Brady Bunch President on Heller Hearing: ...What still stands out to me
three days after the argument, however, is that there was broad support
from all sides for all current and proposed regulations concerning guns,
short of a near-total ban on all guns. It was intriguing to watch the
Justices search for an "individual rights" interpretation of the Second
Amendment that would also allow most existing gun control laws. For
example, Justice Breyer wanted to know what sorts of gun control laws
would survive under a "reasonableness" standard vis-�-vis some new
interpretation of the Second Amendment. Questions from Justices Breyer,
Stevens and Ginsburg managed to extract concessions from Mr. Heller's
attorney, Alan Gura, toward the end of his argument. Machine gun bans?
Reasonable, Gura conceded. Plastic gun bans? Reasonable. Licensing? "We
don't have a problem with the concept of licensing," Gura said.
Requirements to demonstrate competency with a gun? Reasonable.
Background checks? Reasonable "of course," Gura said. Gun bans by
college campuses? Mr. Gura said that "Might be doable." In a matter of
about 10 minutes, Mr. Heller's own attorney ended up endorsing (or at
least not opposing) key portions of the Brady Campaign's legislative and
policy agenda...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-helmke/historic-day-at-the-supre_b_92800.html
---
When Seconds Count, the Police Are Only Minutes Away: Nearly 135 years
ago, the United States experienced what may have been the worst one-day
slaughter of blacks by whites in its history. On April 13, 1873, in the
tiny village of Colfax, La., white paramilitaries attacked a lightly
armed force of freedmen assembled in a local courthouse. By the time the
Colfax Massacre was over, more than 60 African American men lay shot,
burned or stabbed to death. Most were killed after they had
surrendered...Firearms pose threats to modern-day urban dwellers -
crime, suicide, accidents - that may outweigh any self-defense they
provide. Unlike 19th-century rural Americans, we can call on
professional police. In the D.C. gun case, the Supreme Court should find
that local governments may enact reasonable and necessary restrictions
on dangerous weapons. To be sure, if the justices also back an
individual right to keep and bear arms, that will be harder for
legislators to do. But as a matter of historical interpretation, the
court would be correct.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102540.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
---
Heller and New York Gun Laws: ...My clear impression, after listening to
a fascinating hour and a half of give and take between the justices and
attorneys involved, is that the emphasis will shift to establishing the
Second Amendment as an individual right when the decision comes down.
That would reflect what lawyers call the "plain language'' of the law.
But what would this mean in a practical sense? For New Yorkers, very
little. Not much would change in terms of our gun laws and regulations,
says Albany lawyer Jeff Chamberlain, co-author of ``Firearms and Weapons
Laws.'' He's an expert on New York gun laws. An exception may be New
York City. Should the justices rule as I suspect they will, which is to
find that Washington, D.C., went too far with an outright prohibition,
New York City may be required to somewhat loosen its own extremely
restrictive handgun laws...
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=673893
---
Bloomberg Mocked by Gun-Paint Company: A Wisconsin company that
disguises deadly firearms with bright paints and camouflage has a new
target: Mayor Bloomberg. Lauer Custom Weaponry, whose products were
banned in the city in 2006 because they make dangerous guns look like
innocent toys, is taunting the anti-gun mayor with a line of paints
named "The Bloomberg Collection." (From the photos that accompany the
article, it's hard to see how bright colors disguise the firearms.
Perhaps one needs to be familiar with the old NPYD tradition of assuming
that any handgun that was not a four-inch or two-inch blued-steel
revolver with fixed sights was the mark of a criminal in order to
appreciate that allegation.)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/21/2008-03-21_gun_paint_company_taunts_mayor_bloomberg.html
---
Why Are American Jews So Anti-Gun?: ...A great many American Jews had
great-grandparents who originally came from shtetls or ghettos in
Europe. One of the major hazards of living in another people's country
was that occasionally a few Cossacks would get drunk, ride over to the
nearest shtetl, rape a few women, maybe murder a man who protested
rather than begging for his life, and then ride off into the sunset. It
had to be inescapably clear to these Jews that dozens of able-bodied and
sober men would surely have been a match for eight or 10 drunk Cossacks.
