This is NOT What I Wanted to Read

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The New Orleans Times-Picayune had a recent piece (minor piddling registration required) on a recent speech given by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the rightest of the conservative right-wing justices on the Court.

What did Scalia say that I didn’t want to hear?

“It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution,” Scalia said at a conference Uptown on the merit selection of judges.

Well, I’ve believed that for some time, but hearing it from a sitting Justice doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies. He says also:

Ideally, Scalia said he would choose merit selection of judges. But when you have courts trying to rewrite laws, he said, “there’s a lot to be said for electing judges.”

Scalia blasted the existing system, which he said allows courts to change the laws, and not the people.

“What ‘we the people’ want most of all is someone who will agree with us as to what the evolving constitution says,” he said.

“We are free at last, free at last,” he said. “There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands.”

Scalia, who was nominated by President Reagan in 1986 and confirmed by a Senate vote of 98-0, said these days a so-called conservative judge is politically frozen out of the process.

“What in the world is a moderate interpretation of the text?” he asked, drawing soft laughter from the audience. “Halfway between what it really says and what you want it to say?”

This is supposed to be a nation based on the rule of law. We know what happens to societies in which the rule of law fails, yet what Justice Scalia has said leaves no doubt that the rule of law has been essentially abandoned all the way up to the Supreme Court. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in his dissent to U.S. v. Olmstead –

Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subject to the rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.

And we’re seeing that, more and more, every day. Aren’t we.

Even Tom Diaz of the VPC Admits the AWB is Useless

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I paid $4.95 for the transcript of *hawk, spit* NPR’s Morning Edition story about the failure of S. 1805 after the AWB extension and “gun show loophole” amendments were added, after I saw Eugene Volokh’s post quoting Tom Diaz of the Gun Ban Violence Policy Center. Here’s the complete Diaz quote:

If the existing assault weapons ban expires, I personally do not believe it will make one whit of difference one way or another in terms of our objective, which is reducing death and injury and getting a particularly lethal class of firearms off the streets. So if it doesn’t pass, it doesn’t pass.

Remember, however, what the VPC said so blatantly about an “assault weapon” ban in 1988:

It will be a new topic in what has become to the press and public an “old” debate.

Although handguns claim more than 20,000 lives a year, the issue of handgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. The reasons for this vary: the power of the gun lobby; the tendency of both sides of the issue to resort to sloganeering and pre-packaged arguments when discussing the issue; the fact that until an individual is affected by handgun violence he or she is unlikely to work for handgun restrictions; the view that handgun violence is an “unsolvable” problem; the inability of the handgun restriction movement to organize itself into an effective electoral threat; and the fact that until someone famous is shot, or something truly horrible happens, handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms – are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

Efforts to stop restrictions on assault weapons will only further alienate the police from the gun lobby.

Until recently, police organizations viewed the gun lobby in general, and the NRA in particular, as a reliable friend. This stemmed in part from the role the NRA played in training officers and its reputation regarding gun safety and hunter training. Yet, throughout the 1980s, the NRA has found itself increasingly on the opposite side of police on the gun control issue. Its opposition to legislation banning armor-piercing ammunition, plastic handguns, and machine guns, and its drafting of and support for the McClure/Volkmer handgun decontrol bill, burned many of the bridges the NRA had built throughout the past hundred years. As the result of this, the Law Enforcement Steering Committee was formed. The Committee now favors such restriction measures as waiting periods with background check for handgun purchase and a ban on machine guns and plastic firearms. If police continue to call for assault weapons restrictions, and the NRA continues to fight such measures, the result can only be a further tarnishing of the NRA’s image in the eyes of the public, the police, and NRA members. The organization will no longer be viewed as the defender of the sportsman, but as the defender of the drug dealer.

Efforts to restrict assault weapons are more likely to succeed than those to restrict handguns.

Although the majority of Americans favor stricter handgun controls, and a consistent 40 percent of Americans favor banning the private sale and possession of handguns, many Americans do believe that handguns are effective weapons for home self-defense and the majority of Americans mistakenly believe that the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms. Yet, many who support the individual’s right to own a handgun have second thoughts when the issue comes down to assault weapons. Assault weapons are often viewed the same way as machine guns and “plastic” firearms—a weapon that poses such a grave risk that it’s worth compromising a perceived constitutional right.

