Quite the framing on this one… https://t.co/jHu7ZaxlUr
— Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) June 20, 2022
Category: Rights
Will Your “Smart” Devices and AI Apps Have a Legal Duty to Report on You?
I just ran across an interesting article, “Should AI Psychotherapy App Marketers Have a Tarasoff Duty?,” which answers the question in its title “yes”: Just as human psychotherapists in most states have a legal obligation to warn potential victims of a patient if the patient says something that suggests a plan to harm the victim (that’s the Tarasoff duty, so named after a 1976 California Supreme Court case), so AI programs being used by the patient must do the same.
It’s a legally plausible argument—given that the duty has been recognized as a matter of state common law, a court could plausibly interpret it as applying to AI psychotherapists as well as to other psychotherapists—but it seems to me to highlight a broader question:
To what extent will various “smart” products, whether apps or cars or Alexas or various Internet-of-Things devices, be mandated to monitor and report potentially dangerous behavior by their users (or even by their ostensible “owners”)?
To be sure, the Tarasoff duty is somewhat unusual in being a duty that is triggered even in the absence of the defendant’s affirmative contribution to the harm. Normally, a psychotherapist wouldn’t have a duty to prevent harm caused by his patient, just as you don’t have a duty to prevent harm caused by your friends or adult family members; Tarasoff was a considerable step beyond the traditional tort law rules, though one that many states have indeed taken. Indeed, I’m skeptical about Tarasoff, though most judges that have considered the matter don’t share my skepticism.
But it is well-established in tort law that people have a legal duty to take reasonable care when they do something that might affirmatively help someone do something harmful (that’s the basis for legal claims, for instance, for negligent entrustment, negligent hiring, and the like). Thus, for instance, a car manufacturer’s provision of a car to a driver does affirmatively contribute to the harm caused when the driver drives recklessly.
Does that mean that modern (non-self-driving) cars must—just as a matter of the common law of torts—report to the police, for instance, when the driver appears to be driving erratically in ways that are indicative of likely drunkenness? Should Alexa or Google report on information requests that seem like they might be aimed at figuring out ways to harm someone?
To be sure, perhaps there shouldn’t be such a duty, for reasons of privacy or, more specifically, the right not to have products that one has bought or is using surveil and report on you. But if so, then there might need to be work done, by legislatures or by courts, to prevent existing tort law principles from pressuring manufacturers to engage in such surveillance and reporting.
I’ve been thinking about this ever since my Tort Law vs. Privacy article, but it seems to me that the recent surge of smart devices will make these issues come up even more.
2 Countries In America: Those Who Cherish the RKBA & Those Who Don’t
It is time for us to think outside the box and form two countries. Instead of civil war I propose civil separation. We are two countries, so ideologically opposed that each feels victimized and dominated by the other. Political leaders need to step up and brainstorm next steps. Clearly lay out the two ideologies and give each state a vote as to where they belong.” ~“Opinion Letter” from reader of The New York Times posted on June 5, 2022, responding to May 27, 2022 “America May Be Broken Beyond Repair,” by the Political Progressive Columnist for the Times, Michelle Goldberg. The letter writer, Dawn Menken, a Psychologist, from Portland, Oregon, is the author of “Facilitating a More Perfect Union: A Guide for Politicians and Leaders,” published in 2021*
If the American public didn’t know the truth before, it knows it now: the battle for the very Soul of the Country is on the line, and Ground Zero of that battle isn’t Uvalde, Texas. It’s New York City, New York, with the Bruen case shortly coming down the pike.
The Nation is indeed “two Countries,”—no less so now than at the time of the American Civil War: friend against friend, brother against brother, uncle against cousin, father against son. But what is different today is that ideologies cut across and into the very notion of what it means to be an American. There are those who hold to the meaning and purport of our Nation as set forth in our Constitution and especially in the Nation’s Bill of Rights. And there are those who wish to jettison all of it in the erroneous belief that our Nation is at its core, immoral, even evil. They wish to destroy the very fabric of a free Constitutional Republic.
But the salient difference between these two Countries rests on this:
Those Americans who embrace and cherish their fundamental right to keep and bear arms, and others who do not.
Those who embrace and cherish their fundamental right to keep and bear arms also recognize and embrace their sovereignty over Government. They understand that government exists to serve the interests of the people. They recognize that Government is the servant and the American people are the sole master.
