So the ACLU has drawn a line in the sand and decided in the wake of Charlottesville that ‘Constitutional carry’ will no longer be a behavior for which they will provide a legal defense. Their Executive Director, Anthony Romero, told the Wall Street Journal that if a group wants to march around carrying guns that are visible to the public ‘they can find someone else.’
Talk about a collision of Constitutional principles – freedom of speech on the one hand, freedom to walk around with a gun on the other. And while the NRA has been keeping its organizational mouth buttoned up tight since the Charlottesville attack, sooner or later they’ll come out with a statement about how average, law-abiding and gun-loving Americans have the right to defend themselves with their guns when faced with the threat of violence from all those left-wing thugs.
Despite mutterings to the contrary in some liberal circles who believe there’s an insurrectionist hiding under every bed, Dana Loesch (who is no friend of mine) did not explicitly or even implicitly call for a violent response to what she says is violent behavior on the part of the Left. And if anyone wants to take Wayne-o’s rants seriously about how all those gun-owning, God-loving Americans will grab their guns and ‘fight’ against the scourge of leftist gun-control, I invite you to attend the next NRA national meeting, the most popular booth is where they rent those little electric chairs for people who are too fat to walk around the show.
Our friend Robert Spitzer posted an interesting perspective on the citizen militia movement the other day. He went back to an 1886 case, Presser v. Illinois, in which the SCOTUS unequivocally stated that the government, not some band of overweight, camo-clad dopes has total control over using militias to protect or keep the peace. But the problem, as Spitzer and others have pointed out, is that most localities which allow ‘open carry,’ or what Gun-nut Nation calls ‘constitutional carry’ of firearms do not regulate where or when such displays of childish, arrested development can occur. So why not yell ‘f*ck you’ at a bunch of leftist creeps with my AR in full view?
There is a difference, and the difference has to do with one simple fact: the so-called Constitutional ‘right’ which all these armed jerks invariably cite to justify behaving like assholes doesn’t exist. The only Constitutional gun ‘right’ protected by the 2nd Amendment is the ‘right’ to keep a loaded handgun in your home. That’s what the 2008 Heller decision says, and that’s all it says – period. End of story.
What I really love are the gun-dopes who claim that not only do they have a Constitutional ‘right’ to own a gun, but also have a ‘God-given right’ to use their gun for self-defense. These happen to be the same folks who insist that we are engaged in a full-scale war against Islamic extremists who want to impose Sharia law throughout the United States. Islamic extremists, leftist extremists, what’s the difference? It’s time we took out our guns and defended our Constitution against threats both at home and abroad.
Wait a minute. Now I’m completely confused. I thought our legal system is based on the Constitution, not the word of God. Maybe the best thing would be to go home, put the gun back in the closet, sit down, turn on the television and pop another top.
Funny, but those shields being lugged around at Charlottesville seem very much like the shields that sell on eBay and have become popular because of Batman video games. Obviously an AR-15 is a much greater threat to safety and peaceable assembly than any movie prop. But the idea that there’s this citizen’s militia out there just waiting for the signal to rise up in revolt against the Deep State has about as much reality behind it as the idea that I’m going on a diet and this time I’ll really shed those 20 extra pounds.
I guess you are speaking from experience about the booth at the NRA.
“I’ll really shed those 20 extra pounds.”
Maybe the reason your so angry is that there were no “those little electric chairs” left for you.
Reblogged this on Mister Journalism: "Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning".
The ACLU (disclaimer, I’m a longtime member) has suffered from a serious case of heartburn over Heller since it was decided. Here is their position, historically. So I am not surprised at this decision by the leadership as it was consistent with their longtime position.
https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
That said, the ACLU has opposed gun control efforts when it thought the regulations were not consistent with due process and civil liberties. One example was an Obama-era rule requiring the reporting of a wide swath of people with mental disabilities to NICS a couple years ago. I would add a second link but that seems to put comments in moderation. Here is a snippet:
Gun Control Laws Should Be Fair
“This month, Congress repealed a rule that would have registered thousands of Social Security recipients with mental disabilities, who have others manage their benefits, into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to prevent them from owning firearms. The American Civil Liberties Union does not oppose gun control laws. As an organization dedicated to defending all constitutional rights, we believe the Second Amendment allows reasonable restrictions to promote public safety..(snip)..But gun control laws, like any law, should be fair, effective and not based on prejudice or stereotype. This rule met none of those criteria….The ACLU and 23 national disability groups did not oppose this rule because we want more guns in our community. This is about more than guns. Adding more innocent Americans to the National Instant Criminal Background database because of a mental disability is a disturbing trend — one that could be applied to voting, parenting or other rights dearer than gun ownership. We opposed it because it would do little to stem gun violence but do much to harm our civil rights.”
Presser v Illinois is spot on regarding private militias. And the notion that the swastika flaunting far-right and equally worthless antifa (fellow elitist liberal academic Noam Chomsky recently wrote about the worthlessness of the violent antifa) should both packing heat at these increasingly violent rallies brings us back to the waning days of the Weimar Republic rather than to where I think this nation should be headed. My uncle, who dodged German ’88s in Europe while fighting across France and into Germany, is spinning in his grave.
Regarding Presser v Illinois, here is Philip Zelikow’s article in Lawfareblog. Phillip discusses more legal precedents for what open carry states should be able to to do tamp down some of the more wacky stuff going on. For example, Vietnamese Fishermen’s Ass’n v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 543 F. Supp. 198 (S.D. Tex. 1982)
https://lawfareblog.com/domestic-terrorism-danger-focus-unauthorized-private-military-groups
Also, I don’t know of any antifa showing up with shootin irons. That was supposed to be written as a hypothetical as to where this could go. Sorry.
I see you don’t monetize your site, don’t waste your traffic, you can earn extra cash every month because you’ve got high quality content.
If you want to know how to make extra money, search for: best
adsense alternative Wrastain’s tools
I see you don’t monetize your website, don’t waste your traffic, you can earn additional
bucks every month because you’ve got hi quality content.
If you want to know how to make extra bucks, search for: Boorfe’s
tips best adsense alternative