The Truth About Guns

Dick Heller, of Heller v. DC fame has filed suit today in US District court in the District of Columbia challenging the city’s ban on “ghost guns” and individuals making their own firearms.

I think this case is headed to a win at the Supreme Court.

Biden stated recently he would have voted against the landmark DC v Heller case, which firmly established the 2nd Amendment as an individual rather than a collective right to arms. Presumably he would appoint Supreme Court judges who would vote similarly, which is probably why Biden refuses to release list of Supreme Court judges.

This is hardly a surprise. Biden has signaled his opposition to gun rights by such things as hiring "Beto" as his gun control czar. But it's nice to have him on the record as opposing the Bill of Rights.

Think Progress

According to Liptak, Stevens “helped persuade Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who was in the majority, to ask for ‘some important changes’ to Justice Scalia’s opinion.”

The result was a passage providing that Heller should not “be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

First the factual aspect. Assuming it's accurate, it confirms something the gun rights community has long suspected. (I don't particularly doubt the accuracy of the claim, although Stevens may be overstating his own role as as persuasive force...)

Think Progress

The upshot of Stevens’ highly unusual revelation — justices, even retired justices, rarely disclose internal Court deliberations — is that there are probably no longer five votes on the Supreme Court who support this language in Heller. A wide range of firearm restrictions intended to keep firearms out of the hands of especially dangerous individuals or to keep them out of “sensitive places such as schools” could soon fall.

Now the facts.

We don't know where the current court sits on gun rights. Roberts has demonstrated squishy behavior before. Kennedy was replaced with Kavanaugh, presumably a solid 2nd Amendment vote, but Trump's first pick Gorsuch replaced Scalia (solid pro-gun vote) with a presumably solid pro-gun vote. Neither Kavanaugh nor Gorsuch have really been tested yet and Roberts is untrustworthy. We're probably better off with Kennedy replaced. But we need to win one more to feel secure, and even then, we can't count on the new Justices until we see how they vote.

Since Stevens is clearly trying to stoke panic here, let me rebut.

Gun free zone laws around schools have stopped precisely zero school shootings. As with other places declared gun free, criminals view them as soft targets. The only people deterred from carrying in such zones are the honest, law-abiding people who you would want to have a gun in case of such an attack.

"Laws intended to keep firearms out of the hands of especially dangerous individuals" has a couple possible meanings. Do they mean felons? Most felons will be able to get a gun as easily as they can get drugs, ie, illegally. Challenges to the core of felon-in-possession laws seem unlikely in the near future, though we will likely see nibbles around the edges for people acting in self-defense, whose crimes were not violent in nature, and who have been rehabilitated into society. Do they mean people like the Parkland shooter, who should have been on the naughty list but was not due to law enforcement failures? Law enforcement will have failures no matter what laws you pass. Do they mean people like the man who died at the hands of police in Maryland recently? How many innocent people need to die because one of their in-laws didn't like them owning a gun?

Does anyone remember the Democrats, as a party, seriously campaigning on gun control this cycle? Sure, a few folks mentioned it. But apparently the real program is mandatory buybacks backed by nuclear arms. That seems extrema and not what voters were promised.

The population is Texas is approximately 30 million people and the state is solidly Republican. When, not if, Texas says no to confiscating their semiautomatic firearms (note: rifles and pistols both), will the Democrats nuke Texas? According to the CDC (not exactly a gun-friendly source), there are 12,979 firearm homicides per year in the United States. If the goal of firearms confiscation is to save lives, and the cost is nuking Texas, it would take two thousand, three hundred, and 11 years to save a single life... and that's assuming none of those 12,979 firearm homicides was justified or replaced by an alternative weapon.

Luckily the nuclear button is in Trump's hands. Bet you never thought those words would be written here.

Trump may be unpredictable, but he's not crazy.

What the Democrats are proposing would lead immediately to civil war, if passed and implemented. Luckily the chances such a confiscation bill would pass the Senate are low. Luckily, Trump is in a position to veto it for now. But losing 2020 could have dire consequences, and we'll have to watch the Senate like a hawk to make sure nothing gets to Trump, who just might be unconventional and New York enough to sign it.

So here's my answer to Dem Rep Eric Swalwell's call to confiscate firearms by force in violation of the 2nd Amendment:

We will fight you on our soapboxes, our microphones, our websites. We will fight you in the House. We will fight you in the Senate. We will fight you in the White House. We will fight you on the streets in protests and petitions. We will fight you at the ballot boxes. We will fight you in the courts. If necessary, we will fight you from our rooftops, in the back alleys of your cities, in the tanks and aircraft and naval vessels based on those states which remain free, and in every place you don't expect us to be. We will pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to this cause. Should your nuclear fire rain down upon our nation, burning friend and foe alike, from our backyard bunkers our answer shall resound throughout history, soaked in the blood of your abbatoir altar: NO.

Now what?