Unfortunately, many Americans are of a different mindset. Such Americans have bought into the psychological conditioning programmed into them that guns are awful and gun owners are to be despised. Such Americans care not that Government is their servant, not their master. They recognize not and care not that by ceding their God-Given right to keep and bear arms, they have laid the foundation for their own demise: loss of Selfhood, loss of Dignity, loss of Self-Reliance, loss of mastery over their own destiny.
The latest data on mass shootings from the National Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice and the Rand Corporation.
There are no standard definitions of mass shootings. There are no easy answers.
Source
National Institute Of Justice-Rand
Article
I was interviewed on a national television show about research-based answers to mass shootings. Beyond condemning those involved, I stumbled. I knew that there were few (if any) firm answers or guidance.
That’s not the case for some doing similar interviews. Many are quick to promote firearm controls or red flag laws or suggest that there are effective answers. That’s simply not the case. The complexities and price tags for the proposals are immense.
For example, we within the justice system acknowledge our inability to keep track of convicted-fingerprinted
It will be a logistical and financial nightmare with probable ACLU challenges. It’s not going to work beyond those committed to institutions and even then, conditions change.
As of this writing, the latest Congressional proposals are available via CNN.
It’s time to examine the best available data on the subject. Note that varied definitions of mass shootings and whether they were public (inferring unknown victims) or private (inferring known victims) will be difficult to follow. Previous research suggests that most victims of mass shootings were known to the shooter.
There are few firm conclusions based on research. Policy issues are elusive. The emphasis is on assault weapons when the overwhelming majority of mass shootings involve handguns (while noting that many mass shooters carry a variety of weapons).
You’re going to get different policy perspectives from different groups, see Politico.
Policy Solutions to Address Mass Shootings was offered by the National Institute of Justice and Rockefeller Institute of Government in August of 2021.
The Best Available Data
What “is” useful is a 2021 document from the National Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice and the Rand Corporation (one of the best crime-related research organizations in the nation) summarizing what we know and don’t know about mass shootings. What’s below is from that document. It’s a tool kit for understanding “and” responding to mass shootings.
Most will be a bit frustrated by the lack of clarity as to what constitutes a mass shooting, who commits them, their mental health issues, and what can be done.
Those in law enforcement are exasperated by the national call for cops to be guardians, not warriors which seem wildly misplaced because law enforcement is expected to enter a mass shooting and stop the shooter, which requires endless tactical training and equipment.
In an earlier article, I point out that the great majority of what we call gun violence is street-level violent crime, not mass shooters. I suggest that the explosion of media coverage of mass shootings is somewhat misplaced; the vast majority of victims of gun violence are people of color and society has become immune to that violence.
Where Second Amendment Supporters Must Take The Offensive
While the best strategy in the short and medium-term for Second Amendment supporters may be fighting “not to lose,” that does not mean that Second Amendment supporters should not take the offensive when it is the right time to do so.
The question is what should the offensive focus on? There are two fronts Second Amendment supporters should think about: Legislative and Legal, the former with two fronts of its own – federal and state. Each will require different strategies.
The Legislative Front At The Federal Level
At the federal level, many of the same things that protect the Second Amendment will make passing legislation harder. This includes the filibuster in the Senate. So, what can be done?
First of all, if Chuck Schumer is no longer Senate Majority Leader, one of the best options will be riders on appropriations bills. This must-pass legislation can be used to prohibit funding some of the worst excesses. That could work for the short term.
Should Second Amendment supporters succeed in retaking the White House, they can them move to address financial deplatforming, take steps to deal with Silicon Valley censorship, and to tighten up the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. For the short and medium-term, these will be necessary.
The Legislative Front At The State Level
In one sense, all pro-Second Amendment groups have blundered by NOT making financial deplatforming a major issue. State laws prohibiting banks and credit cards from blacklisting gun companies that make legal products should be passed as soon as possible. The best way to prevent corporate gun control is to make such efforts very painful to corporations’ bottom lines.
A similar step could also be to pass their own versions of legislation to harden schools. Not just the buildings themselves, although that is important, but also a program to allow for teachers (or other volunteers) to serve as armed security the same way the armed pilots program worked.
The Legal Front
This is the front where Second Amendment supporters should take the offensive more. After gun bans, the best target would be the licensing schemes like the FOID in Illinois or the system in New Jersey. After NYSRPA v. Bruen, those systems are ripe for going after with litigation.
