Peruta Goes Down. Supreme Court Remains a Crap Shoot

In an article today at the American Thinker entitled Supreme Court Declines to Affirm Second Amendment Rights, Robert Arvay says:

The United States Supreme Court has declined to affirm the constitutional, Second Amendment rights which are guaranteed to citizens. They did so by rejecting an appeal from a lower court. That court had ruled that the state of California can impose severe restrictions on issuing permits to carry firearms. In refusing to hear the appeal, the lower court ruling remains in effect.

The case, to which Mr. Arvay refers is of course Peruta v. California. A Washington Examiner article goes into more detail. For the Examiner, Ryan Lovelace writes:

The question the Supreme Court refused to hear is whether the Second Amendment gives people the right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense, including concealed carry when open carry is forbidden by state law.

David Kopel explains in the Washington Post article entitled Peruta v. San Diego Analysed that:

The four Peruta dissenters did not disagree with the specific doctrinal point about concealed carry. Indeed, Judge Smith’s dissent pointed out that the majority’s compilation of precedents on concealed carry was unnecessary. “If the issue before us is truly whether California can, in isolation, prohibit concealed carry, a simple memorandum disposition citing to Heller would be sufficient. A formal opinion, much less the gathering of our en banc panel, would not be necessary to answer the issue framed by the majority.”

...snip...

According to the dissenters, the Second Amendment expressly guarantees the right to bear arms; legislatures may regulate but not prohibit the right. So in the 19th-century cases, the legislature could choose to ban concealed carry while not even requiring a permit for open carry. The dissenters wrote that today, legislatures ought to allowed to reverse that preference: to restrict open carry, while allowing concealed carry under a fair and reasonable licensing system. (Citing Eugene Volokh, “Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and A Research Agenda,” 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1443 (2009).)

As Justice Thomas said, and I am paraphrasing, most people in government in high office are protected by police, who are armed. But for the average man on the street, having a team of armed guards at their disposal is clearly beyond their means. The Second Amendment means that government must allow the carrying of arms. But in the case of California, one can not carry openly, even unloaded, and one can not carry concealed if the Sheriff of your county refuses to give anyone a concealed carry permit. Effectively, you have been "legally" stymied from bearing arms, and the Second Amendment has been effectively rendered null.  Before the concealed carry revolution of the mid 1980s, the Second Amendment had been rendered null and void in most of the country.  In most cases, a concealed carry license was not granted, and while open carry was techically allowed, you could count on it that you would be arrested and charged with something if you did.  Here in North Carolina it was cited as Going Armed to the Terror of the People. While the statute had well defined elements, these would be discounted such that simply arming oneself would be enough for a conviction.

The refusal of ceritorari by the Supreme Court allows San Diego County to continue its practice of not issuing permits, even though California law allows permits, and even though many counties in California effectively are shall issue. As Mr. Arvay writes:

That said, it remains amazing that basic Constitutional rights could possibly be so easy to suppress. While some rights that are not even in the Constitution are enforced, there seems to be significant antipathy regarding the right to keep and bear arms -- a right that “shall not be infringed.”

I note again that everyone, with few exceptions, who is in power is loathe to advocate for the carrying of arms by the average guy. After all, who wants to be killed over doing what he percieves as his job. Besides, and this is the important point, while gun rights groups do get out a lot of votes, they don't contribute much to a candidates campaign finances. Indeed, here in North Carolina, almost everyone working for Grass Roots North Carolina is a volunteer. Unlike the Demanding Moms and Everytown efforts of Mr. Bloomberg, we have no paid lobbists working for GRNC. Because there are no big bucks coming from GRNC or from NRA, we constantly have to remind them that we are watching, and we will remember in November.

Meanwhile, as always, getting justice from the Supreme Court is always a crap shoot.  It often depends on which side of the bed Justice Kennedy awoke that day.  But in this case, the side of Justice had too few soldiers in the field.

Satanists need to donate tons of money to the Democrats to gain equal rights for Satanists

Todd Starnes tells us that SCOTUS To Decide if Gay Rights Trump Everyone Else's Rights. One always trembles whenever the Supremes (or for that matter the Grandees of Congress) take up an issue that should remain between individuals. The fact that the gay couple involved deliberately chose Mr. Phillips' cake shop and refused an offer of a free cake tells me this was a set up designed to punish Phillips for his religious views.