It would have been easy, even for Jews not trained in arms, to kill the
Cossacks and bury them someplace. It is obvious, though, why they did
not: Had they had done so, swarms of Cossacks would have massacred every
Jew in every shtetl within 100 versts. Defense was just not an
option...Israelis, in short, have learned a lesson that far too few
American Jews have yet to grasp: For Jews, the phrase "assault rifle" is
a misnomer - the correct term, once the shtetl mentality has been
transcended, is "Jewish defense rifle."
http://www.forward.com/articles/why-are-american-jews-so-anti-gun-01514/
---
Washington Students Seek Campus Carry: The Second Amendment can be a
controversial topic, but that hasn't stopped one student group from
looking to fight against campus laws inhibiting people's right to carry
concealed weapons. The Students For Concealed Carry On Campus was
created at WSU as a response to recent university shootings and the
growing concern of guns on campuses. The club, headed by junior
management information systems major Chris Cherry, wants to fight for a
person's right to carry concealed weapons on the WSU campus if they hold
a Concealed Carry License in the U.S. Washington does not have any laws
pertaining to carrying concealed weapons on campus and instead leaves
that decision up to the different universities. WSU policy prohibits any
firearms on campus, with the exception of the police...
http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/25131
---
Oklahoma Professors Oppose Campus Carry: University of Oklahoma faculty
spoke out this week against a state bill that would allow people to
carry concealed weapons on college campuses. The OU Faculty Senate
passed a resolution against the bill early this week, despite being off
for spring break. The resolution was e-mailed to the 50 members of the
senate Monday, and by Tuesday the members approved it by 27 out of 30
votes, said Steve Bradford, chair of the Faculty Senate...
http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_081002424
---
Oops, Wrong House, North Carolina Version: Police say two suspects are
dead after an attempted home invasion. Catawba County sheriff's deputies
say two men dressed in black and carrying pistols forced their way into
a home on 33rd Avenue in Hickory around 11:00 last night. According to a
sheriff's official, the homeowner was armed with his own gun, and shot
the suspects. Both suspects were pronounced dead at the scene.
http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-032008-ah-homeownershoots.ac213e2.html
---
Oops, Wrong House, New York Version: Gunfire was exchanged between a
Ridge homeowner and two burglars yesterday after he discovered them in
his home at 4 a.m., police said. No one was believed injured at the
Kastal Court house, and the burglars escaped, Suffolk police said. The
men, one armed with a rifle, climbed through a front window, confronted
the homeowner and chased him down a hallway into a bedroom, police said.
The homeowner shut the bedroom door, but the barrel of the suspects'
rifle was wedged between the door and the door frame, police said, and
the gunman fired the weapon. The homeowner was able to get to his own
rifle and fired through the closed door, police said, and the intruders
fled.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-m5621224mar21,0,1431408.story
---
Pennsylvania Women Weigh Armed Self-Defense: Half of Steve Rementer's
students at the shooting range are women these days. In fact, he has
designed his course around teaching women how to shoot firearms in
self-defense. "If a woman can protect herself, it's the first line of
defense. She is 30 to 40 percent more likely to be attacked than a man,"
said Rementer, a police firearms instructor at Pistol People, a shooting
range in Bensalem, and a Philadelphia police officer for 30 years. He
said he's met many women who have been raped and attacked...