The courts will also be useful in curbing the excesses of “reg flag” laws, especially at the federal level. Heller, McDonald, and Bruen will help, and even the threat of litigation may deter some anti-Second Amendment legislation or force settlements.
Knowing when to take the offensive will be crucial for Second Amendment supporters in the wake of the likely ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen. But the real importance is being able to act after defeating anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local levels.
Looks like standard operational unspecific jabberjawing to me
Here’s What Senators Came Up With for a Deal on New Gun Laws
After days of negotiations that worried Second Amendment advocates and law-abiding firearm owners due to talk of sweeping new restrictions, it seems like — for now at least — the Republican members of the bipartisan working group held the line on the strictest proposals, though they didn’t stop Democrats on all fronts in the talks that made many conservatives scratch their heads.
The bipartisan group of Senators — led by Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) — announced their proposal for legislation they seem to think has a chance of making it through their evenly-divided chamber.
In a joint statement, the senators said their plan will “protect America’s children, keep our schools safe, and reduce the threat of violence across our country” while citing a duty they feel to “come together and get something done.” Never mind, apparently, that all the restrictive gun laws in Chicago and elsewhere haven’t protected residents.
The statement continued saying the agreement “increases needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can’t purchase weapons,” again, as if previous laws to keep guns out of criminals’ hands had worked. “We look forward to earning broad, bipartisan support and passing our commonsense proposal into law,” the statement concludes. We’ll see.
The proposal includes providing “resources” — likely grant incentives — to states if they implement so-called “red flag laws.” It also includes investing taxpayer dollars in mental health services for families and in schools along with school safety resources to “to help institute safety measures in and around primary and secondary schools, support school violence prevention efforts and provide training to school personnel and students.” The proposal announcement also says legislators will seek to include an “enhanced review period” for firearm purchasers under 21 years old.
Perhaps notably — and showing Democrats did not get all the things they’ve called for in the wake of the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas — is a lack of their buzzword assault weapons ban, high capacity magazine restrictions, a federal red flag system, or an increase in the minimum age to purchase certain rifles.
To be clear, the lack of those items in the framework proposal does not mean Democrats won’t try to sneak in some version of them as an eventual piece of legislation is developed.
As WaPo previewed before the official announcement of the proposal, the inclusion of billions of federal dollars for school security programs and mental health care is probably the only thing the proposal has going for it with most Republicans.
Townhall reported last week that an armed school resource officer and secured doors kept an aggressive man from entering an elementary school filled with children. The SRO took the individual down with assistance from local law enforcement while most children inside the building were unaware that anything had happened outside. The training and protocol that worked there should be used for a framework, not gun-grabbing Democrats’ CNN talking points.
Throughout the negotiations, Republicans involved had tried to assuage concerns from firearm owners and gun safety advocates. Sen. Cornyn said that the forthcoming deal was “not about creating new restrictions on law-abiding citizens” but “about ensuring that the system we already have in place works as intended.” Yet several of the pieces of the framework seem to include new restrictions, albeit lesser than a blanket ban on “assault weapons” or magazines.
And while the group may have reached a tentative agreement, they’re only a small group of the U.S. Senate — and several Republicans in the crew such as Susan Collins (ME) and Mitt Romney (UT) are not exactly known as standard bearers for the GOP. At least 60 senators in all would be needed to support any resulting legislation in order to overcome a potential legislative filibuster.
As we’ve learned before, a statement of agreement between a small group of senators is anything but a done deal. We’ve also learned that what might seem to be a workable legislative framework can turn into a Frankenstein’s monster of horrible policies as Democrats scheme to use the bipartisan cover of squishy Republicans to ultimately get their way.
The best thing for any Senate Republican to do at this point is walk away from the table and declare opposition over anything even remotely concerning in the tentative agreement — the incentive for red flag laws or the enhanced review for under-21 purchasers, for example — or legislation as it ends up being written.
There’s less than five months until the midterms, Democrats need at least ten Republicans to even move a bill to a vote, and there’s no reason for Republicans to cave on an issue as critical as Americans’ Second Amendment freedoms just to look like they’re playing nice. Democrats would never do the same if they were in the minority, and there are better, more effective, less freedom-depriving options available to respond to tragedies like the one in Uvalde. Harden schools, fund resource officers, train willing staff, and work to remedy the myriad failures of government that are discovered in the wake of such tragedies.
