Posts Tagged ‘Second Amendment’

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LinkSwarm for February 22, 2019

Friday, February 22nd, 2019

Enjoy a 2/22 LinkSwarm!

  • “Trump Is On Solid Legal Ground In Declaring A Border Emergency To Build A Wall.”

    A review of existing federal laws makes clear that President Donald Trump has clear statutory authority to build a border wall pursuant to a declaration of a national emergency. Arguments to the contrary either mischaracterize or completely ignore existing federal emergency declarations and appropriations laws that delegate to the president temporary and limited authority to reprogram already appropriated funding toward the creation of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

  • When lawmakers want to talk to President Donald Trump, they just pick up the phone. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Andy Ngo helpfully provides an extensive list of fake hate crimes in the Trump era.
  • “Covington teen Nick Sandmann sues The Washington Post for $250M.”
  • Shocker: Washington Post tells the truth about guns:

    Gun homicides have dropped substantially over the past 25 years — but most Americans believe the opposite to be true. Why? Perhaps in part because of the media focus on multiple-victim shooting incidents in recent years. Perhaps, too, because of the number and deadliness of those incidents. We’ve noted before that the number of fatalities in major mass-shooting incidents has increased dramatically in recent years; it’s possible that people are conflating increases in frequency and deadliness of mass shootings with the United States getting more dangerous generally.

  • New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez adapts quickly to the ways of Washington, puts her boyfriend on her congressional payroll. But that’s not all! She also featherbedded him on her campaign payroll by laundering the funds through a third party.
  • The fight between Second Amendment activists and Michael Bloomberg’s money:

    The time for division is not now. We need a strong NRA. If you quit NRA over bump stocks or red flag laws, you aren’t helping. I’m not saying we can’t have disagreement, but we all need to be rowing in the same direction and understanding what’s important. Miguel notes that activists in Florida are concentrating on Open Carry. I would advise concentrating on stopping the ballot measure Bloomberg is going to foist on you in 2020. NRA has to have money to fight that. We cannot write off the third most populous state. We will never be able to outspend Bloomberg, but we sure as hell can out-organize him. We have a blueprint, and last I heard the dude who pulled off defeating the Massachusetts handgun ban is still alive. The odds were stacked against him too.

    Forget about the fucking bump stocks. It’s not where the fight is. That’s over. The fight is preserving the right to own semi-automatic firearms. That’s ultimately what they want, because they are well aware no state’s gun culture has ever come back from an assault weapons ban. Gun bans are a death blow to the culture. If you want to get the hard-core activists worked up over saving an impractical range toy, or in some misguided effort to (badly) get around the machine gun restrictions, you’re not paying attention to where the actual fight is.

  • “Government report reveals CBO was scandalously off in Obamacare estimates.”
  • The Supreme Court unanimously rules that there are limits to civil asset forfeiture under the Eighth Amendment. Good. Now congress should tackle such abuse legislatively.
  • Note the obvious truth that the media is overwhelmingly liberal? Expect to be attacked.
  • Nicolas Maduro would rather let his own people continue to starve rather than let foreign food aid reach them. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • His army evidently relies on Cuban military personnel. Too bad for him that Cuba’s military intervention in Angola showed the world that Cuban troops sucked. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • “Even the UN IPCC says we’re not headed for climate disaster.”
  • The boy who inflated the concept of wolf:

    Suppose that instead of one shepherd boy, there are a few dozen. They are tired of the villagers dismissing their complaints about less threatening creatures like stray dogs and coyotes. One of them proposes a plan: they will start using the word “wolf” to refer to all menacing animals. They agree and the new usage catches on. For a while, the villagers are indeed more responsive to their complaints. The plan backfires, however, when a real wolf arrives and cries of “Wolf!” fail to trigger the alarm they once did.

    What the boys in the story do with the word “wolf,” modern intellectuals do with words like “violence.” When ordinary people think of violence, they think of things like bombs exploding, gunfire, and brawls. Most dictionary definitions of “violence” mention physical harm or force. Academics, ignoring common usage, speak of “administrative violence,” “data violence,” “epistemic violence” and other heretofore unknown forms of violence.

