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It is a good day for Liberty.

We have six months until the election.

In 1996 Senator Obama said that he favored a complete ban on the sale and possession of all handguns. Today Democratic strategist Bob Beckel defends him by essentially claiming that was then, this is now. Now Mr. Obama says that he is in favor of the Second Amendment. Other comments indicate that he has a bizarre idea of what that amendment says.

A Belton police captain told a new resident that he couldn’t carry a gun on an out of state license and that if he did he would be arrested. The captain is as wrong as he can possibly be of course.

Cedar Creek Gun Club has lost a $700,000 lawsuit and suffered an injunction that essentially ends shooting at the club. The club has not killed anyone; the plaintiffs complained that the shotguns made noise. The noise expert proved that the shotgun noise level at the edge of their property is about the level of an ordinary conversation. The plaintiffs testified that their ears rang, they felt the concussion in their chests and that shotgun pellets went over the roof of their home, 600 yards away. Other neighbors, closer neighbors, testified that they were not bothered. The club still lost. This decision encourages suits against ranges out of greed alone. We had enough trouble when they sued us because they hate us. There is a bill in the legislature to protect ranges but the legislature needs encouragement.

There is unaccountable interest in what the world will look like if people disappear. The newspaper did a lengthy article and there are other predictions. The Will Smith movie “I Am Legend” gives a hint of what New York will look like three years after the zombies take over. Not a great difference as it turns out. I do not understand the attraction of considering the decay of all humanity has built, unless there are zombies.

I think that if Senator Obama had to do his primaries over again he would probably not do as well. Events have taken the shine off of him and exposed his feet of clay. A local radio program asks if people in Kenya think of Senator Obama as white or black. My son, College Boy, spent last summer teaching in Kenya and found they consider him a Luo, his father’s tribe. Opinions of his fitness vary depending on the tribe of the speaker. College Boy found that he got frank opinions only when he bought beer for the source. I may try that when I cross-examine people.

My younger son College Boy has a job. I am not completely clear on the matter but it appears that he is going to be a corporate raider. His employer is something called the United States Marine Corporation (“a metal fragment delivery service since 1775”). The corporation appears to be quite large and has branch offices all over the world. It has an entire island resort called “Paris”, (nice romantic name) but College Boy will be going to the executive training facility at Quantico, Virginia. It has a corporate song promoting its branch offices “from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli”; a Corporation song makes the Corporation sound very Japanese but it is proudly, even aggressively, American.

At a gun show I was asked if I needed a plastic bag for my purchase. I replied that I carry a bag to cut down on trash, trash makes Al Gore cry and there is just so much of that I can take. The salesman sympathized, “After awhile it stops being fun.”

I bought a canvas bag at a thrift store. I was asked if I wanted a bag to carry it in. I thought at first this was a trick question, but it appears that it was not.

Actually, reducing trash and saving fuel is a good idea, and has been since the first Earth Day 35 years ago. The new wrinkle is that a company sells “carbon credits” to people with guilty consciences.

We can build a wall until we are out of bricks, and Hispanics will still become a decisive voting block in the next ten years. We can summarily deport everyone without proof of residency, and Hispanics will still become a decisive voting block. The birth rate alone decides the question. The question is whether this decisive voting block will be for us or against us. In the old days political machines built their power by meeting immigrants at the boat and providing what they needed, whatever that was. There is no reason that we cannot do the same. At one time the Daughters of the American Revolution provided citizenship books to help immigrants prepare for their citizenship test. We could do that. The citizenship questions are public information. We could provide a web site with the answers and a link to their elected officials. People could type in their address or zip code and get the names and addresses they need. Our members could also benefit from such a link. We can post the Bill of Rights with short explanations they will not get elsewhere. We can help them register to vote and teach English classes. If we do not, others will, and they are not our friends.