SCOTUSblog is particularly opaque on the issue of whether or not this has a chance of coming out in Mr. Phillips favor. saying only that Justice Kennedy has ruled both for and against religious freedom.  Why doesn't that make me feel better?  Once again an important topic is up for grabs based on which side of the bed Justice Kennedy woke up on that day.

I would note here that my stance against the gay lifestyle will get me called a "hater" by those who refuse to understand.  The Bible does not claim that being gay is the problem.  I don't really know if in fact anyone is "gay" by birth.  The problem is acting out this belief, in other words, the gay lifestyle.  I do not know, but I suspect it has to do with God's command to be fruitful and multiply.  People living a gay lifestyle can not multiply.  But in the end, I do not know why, and like everyone else will have to wait.  In the meantime, I stand on God's side in the matter.  He never stands with me, but it is always I with him.

So, do I hate gay people?  No.  I even have to admit that I don't really care if two men or two women want to pretend they are married.  I have enough worries of my own.  That by the way is tolerance. But what these people want is both acceptance and even celebration. "Look at me!  Isn't it wonderful that I want to marry this person of the same sex?"  Well, no, it is pathetic.  People have also wanted to marry their pets, and even buildings.  Yes these are (hopefully) one off crazy.  But is Mr. Phillips also required to bake a cake for the woman who wants to marry a building?  When is enough government intrusion into our lives enough?

The fact is that gay people have no more rights than any other.  I can not go into Mr. Phillips' shop and ask for a cake that celebrates, oh, I don't know, say a Satanic Mass.  Mr. Phillips would refuse based on his religious beliefs, and the State of Colorado would probably be fine with that.  But why are his religious beliefs in this case acceptable and in the case of same sex not so much?  What truly differentiates these to cases?  Well, for one, Satanists haven't donated tons of money to the Democrats and the gay lobby has.

Go read Starnes article.  I will watching with trepidation.  

Democrats Have Become a Criminal Organization

On Townhall.com, Guy Benson explains how many on the left really feels about the Steve Scalise shooting in an article entitled Demorat Offical On Scalise: "I Wish He Was f***ing Dead!" Benson:

Echoing a sickeningly common sentiment among the Left's most hateful vile online trolls, a Democratic Party official in Nebraska has been caught on tape applauding last week's shooting spree carried out by a liberal activist who targeted Republican members of Congress as they practiced for a baseball game. Not to be confused with a separate Nebraska Democrat who expressed amusement at the shooting -- tying her glee to a disagreement over gun rights, and later doubling down -- this cretin expressed bitter disappointment that James Hodgkinson didn't finish the job in assassinating House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

This is not the attitude of people who merely disagree.  People can have a robust debate on an issue, and shake hands afterward having come to understand where each on is stands on an issue.  Such disagreements have been the norm in society for a long time.  The use of words, logic, rhetoric, and thus persuasion has long been the approved method of dealing with colleagues,  But the Democrats do not, evidently, view the rest of us a colleagues.  They view is as enemies to be killed if we disagree.  This is more the modus operandi of a criminal organization.

The implications of that revelation is that the Left doesn't really believe its own rhetoric.  Its just business with them.  They want power, by any means necessary.  Leftist politicians will say whatever they need to say to whomever they need to say it to get their vote.  Once in power, they depend on people not watching closely to do whatever they need to do to keep power.

 So, for example, they can believe that abortion is perfectly moral and right.  A woman has a right to chose.  On the other hand, they work to keep murderers alive, and seem to make heroes of cop killers.  If killing innocent babies is fine with the left, where is the reservation to kill hardened criminals?  And if they can't bear to execute a hardened criminal, why are they so anxious to execute innocent life?  They speak out of both sides of their mouth, and so have no consistency.

The Democrats were once a party of normal people in this country.  The Republicans and the Democrats shared values and goals but had different ideas on how to accomplish these goals.  But the Democrats have been hijacked by the Left.  They no longer share values and goals with what we would consider normal people.  Indeed, they operate more as a criminal organization.  Look at what the Democrats did to rig their own primary to ensure Hillary won and not Bernie.  But this sort of behavior is nothing new.  If a political party could be indicted, they would probably be under a RICO indictment now.  

