Thursday, September 29, 2011

Joan Peterson Gets One Right

I have to admit, that when she's right, she's right:
"It's simple, or maybe not so simple. Things are not always as simple as the NRA and its minions would have us believe. What the gun guys really want is to quash the intent of May Issue states and open up the possibility of residents in those states suing for equal protection by saying “If they get to, why not us?” See the Indiana case mentioned in my previous post. This bill is part of a legal strategy to overturn all permitting processes in the states. The fact that some states have no permitting requirements at all provides them with an excuse to sue under the "equal protection" clause in the constitution - a favorite strategy of the NRA. That way, they get what they really want through the courts. Unfortunately for them, they don't win many of these challenges. So May Issue states would be California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and Hawaii. The permit holders in other states would just love to carry their guns into these states but they can't now. Thus we have H.R. 822. H.R. 822 will also allow concealed carry permit holders to carry in any state with a licensing system.  In other words, all states except Illinois."
Yes, that is pretty much the strategy,  but she does go on to mislead things a bit:
"So one could assume that all the dangerous people in Florida who can get permits there can carry wherever they want. "
"all those dangerous people" are still required to go through a background check, submit fingerprints, and a photograph, attend a training course, and the Florida permit is accepted in 30 states, so it must be a pretty good system, at least as good as in the 30 states that extend reciprocity.

The real problem with may-issue states is that issuing authorities, at least in urban California, interpret this to mean "no-issue", except to privileged people. In this way Illinois is actually more fair than California: they are at least when they deny a right they deny it to everyone.  H.R. 822 is indeed a political tactic, because the goal of the gun-rights movement is to ensure that law-abiding citizens who wish to carry arms in public for self-defense have the ability to do so.

H.R. 822 is perhaps premature, since the courts have not yet confirmed carry as a right covered by the 2nd Amendment, but once that right is affirmed, H.R. 822 will be ripe for implementation.  H.R. 822 really scares Joan and people like her.  They are losing, and they know it.  Their ability to limit gun-rights is slipping away day by day, and passage of H.R. 822 would be a significant defeat for them.  And once it is demonstrated that carry license holders do not cause problems in the states they visit, the Joan Peterson's will lose that much more or their dwindling credibility.

2 comments:

GMC70 said...

H.R. 822 is perhaps premature, since the courts have not yet confirmed carry as a right covered by the 2nd Amendment, but once that right is affirmed, H.R. 822 will be ripe for implementation.

Actually, I think it is.


From Heller, Sec. c: "Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess AND CARRY weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed … .”

Emphasis added.

Left Coast Conservative said...

GMC70:

Yes, I am aware of that part of the Heller decision. I agree with it, but until the court actually forces a change in a carry law, most specifically California's much-abused may-issue system, that ruling will have no teeth.

Various court cases in different states are in progress, and they are using that language, and other precedent as the basis, but law in California, New Jersey, and New York that bar widespread carry are still in place, and those laws will be defended tirelessly.

Hence my assertion that H.R. 822 is not ripe. Once holdouts must issue licenses to carry to their residents, then I think H.R. 822, or something like it, will become a non-issue.

I hope.