Guns, Delilah Barrios and "resisting tyranny" BS

Texas Green Party gubernatorial candidate Delilah Barrios, a Second Amendment absolutist, has this on her platform:

A free people must have the right to bear arms. “Civil Wars happen when the victimized are armed. Genocide happens when they are not.” ― A.E. Samaan

I'm sure it's a sentiment many a Rethuglican would endorse, including for ownership of a deadly AR-15.. Unlikely from a Dem, even a ConservaDem, at least not openly. But an "indigenous" Green? (Sidebar: I'm not here doing blood quantum checks, but is Barrios Hispanic, Indigenous [not the same in my understanding of US ethnic sociology] or whichever one fits the bill at the moment?)

Maybe so. I'll bet former Green, now Libertarian Cynthia McKinney, an African-American, entertains similar ideas, though I'm not hunting. Better things to do in life.

First, I reject absolutism, even on the First Amendment, where I would be closer to that. And, given the starkness of the statement, the fact that it's the ONLY statement about the 2nd Amendment or guns on her platform, her refusal to talk about gun control details (see below) and just who A.E. Samaan is (also see below), I consider this statement, and other things I've seen from her on Twitter, to qualify as Second Amendment absolutism. Also, not a word of praise or comment on the new gun control bill, weak tea as it is?

Second, contra SCOTUS post-Heller, and librul squishes like Laurence Tribe, I continue to affirm that the "corporatist" interpretation of 2A is the correct one.

Third, re "shall not be infringed" nutters, does Barrios want felons to own gunz? The mentally ill? (I take her silence on a direct Twitter question four weeks ago about red flag laws to be opposition. And, after she got butt-hurt over something else this last Sunday, and jumped into an exchange with a "Greens right or wrong" person I asked her twice more, three hours apart, for her stance on red flag laws. Crickets again.)

Here's me referencing the former convo with this tweet, after that "Greens right or wrong" person intervened:

Actually, we WERE having a dialogue here a couple of weeks ago, until I asked you directly, Delilah, your stance on red flag laws and you never answered me.

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) June 26, 2022

Then, three hours later, giving her more chance:

To check again, no comment on whether you support .... or oppose ... red flag laws? It was a legit ask 2 weeks ago, as it is today.

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) June 27, 2022

Well, there you go. And, no, Barrios, it's not "propping myself up." Gun control is a big issue to me, and your opposition to it is disconcerting. Plus, "Both Parties are Nazis" may not know this. (Or they may, and don't care, for one of several reasons.)

Fourth, is this really true?

There's several problems with the statement. One, it assumes, or seems to, that every society is slouching toward a level of dysfunctionality that will eventually reach civil war or genocide. That comes off as a determinist view of history, which I reject right there.

Second, as Rwanda shows, there can be genocides even when most the mass murderers don't have massive amounts of guns. Much of the Ottoman genocide against Armenians was done at the communal level without massive amount of guns. Yahweh's command to Saul to commit genocide on the Amalekites also shows that.

The real question is, who is A.E. Samaan? By his website, a sort of polymath, even if some of the poly is untrue.

By Goodreads quotes (page three there) someone who appears to lust for violence if citing the guillotine as the cousin of the Second Amendment. Someone who hates socialism in any form. An absolutist on the way he frames MANY actual, or purported, or fabricated, dichotomies, like the one in Barrios' quote.

His full list of Goodreads quotes, starting with page 1, is "interesting." He's also an anti-abortion absolutist, and, in a mastery of psychological projection, comes off as various types of absolutist period, all while claiming to attack absolutisms. If I had to sum him up in one phrase? "Anarcho-libertarian." (On page 2 of the quotes, he specifically identifies as libertarian.)

And, since Barrios says she supports single-payer, here's this tidbit from Samaan:

“Eugenics has always been the escape valve of single payer socialized medicine. Havelock Ellis was writing about them as one and the same prior to the fin-de-siecle. Culling out of control population growth and the economic drain of the incurably sick has always been a part of socialized medicine.”

First, note the absolutist "always." Second, eugenics in medicine has existed without single-payer. The death of King George V immediately comes to mind.

Third? "Resisting tyranny"? Anarcho-libertarianism leaves us even more subject to the tyranny of capitalism.

And, I've wasted enough time.