An Important Article from Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield has a article at Frontpage Mag entitled The Civil War is Here. Read the whole thing, please.

Read it?  You really need to.  Please.

So, ok.  I have been following the antics of the Left since, oh, say, 1968.  I knew some of the people involved in the Kent State riots.  I knew some of the people peripherally involved with the Weather Underground, or at least who wanted to be.  I was not in Chicago for the Democrat Party convention, but I watched it on television.  These people have always put a chill down my spine.  Greenfield knows whereof he speaks here.

After losing Congress, the left consolidated its authority in the White House. After losing the White House, the left shifted its center of authority to Federal judges and unelected government officials. Each defeat led the radicalized Democrats to relocate from more democratic to less democratic institutions.

This isn’t just hypocrisy. That’s a common political sin. Hypocrites maneuver within the system. The left has no allegiance to the system. It accepts no laws other than those dictated by its ideology.

Democrats have become radicalized by the left. This doesn’t just mean that they pursue all sorts of bad policies. It means that their first and foremost allegiance is to an ideology, not the Constitution, not our country or our system of government. All of those are only to be used as vehicles for their ideology.

That’s why compromise has become impossible.

When compromise, real give and take, not just we give they take, becomes impossible, when arguments no longer persuade, when even moderates on their side are ignored or worse, you don't leave much room for anything else.

The left has made it clear that it will not accept the lawful authority of our system of government. It will not accept the outcome of elections. It will not accept these things because they are at odds with its ideology and because they represent the will of large portions of the country whom they despise.

The question is what comes next.

Europe is on the verge of a civil war over ostensibly religion, but really it is over who will rule. America has imported this foreign philosophy, this cancer, and has allowed it to grow inside its body politic until we find ourselves facing the same thing. We can be of no use to anybody else if we are fighting ourselves. Frankly, I pray, and I weep, not for myself, for my days are nearly over, but for my grand children.

Keep your powder dry!

The Speech Police Strike Again

David French writes approvingly today at the National Review Online, of an 8-0 lose at the Supreme Court for a Patent and Trademark Office refusal to grant a trademark to a band named the Slants. French's article can be found at Anti Free Speech Radicals Never Give Up. French:

But not even a ruling joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor can persuade determined, far-left censors, and just as sure as night follows day, Laura Beth Nielsen, a research professor for the American Bar Foundation, took to the pages of the Los Angeles Times to make the case for viewpoint discrimination. I’ve seen enough pieces like this to recognize the type. They always begin with misleading statements of the law, declarations that free-speech protections aren’t absolute, and then move to the core pitch — in this case, that the state should regulate hate speech because it’s emotionally and physically harmful:

"In fact, empirical data suggest that frequent verbal harassment can lead to various negative consequences. Racist hate speech has been linked to cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and requires complex coping strategies. Exposure to racial slurs also diminishes academic performance. Women subjected to sexualized speech may develop a phenomenon of “self-objectification,” which is associated with eating disorders."

Really? One wonders what data she is citing, and how they managed to link "racist hate speech" to these syndromes which have other causes and therefore need to have the confounding causes neutralized in the analysis. Could not all of these issues be related to lifestyle choices that are in fact the actual cause?

Enough! Mr. French hints at the true issue at hand in his closing argument:

To paraphrase Alan Charles Kors, co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, no class of Americans is too weak to live with freedom. Rather than indulging weakness and fear, activists left and right would do well to cultivate emotional strength and moral courage. The marketplace of ideas demands no less.

The radicals don't want people to grow up. Instead, they want to infantilize everyone so that their juvenile arguments actually make sense. In a world of blind people, the one eyed man is king. In truth, as adults we learn that we can not control others. Calling someone the a name does not make them so. Contrary to the ancient belief, words are not some form a magic.  You can call me a frog all day long, and I will still not croak, hop, or be able to send out my tongue to catch flies.  We learn as adults that what others think of us is not critical; rather it is what we think of ourselves that matters. We cannot, remember, control others. We can only control our own reactions.

