Second Amendment

Ethics Alarms Encore: “The Inconvenient Truth About The Second Amendment and Freedom: The Deaths Are Worth It”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Back in 2017, when I first re-posted  this essay from 2012,I noted that it was written in response to the reaction at the time from the Second Amendment-hating Left to the shocking murder-suicide of of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Jovan Belcher. Nobody remembers the incident now, but the reflex reaction of the Axis of Unethical Conduct to  virtually every mass shooting or nationally-publicized gun violence incident has remained constant.  Now much of the “justification” for the assassination of Charlie Kirk has focused on his statement that mass shootings are the price we pay for the Second Amendment, and that the price is worth it. Maybe that position got him killed. His statement was 100% correct, of course, and when I was reminded that I had made almost the exact same assertion in the post below, I realized that I was ethically bound to repost it now. to Some of it is obviously dated (the reference to juvenile Carl in “The Walking Dead,” for example), but I have re-read it, and would not change a word of its substance.

Do I fear that this position puts me in the cross-hairs? No, because EA has relatively small circulation, and I don’t matter. But even if it did put me in personal peril, I could not and would not allow that possibility to stifle my opinion or my willingness to state it. That is what the bad guys want, and have been working to accomplish for many years. That is one of the reasons Charlie Kirk was killed.

Here, once again, is that 2012 post: Continue reading →

Remove This Judge!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The Dexter Taylor case raises interesting Second Amendment issues to be sure.

A New York jury found Taylor guilty of second-degree criminal possession of a loaded weapon, four counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, five counts of criminal possession of a firearm, second-degree criminal possession of five or more firearms, unlawful possession of pistol ammunition, violation of certificate of registration, prohibition on unfinished frames or receivers. Now Taylor, a 52-year-old African-American software engineer, is on Rikers Island waiting to be sentenced. He became interested in gunsmithing as a hobby years ago, but a joint ATF/NYPD task force discovered he was legally buying gun parts from various companies and began investigating him, leading to a SWAT raid and his arrest. His legal team explains his side of the case here.

That’s not the focus of this post, however. This is: during his trial, Judge Abena Darkeh allegedly said at one point, “Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.” Darkeh was appointed by New York City’s crypto-communist Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015.

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Do Illegal Immigrants Have the Right To Own Guns?

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

WHAT? My visceral reaction was immediately, “That’s crazy!” My considered conclusion is, “I think they do.”

US District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled yesterday in US v. Carbajal-Flores that the federal prohibition on illegal immigrants owning guns is unconstitutional, at least as applied to Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, an illegal with no criminal record or record of violence. “The noncitizen possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores,” Judge Colman wrote “Thus, the Court grants Carbajal-Flores’ motion to dismiss.” She reached this conclusion after considering the US’s historical tradition of gun regulation as set out in the Supreme Court’s landmark New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling. Breaking misdemeanor immigration laws alone should not be sufficient justification for stripping someone of gun rights, the judge determined.

“[C]arbajal-Flores has never been convicted of a felony, a violent crime, or a crime involving the use of a weapon. Even in the present case, Carbajal-Flores contends that he received and used the handgun solely for self-protection and protection of property during a time of documented civil unrest in the Spring of 2020,” Judge Coleman wrote. “Additionally, Pretrial Service has confirmed that Carbajal-Flores has consistently adhered to and fulfilled all the stipulated conditions of his release, is gainfully employed, and has no new arrests or outstanding warrants….The Court also determined that based on the government’s historical analogue, where exceptions were made that allowed formerly ‘untrustworthy’ British loyalists to possess weapons, the individuals who fell within the exception were determined to be non-violent during their individual assessments, permitting them to carry firearms,” she wrote. “Thus, to the extent the exception shows that some British loyalists were permitted to carry firearms despite the general prohibition, the Court interprets this history as supporting an individualized assessment for Section 922(g)(5) as this Court previously found with Section 922(g)(1).”

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How Did California Conclude That It Could Constitutionally Ban the Possession of Billy Clubs?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

A case out of the Golden State reaffirms my belief that there are too many unconstitutional laws around the country to count, and that a lot of them are passed by irresponsible legislators with their fingers crossed, hoping that the bogus government restrictions will slip through the judicial net.