Man, if that's who Barrios is citing approvingly, I wouldn't touch her or him with a 10-foot pole. Or, to riff on Kinky Friedman, vote for her as dogcatcher of Utopia. This is the primary, but not the only reason when. Her playing footsie with COVID antivaxxers is another.

If Barrios doesn't like being called a "Second Amendment absolutist," it's in her power to change it. If "Greens right or wrong" flunkies don't like her being called that, it's in their power to change that, too.

And, if she doesn't like being associated with the full range of opinions of A.E. Samaan, it's also in her power to change on that.

Hypocrisy? Unconstitutionality? Pandering? All of the above from Texas Lege Senatecritters

I'm referring in particular to a couple of bills touted by my Senatecritter, Drew Springer. Drew is somewhere between wingnut-lite and full wingnut. He was less wingnut than wingnut squared and Christofascist Tim Dunn's darling, Shelley Luther, of course, in the SD 30 race, but, that goes without saying.

He was smart-political enough NOT to attack renewables after the Abbott Blackout, given how many wind farms are in the district.

And, that's about it.

Let's look at how he, at least, seems to be hitting on all three of the above cylinders of the rhetorical questions above, and bragging about it.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 12, SCR 41 and Senate Bill 20 — the third being the notorious "Pack your guns to Motel 6" bill — stick out. SCR 41 is the "Always Nine" shoutout to other "assembly of states" type states to pass a constitutional amendment to always keep SCOTUS at just nine members and SCR 20 is the normal Tenth Amendment panderfest shoutout.

In reverse order? 

SB 20 is hypocrisy from Legiscritters who blabber about the sacred value of private property, only to say that hotel owners don't really have private property. Speaking of SCR12, SB 20 seems to have whiffs of unconstitutionality as well as hypocrisy. Compelling a private actor to engage in a certain behavior does have that sense. But, of course, Drew Springer is a constitutional law scholar, or plays one on teevee, or the Texas Senate cameras or whatever.

SCR12 is hypocrisy from Legiscritters who continue to show zero intention of honoring local government authority, among other things. Drew claims it would also block federal violations of the constitution, but won't cite chapter and verse on current federal proposals that may allegedly actually do so. And, of course, it ignores that the federal court system, since Marbury v Madison, has arrogated the right of constitutional review and state legislatures don't have that. It gives a hat tip to the Ninth Amendment before ignoring it, or, rather, trying to replace "the people" with "state governments" by sleight of hand or gaslighting. 

What? There's gaslighting under the Pink Dome? I am shocked!

Frankly, I doubt Springer even knows what the Ninth Amendment actually gets at. (Sadly, it's had just about ZERO court rulings based on it, and many actual constitutional law scholars consider it little more than a dead letter, if it's even "little more." Oh, to be the philosopher-president of We the People and change that!)

That said, Tenth Amendment shout-outs are always panderfests from pander bears.

SCR 41 of course ignores history, namely that SCOTUS started with six justices. In reality, and beyond BOTH duopoly parties, we really need 13 justices today anyway.

Let me explain.

John Roberts is Chief Justice of the United States, NOT Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He, and his successors, need to focus just on their dual roles of overseeing the Supremes and the federal judiciary system.

Now, today, associate justices don't "circuit ride" like 200 or even 100 years or so ago. Nonetheless, it would be nice to have one justice for each court. We have 11 enumerated circuit courts of appeal plus the D.C. Circuit. (Patent courts, FISA, etc., all fall under the chief's scrutiny.) So, that means 12 associate justices for 13 total.

Drew Springer, Pander Bear

Most of state Senatecritter Drew Springer's 11-bill gun nutz wish list is pandering. Some of it lacks legal standing. Some of it is unconstitutional.

The bills about intrastate gun sales? Nothing new here. Widely believed to be unconstitutional, ruled so in one case in 2014 by the Supreme Court, and in the past, opposed by the NRA, no less, per the first link, for fear it would undercut them.

The other stuff? 

SB 541? Unconstitutional. Clearly so, even more than the bills referenced above, as Drew doesn't restrict himself to intrastate sales issues here.

SB 545? Nothingburger and a pander, as there's no such legal restrictions right now.