McConaughey Just Picked His Political Party. Huge Mistake.
Matthew McConaughey is a cut above most political celebrities.
He doesn’t spit fire and brimstone like director Rob Reiner or Alyssa Milano. Nor does he bend the truth until it snaps like a branch, as the “View” hosts do on a regular basis.
The Oscar winner is calm, measured and unwilling to demonize the mainstream Left or Right.
In a way, he’s everything we want in a celebrity sticking his neck out on the issues of the day. Except he just made the biggest mistake of his quasi-political life.
He chose a side. And he chose badly for more than a few reasons.
McConaughey’s recent gun control plea, made via the current White House’s invitation, won’t be easily forgotten. His policy suggestions proved generic and unlikely to move the needle on gun violence.
Then again, why would anyone expect the “Dallas Buyers Club” star to set forth any bold new agendas? He’s an actor, not a gun control expert. He brings a layman’s touch to the subject, meaning there’s little reason for him to even be on such an important political stage.
It’s one thing for a celebrity to share a hot take on Twitter. It’s another to travel to Washington, D.C. and demand said take be given the gravitas of a State of the Union address.
Figures like John Lott and Dana Loesch have been enmeshed in guns for years, if not decades. Agree or disagree with their opinions, they’ve studied the topic aggressively and offer sober insights.
What has McConaughey done to measure up?
More importantly, the star has been carefully straddling the line between Democrats and Republicans in recent years. He’s teased running for Texas governor, inserting himself into various narratives along the way.
And he’s done so without choosing a party. That’s no accident.
Embracing generic gun control platitudes, from the Biden White House pulpit of all places, changed that. And he did it at a moment when Team Biden is on its heels, pounded by terrible polling numbers and facing a Red Wave come November.
It’s not politically smart to back the wrong horse.
Not only did McConaughey pick a political side, but he also did so at the worst possible time. Today’s Democratic party doesn’t resemble the one President Barack Obama commandeered just a few short years ago.
It’s angry, uncompromising and beholden to its far-Left base. And that seems to clash with everything the actor represents.
The modern Left looks the other way when its side commits political violence, or it implicitly eggs it on. It gently nods as protesters descend on the homes of Supreme Court Justices, assuming the legal eagles lean to the Right.
McConaughey’s “new” side often demands abortion up until birth, cheers on Big Tech censorship and champions Cancel Culture.
The actor may not embrace those extreme measures, but his new party does. And how will Democrats take to McConaughey’s kinder, gentler approach? They’ll rage against his willingness to defend Trump voters, as he’s done in the past. They’ll steam over his inability to demonize the other side.
Conservatives offer a bigger tent today, witness Dr. Oz’s primary victory in Pennsylvania. Or, closer to Hollywood, look at how the Right rallies behind left-leaning comics like Ricky Gervais, Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle.
No one fought harder for Rogan than the Right, and even he admitted as much.
Republicans might have made room for a center-leaning soul who just so happened to be a movie star. Democrats may cheer McConaughey on as he pushes more gun control measures, but every other time he opens his mouth they’ll demand he shut it, and fast.
The political neophyte will learn that lesson soon enough.
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
Let’s read that first paragraph a little closer
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Those ‘conventions’ were the state delegations who’s members were concerned that the Constitution’s forming of a government, supposedly of limited powers, still might give enough power so that a corrupt government could mis-construct them and in abusing them become, in effect, ‘legally’ tyrannical.
These men were prescient.
The demand was a listing of certain rights that the people possessed and that the government power was restricted from interfering with.
This is the mass deception we see today; ‘The Second amendment didn’t allow the people to have X-Y-Z.’
That is a lie.
Neither the Constitution, nor the Bill of Rights – as Madison called them – gave or allowed the people anything. The people already had these rights. The amendments restricted government, not the people.
Constitutional Rights vs. Ideological Rights
On 31 July 1982 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign, and domestic. Today I am the Executive Director of the American Constitutional Rights Union (ACRU).
As a career military serviceman and combat veteran, I believe the oath that I took then has no statute of limitations. As a Member of Congress, that oath was my guiding principle and light, as the Constitution is our rule of law.