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-03212008-1506750.html
---
Arizona Man Familiarizes Newcomers with Firearms: ...He said that he
wants to get people who are not very familiar with guns to learn in a
controlled setting at the range, rather than in surrounding forests as
has frequently been the case in the past. Thompson said that in the 40
years he has lived in Rim Country, it has become more dangerous to use
forest lands as impromptu ranges because more people use them now. It is
also better to learn at a range...Thompson said that one of the primary
reasons he does what he does is to teach people that it isn't the gun
that can be dangerous, it is how it is used.
http://www.paysonroundup.com/section/localnews/story/33437
---
NRA's Oldest Member Dies: I still can't believe Claude Willoughby is
gone. The oldest NRA member passed away on Sunday, March 9, at the age
of 102. Those of you who've attended the NRA Annual Meetings in years
past remember Claude. For years now, he's been honored as the oldest
member in attendance. We didn't see him in St. Louis last year because
his son was ill and couldn't take him, but we were all looking forward
to seeing him in Louisville in May...
http://www.nranews.com/blogarticle.aspx?blogPostId=373
---
NRA-ILA Alerts: Alerts for the week are posted on the NRA-ILA website.
http://www.nraila.org/GrassrootsAlerts/read.aspx
---
Alan Korwin on Heller Hearing:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Full contact info at end
DATELINE: Scottsdale, Ariz., offices of Bloomfield Press, 3/20/08
D.C. v. Heller Eyewitness Report -- Analysis 1
by Alan Korwin, Co-Author
Supreme Court Gun Cases
It is a most dangerous game we're playing here.
The major "news" outlets seemed to agree with my assessment (and I went
out on a limb with that, 12 hours before any of them), that the High
Court seemed ready and willing to unequivocally affirm an individual
right to keep and bear arms. [NOTE: see my pre-game and post-game
eyewitness reports here:
http://www.PageNine.org]
But it doesn't end there - it barely starts there. If they affirm, does
that mean Gun Laws of America (listing every federal gun law, with plain
English descriptions), is erased? How much of it becomes null and void?
What about The Arizona Gun Owner's Guide, or Texas, or any of the
others? Are they history?
"Gun laws will be over" is the hysterical cry of the antis - that a
pro-rights finding will wipe out every gun law in the country and plunge
us into bloody terror. And those are almost the fears of the pros too -
any finding less than total uninfringed keep and bear will jeopardize
200+ years of firmly established cherished rights.
That's why the NRA and the Brady bunch were beyond reluctant to touch
this thing. There's no telling where it could end up. And the prospects,
as I see them, are pretty scary stuff. The more I read my ton of inbound
email, the more concerned I'm getting.
Not a single Justice or court brief suggested all or even many gun laws
must go away, that's just irrational raving. But whatever standard comes
out, the Bradys will be able to make some claims that, "See, this falls
within reasonable regulation." And the pro-rights people will have
openings to challenge some of the more odious laws, and see if they can
prevail. No one knows where any of that will lead. We're back to square
one, legislatures, local courts, and the ballot box.
New laws that ban rights may be tougher to enact or even introduce, and
pro-rights arguments may have more fuel. Rights-supportive laws may have
some obstacles removed, though Texas managed to pass ten of those good
laws last session without the Heller case. So who wins in that scenario?
-----
I used to think that a mere 30 minutes for each side's oral argument was
hopelessly small - how could you possibly address a subject adequately
in so little time? I no longer believe that. It's more like the adage,
"Work expands to fill available time," and when time is short - like
before a vacation, or at the Supreme Court - you get an enormous amount
done in a day or an hour, that otherwise takes weeks.
The level of intensity in that courtroom defies description. The brain
power those nine people brought to bear, on top of the months of prep
from the litigants, was exhausting. Any more time than we spent would
have been overwhelming. It's a good thing it's kept to an hour (and this
case ran 38 minutes long, quite rare). You just fit everything in, then
declare an ending.
It's like twilight magic when the Justices walk in through those crimson
curtains. There, in one room at one table are the names you know, the
faces you recognize, right in front of you clear as day, the most
powerful legal minds (politically speaking) in the country, on the
planet. And let me tell you, they knew their stuff. I was able to follow
most, but not all, the proceedings. Some wrinkles were absolutely new to
me, some connections they drew I couldn't follow (but have begun to
unravel in studying my notes and the transcript), and some parts I may
never adequately connect. Those of you studying the transcripts (many
wrote to say you are) are ahead of me.