SB 547? Pander Bear for the Shelley Luthers of North Texas and the Luke Maciases of wingnut media, as, before the SD 30 special, Drew said zip about Strangeabbott's special orders. I remember that from a campaign forum, as the other Rethuglicans, not just Luther, even Denton Mayor Chris Watts, brought it up, and Strangeabbott's lapdog Springer was silent.

SB 548? More of the "set Texas free from DC, but keep Texas cities and counties enslaved" bullshit.

SB 549? Probably has little chance of passing. Pander Bearing to the bars portion of the booze world. Probably also legally challengable as a carve-out unless the Lege changed the definition of a bar in general from 51 percent booze to 60 percent.

Gov. Strangeabbott task force notes: terror fears 1, Immigrants and First Amendment 0

So, Gov. Strangeabbott has named an anti-terrorism task force.

Two problems. One of them is getting a lot of play.

The other, sadly, very little so far.

First, in the wake of the racist, anti-immigrant terrorist shooting by Patrick Crusius, the task force is stacked with anti-immigrant hardliners. So no, Strangeabbott, the ACLU of Texas has legitimate concerns and your snide dismissal is unwarranted.

Second, banning Internet message boards by 8chan or whomever, or banning individual acts of specech unless they contain specific, overt calls to violence, is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. It's a shame, but no surprise, that our gov and former state AG doesn't understand, or else doesn't accept, the First Amendment.

Related to both of these issues, but specifically to Point the Second, I wait seeing what (if anything) the Snooze and other major dailies say on their editorial pages.

Sadly, per the Snooze, ACLU of Texas legal director Andres Segura only, and ONLY mentioned the anti-immigrant issues. No comment on the first amendment issues. Glenn Smith of Progress Texas, in supporting a crackdown on 8chan, didn't mention the First Amendment himself.

This sets aside issues of how much this is real, and how much is head fakes, on the bottom line issue of GUNZ. Abbott has dismissed red flag laws in the past, and Danny Goeb is even more a nutter on gunz than he is.

In other words, expect, per Shakespeare, much ado about nothing.

This time, Dear Leader really, without #hypocrisy means it on #guncontrol

Can't you tell, by the "emotional urgency" that has entered the mellifluous voice of President Barack Obama, that this time, he really means it about gun control?

(Reposted since I couldn't spell "hypocrisy" right.)

Sure.

Like when it took him six years to name a permanent director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. (That counts holdover vacancy time from the Bush Administration, tis true. And, yes, the Senate obstructed many nominees, but as Pro Publica notes, Obama was also slower than his predecessors at making nominations.)

Like when he agreed to let loaded guns back in our national parks. (Just in time for the neoliberal-driven centennial of the Park Service.)

Like his administration's slothful lack of action on the Oregon standoff, and caving into old man Bundy in 2014.

Yeah, so I really feel the sincerity. And the urgency. The urgency that led to a relative lack of arrests on gun-purchase laws, even if the Department of Justice was short on DAs and ADAs. Fine. Stop prosecuting drug crimes.

Obama never made an "Eppur si muove" comment after the Supreme Court gutted gun control on Heller, never said that he still stood by the Second Amendment being a corporate, not an individual right. (Only about 10 percent of Americans owned their own individual guns in 1775.)

In-state only: The latest #gunnut wet dream

Image from Gary Marbut website via Mother Jones

That wet dream, from a Montanan named Gary Marbut, is attempting to have the gunmaking and gun-buying process kept entirely in-state:

Gary Marbut has a dream: a single shot, bolt-action, made-in-Missoula, .22 caliber rifle called the Montana Buckaroo. For the time being, the Buckaroo, adapted from an expired 1899 patent and intended for use by small children, exists only on paper. "Our attorneys have insisted that I NOT complete EVEN ONE Buckaroo," Marbut (said). ...

That's because Marbut's real target isn't the 5- to 10-year-old skeet-shooting demographic—it's the United States Supreme Court. His goal is to effectively nullify decades of federal gun law, and he thinks he's found a trick no one else has tried. In 2009, Marbut pushed a law through the Montana Legislature asserting the state's partial immunity from federal gun regulations, and then sued the Department of Justice for the right to follow through. Under his scheme, the federal government would be helpless to regulate firearm production or distribution—so long as the guns in question never cross state lines.

