Category Archives: regulation

Arms Rights

Posted on by
Reply

What’s the value of a law authorizing acknowledging our right to keep and bear when the Liberals in government routinely violate it?

Roosevelt Twyne, a 25-year-old African-American security guard, was arrested by Roselle Park Police in February after a traffic stop stemming from tinted windows on his car. Evan Nappen, Twyne’s attorney, told the Washington Free Beacon that his client was then erroneously charged for illegally carrying a firearm and being in possession of so-called hollow point ammunition.
“He was arrested for the hollow point ammunition,” Nappen told the Free Beacon. “Then they claimed he was transporting his handgun illegally. He had a permit to carry a handgun.”

And he wasn’t carrying hollow point ammunition, either. He was carrying Hornady “Critical Duty” ammunition, issued to him by his employer and explicitly identified as legal by the New Jersey State Police.

This is all clear-cut and should be open and shut—Twyne has his weapon and ammunition promptly returned to him with apologies for the mistake.

No.

The Union County [Roselle Park’s county] Prosecutor’s Office did not respond to questions about the charges against Twyne but did say his case will be heard next month in New Jersey Superior Court.

Next month.  In a few weeks.  The prosecutor will get around to Twyne’s case when the prosecutor damn well feels like it. Quit bothering him. In the meantime, Twyne remains with his lawfully possessed and carried weapon and his lawfully possessed ammunition in Government’s custody. And unable to work.

This is an example of why gun control laws must be doomed to fail. They’re just a step on the road to confiscation.

A British Proposal

Posted on by
Reply

In contrast with UK-EU negotiations, begun earlier this week, these are the high points of Great Britain’s suggestion of what a US-UK trade deal would look like.

  • reduce or remove tariffs for UK exports…US has indicated its intention to seek to reduce or remove UK tariffs on US exports in a UK-US FTA
  • customs procedures at the border are as facilitative as possible makes importing and exporting easier
  • address subsidies which have the potential to distort trade. Provisions for fair, effective and transparent competition rules could underpin liberalisation of trade between the UK and the US
  • a UK-US FTA as an opportunity to build on our global leadership in this area to develop a world-class [Intellectual Property] chapter

These form the core of an actual free trade agreement, one that is much better than the restrictive, anti-competition, anti-business straitjacket in which the EU wants to trap Great Britain and in which it wants to keep remaining member nations trapped.

The proposal itself can be seen in its entirety here.

Tight Schedule

Posted on by
Reply

Negotiations are in progress on the nature of the, primarily economic, relationship between Great Britain and the European Union now that the former has taken its leave of and independence from the former. The relationship being negotiated is primarily economic; although, law enforcement, judicial cooperation, foreign policy, security, and defense are under discussion, also.  The functional deadline for these negotiations is 31 December 2020, after which the Brits have said they’re done, deal or no deal.

Ten rounds of meetings are scheduled every three weeks from Monday, March 2, until October when a deal is desired.

Following which enacting legislation would need to be passed by both sides in order to bring the deal to life. “Most experts” think this is a tight schedule.

It need not be, though: the putative tightness of this schedule is directly and strictly a function of the degree of intransigence that will be exhibited by the EU’s negotiators.  I hold out no great expectations here; the EU has been operating in bad faith, using its position to discourage other dissatisfied nations from going out from the Union, ever since the Brits voted for sovereignty.

In this current round of negotiations, too, the Brits appear more serious than the EU.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened to accelerate [the schedule] further last week, saying the UK would end talks as early as June if negotiations had failed to progress by then.

It needn’t be a tight schedule, nor need it be “tightened” further. Again, that’s up to the continental Europeans.

Sadly, the EU’s intransigence is demonstrated in a couple of areas:

  • EU wants the UK to enact EU regulations and laws regarding business subsidies, labor law, the environment
  • EU wants its Common Fisheries Policy to apply in British territorial waters, especially British coastal waters

Nor is the matter of EU labor movement entirely settled; the EU still hopes for free access—essentially waiver of British national borders—for EU workers to British territory.

These run directly counter to Great Britain’s national sovereignty; of course, the continental Europeans know this full well. It’s why they demand these accessions.

“Should Government Halt the Use of Facial-Recognition Technology?”

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal ran one of its point-counterpoint debates over the weekend; this one treating the topic in this post’s title.

The debaters focused on the error rate of the technology and whether that was a big deal or a little one; although there was passing mention of civil liberty problems.

I say the question is over-broad.

Government should not only halt its own use of facial recognition software; it should be statutorily barred from it. We haven’t, yet, been overrun by the People’s Republic of China. The civil liberty—the individual liberty—matter is much too serious to be glossed over, and this is one venue where the line is better drawn at zero rather than trusting Government (which is to say, the men of Government) to go this far but no farther.

The question of its commercial use is a separate one from Government’s use or not use. This question should have a market answer, arrived at by customers and the businesses with which we interact.

A Cynical Attitude About Health and Health Coverage

Posted on by
Reply

California demurs from the Trump administration’s position that the State’s mandate to insurers that they must cover abortion violates Federal law.  The administration has said it will withhold Federal funding from the State if it doesn’t correct its insurer demand.

The objection to the Trump administration position offered by California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra, though, is especially disingenuous.

The Trump Administration’s threats not only put women’s health on the line, but illegally threaten crucial public health funding that Californians rely on.

For one thing, if the good citizens of California rely on crucial public health funding, then California should provide it. The citizens of the other States of our nation should not be held accountable for the California government’s spending and revenue decisions.

The larger thing, though is Becerra’s women’s health grandstand. Abortion has much, much more to do with the baby’s health than it has with the mother’s health. While pregnancy can threaten a woman’s health, these are extremely rare cases, and they should be handled on the rare case by case basis in which they exist. Funding for and insurance coverage of these few exceptions can be handled in other guises than funding abortions with Federal dollars.