Although the opportunity to restrict assault weapons exists, a question remains for the handgun restriction movement: How? Defining an assault weapon—in legal terms—is not easy. It’s not merely a matter of going after guns that are “black and wicked looking.”

Charles Krauthammer had one point correct in his editorial “Disarm the Citizenry, But Not Yet”:

Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain.(See Britain’s current violent crime rate for some idea of its “domestic tranquility.” Hell, now they’re trying to get rid of glass beer bottles because they make such handy weapons.) Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic – purely symbolic – move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.

The VPC is at least honest and upfront about its goal of banning all handguns and its willingness to do anything, anything to reach that goal.

Speaking of Teddy Kennedy…

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Let’s fisk his little rant from his Senate testimony on S. 1805 concerning armor-piercing ammo:

As we all know too well, the debate about gun violence has often been aggressive and polarizing with anti-gun violence advocates on one side of the debate, pro-gun advocates on the other. There are deep divisions in the country on the issue of gun safety, and the current debate on the gun immunity bill has thus far only served to highlight those divisions.

I believe, however, that there are still some principles on which we can all agree. One principle is that we should do everything we can to protect the lives and safety of police officers who are working to protect our streets, schools, and communities.

The amendment I am offering today is intended to close the existing loopholes in the Federal law that bans cop-killer bullets. Police officers depend on body armor for their lives. Body armor has saved thousands of police officers from death or serious injury by firearm assault. Most police officers who serve large jurisdictions wear armor at all times when on duty. Nevertheless, even with body armor, too many police officers remain vulnerable to gun violence.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, every year between 50 and 80 police officers are feloniously killed in the line of duty. In 2002, firearms were used in 51 of the 56 murders of police officers. In those shootings, 34 of the officers were wearing body armor at the time of their deaths. From 1992 to 2002, at least 20 police officers were killed after bullets penetrated their armor vests and entered their upper torso.

Some gun organizations have argued that cop-killer bullets are a myth. The families of these slain police officers know better. In fact, we know that armor-piercing ammunition is not a myth because it is openly and notoriously marketed and sold by gun dealers.

I direct my colleagues’ attention to the Web site of Hi-Vel, Incorporated, a self-described exotic products distributor and manufacturer in Delta, UT. You can access its online catalog on the Internet right now. Hi-Vel’s catalog lists an entry for armor-piercing ammunition. On that page you will find a listing for armor-piercing bullets that can penetrate metal objects. The bullets are available in packages of 10 for $9.95 each. Hi-Vel carries armor-piercing bullets for both the .223 caliber rifles such as the Bushmaster sniper rifle used in the Washington area attacks in October 2002, and the 7.62 caliber assault weapons. Over the past 10 years, these two caliber weapons were responsible for the deaths of 14 of the 20 law enforcement officers killed by ammunition that penetrated body armor.

Check the sleight-of-hand here. Hi-Vel does indeed sell “armor piercing” ammunition designed to penetrate steel. But police vests aren’t made of steel. They are made of kevlar fiber. The police wear relatively soft, relatively flexible National Institute of Justice Class II, IIA or IIIA rated vests at best. These vests are designed to stop 9mm, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum handgun rounds, respectively. In order to stop any centerfire rifle round, “armor piercing” or not, would require moving up to the heavy, rigid Class III and Class IV vests worn by our military personnel. You’ll remember the Class IV vests from the “embedded” journalists during the invasion of Iraq. They were those very heavy vests with the splatter-deflecting collars that looked so uncomfortable, like this one:

But Senator Kennedy, like all gun control zealots, wants to convince you that it requires special “armor-piercing” ammunition to penetrate a soft Class II, IIA or IIIA police vest. He wants you to believe that the officers killed with .223 and 7.62mm so-called “assault weapons” were using ammunition like Hi-Vel’s ammo, and not off the shelf standard hunting ammo or even more common military surplus full metal jacket rounds. He expects his listeners to be ignorant, and to believe what he doesn’t say.

In a recent report, the ATF identified three, .223 and the 7.62 caliber rifles, as the ones most frequently encountered by police officers. These high-capacity rifles, the ATF wrote, pose an enhanced threat to law enforcement, in part because of their ability to expel particles at velocities that are capable of penetrating the type of soft body armor typically worn by law enforcement officers.

