Of Arms & the Law

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By: David Hardy

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David Hardy

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Story here. A number of Seattle businesses sued the city over its allowing the blackshirts to take over a part of downtown for a month, and in fact providing city aid (city-provided barriers to block vehicular traffic, etc.) to the efforts. I’d expect the city to plead the doctrine that a government has no legally-enforcable duty to protect its citizens (so much for the idea that police will be there to protect you). The federal judge dismissed the businesses’ equal protection claim, but allowed their other three to proceed, and they are interesting, someone put serious thought into this:…
“Everytown Statement: During Questioning, Judge Amy Coney Barrett Confirms Extreme and Dangerous Second Amendment Beliefs”. But you say that like it was a bad thing! “”This morning, Judge Barrett confirmed what we already suspected: she is a gun rights extremist who has no place on the Supreme Court.” “”Judge Barrett confirmed this morning that she’s a dream come true for the NRA and a nightmare for the safety of the American people.” “A more detailed analysis can be found in this memo detailing Judge Barrett’s extreme positions on the Second Amendment, this memo on how this Supreme Court confirmation…
Story here. It specifically covers disclosures about their backing Mark Kelly for the Senate here in AZ. “It’s an imperfect system. I mean, I wish we would just give up the goat and stop pretending that like we aren’t connected and we have to keep this firewall or whatever but like, that’s typically how it’s done. It’s like this kind of beat around the bush kind of thing,” he said. “But if we do that is because if we didn’t it would be bad for everything we believe in.”…
From David Bernstein, “The Right to Armed Self-Defense in the Light of Law Enforcement Abdication.” I prefer my title, since it’s not law enforcement which is doing the abdication. Thought: Thomas Hobbes five centuries ago laid out the first, brilliant if rough, idea of government by social compact. Men realize that life in the state of nature will be “nasty, brutish, and short.” Thus they form societies, tribes, and states, giving up some of their individual powers (i.e., power to rob and kill others) in return for everyone else giving up the same. Inherent within that (absent lynch “law”) is…
“The Future of the Second Amendment in a Time of Lawless Violence.” “Joseph Blocher and Reva Siegel have focused attention on an underappreciated dimension of the debate about the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They reject a narrow concept of “public safety” that evaluates regulations “without full consideration of what is encompassed in that concept–freedom from intimidation, for example, not just physical pain.” At this level of generality, I agree. But I do not agree that an appropriately broad conception should widen the discretion of legislatures to impose restrictions on firearms. The questions that Blocher and Siegel raise…
She’s on the short list for the Supreme Court position, and she’s very, VERY solid on the Second Amendment! She dissented in Kanter v. Barr, where the Seventh Circuit rejected an as-applied Second Amendment challenge, brought by a person who had been convicted of a nonviolent felony (mail fraud). “History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns. But that power extends only to people who are dangerous. Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons. Nor…
Right here. “Two cases out of New York should present the first opportunities for the Supreme Court to address the public-carry issue in its upcoming term. ● New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Beach , No. 18-280 (2d Cir.): The Second Circuit recently rejected this Second Amendment challenge to New York’s public-carry licensing system in a summary decision relying on its own precedent. A petition for certiorari seeking Supreme Court review is currently due November 24. The lead plaintiff in the case is the NRA’s New York affiliate. ● Libertarian Party v. Cuomo , No. 18-386 (2d…
From Everytown: :NEW YORK – Today, Everytown for Gun Safety released the following statements in response to President Donald Trump’s newly released additions to his shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees, should a vacancy arise. The additions to the shortlist notably include Judges Kyle Duncan and James Ho, both of whom espoused an extreme and dangerous interpretation of the Second Amendment in voting to reconsider the decision in Mance v. Sessions, which had upheld a federal gun safety statute, and said they would have struck the statute down; former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, the attorney of choice for the…