The closing gavel bangs. Everyone rises. The nine nattily attired
natives exit without delay. They retire to chambers just behind those
crisp curtains - and though their actual procedures are not divulged,
the process is roughly understood.
Chief Justice Roberts asks the cadre, so where do we stand, and takes a
straw vote to gauge things - exactly what we all want to know - and
cannot. In this case, he needs to find out:
1. How many of you are with an individual right existing outside any
sort of militia service? Probably gets five, some observers suggest
maybe even seven, no one I know sees all nine, Stevens being the hardest
holdout if it comes to that. Of course all of this is speculative, on
our side of the man behind the curtain.
2. Does the D.C. gun ban fail on Second Amendment individual-rights
grounds? Everyone (out here) seems to think it must. No way to guess how
many in there will find space to toss the
100%-total-ban-on-operable-guns-at-home-in-the-District as an
unreasonable limit.
3. Is this individual right to arms (assuming they find one) a
fundamental right, making it subject to so-called "strict scrutiny"?
Here's where it gets fuzzy, and concurrences and dissents will tear this
apart. Here's where the NRA types and the Brady types get to sweat, and
probably spin whatever decision emerges to suit their ends.
4. What about the off-point issues that came out in the orals and the
briefs? What exactly is an "arm" for the purposes of the Second
Amendment? (Doesn't matter to decide solely the D.C. issue, unless you
want to adopt the D.C. position that sidearms can "reasonably" be
excluded.) Are handguns, rifles and shotguns equal?
How much further than
keep-and-bear-only-at-home-for-only-the-District-of-Colombia does this
case reach? (Not at all if the Justices stay on point, but they could
stray if they wish.) These will not have simple tabulations adding up to
nine. These will become dicta - non "holdings" of the case, that will
fire discussions for a long time to come. My guess is that every Justice
will weigh in on these and similarly fudgy points until the next case
arises. And a next case will arise.
5. Who's going to write this one? The Chief Justice decides, receptive
to the wishes and predispositions of his cohorts. Scalia maybe, perhaps
Thomas whose interest is already in the prior written record. Smart
money says Roberts will write it, it's just too seminal, too golden an
opportunity for posterity. Whoever pens it, they're all going to get in
their say.
Maybe the bigger question is - who's going to dissent, and what'll that
say. The losers (out here in the public) will latch on to every word.
How will the concurrences add or detract to the main holdings? How much
red meat will the red- and blue-leaners on the Court throw their fans?
Know this - the Bradys will come out screaming, as will the rights
advocates, that we got this, that, the other, and the rest is judicial
activism that must be overturned.
6. The most eager (and knowledgeable) Court watchers will, when the
decision is released, turn immediately to the last page and look for the
word "remand" (meaning nothing is settled), or "affirmed" (and the fun
really begins in earnest).
--------
Strict scrutiny is a non-constitutional invention that evolved in the
early 20th century around free speech rights. At its core, it says
because free speech is a such a fundamental human and constitutional
right, any law that seeks to limit it must pass the harshest
examination, and mere government interest, even compelling interest in
limiting speech must be narrow, explicit, specific to the speech to be
limited, easily understood and clearly applicable to any other case that
must be tested under the limit.
(In a case called Central Hudson, the Court devised a four-part test for
speech bans: 1 - whether the speech concerns lawful activity and is not
misleading; 2 - whether the asserted governmental interest is
substantial; if so, 3 - whether the regulation directly advances the
asserted interest; and 4 - whether it is not more extensive than is
necessary to serve the interest. If "reasonable regulation" is a
linchpin here - a frightening thought - can we expect to see some
similar test?)
The reason U.S. Solicitor General Clement (the man who argues the
government's position at the Court) was granted time, was to fight to
preserve existing "reasonable" federal gun laws. How many? Who knows.
Which ones? No one can say (but machine guns and undetectables were
mentioned repeatedly). Will he succeed? Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly.