“Particles”? I think the Senator meant “projectiles.” What he doesn’t say is that any centerfire rifle “expels particles” at velocities high enough to penetrate soft body armor. That’s why the National Institute of Justice classifies vests as it does. But the facts are just too inconvenient for the Senator.

Here’s where he really goes off into the twilight zone, though:

Another rifle caliber, the 30.30 caliber, was responsible for penetrating three officers’ armor and killing them in 1993, 1996, and 2002. This ammunition is also capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating.

Say WHAT?

The .30-30 was introduced in 1895 as the .30 Winchester Centerfire, chambered in the “high-capacity assault weapon” of its day, the Winchester 1894 lever-action rifle. This is a ’94 Winchester:

Scary, isn’t it? It was one of the first commercial cartridges loaded with then-new smokeless powder, but it was stuck with the cartridge naming convention of the era – bullet diameter and black powder load equivalent: A .30 caliber bullet and 30 grains of black powder. According to my copy of Hodgdon’s No. 25 reloading manual, the standard .30-30 load pushes a 150 grain bullet at about 2200 feet per second out of a rifle with a 24″ barrel. The bullet used in the .30-30 normally has a blunt, flat tip because of the tubular magazine normally used in lever-action rifles. Yet Teddy Kennedy wants us to believe that this magical round – responsible for the deaths of three officers – is capable of penetrating “600 pounds of safe armor plating.” Whatever the hell that means. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Here’s some comparisons:

The .30-30, 150 grain bullet, 2200 feet per second.

The .308 Winchester (7.62NATO), 150 grain bullet, 2600 feet per second

The .30-06, 150 grain bullet, 2800 feet per second.

The .300 Winchester Magnum, 150 grain bullet, 3100 feet per second.

The .300 Remington UltraMag, 150 grain bullet, 3400 feet per second.

.30-378 Weatherby, 150 grain bullet, 3500 feet per second

Here’s a picture to give you some idea of the cartridges.

From right to left, smallest to largest: .308 Winchester, .30-06 Springfield, .300 Winchester Magnum, .300 Remington UltraMag, and the .30-378 Weatherby.

Remember, the lowly .30-30 is fast enough to penetrate a Class IIIA vest.

Yet Senator Kennedy doesn’t want people to think that he’s interested in banning hunting ammunition, just ammunition that can penetrate a soft police vest.

It is outrageous and unconscionable that such ammunition continues to be sold in the United States of America. Armor-piercing ammunition for rifles and assault weapons is virtually unregulated in the United States.

“Assault weapons” like the ’94 Winchester.

A Federal license is not required to sell such ammunition unless firearms are sold as well. Anyone over the age of 18 may purchase this ammunition without a background check. There is no Federal minimum age of possession. Purchases may be made over the counter, by mail order, by fax, by Internet, and there is no Federal requirement that dealers retain sales records.

Note all these things that the Senator wants: Background checks for ammunition sales. A minimum age for possession of rifle ammunition. Dealer record keeping for ammunition sales – a record keeping requirement that would convince most retailers that it was simply too much trouble to sell ammo.

And now he goes off on the current boogeyman, the evil .50BMG rifle:

In 1999, investigators for the General Accounting Office went undercover to assess the availability of .50 caliber armor-piercing ammunition. Purchasing cop-killer bullets, it turned out, is only slightly more difficult than buying a lottery ticket or a gallon of milk. Dealers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia informed the investigators that the purchase of these kinds of ammunition is subject to no Federal, State, or local restrictions. Dealers in Alaska, Nebraska, and Oregon who advertised over the Internet told an undercover agent that he could buy the ammunition in a matter of minutes, even after he said he wanted the bullets shipped to Washington, DC, and needed them to pierce an armored limousine or theoretically take down a helicopter. Talk about homeland security.

The .50 BMG round, by virtue of its weight and velocity (750 grains at 2800 fps) will penetrate any body armor, and even if it didn’t, that much kinetic energy would most probably kill a human being from mere shock. Kennedy has pulled a sleight-of-hand here – he’s not talking about protecting officers in soft body armor any more, but he hasn’t bothered to tell anybody.

In a single year, over 100,000 rounds of military surplus armor-piercing ammunition were sold to civilians in the United States.