    Ditto “Gas-lighting.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Pro-top: Try not to steal guns from the SHOT show.
  • The English-language narrator of Islamic State execution videos has been captured.
  • Gay magazine takes the Mullah’s side to own Trump:

  • Former women’s tennis champion and out lesbian Martina Navratilova vilified for daring to point out that men shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports.
  • “Medical examiner barred from Travis County courtrooms amid Rangers investigation.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Stafford: the Texas city without property taxes.
  • B-1s to be retired before B-52s.
  • Followup: But they’re buying more F-15s. (Hat tip: The Political Hat.)
  • Philadelphia’s stupid soda tax has not reduced consumption, brought in less revenue than expected, and has cost Philadelphia over 200 jobs. Also, corrupt union officials helped push it through as a “screw you” to the Teamsters. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Lt. Governor Dan Patrick bitchslaps some shoddy journalism from the Houston Chronicle so hard they had to retract the story. (Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings, though the Scribed link is broken.)
  • Giant “nightmare bee” previously thought to be extinct found alive. Pleasant dreams:

  • A new football league, the Alliance of American Football, just debuted. Their main bread and butter isn’t ticket sales or broadcast rights, its refining technology to help boost sports gambling.
  • Trump-supporting comedian Terrance K. Williams recovering from a car accident:

  • Speaking of Williams:

  • Instant classic:

  • “Atheist Requiring Evidence To Believe Anything Knows For Certain Trump Colluded With Russia.”
  • La zzzzOOOOOMMMMMMMzzzz Le schzzzzzzcchh-Mmmmmmmmmwaaaaaaahh!

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas | 2 Comments »

    ACLU Finds Clue, Backs NRA On Banks

    Monday, August 27th, 2018

    This qualifies as news because it’s actually novel:

    The official view of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) remains that the Second Amendment protects a “collective right rather than an individual right.” But the organization nevertheless is helping the National Rifle Association (NRA) fend off extralegal attempts by New York state officials to put it out of business.

    In a brief filed in federal court today, the ACLU argues that New York’s strong-arm efforts to compel banks and insurance companies to ditch the NRA as a customer represent a glaring violation of the First Amendment.

    “Although public officials are free to express their opinions and may condemn viewpoints or groups they view as inimical to public welfare, they cannot abuse their regulatory authority to retaliate against disfavored advocacy organizations and to impose burdens on those organizations’ ability to conduct lawful business,” the ACLU says.

    The ACLU’s amicus brief never says the group agrees with the NRA’s positions on firearms. Instead, the group invokes a long series of First Amendment cases to argue that the regulators should not use their power in office to punish political enemies.

    A timeline prepared by the NRA suggests the intimidation campaign began last fall. The anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety met with New York officials in September 2017; a month later the Department of Financial Services began an investigation that started with a company called Lockton, which administered the NRA-branded personal liability insurance program known as Carry Guard. Despite a 20-year relationship, Lockton responded by abruptly ditching the NRA as a customer in February; so did Chubb and Lloyd’s.

    Emboldened by this initial success, Maria Vullo, head of the state’s Department of Financial Services, sent a pair of ominous letters to all banks, financial institutions, and insurers licensed to do business in New York. Vullo warned companies to sever ties with pro-Second Amendment groups that “promote guns and lead to senseless violence” and instead heed “the voices of the passionate, courageous, and articulate young people” calling for more restrictions on firearms. All companies receiving the letter, she advised, should “review any relationships they have with the NRA or similar gun promotion organizations, and to take prompt actions to managing these risks and promote public health and safety.”

    New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo underlined the regulatory threat in a tweet the next day: “The NRA is an extremist organization. I urge companies in New York State to revisit any ties they have to the NRA and consider their reputations, and responsibility to the public.'”

    As a result of those not-very-veiled threats, the NRA says, multiple banks withdrew bids to provide basic depository services. The NRA is also worried about being able to continue producing its NRA TV channel, with hosts including Dana Loesch and Cam Edwards, unless it can obtain normal media liability insurance. (In May, NRA sued Cuomo and Vullo, a former Cuomo aide when he was attorney general. See J.D. Tuccille’s Reason coverage at the time.)

