Daily Archives: 19 January 2026

Public Keeping and Bearing

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Our Constitution’s 2nd Amendment is brief and crystal clear:

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.

The Supreme Court has already ruled, several times, that a well regulated militia is an outcome facilitated by individuals keeping and bearing arms, it’s not the purpose of that. The Court has further clarified that to mean shall not be infringed is nearly all-encompassing, with only a few carefully enumerated locations that can bar individuals from bringing their firearms. That short list includes locations like polling places, post offices, public-accessible private facilities like places of business that post clear signs prohibiting them on the premises. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc, et al. v Bruen is one example of this.

Hawaii wants to outlaw carrying firearms altogether, having devised and enacted a State law that bars carrying anywhere—private enterprises, even other folks’ homes—unless those places are explicitly posted permitting the carrying. As the Wall Street Journal‘s editors correctly note,

A shop could theoretically post a sign on the door—or the parking lot entrance?—saying it doesn’t object to concealed carry. But it’s easy to see why a proprietor might hesitate, since a “Pistols Welcome” banner might alienate other customers. Businesses have an incentive to accept whatever is the default.

Hence the effective ban on carrying firearms that the State is attempting. The State argues that

[a] default of no guns…fits Hawaii’s custom and “unique history,” dating to King Kamehameha III, who banned weapons in 1833.

Bruen, though, says otherwise.

[W]hen the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct, and to justify a firearm regulation the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The Nation’s historical tradition, not any particular State’s personal choice. Bruen is as crystalline as is our basic right under the 2nd Amendment. Hawaii’s statute needs to be struck down completely.

This is Foolish

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President Donald Trump (R) has decided to impose an additional 10% tariff on several European countries, starting next month, in an effort to get them to push Denmark into selling Greenland to us.

Greenland is important to us from both a national security and an economic perspective, but this is the wrong way to go about satisfying those two imperatives.

We don’t want to own Greenland. Begin with the fact that we don’t want to incur the bill for the $1 billion annually in subsidies that Denmark currently pays Greenland because the Greenland economy is so deficient.

Set aside that unnecessary expense. It’s cheaper and win-win all around for us to cut deals with Denmark (and Greenland, to the extent the island’s autonomous territory status within Denmark gives it a seat at the negotiations) to greatly expand our basing rights in Greenland and to expand our access to and development/exploitation of Greenland’s oil, natural gas, coal, and rare earth resources, of each of which Greenland has a wealth. Maybe even get exclusive rights to access and develop/exploit the rare earths.

The win: we get what we need strategically and economically without bringing in a population unenthusiastic about joining us and without our having to absorb those $1 billion annually.

The other win: Denmark gets an infusion of money from the royalties involved in those resource developments, and Greenland gets a large expansion of its economy from its cut of those royalties; the large jobs expansion from construction, drilling, mining, and all the supporting and ancillary businesses that will appear; and it will see a broad diversification of its economy away from the fishing industry that is virtually is sole current economic activity.