And there were how many officers shot through their vests and killed? Twenty, between 1992 and 2002, according to the Senator. That’s two per year, versus one million rounds of “armor piercing” ammunition sold. And not one of those officers was killed with an “armor piercing” round. They were killed with standard, everyday centerfire rifle ammo.

And now he goes off on Smith & Wesson’s horrible new .500 S&W Magnum, the new weapon designed, in his eyes, specifically to kill cops:

In addition, the gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson, recently introduced a powerful new revolver, the .500 magnum, 4-1/2 pounds, 15 inches long, that clearly has the capability of piercing body armor using ammunition allowed under the current law.

Well, it is bigger than the .44 Magnum, I’ll give him that.

The publication, Gun Week, reviewed the new weapon with enthusiasm: “Behold the magic, feel the power,” it wrote.

Many of our leaders will buy the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum for the same reason that Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest: Because it is there.

Note the ad doesn’t say:

Many of our leaders will buy the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum because it will penetrate body armor and kill cops.

Teddy just hates it because people will want it, and the proles shouldn’t own guns.

Current Federal law bans certain armor-piercing ammunition for handguns. It establishes a content-based standard. It covers ammunition that is, first of all, constructed from tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium, copper, or depleted uranium or, secondly, larger than .22 caliber with a jacket that weighs no more than 25 percent of the total weight of the bullet.

However, there are no restrictions on ammunition that may be manufactured from other materials but can still penetrate body armor. Even more important, there are no restrictions on armor-piercing ammunition used in rifles and assault weapons. Armor-piercing ammunition has no purpose other than penetrating bulletproof vests. It is of no use for hunting or self-defense. Such armor-piercing ammunition has no place in our society–none.

Except you don’t need “armor piercing” ammunition to penetrate “bulletproof” vests. Standard soft-point hunting ammo from a .30-30 will do the job, as Teddy pointed out.

Armor-piercing bullets that sidestep the Federal ban, such as that advertised on Hi-Vel’s Web site, put the lives of American citizens and those sworn to defend American citizens in jeopardy every single day. We know the terrorists are now exploiting the weaknesses and loopholes in our gun laws. The terrorists training manual discovered by American soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001 advised al-Qaida operatives to buy assault weapons in the United States and use them against us.

Terrorists are bent on exploiting weaknesses in our gun laws. Just think of what a terrorist could do with a sniper rifle and only a moderate supply of armor-piercing ammunition.

Just think what he could do with a .300 Magnum bolt-action rifle and some decent 168 grain match rounds. But Teddy doesn’t want to take away sporting ammunition, right?

My amendment amends the Federal ban on cop-killer bullets to include a performance standard and extends the ban on centerfire rifles, which include the sniper rifles and assault weapons responsible for the deaths of 17 police officers whose body armor was penetrated by this ammunition.

My amendment will not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles or other centerfire rifles. To the contrary, it only covers ammunition that is designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability. That is it–designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability, such as armor-piercing ammunition that is now advertised on the Hi-Vel Web site.

Bullets that are designed or marketed to be armor piercing have no place in our society. Ducks, deer, and other wildlife do not wear body armor. Police officers do. We should not let another day pass without plugging the loopholes in the Federal law that bans cop-killer bullets.

This is an issue on which mainstream gun owners and gun safety advocates can agree. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this amendment.

Except we “mainstream gun owners” understand that standard rifle ammo will immediately become a “loophole” because, by design or not, it can penetrate police vests.

And if the lowly .30-30 is “capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating” then we know he’s going to go after our 7mm Magnums, our .30-06 bolt-actions, and every other centerfire rifle cartridge extant.

All he needs is an open door, and a law that the lawmakers “don’t realize all that was in it.”

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

Henry Louis Mencken

And Teddy’s a prime example.

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UPDATE:  As of August 6, 2013, due to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin, the original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post (read-only) is available here.

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“There’s No Way to Rule Innocent Men” Redux

The Geek points to this Fox News op-ed on the law and the reaction of Congresscritters to the realities of the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Selected excerpts:

Last week, Martha Stewart was convicted of lying to federal investigators about a crime with which she was never charged. Most analysts agree that prosecutors never charged Stewart with the crime of insider trading because it’s a law too complicated for most jurors to understand.