The U.S. Constitution was established to restrain the powers of the federal government. As a matter of fact, when you read Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution you will find the (18) enumerated duties of the legislative branch, the most powerful of our three branches of government. Article II and Article III lay out the duties, qualifications, duties, responsibilities and scope of the executive and judicial branches. Our founders intentionally described and limited the federal government.
Unfortunately, the left does not subscribe to these limitations. Today there exists competing philosophies of governance — constitutional conservatism and progressive socialism. Leftists do not believe in the absolutism of the Constitution, our rule of law, and certainly not the ideal of constitutional rights. Leftists believe in the dangerous concept of ideological rights.
The left in America embraces an ideal that is the antithesis of our constitutional rights. They believe their ideology defines our rights. They believe they can grant and take our rights away.
I find very disconcerting the repeated assertion by the current occupant of the oval office, Joe Biden, that no amendment to the Constitution is absolute. His current focus is the Second Amendment, whose language is quite simple and forthright. His line has been parroted by many progressive socialists, elected officials and media pundits.
The Second Amendment is part of our individual Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. It is established in our founding documents, along the principle of natural rights theory, that our unalienable rights and all individual rights come to us from our Creator God, the Judeo-Christian God. They do not emanate from the government, and that is codified in our Declaration of Independence which Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “laws of nature and nature’s God”.
Here we have the President of these United States of America who took an oath to uphold the Constitution declaring our constitutional rights are not absolute.
The left tells us that we have a right to healthcare. We have a right to free college education. We have a right to change our gender. None of these are enumerated rights, but they are ideological rights of the Left.
Once upon a time, during the Carter administration, the Left told us that every American had a right to own a home. They passed legislation called the Community Reinvestment Act which led to the subprime mortgage crisis and financial meltdown some 30 years later. Just last week a Democrat Congressman from Rhode Island publicly stated that he deemed constitutional rights as bovine excrement. Yes, a US Congressman who is supposed to have taken an oath to the Constitution says constitutional rights are BS!
Now you can see why we need an organization called the American Constitutional Rights Union?
If no amendment to the Constitution is absolute, then I guess the left wants to make me a slave again? Recall, Democrats did not support the 13th and 14th Amendments. Today, this same group, who now embraces socialism and Marxism, is promoting economic enslavement.
If the left in America is able to define our rights based upon their ideological agenda and have it enforced by the rule of the mob…America faces dark days ahead. And if the Left is successful in disarming the American populace, their sponsored mob, Antifa, will leverage coercion, threats, intimidation, fear, and violence against anyone not in compliance.
If the progressive socialist left does not like our Constitution, they can go through the amendment process. Passing ideologically based laws, or issuing edicts, orders, mandates, and decrees, does not override our constitutional rights.
Recall, our respective States would not ratify our constitution until it had an individual Bill of Rights. The 10th Amendment clearly states, “All the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the States and to the People.” If the 10th Amendment is not absolute, then the leftists in America become the repository of all power in America.
America is the longest running Constitutional Republic because of individual constitutional rights…not rights based upon progressive, socialist, statist, Marxist ideology.
Steadfast and Loyal.
Violence isn’t a disease, it’s a behavior. They only call it a disease as a willing participants in the gooberment attempts to acquire power to control the people
Why doctors are calling gun violence in the U.S. an epidemic.
A growing number of health care providers say gun violence is a public health issue……
Biden’s Inner Trudeau: On Guns, the President seems to be Operating Under the Wrong Constitution
Below is my column in The Hill on the calls for gun bans after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas. The massacre has already been used as the basis for calls to end the filibuster, pack the court, limits on gun ownership, and outright bans. One member called for all of the above. The rhetoric is again outstripping the reality of constitutional and practical limits for gun control. Last night, President Joe Biden formally called for banning “assault weapons” while repeating the dubious claim that an earlier ban sharply reduced mass shootings.
Here is the column:
In our increasingly hateful and divisive politics, there are times when our nation seems incapable of coming together for a common purpose. Tragedies — moments of shared national grieving and mutual support — once were the exception. Yet one of the most chilling aspects of the aftermath of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was how the moment of unity was quickly lost to political posturing.
Politicians have long admitted that a crisis is an opportunity not to be missed — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity. After the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for censorship to “silence the voices of hatred and racism.” After the Uvalde massacre, some Democrats renewed calls for everything from court packing to ending the Senate filibuster.
