Category Archives: regulation

Gun Rights vs Gun Controls

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In a Sunday Wall Street Journal piece about red flag laws as a means of gun control, Zusha Elinson asked whether there are any (other) measures that could unify gun rights and gun control supporters.

I say there are none.  Full stop.

Gun rights supporters want the 2nd Amendment honored as it’s written. That’s it, and it’s that simple.

Gun control supporters, though, don’t care about the 2nd Amendment, except to the extent they’re willing to go to the trouble of repealing it rather than simply ignoring it. This is demonstrated by a couple of things central to their position.

One is their demand to dictate our purpose in having this or that weapon—”Why does anyone need an assault weapon” and “You don’t need that for defense” and “You don’t need that at all.”

The other is their flat refusal to identify their limiting principle on their controls. Where would they stop? What natural condition in our Constitution would set a limit? Gun control supporters refuse to say; they just natter on about “just this sensible control,” or “just that sensible control,” or “common sense controls” generally.

And, of course, it’s their common sense, not anyone else’s.

Concerning Elinson’s main thesis, red flag laws allow authorities to seize, ostensibly temporarily, firearms from people someone has accused of being threats.

The problem with red flag laws is that they have no protections against the flag being raised falsely because the complainer has an axe to grind; or a grudge to push; or someone is oversensitive or overreacting, vis. a grade school teacher who doesn’t want to hear little Sally talking about granddad’s pistol so the teacher denounces granddad; or….

Nor are there any mechanisms beyond pretty words for returning confiscated weapons to the owner once the false flag is identified or the legitimately raised flag’s concern satisfied.

And this: they leave no means of protection for anyone else in the household from which the weapons have been confiscated. Those members are left completely defenseless.

Those last two are consistent with (though by themselves not dispositive of) gun control advocates’ desire to disarm us.

Abortion “Rights”

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Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D, CA) wants to further erode Federalism in our nation’s structure and have the central government pass on certain kinds of State laws before those laws can be…permitted…to take effect.  Harris’ position and proposal is well summarized in the sub-headline of the article at the link:

The Democratic presidential hopeful wants the Justice Department to review state laws restricting abortion before they would take effect

Since a core principle of our nation, acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence, centers on our Creator-endowed right to life, and it is the duty of any government, especially including ours, to protect the lives of those in its care—or even simply within its jurisdiction—I offer an alternative requirement, albeit one that parallels Harris’ attack on our federal structure.

The Justice Department should review state laws permitting abortion, particularly with a view to assessing their impact on life, before they would take effect

This would enable the central government to protect the baby’s life from being aborted in any but the most extreme circumstance.

It should be clear, after all, that abortion has absolutely nothing to do with women’s right to control their own bodies and everything to do with the baby’s—who in any abortion procedure has no one to speak for him—right simply to maintain his body.  Abortion has absolutely nothing to do with women’s “rights” generally and everything to do with the baby’s right to life.

Except in the minds of Progressive-Democrats.

Blowing Up Settlements

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The one being sabotaged here is between Facebook and the FTC over the FTC’s proposed settlement of Facebook’s “mishandling” of consumer privacy data, including surrendering millions of consumers’ personal information to Cambridge Analytica.

FTC Chairman Joseph Simons has the (Republican) votes he need to impose the settlement, from the FTC’s perspective, on a 3-2 partisan vote.  He’s quite rightly trying to get at least one of the Progressive-Democrats on the board to vote with him, but they’re bleating that a $5 billion fine and other controls don’t go far enough.

This is naked obstruction, though, based on a cynically manufactured beef.

Another impediment to the settlement is a textbook example of why Federal agencies ought not be spring-loaded to settle cases with miscreants.  “Settlements,” should be vanishingly rare, and they should occur only after the teeth from a history of court cases have been manifested.  This time, the block is whether

to name Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a respondent in the complaint that would be filed by the agency as part of the settlement. Naming Mr Zuckerberg as a respondent could make him liable for future privacy missteps—and give the FTC leverage if it should seek to remove Mr Zuckerberg from the company’s management in the future.

Whichever party wants this included, it’s an entirely legitimate inclusion.