A felon in prison will not be able to argue even under the wildest
fantasy that the right to arms extends into prison even though, say, the
right to due process or a fair trial does. The ban on arming a vessel of
a foreign power (18 USC 961) will remain standing, no worries mate. Many
gun laws serve a legitimate purpose and will not be compromised, despite
some rather lunatic ravings to the contrary.
But what about owning some type of firearm currently banned to the
public? How about a normal capacity magazine the exact same as police
might be issued? How about bans on where you can carry - the
known-to-be-dangerous so-called "gun-free" zones? Can bans on tasteful,
discreet carry in public by innocent women (or men) withstand strict
scrutiny? Is a government
license/tax/test/expiration-date/required-papers/fingerprint a
"reasonable" limit on the exercise of a fundamental right? There's
almost no end to such speculation. For these we must wait until June and
then, it doesn't end, it begins.
My guess - it's unlikely the Court will go to such points. This time.
They don't have to, and to reach the greatest consensus they can, they
won't. Locally however, these points will be inescapable in years to
come. Elect good representatives this November.
Don't worry, as some people are, about machine guns and how quickly Mr.
Gura "wrote them off." 1 - They're not at issue in this case, so it's
immaterial in context. 2 - You don't want or need to push a court too
far, so just stay on point, concede a pointless point, it's moot. Get
Mr. Heller the rights he seeks restored. 3 - Mr. Gura's remarks are not
the deal maker, the Justices' are. Some of them were just fishing for
something to grouse about. It's fine to tell them, "Sure," and get back
to the business at hand.
The machine gun issue is also particularly sticky because, as the Court
pointed out, it is standard issue for soldiers and so very neatly meets
a definition of arms the public should have as related to potential
militia service and readiness. Way too big and convoluted to go into in
Heller, and simply not needed, yet.
It seems to me that the machine-gun issue will be easy for the Court to
sidestep because they're not technically banned, they're taxed. The main
controls are under Title 26, the tax code, not under Title 18, the
criminal code, and again, neither matter in examining the D.C. ordinance.
When Congress first enacted those limits in 1934 the record shows they
realized they had no authority to ban guns because of the Bill of Rights
- but they reasoned they might be able to get away with implementing an
insurmountable tax (the $200-per-gun tax was a fortune at the time).
Through that mechanism they attached controls, paperwork, financial
burdens and tax-evasion penalties that were almost as good as a ban for
their purposes then. The courts acquiesced (and that's a whole 'nother
story). The 1986 ban on no new full autos might be more difficult to
justify, but it is just not at issue here at all. Some experts told me
Gura was right on the mark handling that as he did. I also bridled
though when the words first passed my ears.
Justice Roberts did ask if we even have to go anywhere near these things
to settle the issue at hand, and he's right of course, and will be
prudent (read, very narrow) in the scope of this decision. I think
they'll duck all the fodder we out here like to chew, leave those to
digest later. They've got enough on their plate without it.
Will the presidential election affect those future outcomes? You bet it
will, and that may be the biggest question mark of all. Note that the
news media has not raised the point. I wonder why.
That will have to hold you for now. Need to get to the 580 emails I
found on my return (don't worry, a lot are "anatomy enhancement" ads and
similar crud), and the stack of interviews I've agreed to give. I plan
to review the "news" media's coverage of this (some great subtle
deceptions and bias I could only pick up by having been there, along
with the usual blatant lying and distortions); Bob Blackmer's revealing
perspectives from his overnight vigil in front of the Court and his mug
in full color on page one (B section) of The Washington Times with the
protest sign I crafted; the skinny on how we actually got in and what
that was like; and more. Now, an hour of streaming audio at
http://www.accentradionetwork.com (you'll need to get their archive of
it if available by the time this gets to you), and my wife wants sushi.
Sounds good to me.
Alan.
Alan Korwin
Bloomfield Press
"We publish the gun laws."
4848 E. Cactus, #505-440
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
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--Edmund Burke
--
Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