For example, did you know that a California law makes it a crime to simply possess or carry a billy club, which is basically a stick? That’s ridiculous, but there was such a law until it was struck down last week by a Judge Roger Benitez, a federal judge in San Diego, who ruled in Fouts v. Bonta that billy clubs are protected by the Second Amendment. Why wouldn’t they be? California really is estranged from basic American values and common sense. (The state’s billy club prohibition would make it illegal for a member of the LA Dodgers to walk to the stadium carrying his bat.) The core of the opinion is this:

This case is not about whether California can prohibit or restrict the use or possession of a billy for unlawful purposes…. Historically, the short wooden stick that police officers once carried on their beat was known as a billy or billy club. The term remains vague today and may encompass a metal baton, a little league bat, a wooden table leg, or a broken golf club shaft, all of which are weapons that could be used for self-defense but are less lethal than a firearm…not everybody wants to carry a firearm for self- defense. Some prefer less-lethal weapons. A billy is a less-lethal weapon that may be used for self-defense. It is a simple weapon that most anybody between the ages of eight and eighty can fashion from a wooden stick, or a clothes pole, or a dowel rod. One can easily imagine countless citizens carrying these weapons on daily walks and hikes to defend themselves against attacks by humans or animals. To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms like the billy for lawful purposes.

In early America and today, the Second Amendment right of self-preservation permits a citizen to “‘repel force by force’ when ‘the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent that injury.’” The Founders of our country anticipated that as our nation matured circumstances might make the previous recognition of rights undesirable or inadequate. For that event, the Founders provided a built-in vehicle by which the Constitution could be amended, but a single state, no matter how well intended, may not do so, and neither can this court.

What other unconstitutional laws are lurking out there, unchallenged?

New York’s Governor Weighs In To Support “Pre-Crime”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

“Pre-crime,” nicely eviscerated in the Spielberg-Tom Cruise film “Minority Report,” is now a popular concept among anti-Second Amendment activists. New York Governor Kathy Hochul (or, more likely, a ghost-writer with her approval) has issued an op-ed in the New York Times with the emotion-based headline, “The Supreme Court Case That Has Me Worried, for Survivors and for My State.” Anyone capable of reading it with their critical thinking skills activated should be able to recognize Hochul’s arguments as the deceptive and manipulative tactics they are.

Here we go…

Hochul: “…I’m so concerned about the outcome of an upcoming Supreme Court case, United States v. Rahimi, which next year will decide whether to uphold a gun safety law that protects survivors of domestic violence.”

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Once Again, An Analysis Of A SCOTUS Decision Is Distorted By Emotion And Ignorance

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

This is a problem. And I’m just talking now about the previous SCOTUS ruling that launched a freak-out yesterday. As you probably know by now, the leaked SCOTUS ruling rebuffing Roe v. Wade is no longer a leak.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down a restrictive “needs-based” concealed carry laws in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.  Even though Justice Thomas’s majority opinion was tight and clear as well as consistent with SCOTUS precedent as well as, of course, the Bill of Rights, such worthies as President Biden claimed that, in the President’s words, the ruling contradicted “common sense and the Constitution.”

What are the odds that Joe read the opinion before declaring that? I’d say “none.” Making such a statement while carrying the presumed authority of President without knowing what the Court’s analysis was is completely unethical and an abuse of position.

David Harsanyi, writing at RealClearPolitics, accurately writes,

The modern left doesn’t even bother pretending they believe the Supreme Court has a responsibility to act as a separate branch of government and adjudicate the constitutionality of law. Rather than even ostensibly offering legal reasons for their ire, Democrats simply demand the Supreme Court uphold public sentiment (or, rather what they claim is public sentiment), even though SCOTUS exists to ignore those pressures. The fact that that attitude has congealed as the norm in one of our major political parties does not bode well for the future of the Republic.

It is particularly disheartening that the three liberal justices in their dissent stooped to fueling this distortion of the Court’s role. Their arguments were almost all irrelevant to the  constitutional issues and the Court’s previous rulings regarding the Second Amendment. Instead, Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan took the low road of evoking recent shootings and incidents of gun violence as if current events should permit the limiting of explicit Constitutional rights. 

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PM Ethics Pie, 6/23/2022: Guns, Mostly

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

On this date in 1972, the eventual ethics train wreck known as Title IX was passed. Its stated purpose was to prohibit sexual desecration on federally funded campuses, but since most of that discrimination was against women, the law was eventually weaponized to be an anti-male measure, notably by the Obama administration and its pressure on schools to employ a presumed guilty approach to student accusations of sexual harassment and assault. Title IX or something like it was clearly needed, but the law stands as a useful example of how, when a failure of ethics makes it necessary for law to step in, the law too often mucks things up.

1. Pop Ethics Quiz!

That’s a fantastic duo-costume at a cos-play convention: Peter Pan and his shadow! But is it offensive? Isn’t that “blackface”? If not, why not? Of course it isn’t supposed to evoke minstrel shows or be denigrating to blacks, but neither was Laurence Olivier’s make-up to play Othello on film. Define the rule for me. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Update On The Uvalde Massacre Extension Of The Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck, Part 5…”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Michael provides some much needed perspective (legally correct, too) on gun control issues in the wake of the Memorial Day weekend freak-out on the topic. You can read the Heller case here. It is amazing how many people (and pundits) shooting off their unregulated mouths on the topic of guns have never bothered to read the SCOTUS opinion that constitutes the latest boundaries on the Second Amendment.