Putting your personal opinion of Stewart aside for a moment, the case prompts larger questions about the laws and regulations that govern our land: If jurors can’t understand a law well enough to determine if someone broke it, just how do lawmakers expect citizens to understand it enough to obey it? Do we really want to live in a country where good-intentioned people are required to pay high-priced attorneys to tell them whether or not they’re breaking the law?

America has too many laws, and the laws we do have are tedious, overly complex and sometimes not only impossible to understand, but impossible to comply with. Our elected officials pass laws in fits of whimsy, responding to the latest scare headlines, demands from interest groups or data from polling firms. Reason, freedom or constitutional authority rarely enter into the debate.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary” – Henry Louis Mencken.

Now think upon the words of the ancient Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus: “Corruptissima res publica plurimae leges.” (The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”)

The Federal Registry (search), which records all of the regulations the federal government imposes on businesses (all of which carry the force of law), now exceeds 75,000 pages.

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It’s even worse with regulation. With the EPA, for example, it’s often impossible for corporations in some industries to abide by one environmental regulation without violating another. That’s fertile ground for corruption, particularly when the same body is charged with making, enforcing and adjudicating the law.

And then there’s the Rand quote from Atlas Shrugged:

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that’s the system!

It certainly appears to be. And now Congress has done it to itself, in some small degree:

Although Congress generally exempts itself from most of the laws it passes, this law (the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) applies specifically to Congress. The same congressmen who voted for the bill were now required to abide by it. Faced themselves with the burden of complying with the complex, inches-thick laws they pass for others, both parties were forced to hold education sessions with specialty lawyers explaining to them what they could and couldn’t do under the new law. A lawyer who taught the Democrats told The New York Times that his seminars elicited “a sort of slack-jawed amazement at how far this thing reached.” A lawyer who taught the Republicans said: “There’s an initial stage where the reaction is, ‘This can’t be true.’ And then there’s the actual anger stage.” Democratic Rep. Henry Matsui, who championed the bill, told the Times, “I didn’t realize all that was in it.”

That’s how much careful consideration Congress gave a bill it passed that applied to itself. Now imagine how little thought and care goes into bills it passes that apply to everyone else.

The answer, of course, is none.

Now they get some idea of the reaction of those of us “little people” in the flyover states when they pass this stuff without a thought.

No wonder Teddy Kennedy is worried about the limousine-armor-piercing capabilities of the .30-30 cartridge, eh?

We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest – which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves. – Thomas Jefferson

Nice idea Mr. Jefferson. But it didn’t last.

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What’s Next? Licensing and Registration for Bar Glasses?

I’m still seething over the bomb attacks in Spain, but haven’t got anything printable to say about it, yet.

I did, however, find this unassociated story:

New pint glasses to cut violence

A new type of pint pot is to be introduced into bars to reduce the number of “glassings”.

Council licensing officers in Rossendale, Lancashire, are testing safety glasses which shatter into small pieces on impact.

The glass is similar to the type used for car windscreens.

Under new legislation, it will soon be possible for councils to demand bars where there have been disorder problems to stock the glasses.

Lancashire Police officer Pc Chris Adams said: “There are many events this year, in particular, Euro 2004, that could be the sparking point for violence.

“We want to prevent that violence, but if it does happen, this product will reduce the effects of it.”

Let’s see: They banned guns and knives, don’t allow pepper spray, and now are making bars use glasses that can’t hurt anybody.

In association with that story comes this one:

Plastic bottles backed by MPs

Welsh MPs want to call time on glass bottles in bars and pubs.

They have signed a motion in the House of Commons calling for glass bottles to be replaced by safer multi-layered plastic ones.

They are backing research by the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff, which shows that thousands of fight injuries could be prevented if clubs served drink in plastic bottles.

The man behind the study, plastic surgeon Jon Shepherd, said the MPs’ support was another step in the campaign to see Cardiff bars with a high-risk of violence selling only plastic bottles, perhaps within two years.

Theres’s more, but this is the money quote:

“City centres are littered with glass, particularly bottles, strewn everywhere. Anyone looking for a scrap has a weapon readily available.”

Thus spake plastic surgeon Jon Shepherd.

Think about that. He’s worried that someone just looking for scrap might come upon a weapon in the form of a broken bottle. A weapon that, apparently in his mind, would immediately turn this person into a fiendish killer, as weapons do to everyone since they give off mind-altering radiation.

Jesus!

England, the soon-to-be NERF nation.