    “If Cuomo can do this to the NRA, then conservative governors could have their financial regulators threaten banks and financial institutions that do business with any other group whose political views the governor opposes,” David Cole, the ACLU’s legal director, wrote in a blog post today. “The First Amendment bars state officials from using their regulatory power to penalize groups merely because they promote disapproved ideas.”

    A few decades ago, the ACLU acting like, you know, a civil liberties union wouldn’t have been shocking at all. (In fact, back in the dim mists of time, the ACLU back the Texas Review Society in a lawsuit against the University of Texas for prohibiting non-university on-campus newspapers, even though the Texas Review Society was a registered student group). Lately, however, the ACLU has seemed little more than an extension of the liberal overclass (it’s Twitter timeline seems to have gone to an “All ‘OMG The Illegal Alien Children’ All The Time” format), and recently it’s gone wobbly on it’s signature issue of free speech.

    So it’s nice to see the ACLU at least pretend it still cares about free speech for deplorables…

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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    Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

    Brett Kavanaugh for SCOTUS Roundup

    Tuesday, July 10th, 2018

    Lots of reactions this morning to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

    First up, Jonathan Adler of The Volokh Conspiracy offers up an overview of Kavanaugh’s career (including links to his decisions):

    Judge Kavanaugh is widely respected on the Supreme Court. Many of his clerks go on to clerk at One First Street. More importantly, his opinions attract notice from the justices. Several of his dissents have been vindicated by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. His dissents showed the way for the Court in Michigan v. EPA (White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA concerning mercury emissions), UARG v. EPA (CRR v. EPA concerning GHG emissions), Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (concerning separation of powers), and D.C. v. Wesby (concerning qualified immunity). And even when certiorari was granted, Judge Kavanaugh’s dissents have been noted in subsequent Supreme Court cases (as in Lexmark International v. Static Control Components which favorably cited Kavanaugh’s dissent in Grocery Manufacturers Association v. EPA). This suggests other justices will take the new junior justice’s opinions quite seriously, especially on administrative law.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

    Second, Kavanaugh is also a strong believer in the Second Amendment. From his 2011 Heller v. District of Columbia (the follow-up lawsuit to the original Heller decision) dissent:

    In Heller, the Supreme Court held that handguns – the vast majority of which today are semi-automatic – are constitutionally protected because they have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens. There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semiautomatic rifles. Semi-automatic rifles, like semi-automatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses. Moreover, semiautomatic handguns are used in connection with violent crimes far more than semi-automatic rifles are. It follows from Heller’s protection of semi-automatic handguns that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that D.C.’s ban on them is unconstitutional.

    (Hat tip: J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ.)

    Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut gave Kavanaugh what amounts to a strong endorsement on that very subject:

    Respectable liberal Alan Dershowitz endorsed Kavanaugh as well: “He has a lot of support from centrist academics. He is regarded as a very scholarly, very smart person. I probably will disagree with many of his opinions, but it’s hard to question his qualifications for the job.” (Hat tip: BigGator5.)

    Via Stephen Green at Instapundit comes this list of top six unhinged reactions to the Kavanaugh nomination. I especially liked the Women’s March drafting their blurb on what an extremist whoever Trump picked for the court was, then just leaving “XX” instead of inserting Kavanaugh’s name when they sent out the press release…

    Finally, liberals want you to know that the Federalist Society and Opus Dei are evidently the same thing. Maybe somebody should explain to them the difference between real life and a Dan Brown novel…

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    Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    The Mask Slips

    Wednesday, March 28th, 2018

    Finally!

    Finally, a high ranking Democrat finally has the guts to say what lies near and dear to the cockles of the vast majority of their party’s heart: “Repeal the Second Amendment.”

    Thanks you, John Paul Stevens, for not just, at long last, admitting what Democrats have long-believed, but doing so out-loud and in mixed company!

    There, was that so hard? All you had to do was tell the truth.

    Democrats want to repeal part of the Bill of Rights so they can forcibly disarm law-abiding Americans.

    Both left and right have known this for a long time, but Democrats felt compelled to lie about it for trivial reasons like “losing elections.”

    To thine own self be true!

