Especially when they are likely footing some portion of the defendants' bills in these cases by way of the NRA and others
"It truly gets tiring to hear folks say "just move" whenever a law we don't like get passed."
It's even more tiring to hear folks say "we can't do anything, it's inevitable." Lot of that in the NY thread (as well as a lot of NYer activists who believe it to be anything but)
Regarding the ridiculous assertions about nukes;
Anyone capable of buying/stealing/assembling a nuke has power in excess of a nation state. He'll get what he wants, regardless, by whatever channels are available to him. He will buy out owners, hire thieves and armies, bribe officials, and do it all in secret if he can't do so legitimately. The system of Checks and Balances is such in this country that no human can possibly claim this level of authority over others; even Mr. Buffet probably couldn't afford all the cost associated with obtaining a Nuke if he suddenly went senile and desired one.
If nukes become the standard armament in warfare, you better hope to God we all have them, too. And don't think that if a chunk of the US rebelled and
didn't have some silos under their command, that their nuclear annihilation would not be on the table. Would Texans secede if they knew Austin, Dallas, and Houston would be incinerated? (wait, don't answer that
)
Luckily, the Cold War showed mankind that escalation of pure force is dumb way to gain territory (you can't; it's destroyed and glowing). Instead, efficient influence and subversion are the orders of the day, and such things, being complicated, require lots of data and access to data. It's far scarier to think of weapons like those utilized by the NSA being beyond the contradiction of US citizens. Winston won't even have the
pretense of a secret journal to write "Down with Big Brother" in at the rate encryption is failing (the double-agent network is already solidly in play, though)
I do like the "scale of force" arguments, though, because they always fall back onto the same tired fallacies as magazine capacity restrictions; how big a bore, how short a barrel, how fast a rate of fire, how accurate, how powerful, how explosive, how effective? Limit any of these, you limit them all, and there is no way to logically pick a spot to draw the line, which means it will be drawn arbitrarily --something
law is not supposed to be.
I love the line about "arms being man-portable;" what about the quadriplegic who want's to deer hunt with a turreted-rifle and controller, or the 90yo veteran who can no longer lift his original machine gun. What about Jesse Freakin' "The Body" Ventura being able to carry a minigun, for crying out loud!
What an intellectually lazy thing for someone as intelligent and reasoned as Justice Scalia to say ("that will have to be worked out"). Well, it
was 'worked out' nearly 100 years ago, and with some very shady and poorly written legislation that such lazy and cowardly thinking was complicit in enforcing arbitrarily. Somehow the riddle remains unanswered (let alone solved).
Very disappointing, but it does also sound exactly like the type of thing someone on the track towards The Second Amendment Epiphany would say, so perhaps there's hope for him yet
. I weep for Connecticut's lack of resolution, but such a conflicted and uncertain ruling seems all but destined for a higher court. Many times, judges realize they simply don't have the authority to rule, but are too proud to admit that and turn over the ball rather than punting. Sadly, the higher the decision goes, the greater the stakes, and the increased likelihood of another short drive (it's actually a cool self-limiting governor on how much judges feel they can get away with, and the real reason I think for SCOTUS captilation on O'Care; they didn't think they could get away with kicking Goliath in the stones and walk away undamaged
)
""While the act burdens the plaintiffs' Second Amendment rights, it is substantially related to the important governmental interest of public safety and crime control," Covello ruled."
Does anyone have a more extended transcript or opinion? I am curious if this statement, like so many it resembles, was supported in any way by the speaker/writer. As we all know, laws like these are hardly "substantially" correlated to crime reduction or public safety in general, so it is very odd for a judge to make such a claim offhand as a central portion of his opinions. Especially considering how the whole purpose of their opinions is to illustrate how they arrive at their conclusions logically (case law, precedent, etc.), rather than what their gut tells them. I sincerely hope he isn't actually ruling that core Constitutional protections may be infringed based on a conflicting law's
good intentions, which is closer to the nature of the relationship between gun laws and crime/public safety/gun violence.
TCB