The most immediate response, however, was a call for gun bans. Vice President Kamala Harris got out front of the White House by demanding a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America. Then President Joe Biden created a stir by suggesting he might seek to ban 9mm weapons.
Such calls are not limited to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.” He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.”
The difference between the push in the two countries is the existence of the Second Amendment in the United States — a constitutionally mandated “reason” why Americans are allowed to have guns; they don’t have to prove it to the government.
While the White House subsequently tried to walk back his comments, Biden saying there’s “no rational basis” to own 9mms and AR-15s sounds like he’s channeling his inner Canadian.
There is now a strong majority for gun control reforms. However, politicians are once again ignoring what is constitutionally possible by focusing on what is politically popular with their voting base.
The Second Amendment was inspired by British plans to disarm every American.
A part of you probably already knew this, but didn’t have the details.
I’m about to chill you to the bones And give you every piece of evidence you need moving forward. So buckle up.
It began In 1768, “the freeholders” led by John Hancock and James Otis, met in Boston at Faneuil Hall and passed several resolutions. Including “that the Subjects being Protestants, may have Arms for their Defense.”
The royal governor rejected this proposal.
So this petition was circulated under the pseudonym “A.B.C.” (Who was more than likely Sam Adams)
Shortly after Sam Adams’ petition was circulated, per the Boston Evening Post, (Oct. 3, 1768) British troops took over Faneuil Hall.
And per The New York Journal, (Feb. 2, 1769) they ordered colonists turn in their guns.
Rep. David Cicilline: ‘Spare Me the *BS* About Constitutional Rights’
Democrat Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island said a bit of the anti-gun left’s quiet part out loud in a House hearing on Thursday when he went on a rant against the constitutionally protected rights of the American people.
Cicilline’s outburst came after concerns were raised that Democrat proposals for federal restrictions on firearms — such as red flag laws — would violate Americans’ right to keep and bear arms as well as infringe on their due process rights.
“You know who didn’t have due process?” Cicilline asked, growing heated. “You know who didn’t have their constitutional right to life respected? Kids at Parkland, and Sandy Hook, and Uvalde, and Buffalo, and the list goes on and on,” he said. “So spare me the bullsh*t about constitutional rights.”
When asked to yield, Cicilline snapped back, “no I will not yield, and I will not yield for my entire five minutes so don’t ask again.”
Brushing aside the obvious irony that Cicilline and his party continually attempt to deprive unborn children of their right to life — he’s repeatedly insisted that abortion is “constitutionally protected” and the Susan B. Anthony List notes that Cicilline “has consistently voted to eliminate or prevent protections for the unborn including to force taxpayers to pay for abortion domestically or internationally.”
So, of course, if Cicilline and Democrats are committed to depriving Americans of any rights before they’re born, it’s no issue for him to try trampling on the rights of Americans once they’re born.
While it would seem that running with the “Americans’ constitutional rights mean nothing to us” line wouldn’t be smart politics for the party already set to get shellacked in November’s midterms, the increasingly radical Democrat Party seemed to embrace what Cicilline said.
Dems and leftists on Twitter amplified and cheered Cicilline’s outburst while MSNBC host and NBC News contributor Katie Phang tweeted a video of the rant, saying “This is EXACTLY the kind of messaging Democrats need.” We’ll see how that kind of messaging works in the days ahead in Congress as Dems try to force additional firearm restrictions through the House and Senate — and in November when voters determine who will represent them and which party will control the legislative branch.
It Took Two British Civil Wars to Plant the Seeds of American Liberty
In the previous installment of this series, I gave the historical and religious background of the English Civil War — which planted the seeds of every significant institution that would take root in American soil. As we noted before, there were many concrete issues at stake in the struggle between the Crown and Parliament.
Rural people, gentry, nobles, high-church Anglicans, and persecuted Catholics feared that the power of Parliament would benefit city-dwellers, merchants (including slave-traders), nouveau riche speculators, and radical Protestants. So they rallied behind the efforts of monarchs such as James I and his son Charles I to increase the king’s own power, independent of Parliament.
This led them to support a political theory which James I called “the Divine Right of Kings.” On this view, the king embodied the law itself, which was identical to his will. Obedience to God required obedience to His appointed ruler on earth, leaving no justification for resistance or revolt. As David Kopel notes in The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action, James’ theory was new to Englishmen. It was quickly denounced both by Calvinists and Catholics.