    Additional reactions:

    Ann Althouse:

    Usually, advocates of gun control tend to give assurances that they’re not out to repeal the Second Amendment. A forthright demand for a repeal of the Second Amendment would wreck those assurances and elevate the pro-gun side, which could credibly intensify its rhetoric with reality-based anxiety that they are coming to take away your constitutional rights. If they can take away your Second Amendment rights — if the Bill of Rights is on the chopping block — they may come for your freedom of religion next, they can take away your freedom of speech, you right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures — whatever they like, whatever they think stands in their way.

    Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

    The op-ed comes across as whining over his Heller defeat and the implication that the Constitution should be treated as a historical relic (Stevens’ term). That certainly explains some of his votes on the Supreme Court, perhaps most notably in Kelo, although courts had unfortunately paved that road long before. At least in this case, Stevens suggests using a valid constitutional process to erode individual rights rather than a Supreme Court decision that effectively rewrites the Constitution to expand federal power at the expense of liberty. That may have more to do with Stevens’ lack of a seat on the court at this time, though.

    So how likely will a repeal effort be? Maybe if Democrats really start pushing it — as they clearly would love to see it happen — it might get, oh, 40% of the House to vote for it, far short of what’s necessary to send it to the states. The only states likely to ratify such an amendment proposal are those whose gun-control regulations have utterly failed to stop violence in their jurisdictions, as was the case in Washington DC when Heller was decided in 2008.

    However, such an effort would certainly clarify the choices for voters outside of those jurisdictions in national elections, and Democrats would be lucky to comprise 40% of Congress if they tried to follow Stevens’ advice. Don’t expect too many of them to climb on Stevens’ bandwagon, especially as rickety as it is in this essay.

    And some tweets:

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    Posted in Guns, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    Guns, Tyranny and Asymmetrical Warfare

    Thursday, October 19th, 2017

    One Standard Anti-Second Amendment Talking Point is that the Second Amendment is outdated and can’t possibly provide a bulwark against tyranny, because no group of citizens armed merely with legal firearms could possibly stand up to the technological might of the U.S. armed forces. The notion has a certain surface-level plausibility, as a bunch of guys armed only with AR-pattern rifles isn’t going to take out an M1A2 tank in open combat.

    Tiny problem with this argument: recent history shows it’s demonstrably wrong:

    Who exactly do you think has stymied the U.S. in Afghanistan for 16 years? The Taliban is made up of Afghan Bubbas. The Taliban doesn’t need to defeat nuclear weapons, though they are humiliating a nuclear power for the second time in history. They use a mix of Kalashnikovs and WWII-era bolt-action rifles. Determined insurgencies are really difficult to fight, even if they are only armed with Enfield rifles and you can target them with a TOW missiles system that can spot a cat in the dark from two miles away. In Iraq, expensive tanks were destroyed with simple improvised explosives.

    If the U.S. government (and the American people behind them) doesn’t want to use nuclear weapons on foreign fundamentalists in Afghanistan, why does anyone presume they’d use them against Americans in Idaho?

    It is not just our fecklessness. All great powers take into account the moral and manpower costs of implementing their rules and laws on a people. And an armed citizenry, especially if they seem to have a just cause to rally around, will dramatically raise the price of ruling them. The British Empire controlled one quarter of the world’s territory and ruled one quarter of the earth’s population in 1922. In that very year, they were forced to make an effective exit from the main part of their oldest colony, Ireland. Why? Because a determined group of Irish men with guns made the country ungovernable. The British technically could have deployed their entire navy, blockading the restive island, and starving any rebellion into submission. But they were unwilling to pay the moral price, or the price in blood. It was precisely this foreseeable event that had caused the British to ban Irish Catholics from possessing firearms hundreds of years earlier.

    And just as in the 1770s or the 1920s, governments in similar positions today or in the future would have a difficult time maintaining military morale while trying to impose rule on a people who resist it manfully.

    Let’s say that liberals get their wish, put Democrats in control of congress and the White House, and instantly pass Australian-style mandatory gun confiscation laws. If Democrats jump straight to violating the Constitution, the gloves come off. Not only will American gun owners form the largest armed insurgency the world has ever seen, but the “civilized” rules of engagement would no longer apply.

