did so in his opening statement, saying, “I’ve heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to compromise, it’s better politics to ‘go for the kill.’ Another Republican senator said that defeating health reform is about ‘breaking’ me.”

OBAMA: “If we had done nothing, if you had the same old budget as opposed to the changes we made in our budget, you’d have a $9.3 trillion deficit over the next 10 years. Because of the changes we’ve made, it’s going to be $7.1 trillion.”

THE FACTS: Obama’s numbers are based on figures compiled by his own budget office. But they rely on assumptions about economic growth that some economists find too optimistic. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in its own analysis of the president’s budget numbers, concluded that the cumulative deficit over the next decade would be $9.1 trillion.

I guess if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.

Constitutional right to self-defense

/ hsoi

Eugene Volokh examines if we have a constitutional right to self-defense.

Thus, a rule that one can only use deadly force to defend oneself against threats of death, serious bodily injury, rape, kidnapping, and a few other very serious threats would likely be constitutional (even though many states also allow use of deadly force to defend against robbery and in some situations burglary). Likewise, the “duty to retreat,” which is to say the principle that deadly force can only be used in self-defense if it’s genuinely necessary, in that no safe avenue of retreat is available, is likely to be constitutional, too, because it has long been recognized in at least a substantial minority of states. There may be other examples as well. My point is that a federal constitutional right to self-defense likely exists, especially in the wake of Heller. But it is not unlimited, and is likely to be strongest precisely where there’s a broad and deep common-law and statutory tradition of recognizing such a right.

How to be remembered

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Linoge has a posting about, as he terms it, the Whiner-in-Chief.

Let me make this perfectly clear to you, Mr. President – this whole situation is not about you, and it sure as hell is not about your precious Presidency.

Actually Linoge, that’s where you are wrong. It’s sorely evident by his words and his actions that this is all about him. It’s all about his ego-satisfaction and being more concerned about trying to leave some monumental legacy.

The way to be remembered is to first live a life worth remembering. Mr. President, I’d say if you really want to be remembered and leave a great legacy, stop trying to be remembered and leave a great legacy. Just do what is Truly Right™ and the rest will take care of itself. It may be useful to recall the Classical Greek maxim: hubris brings nemesis.

National Reciprocity – A step forward

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Looks like amendment 1618 to S.1390, the national reciprocity effort of Sen. John Thune, passed the US Senate with a 58-39 majority. Obviously that’s bipartisan.

Good news.

Updated…. oh wait, I misread that. No, it didn’t pass. It needed 60 votes to pass, but the vote still demonstrated a majority. Hopefully this will enter into NRA grades for the upcoming elections. Shows you who is on what side of the fence for sure.

CNN article.

While it didn’t happen, I still think it’s a step forward. It still shows where the US Senators stand on such issues. It still shows that a majority can be had.

National Reciprocity

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

There have been numerous attempts at national reciprocity, even within this current US Congressional session.

The latest attempt? S.1390, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010. More specifically, amendment 1618 to that bill, sponsored by Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. This amendment appears to be the same as Thune’s stand-alone S.845 bill, just in amendment form.  I see Sen. John Cornyn has signed on as a co-sponsor of the amendment form but not of the stand-alone form (odd). Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, where are you on either?. Note, if my links to the bills don’t work, go to the THOMAS website, search for S.1390 by bill number, then you can see everything including the amendments. THOMAS is neat, but it’s linking system totally blows. Anyway…

I’ve been a bit torn on this topic because I don’t really want the Fed to step in. But when you consider some unexpected bedfellows in matters such as trucking interests, and then how Thune opted to word things, this is actually reasonable.

As well, while I normally am not hip to using amendments as a way to shuttle pet projects through, I think this is a reasonable place for such an amendment. If there’s one thing the Federal Government is supposed to do it is national defense. This is the defense appropriations bill, and bringing about national reciprocity falls in line there.

For those that expect this will cause doom and gloom, I suggest you do a little homework before you start with the hysterics.

If you haven’t contacted your Senator, now is the time.

Updated: Didn’t happen. This time. Still, I think it made a good showing.

Why do you want my gun?

/ hsoi

So a liberal asks: why do you want my gun? (h/t to SayUncle)

After reading his story it reminded me of a “joke”:

Q: What do you call a Democrat?

A: A Republican that’s never been mugged (yet).

Do children need guns?