And, it's become popular elsewhere in wingnuttia:

 Lawmakers in 34 states have introduced copycat versions of Marbut's Firearms Freedom Act, six of them in the five weeks since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. All told, nine state attorneys general have signed onto an amicus brief supporting him; eight governors have signed it into law. The National Rifle Association supports Marbut's law; so does the Cato Institute.

Gee, shock me. Now, as gun control gets debated at the federal level, will some non-skittish House or Senate Democrat bring this issue up, including the NRA support of it, to further slap it and Wayne La Pierre down?

If only he had tried this in the 1960s, and the Warren Court would then have fully federalized the Second Amendment. (More on that in a moment.)
 
I would still say that if the bullets come out of state, he and any buyers would still be nailed that way, with penumbras of 2nd Amdt + Interstate Commerce Clause. I would also say that because the first clause of the second amendment is the primary clause, the need for a well-regulated militia, combined with the federal government having power over National Guard activations, he would fail that way.

Meanwhile, Marbut was first squelched in federal district court, upholding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shutting him down for not having a federal gun manufacture license. The case has been accepted for oral argument on appeal by the Ninth Circuit, though.

Meanwhile, does Marbut have a snowball's chance on this case? Will the "originalists" in the court system support him if this goes all the way to the Supreme Court?

Speaking of .... from the story:

(E)ven Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia thinks the federal government can regulate the plants you grow in your backyard.

Very few biblical fundamentalists are so fundamentalist as to still believe in a flat earth. Likewise, Nino and gang are generally pretty damned selective in the name of conservative judicial activism about their originalism. So, that counterargument by Mother Jones doesn't necessarily carry much water.

Besides, going back to originalist arguments — James Madison wanted to federalize the Bill of Rights when it was first written.

That said, this is also just another sign that, contra originalist nuts like Nino Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, a constitution written in pre-modern times for a population 1/80th of today's, and with states more nearly equal in size, etc., is about as intelligent as biblical fundamentalism, which it closely parallels.

It's irrelevant in a day of machine guns, as well as of nuclear weapons, etc.

If Marbut decided to start a backyard nuclear centrifuge, then get somebody in Montana to make an atomic shell-firing howitzer (our military had them already in the 1950s), what would the NRA say then? 

Aggie Cons #gunnuts hates them some Danny Glover on #2ndAmdt

From a work email from the Aggie Conservatives:

Danny Glover referenced the slaveowner angle on the "insurrectionist interpretation" of the Second Amendment. Glover claimed that the right to bear arms was created to oppress slaves and Native Americans at Texas A&M’s annual Martin Luther King breakfast this past Thursday morning.
 


Here's the Texas Aggie Conservative response:

It's outrageous. It should be a time for real reflection and respect. Instead, the university pushes a political agenda. The university doesn't want its donors to know all this.  Donors need to hold the university accountable and withhold contributions.

That's from TAC Chairman Eric Schroeder.
 
Sorry, Eric and other wingnut gun nuts, but ... Glover's exactly right!

Carl Bogus (who wrote an excellent, critical-in-the-historian sense bio of Bill Buckley) has made an excellent academic case for this reading, with James Madison himself, among others, pushing the Second Amendment for this reason.

Of course, any place that has Rick Perry among its top conservative grads has but a loose connection with the truth, right?

Kevin Drum’s worst post of the week – wet dreaming for gun nuts

This week, the Flip-Flop Blogger™ is instead in his Squish Wasting Liberal California Bandwidth™ mode

In blogging about the Supreme Court’s 5-4 strikedown of DC’s handgun ban, Drum misses so many points it’s not funny.

First and foremost, he misses the original intent of the Second Amendment, where it is clear, and has been clear to most liberals, except the recently AWOL Lawrence Tribe, that the “well-regulated militia” clause is the primary clause of the Second Amendment.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

George Washington, above all, was familiar with problems with an unregulated militia. Also, Minutemen kept powder, and many of their weapons, at armories similar to National Guard armories of today. That’s what started the Revolutionary War, for doorknob’s sake. The British were marching on Concord to seize the arsenal there, as well as to try to round up Patriot leaders.

Second, Drum ignores Nino Scalia running roughshod over originalism when it doesn’t suit his tastes and philosophy.

Even NRA not Second Amendment absolutist

Proof? The NRA is perfectly OK with the federal law banning convicted felons from having firearms.