    Let’s let Scott Adams spell it out:

    The way private gun ownership protects citizens is by being a credible threat against all the civilians who might be in any way associated with a hypothetical tyrannical leader who uses the military against citizens. Citizens probably can’t get close to the leaders in such a scenario, but it would take about an hour to round up their families, and the families of supporters.

    That would do it.

    America is unconquerable.

    Imagine the top hundred Democratic Party donors in every state being taken hostage by an American insurgency. Imagine the immediate families of every Democratic U.S. Senator and Governor being taken hostage.

    Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad had two states and a dozen police departments freaking out in the Beltway Sniper attacks of 2002. Now imagine that times a thousand.

    The problem is compounded even further that those same “bubbas” are exactly the sort of men who make up the bulk of the United States armed forces. Do liberals seriously believe that, come an actual civil war and suspension of the Posse Comitatus Act, troops from Texas, Kansas and Georgia will cheerfully do the bidding of elites from New York and San Francisco to disarm their own fathers and brothers (many ex-military themselves) in deep red states?

    Once again, liberals openly pining for a civil war between red and blue America seem to have overlooked the tiny obstacle that red American is the half with all the guns.

    A well-armed citizenry as large as that in the United States would make Afghanistan and Iraq look like calk walks compared to trying to occupy America. That’s why the Second Amendment remains the ultimate bulwark of American liberty.

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    Posted in Guns, Military | 4 Comments »

    NRA Endorses Trump

    Saturday, May 21st, 2016

    “The National Rifle Association threw its weight Friday behind Donald Trump, as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee personally assured the group’s members he would protect Second Amendment rights if elected – and claimed that likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton would threaten them.”

    Will it help unify the Republican Party behind Trump? Some. Gun owners and Second Amendment activists are a significant part of the GOP coalition. But Clinton and the Democratic Party are so clearly hostile to civilian gun ownership that it’s hard to imagine any NRA members voting for her, and culturally most gun owners seem to hail from the fraction of GOP primary voters which has already embraced Trump.

    Trump’s official policy statement on Second Amendment rights is fine, and whoever wrote it (clearly not Trump) has a firm grounding in the issue, and Trump has even said he has a concealed carry license himself. Whether Trump follows through or not remains to be seen, but he already starts so far ahead of Clinton on the issue that I’m not sure his past support of the idiotic “assault weapon” ban some 15 years ago really matters anymore. (And even then he was saying “Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed.”)

    If Trump wins in November, Republicans will almost certainly retain the House and possibly the Senate, which means no anti-Second Amendment legislation will be headed to his desk for at least two years. Trump could do absolutely nothing on guns during his presidency and still be a vast improvement over Obama or either Clinton.

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    Posted in Elections, Guns, Republicans | No Comments »

    Dan Patrick Sends Three Second Amendment Bills On To Committee

    Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015

    Lt. Governor Dan Patrick announced that he’s sending three pro-Second Amendment bills to the Senate State Affairs Committee:

  • Senate Bill 11 (SB 11), An act relating to the carrying of concealed handguns on the campuses of and certain other locations associated with institutions of higher education, by Sen. Brian Birdwell (SD22).
  • Senate Bill 342 (SB 342), Relating to providing for the open and concealed carrying of handguns without a license and to related offenses and penalties, by Sen. Don Huffines (SD16).
  • Senate Bill 346 (SB 346), Relating to the authority of a person who is licensed to carry a handgun to openly carry a holstered handgun, by Sen. Craig Estes (SD30).

    • Except for the effectivity date, the campus carry bill is essentially identical to Birdwell’s SB 182 in the 83rd legislative session, which was killed in 2013.

    SB342 provides for essentially unlimited constitutional carry, while SB346 would authorize open carry only for CHL holders. I think it’s canny of Patrick to advance both at the same time. Some squishy republicans may balk at universal carry, but voting for SB 346 will allow them to split the difference and still appear pro-gun.

    One possible snag for any pro Second Amendment bill: the Senate Criminal Justice Committee is still headed by Democrat John Whitmire. However, since Whitmire is considerably more pro-gun than the average Democrat this may not be a problem.