The notion that we can only control ourselves has implications for other areas of life.  For example, if you believe that my gun, in my holster, threatens you, then you need to check your motives.  My gun in my holster is only a threat if you have evil intentions towards me.  Yet this sort of argument is often used by people trying to limit where I can carry my gun.  Well, they say, we can't have guns in the store with children.  Think of the threat of a gun to the children?  Such people never think that maybe my gun is there to protect their children.   They need to check their motives, because on this, mine are pure.

John Lotts research is meticulous and points to the notion that the more guns in an area, the less crime. I say "theory" because it can never be proven completely.  Still, John Lott has only reported what he has found after careful statistical analysis on a county by county basis.  Yet he has been demonized by the very people who are claiming that speech is violence.  Is there perhaps a double standard at work, as so often with left wing jihads?

My father had a saying that "Children should be seen and not heard."  Why?  Because children, having limited ability to reason, and no experience of life, advance callow arguments that often collapse in the face of reality.  The Supreme Court here was correct in rejecting these claims.  Rather people need to toughen up if they are going to face the world as it is, rather that as they think it should be.  Growing up means learning to face reality.

Maybe Conservative Principles Need Re-Evaluation

Today at Townhall.com, in an article entitled Spare Me the Principles Lecture. Kurt Schichter makes the point that if our principles become a suicide pact in which we are doomed to death and destruction by those who have no principles, maybe we should re-evaluate them.

First, the “If it’s wrong for them to do it to us, then it’s wrong if we do it to them” formulation is less a principle than a tired cliché. This minor disruption was a tactic; shouting was a tool. It is moral for the good guys – and we are the good guys – to use tactics and tools against an enemy that are immoral when they do it. It was immoral for the Nazis to bomb London; it was moral for us to bomb Nazis. Of course every tactic and tool is not acceptable, but the guys who stormed Omaha Beach did not “become what they were fighting” because they used the same tools and tactics as the enemy.

Second, this sort of performance art is so harmless that the cost/benefit calculus weighs in favor of tolerating such occasional inconveniences. That’s not to say we should not impose higher costs on them – we disapprove of the firing of people for what they say, but Kathy Griffin’s defenestration was a sacrifice worth making to demonstrate the costs of liberal misbehavior. This is crucial. They must pay a cost for establishing their new rules.

...snip...

Finally, if our principles are worth having, they are worth fighting for in a way that might conceivably lead to success. One of the folks telling me how wrong and unconservative I am for finding it amusing – a patriot, though wrong – also mentioned that he had been fighting for free speech on campus and in the culture for 20 years. Hmmm. I’ve been fighting for them for 30 years, ever since my dean at UCSD called me in to yell at me because I wrote that the student government was composed of leftist dweebs. Shouldn’t the fact that we have spent decades using the same tactics and losing indicate that maybe we ought to try something new?

Make no mistake that Trump was not my first choice, nor my second or third, for that matter. However, Trump was far superior to the woman Schlichter calls "Felonia von Pantsuit." He has done several things so far that are in line with movement conservatives' agenda. If conservatives felt the need to let Obama have his way, they why don't they also support letting Trump have his? Where is the full throated cheer for Trump?

Over at the Christian Mercenary, T. L. Davis writes:

Now, whether it is the media clamoring for Trump's assassination, or the leftists judges ruling unconstitutionally to deny Trump the power of the presidency, or the collectivists of both parties trying to challenge every action of the president and pursuing impeachment options, it is all designed simply to deny a legally elected president the power of the presidency. They don't mind if he holds the office, or lives in the White House, what they will not allow is for him to fulfill executive duties.

This is treason, but it is much more than that, it is the initial stages of a civil war, because if they think they are going to be able to run Trump out of town on a rail with no consequences they are sadly and destructively mistaken. These are actions being taken against the system, not just Trump. They have a narrow focus on a single man, but they forget that Trump has millions and millions of followers and even more that recognize this violation of civil society as treasonous and who will join with the Trumpsters, whether they ever agreed with him or not, because it is a very dangerous precedent that cannot be allowed to succeed.

Those whom we elect must be allowed to fulfill their duties, or there is no use in voting.