Ancient Absolutism, Revived
The theory had ancient precedent. The absolute power of Roman emperors, oriental monarchs, and other pre-Christian rulers was still the norm outside of Europe even in the 17th century. It was only the collapse of the Western Roman empire that allowed for much more decentralized political institutions to emerge. The rediscovery of Roman law during the Renaissance gave monarchs a powerful, prestigious weapon in their quest to consolidate power.
Feudal barons would zealously guard their independence throughout the Middle Ages, yielding concessions from kings like the Magna Carta. The Church would assert her rights, and protect her vast institutional wealth and land-holdings, wielding moral authority over the people.
SO YOU WANT TO REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Jabba the Hutt Michael Moore thinks it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment.
“Who will say on this network or any other network in the next few days, ‘It’s time to repeal the Second Amendment?’”
Bad idea, Lardo Calrissian.
You can’t repeal the Second Amendment, any more than you can repeal any of the other nine. It was a package deal, you see, an absolute prerequisite to ratifying the main body of the Constitution. Repeal one, you repeal them all. Do that, and you repeal the whole Constitution — and with it, any legal authority that the government has to exist (let alone repeal the Second Amendment).
— Alexander Hope
That comes from chapter five of Hope, by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith. The style makes me think that particular passage was penned by Neil (and it seems like he had a stand-alone essay to the same effect), but I don’t believe Aaron would have let that go into their co-authored novel unless he agreed with it.
As a casual student of history, who has read much about the ratification of the Constitution, I also agree.
Lose one, lose them all. Lose it all.
I suspect that Moore, and most Dims currently in DC — and far too many Repugnicans, as well — would be happy to lose the few remaining Constitutional limits on their power. They don’t particularly care about “legal authority” just power.
The problem is… if our wanna-be tyrants are no longer restrained by that pesky Constitution, neither are the people.
The people pissed off at senseless bans, and illegal ballot drop boxes, might just decide that turning to constitutionally-enabled courts — who already defecate on individual rights at the slightest provocation — really isn’t necessary.
Voting out scumbags, and voting in new replacement scumbags who promise to use KY while screwing us? Why bother with that discarded constitutional process? Wouldn’t high-velocity lead be cheaper and faster? Not to mention proactively educating would-be replacements.
Court-blessed “constitutional” takings of property? Get rid of the Constitution and former property owners might resort to ex-constitutional re-takings, enforced with ropes and lamp posts.
Lose one, lose them all. Moore himself might want to consider the ramifications of chucking his First Amendment protections to defame folks for a buck. The people might decide, lacking that lost constitutional recourse, to go bowling for lying documentarians.
Get rid of the Constitution, and the people’s pretend recourse… and they might stop pretending they do.
Maybe the tyrants will be counting on the out-numbered police to prop up their post-Constitution regime. How many officers would continue to be willing to do that once they’ve lost “constitutional” sovereign immunity, and the people know it?
Perhaps the Constitution has only been an illusory paper restraint on government. But it has been a potent symbolic restraint on the people, preventing them from eliminating abusive politicians and government agents out of hand. I do not truly comprehend the willingness — nay, the eagerness of the Left to go there, to surrender that protection, given the likely consequences.
We’d be starting from scratch, with new rules written by the survivors.
BLUF
The truth is that proposals for a prison society of disarmed and surveilled subjects shepherded by public employees are unworkable. The state can’t defend us from danger, and nothing obligates us to pretend otherwise. If you want to protect yourself and your loved ones, you have to do it yourself.
If You Want Protection for Your Loved Ones, Do It Yourself
Police in Uvalde, Texas, face a barrage of criticism for delays in confronting the shooter who slaughtered children and teachers last week. Officials admit law enforcers screwed up; worse, they impeded parents who wanted to intervene, leaving the crime to be ended by agents who ignored police orders. As politicians rush to leverage tragedy to advance legislative agendas, we’re reminded again that it’s foolish to place our trust in authority or to surrender our ability to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
“From the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision,” Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, admitted of police choosing to wait for backup and equipment before intervening in a massacre that took the lives of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers. “It was the wrong decision, period. There’s no excuse for that.”
That decision delayed the response for over an hour. Finally, a Border Patrol team that drove 40 miles to the scene defied orders and stopped the shooter’s rampage.
“Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter,” noted NBC News.