    Will Speaker Joe Straus kill pro-Second Amendment bills in the House? He’s killed some in the past, but he’s also been very careful not to leave his fingerprints on the knife. Given how Straus has crowed about endorsements from the NRA and the Texas State Rifle Association, I’m guessing he won’t go to the mat to kill popular Second Amendment bills supported by a clear majority of senators. Straus is another reason I think SB 346 is more likely to pass than SB 342.

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    Posted in Guns, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Operation Choke Point’s Smoking Gun?

    Thursday, January 15th, 2015

    Via Instapundit comes updated news of Operation Choke Point, the Obama Administration’s unconstitutional attempt to force the banks and credit unions used by gun dealers (and other targeted businesses, most of which are entirely legal) to close their accounts. Bank regulator’s have denied they were doing this in the past, but now a gun business owner has recorded a credit union manager telling him the Feds have forced them to close his account.

    Here’s a Fox News report on the case:

    Imagine the media outcry if a Republican administration were using the same tactics against abortion clinics or gay bars.

    The new congress should investigate this along with Fast and Furious…

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    Posted in Guns, Obama Scandals, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

    Gun and Crme Roundup for April 16, 2014

    Wednesday, April 16th, 2014

    The Bundy Ranch story is part of the Second Amendment story (and the Tenth Amendment story), but is too big and sprawling to unpack here. So here are some of the other things that have been happening:

  • Gun grabber Michael Bloomberg has pledged $50 million to defeat the NRA. Since every time Bloomberg opens has wallet, it seems like more Republicans win, we’ll see how long that commitment lasts…
  • But Bloomberg is sure that his Big Gulp and gun banning antics have earned him entry into the kingdom of heaven. “It’s not even close,” says he. Well, when you’re so exalted that you know the mind of God, why bother with the opinions of puny mortals?

  • “We gun owners have been utterly unreasonable and lacking in common sense for roughly 20 years. And by golly, look where it’s got us! We’ve whomped the enemies of gun rights into quivering submission.” (Hat tip: Borepatch, who offers further thoughts.)
  • Fast and Furious helped supply arms to gun trafficking rings in the U.S.
  • Connecticut: Massive non-compliance with new gun registration rules.
  • East Texas citizen terminates meth freak with gun.
  • Eric Holder wants to waste more money on smart guns.
  • A Harvard Law roundup on recent gun cases I haven’t had time to read yet. (Hat tip: Shall Not Be Questioned.)
  • Beaver County, PA Sheriff has around 700 guns seized from his home for violating a court order. Guess what party he’s from? Hint: The media decline to name the party when reporting the story. (Hat tip: Ditto.)
  • Two men rape and murder four women in California while wearing GPS tracking bracelets.
  • Detroit homeowners kill seven intruders in seven weeks.
  • Dumbass in Tuscaloosa finds out once again that gun beats machete.
  • Four pro gun bills (including a preemption bill) make their way through the Arizona legislature. (Hat tip: Alphecca.)

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Guns, Media Watch | No Comments »

    Pull The Other One, Wendy

    Thursday, February 6th, 2014

    Normally I would applaud a member of the Democratic Party supporting Second Amendment rights. But Wendy Davis supporting open carry?

    Right. Pull the other one.

    After all, this is the same Wendy Davis who voted against concealed carry by authorized CHL holders on college campuses, keeping Texas campuses fictive “gun free zones.” She also tried to do what Austin is trying to do: force gun shows to impose additional background checks on private citizens.

    The fact that Davis hasn’t been universally opposed to gun rights may be explained by the fact that she’s a state senator in Texas, one with significant suburban and rural constituents and who only won her last election with 51% of the vote and thus one for which a hard-left gun control position would be a career-ending exercise. It’s also possible that, like Arlen Specter, another former Republican, she may have no fixed political positions whatsoever beyond the belief she should hold political office (or perhaps none beyond support for unlimited abortion).

    Davis’ open carry pander is the worst kind of pander for a politician: a ham-handed, ineffective and incompetent one. Since Davis is already running as a liberal darling, and Abbott has already embraced open carry, there’s no chance this move will win her real converts among single-issue Second Amendment supporters, but a very real chance it will alienate her national liberal fundraising base.

    Wendy Davis is a credible leader on Second Amendment rights the way Danny DeVito is a credible NBA center.

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    Posted in Elections, Guns, Texas | No Comments »

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