Daily Archives: 17 May 2016

Yes, It Does

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The 9th Circuit is going to release, soon, its ruling on a lawsuit that involves California’s claim that it can mandate that firearm manufacturers incorporate safety devices into their firearms.

Anthony Hakl, a lawyer for the state, said the gun-rights groups sought to establish a constitutional right to purchase any handgun of one’s choice from whomever one chooses.

“No such right exists,” he wrote in a September brief.

It’s impressive that a highly trained lawyer should make such a statement with a straight face.  Alternatively, it’s depressing that our law schools do such a poor job of teaching our Constitution.

Here’s the 2nd Amendment on the matter:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Nothing in there about safety mechanisms, nor is there anything that addresses one way or the other the purchase of any handgun of one’s choice from whomever one chooses.

Here’s the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

There is no power to limit the sources of our Arms delegated to the United States by our Constitution.  Even the power to require us to license our Arms is a power merely to require us to know how to use—to be safe—with them.  Notice that, too: we have to be safe, not our Arms have to be safe in our stead.  Although it’s true enough that a safe weapon helps us be safe with them, it’s our responsibility to be safe, not the responsibility of an inanimate object.

Now, here’s the 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

As noted above, there is no power to limit the sources of our Arms, either delegated or enumerated (a delegation by our ratification).  That’s a power retained by the people.  That’s a power retained by We the People.  The ability to purchase any handgun of one’s choice from whomever we might choose is already long established in our Constitution.

Only a Progressive lawyer would seek to rewrite the Constitution in so blatantly obvious a way.

A Good Reason to Leave

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The International Monetary Fund said a British vote to leave the European Union could have significant and negative effects on the UK economy, the latest contribution by an international institution to the fierce debate over Britain’s future in Europe.

If the IMF thinks it’s a bad idea, it’s probably a pretty good idea.

More seriously, the IMF is making its assessment on this basis:

…a vote in the June 23 referendum to leave the EU could “precipitate a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, leading to financial market volatility and a hit to output.”

The uncertainty and ensuing volatility and output hit are non sequiturs.  Of course there’ll be turmoil during the transition.  There’s turmoil in any major transition.  That’s not a reason to do or not to do anything.  The reason, the valid reason to do or not come solely from the new régime post-transition, when things have stabilized again.  For the IMF to obfuscate like this is for the IMF to show itself unserious.

Long-term costs could be substantial?  This is purely speculative, at least as much so as the other side’s claims that long-term gains could be substantial.  And, frankly, the gains are more likely than the costs.  For one thing, the decisions leading to gains or costs will be solely those of the Brits, and not anything imposed on them by an extranational body that is not focused exclusively on what’s good for Great Britain.  For another thing, the Brits will lose the costs of a bureaucracy that depends badly on not just consensus within a single Parliament, but on consensus across nations that don’t share the same values regarding social, political, or monetary philosophy.

And Great Britain will be able to go back to a free market economy of its own devising, and not be straitjacketed by the social democratic economies of the continent.