Of course that is the outcome Leftist elites most desire: that conservatives realize that there is no use in voting, stay home, and the Left can continue with it transformation of the country. The Left thinks that all the actual street fighting will be done by rent-a-mobs and union thugs.  But they may be sadly mistaken, for if it comes to that, they may find themselves to be targets as well.  Such is the effect of targeting Republican Congressmen, and then justifying that act.  Having sowed the wind, they may well reap the whirlwind.  Or, as T. L. Davis writes:

Take all of the legitimate means of change off the table and there remains only one possible solution: war.

A Dangerous Justification

Today at Townhall.com, Allen West took MSNBC host Joy Reid to task for what he called a A Dangerous Justification. West, you will remember, was a Army Colonel who fought in Iraq, then ran for and held a Congressional seat. In terms of war, he knows whereof he speaks. West:

As I sat in the airport on Grand Cayman awaiting my flight back to Dallas, I began checking my news feeds and getting back up to speed. Sadly, I read of the dangerous justifications of the attempted assassination of Republican Members of Congress. The absurd and troubling assertion of one Joy Reid Sunday morning on her show on MSNBC should be cause for concern of all Americans. Ms. Reid offered her weak, boilerplate, insincere hopes for Rep. Scalise then went on to condemn the Republican Representative due to his “voting record”…and insinuate that there is some “moral responsibility” to take action against him for such.

Is this what we want in our Country? Do we want partisan commentators dangerously justifying the shooting of an elected representative because his policies are in opposition to theirs?

Our Constitution was designed, among other things, to deliver a system of politics which did NOT devolve into open warfare. For the most part, it has delivered on that objective. We have been able, for the most part, to resolve our conflicts without killing each other. The stability this has given us has been used to achieve immense prosperity not only to ourselves, but to the world as a whole. But now certain people believe that their causes justify any means necessary, including political murder.

We may disagree on what should be rights, and what should not. But the way the Left has proceeded is not the way contemplated by the Constitution.  The Constitutional way is to amend that document. The framers never believed that they, being fallible men, were writing the perfect document. Therefore they put in place means to peacefully amend it. Indeed, it has been amended 27 times. The problem for the Left is that they don't believe they can sell their version of a constitution to the American people. So:

Ms. Reid also advanced her thoughts that supporting the Second Amendment, an individual right in the Constitution, provides a dangerous justification to take violent action. Does Ms. Reid not believe, or even understand, that law abiding, legal gun owners have this constitutional right? I find it rather perplexing that Ms. Reid would say that same-sex marriage is the law of the land, but the Second Amendment is not. The 14th Amendment equal protection clause was used by five unelected Supreme Court judicial activists to construct a right, and since when does the SCOTUS have this as an enumerated power under our Constitution? The Second Amendment is an actual constitutional right, yet law abiding citizens appear to not have the same equal protection under the law. Therefore, in the world of Ms. Reid, my being a Board Member of the National Rifle Association, the Nation’s oldest civil rights organization, gives a dangerous justification for violence against me.

If Ms. Reid believes that political violence is justified, is she truly prepared for what will follow? Should she perhaps read some of Mike Vanderbough's blog posts? Journalists who incite violence will be properly the targets if violence follows. There is a thin line between inciting violence, and arguing for you preferred policies. Ms. Reid has, it seems, crossed that line. she, and others who wish to claim that Mr. Hodgkinson's actions were somehow justified need to do a lot of soul searching. Murder is never acceptable. The acceptable way is to vote him out of office. West again:

We are indeed diving into dangerous waters. When constitutional conservatives disagreed with President Barack Obama on policy they were disparagingly called racist. When black Attorney General Eric Holder had contempt charges voted against him in the House of Representatives it was called racist, regardless of the Operation Fast and Furious fiasco. When Hillary Clinton fails to win support, and the presidency, we are told it is because of sexism. When there are Americans who wish to not have an antithetical system of governance in our Country called Sharia law, leftists condemn them as Islamophobes.

What we are witnessing is the attempt to demean, denigrate, disparage, demonize, and now dehumanize any opposing viewpoints to progressive socialist ideology. This establishes a dangerous precedent and justification, of actions such as what was undertaken by Mr. Hodgkinson last week at the Republican baseball team practice. If the new mantra for the liberal progressive left, and their media accomplices, is to use the tools of coercion, intimidation, and violence in order to advance their ideals, and secure power, this is truly a dangerous avenue.

Indeed.