“Facebook representatives,” though, object, and they say Facebook will not accept a settlement that includes this.

There’s nothing here for Facebook to accept or reject, though. Facebook screwed up with consumers’ private, personal information, and the screwups identified in this putative settlement are just the latest in a long string of such…errors.  That those prior misbehaviors are not part of this case does matter in determining the price to be paid in this instance, but they should inform the FTC’s willingness to go to court rather than itself settle for a settlement.

There should be no settlement on the table or on offer in any guise.  The case should be in the courts, moving apace—the FTC should not allow Facebook’s lawyers to drag things out, and neither should the courts—with a court judgment sought. That judgment should include, at minimum, a company fine of $5 billion or more, Zuckerberg named as correspondent, and Zuckerberg personally fined for his role as the MFWIC condoning, if not actively authorizing, such privacy invasions and sales.

The Supremes, Liberals, and Abortion

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The Liberal, Living Constitution, wing of the Supreme Court is up in arms over losing a case with precedential implications.  The proximate case concerned Franchise Tax Board v Hyatt, in which the Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old precedent that held that States are not required to grant legal immunity to other States in interstate lawsuits.  I won’t go into that because that’s not the crux of the matter.

Instead, that Liberal wing, led by Justice Stephen Breyer, objected to the precedent reversal not on its merits or on the merits of precedent overturning/preservation, but on the premise that overturning this precedent would lead to overturning the abortion ban restrictions in Roe v Wade.

[L]iberal Justices warn that conservatives by overturning Hall will “encourage litigants to seek to overrule other cases.”

This actually is an unqualified Good. Error should be corrected whenever it’s discovered.

That Liberal wing bellyached further:

It is far more dangerous to overrule a decision only because five members of a later Court come to agree with earlier dissenters on a difficult legal question[.]

This makes no sense, though. It took only five members of the prior Court to make the mistake in the first place, for all that other members might have agreed with it.

And the NLMSM weighed in, showing the Liberal wing’s worries about abortion.

“Clarence Thomas Just Showed How Supreme Court Would Overturn Roe v Wade,” declared one columnist. [Jay Michaelson of the Daily Beast]

This, though, is just another bit of Liberal disingenuosity. Roe is technologically-based. The circumstances under which States are permitted to regulate abortion to the extent of banning them are based on viability of the baby, which the Roe Court suggested began around the third trimester. Modern medical technology makes babies viable much earlier, and so abortions can be restricted much earlier—wholly within Roe.

Though I wouldn’t mind the question coming to court so that the technological aspect can be better emphasized.

A Misunderstanding

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Senator Cory “Spartacus” Booker (D, NJ) has one in spades. The article at the link was centered on Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Robert Francis O’Rourke’s mild disagreement with Booker’s position on gun control, but one of the false premises that inform Booker’s misunderstanding was exposed.

Booker argued that just as a driver’s license demonstrates a person’s eligibility and proficiency to drive a car, “a gun license demonstrates that a person is eligible and can meet certain safety and training standards necessary to own a gun.”

First, Booker’s analogy is badly flawed.  A drivers license does not at all demonstrate a person’s eligibility to drive a car. Eligibility to drive comes from the person being a US citizen (or, according to many Progressive-Democrats, from their presence in the US and in a State, whether that presence is legal or not) of a State-determined minimum age, and from no other criteria.  The drivers license then demonstrates a minimum level of proficiency and knowledge of State driving laws. Other restrictions on driving then impact whether the person will be allowed to retain that license; they do not change his eligibility criteria to drive, for getting a license.  Indeed, that license must be granted on a will-issue basis on satisfactory completion of training; licensing courses cannot be used to restrict driving.

On the larger issue, a person is eligible to own a gun and to bear it solely from his status as a citizen of the United States.  Here’s what the 2nd Amendment says:

…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

There’s nothing in there about eligibility criteria. The only addenda to that are State-mandated criteria related to whether the person has a violent felony history.  All a gun license demonstrates is that State-mandated levels of safety and training standards, which include knowledge of State laws, have been met.  And that license must be granted on a will-issue basis on satisfactory completion of training; licensing courses cannot be used to restrict owning and bearing.