Here is Michael’s Comment of the Day on this post:

***

Let’s get something correct in the debate about regulation of firearms.

Heller, often cited, does NOT preclude regulation. In fact, Justice Scalia’s (certainly not a left-wing progressive, rather a proponent of originalism) opinion suggests the contrary. Toward the end of the Heller opinion, he states “the problem of handgun violence in this country” is real and the government has “a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” The Constitutional requirement of Heller is that the government may not disarm citizens in their homes. Justice Scalia recognized regulations of several types of government regulation as presumptively lawful: “conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” bans on carrying weapons in “sensitive places,” and he noted the “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” See (for example) the FDR era laws that restricted guns presumed to be the type used in mob violence. Continue reading →

From The “My Mind’s Made Up, Don’t Confuse Me With Facts” Files

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The above political cartoon is from Alas! A Blog, where Ethics Alarms exile Barry Deutsch reigns. Barry was formerly a stand-out advocate for the Left on Ethics Alarms until he self-banished for reasons not relevant here. He’s a smart, ethics-savvy, informed, articulate and passionate straight down-the-agenda progressive; he’s also a political cartoonist by trade, an art form I believe has passed its pull date, and that now mostly serves as a device to make dishonest or simplistic arguments for knee-jerk partisans, kind of a visual Charles M. Blow column. I check in on Barry’s blog periodically, and when I did yesterday I was greeted by the above cartoon, drawn by Barry and written by his occasional collaborator Rachel Moore.

It surprised me, not because of its routine anti-Second Amendment message, for as I said, Barry’s progressivism checks every box. It surprised me because I find it astounding that anyone as informed as Barry would pick this, of all times, to unveil that cartoon.

Two days ago, the New York Times reported that the Ukranians were fending off the Russians in part because of armed civilians:

Here, as elsewhere in the fighting around Kyiv, the Ukrainian military achieved its battlefield success by deploying small, fast-moving units largely on foot that staged ambushes or defended sites with the benefit of local knowledge. Many such units are based in central Kyiv, commuting to the war zone by car.

This is not a perfect analogy to the situation that would arise should the United States government decide to “wipe out freedom,” but it certainly ought to be food for thought for those gun-hating zealots who ridicule the very idea that self-defense and the ability to present armed resistance to government tyranny are basic liberties worth protecting in the U.S. Continuing to make the most crude and insulting version of that argument at this time appears to expose an ideological position that is no longer susceptible to modification or reason.

If you like political cartoons, Barry is certainly a talented one , and you can support his art on Patreon.

Ethics (And Judicial) Hero: Federal Judge Roger Benitez

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

cartoon-guns

If one bothers to read his opinion, which most anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment zealots will not, including your outraged friends on social media, it is clear that that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California judge’s long overdue ruling striking down the state’s three-decade-old unconstitutional ban on so-called “assault weapons” is well reasoned, well-researched, and difficult to rebut. As usual, those who want to remove the right to bear arms from law abiding Americans (while law-defying Americans continue to do as they please) are resorting to emotion and dishonesty to argue their case.

It is unfortunate that the judge, who is not one of those evil Trump judges but a moderate appointed by President Bush II, began his opinion with an invitation to be misquoted and misunderstood. “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment,” Judge Benitez wrote, so furious would-be gun-grabbers are aping California Governor Gavin Newsom, who tweeted,

“Overturning CA’s assault weapon ban and comparing an AR-15 to a SWISS ARMY KNIFE is a disgusting slap in the face to those who have lost loved ones to gun violence. This is a direct threat to public safety and innocent Californians. We won’t stand for it.”

This raises the question, so frequently encountered on Ethics Alarms, of whether a speaker is deliberately lying, or just stupid. In this case, it is also possible that he only read the first sentence, which is irresponsible. Benitez, as the rest of his opinion makes crystal clear, was comparing the versatility of an AR-15 to a Swiss Army Knife, not their characteristics as weapons. An important part of his opinion explains that when the California legislature banned semi-automatic rifles,it never even considered the weapon’s value for self defense, and not just as a “sporting rifle.” (The Red Sox have a utility player named Marwin Gonzalez, and I have heard him compared to a Swiss Army Knife because he can play almost any position; in other words, he’s versatile. No baseball writer has been so foolish as to mock the characterization by saying that the comparison is ridiculous because the knives aren’t alive, Gonzales isn’t Swiss, and he’s much, much bigger.) It is also a non sequitur to call a ruling based on black letter law a “slap in the face” to anyone. Not following the Constitution, as California frequently wants to do, is a slap in the face of democracy.

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