/ hsoi

Howard Nemerov examines the question of children having access to guns.

He recounts a recent story where a 10-year old boy had access to his mother’s gun and used it to save the lives of himself and his 8-year old sister. This isn’t the first story I’ve heard where a minor had access to a gun and used it to protect themselves and their family members.

Nevertheless, out of the woodwork come those that decry that a loaded gun was accessible to the children. That children should even know how to use a firearm. That “what if the gun had been taken away and used against them”. And all the usual foul cries.

In his usual style, Howard sets aside the emotion and looks at the hard facts:

After compiling data from the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide master files for 2000 through 2002, it turns out that children shooting children is a rare occurrence.

[…]

This means that of the truly unfortunate circumstances where a child finds a gun and kills another kid, there are an average of 10 per year for entire country. Obviously, that is 10 too many. But considering that 633 babies under age 2 (211 per year) were beaten to death during this same time period, some perspective needs to be maintained. There are already laws against beating babies to death, just as there are laws against killing children with firearms.

Texas is one such state with “child access” laws. My wife and I have had discussions on this very matter. The law says I cannot leave a “readily dischargeable firearm” in a way such that a child could have access to it. That means that my children — who know how to safely and responsibly operate firearms — cannot use a firearm to defend themselves. Given that firearms are an equalizer, why shouldn’t my children be allowed means and mechanisms to level the field against larger and stronger invaders/attackers? I grant the intentions of the law, but I also see the perils the same law creates.

So Howard provides much-needed perspective:

Of these 31 incidents, 15 of them occurred in the 18 states (about 1 per state) that had child access laws on the books at the time. That means the remaining 16 incidents occurred in the 32 states without these laws (0.5 incidents per state), not the best testimony for child access laws!

Ten of these incidents involved shooters age 10 or less, about 3 per year. Four of these occurred in states with child access laws, still near that 50/50, coin-flip percentage that indicates failure for child access laws.

So based strictly upon percentages, this 10-year-old is a hero.

How can you label that 10-year old boy any other way?

Sotomayor and the NRA

/ hsoi

It took a while, but the NRA has officially come out against Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination for SCOTUS.

Certainly the NRA brings up Sotomayor’s anti-2A record:

Judge Sotomayor’s judicial record and testimony clearly demonstrate a hostile view of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right of self-defense guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

But I think a bigger judicial issue is involved, and one that should concern all US citizens, including those that may be pro gun-control:

The one part of the Bill of Rights that Congress clearly intended to apply to all Americans in passing the Fourteenth Amendment was the Second Amendment.  History and congressional debate are clear on this point.

Yet Judge Sotomayor seems to believe that the Second Amendment is limited only to the residents of federal enclaves such as Washington, D.C. and does not protect all Americans living in every corner of this nation.

This is a larger issue (14A), and one generally hostile towards protecting and preserving the freedoms this country was founded upon.

In last year’s historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual’s right to own firearms and recognizes the inherent right of self-defense.  In addition, the Court required lower courts to apply the Twentieth Century cases it has used to incorporate a majority of the Bill of Rights to the States.  Yet in her Maloney opinion, Judge Sotomayor dismissed that requirement, mistakenly relying instead on Nineteenth Century jurisprudence to hold that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States.

If she’s going to make such mistakes and disregard the ruling of the highest court — the one she’s now attempting to gain a seat upon — what sort of respect does she have for that court? And what sort of behavior is it to be so disregarding? Can the American Citizens trust such behavior?

What will make this rather interesting is apparently the NRA will count the Sotomayor vote towards NRA grade/score. We’ll see what happens.

The dumbers are getting more dumberer

/ hsoi

Walter Williams, a professor at George Mason University, has published an article on the failed public school system.

The solution? Decentralization and competition (imagine that!):

Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can come from competition. Centralization has been massive. In 1930, there were 119,000 school districts across the U.S; today, there are less than 15,000. Control has moved from local communities to the school district, to the state, and to the federal government. Public education has become a highly centralized government-backed monopoly and we shouldn’t be surprised by the results. It’s a no-brainer that the areas of our lives with the greatest innovation, tailoring of services to individual wants and falling prices are the areas where there is ruthless competition such as computers, food, telephone and clothing industries, and delivery companies such as UPS, Federal Express and electronic bill payments that have begun to undermine the postal monopoly in first-class mail.

We homeschool our kids. Can’t get more decentralized than that!