The feds weren’t the only ones willing to intervene. Instead of taking on Ramos, local police tackled, pepper-sprayed, and handcuffed parents rather than allow them to take action at which officers balked.
“The police were doing nothing,” said Angeli Rose Gomez who was briefly arrested for challenging official indecision.
“Once freed from her cuffs, Ms. Gomez made her distance from the crowd, jumped the school fence, and ran inside to grab her two children,” reported The Wall Street Journal. “She sprinted out of the school with them.”
This isn’t the first time police faced criticism for dithering in response to danger. By the time officers entered Colorado’s Columbine High School in in 1999, 47 minutes had passed allowing the shooters to do their worst before killing themselves. Columbine was supposed to spur changes in police policy, but that wasn’t apparent during a 2018 incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
President Joe Biden warmly welcomed New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to the White House on Tuesday, expressing his interest in her views on gun control and online censorship in her country.
“We need your guidance,” Biden said as he welcomed Ardern to the Oval Office. “And it’s a pleasure to see you in person.”
He praised the prime minister warmly for making progress on issues like climate change, combatting “violent extremism online,” and gun control.
“You understand that your leadership has taken a critical role on this global change, it really has,” he said.
Ardern has become a darling of the left after she pushed forward strict gun control laws in New Zealand, banning most semi-automatic rifles after the horrific Christchurch shooting in 2019. She also has repeatedly called for more tech censorship of online extremism, blaming the internet for radicalizing the shooter.
Biden appeared impressed.
“I want to work with you on that effort and I want to talk with you about what those conversations are like if you’re willing,” he said.
Biden expressed sadness that mass shootings continued happening in the United States, renewing calls for change.
“There’s an expression by an Irish poet that says too long a suffering makes a stone of the heart,” he said, claiming he had been to more “mass shooting aftermaths” than any president in American history.
Biden said he met with about 250 of the family members of the victims of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, for about four hours on Sunday.
“Much of it is preventable, and the devastation is amazing,” he said.
Ardern said she was willing to work with Biden on issues of violence, noting that there was a need for global progress on the issue.
“If there is anything we can share that would be of any value, we are here to share it,” she said.
Biden told reporters he planned to meet with members of Congress on the issue of gun control.
“I will meet with the Congress on guns, I promise you,” he said.
Again, it’s nice when they supply the means for positive identification.
This, right there in black and white, is what the Bill of Rights is all about. The protection of minority rights over the tyranny of a majority that the founders knew from the lessons of history were all too commonplace in a ‘democracy’ where the masses could be swayed (like this airhead) into advocating riding over the rights of the populace in the search for their version of Utopia that has always turned into Hell.
Preventing “The Tyranny of the Majority”
People often refer to the United States as a democracy, but technically speaking, that’s not true. It’s a republic.
Big deal, you say? If you care about your rights, it is. The Founding Fathers knew their history well, so they knew better than to establish the U.S. as a democracy.
In a democracy, of course, the majority rules. That’s all well and good for the majority, but what about the minority? Don’t they have rights that deserve respect?
Of course they do. Which is why a democracy won’t cut it. As the saying goes, a democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.
The Founders were determined to forestall the inherent dangers of what James Madison called “the tyranny of the majority.” So they constructed something more lasting: a republic. Something with checks and balances. A system of government carefully balanced to safeguard the rights of both the majority and the minority.
That led, most notably, to the bicameral structure of our legislative branch. We have a House of Representatives, where the number of members is greater for more populous states (which obviously favors those states), and the Senate, where every state from Rhode Island and Alaska to California and New York have exactly two representatives (which keeps less-populated states from being steamrolled).
Being a republic, we also don’t pick our president through a direct, majority-take-all vote. We have an Electoral College. And a lot of liberals don’t like that.
Their attacks on the College are nothing new, but the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 renewed their fury. After all, as they never tire of pointing out, Mrs. Clinton captured more of the popular vote than Donald Trump did. They see the Electoral College as an impediment to their political victories, therefore it’s got to go.
The latest attack comes via new lawsuits filed in federal courts in four states (Massachusetts, California, South Carolina and Texas). “Under the winner-take-all system, U.S. citizens have been denied their constitutional right to an equal vote in presidential elections,” said David Boies, an attorney who represented former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election.
I doubt Mr. Boies and his fellow attorneys are really ignorant of why we have an Electoral College. But it’s important that the rest of us know.