A producer for TV’s Big Brother program contacted me and other NRA State Association presidents. They want an outspoken NRA member to be a member of the household this summer. I posted the information on the internet. It would be interesting. It might induce me to watch the show.

There are many lies about the Heller case. Attorneys for Washington D.C. claim that the Second Amendment was written in order to support slavery. They do not explain this statement, because there is no explanation; it is a lie. They claim that the Second Amendment has seen a conclusive ruling. They refer to the Miller case which said only that the Court could not take judicial notice that a sawed off shotgun was a militia weapon. That was the only ruling in the case, it was not complicated, the case is only three pages long. However, this lie has been told many times and a number of lower courts have cited the Miller case for any proposition related to guns in any way. Such vague reference as a substitute for legal reasoning has been unfortunately common in the last seventy years.

The DC lawyer claims that the Second Amendment is a right to participate in the common defense. This was early in his argument; he led with a claim that this is an absolute Constitutional right to join the National Guard. He claimed that there is a right to have guns ready for self-defense in the District, but DC has prosecuted people who did so. One Justice mentioned that the DC law requires that guns must be unloaded and locked or disassembled. The DC attorney said that he did not read it that way. A law with two interpretations is a conspiracy to convict innocent parties. The District HAS prosecuted people who kept a gun available for self-defense. The District lawyer claimed that a lock could be undone in a second or three seconds (he made both claims). A justice asked if the citizen did not first have to turn on a light, find his glasses, undo the lock and then load the gun. Practicality in the Supreme Court. The age of miracles is not over.

Both the government and the District lawyers argued that restrictions were necessary because of machine guns and plastic guns. They argue that machine guns can kill lots of people at once, although no legal owner has ever done so. They argue that plastic guns can evade metal detectors, although there are no plastic guns, there never have been, and there is no possibility they will be invented. If they are invented, they will still take metal bullets.

Several justices asked if the phrase “keep and bear arms” indicated one right or two. The District lawyer said that it was an exclusively military phrase, but it is not. The government and Heller’s lawyer said that it was two. One justice seemed concerned that under the District’s law one could not carry a gun from one place to another in ones own home. There were repeated questions about self-defense rights.

There are two issues for the Supreme Court to determine. They must decide if the Second Amendment is an individual right and if so what standard of review it requires. They can recognize the right, and then say that it is not one that requires a great deal of consideration. The real question is what standard of review the Supreme Court will adopt. Strict scrutiny is our hope. The government must have a very good reason for a restriction under strict scrutiny. However, the opposition, and I include the administration’s lawyer in that term, argues for reasonable review. If the government can claim any interest at all, the law will survive reasonable review. The constant claim from the prohibitionists is that their restrictions are all reasonable.

While the ATF puts gun dealers out of business for being “hobby” dealers, the viciously anti-gun Violence Policy Center in Washington DC has an FFL. The District does not allow gun sales and the VPC has no sales tax license, but they have not been bothered. It appears that they have the license so that they can get catalogues from the various dealers and know what the industry is doing, the better to be horrified. I recall they were thrown out of the SHOT show a few years ago for not being legitimate dealers, but the ATF has not seen fit to pull their license.

In a history book I ran across the statement of an apologist for slavery who boasted that slavery provided full employment, health and retirement benefits. Let no one say that socialism has not been tried in America.

Condoleezza Rice said that slavery was the birth defect on American Liberty. This is well put. The birth defect required an extraordinarily difficult and bloody surgery to correct. My Great Great Grandfather was intimately involved in this surgery; really, he was a doctor. He was a specialist on the repair of hernias and spent four years amputating arms and legs and wishing for a hernia. Ms Rice is or is not interested in the Vice Presidency, depending on what reports you believe. She would make a valuable addition to a McCain ticket.

President Sheila spoke at the LaFayette Gun Club dinner. I heard part of her speech on the misuse of zoning law which was very good. I was late and missed the early part of her speech which I am told concerned the number of people who had told her that their lives would be happier and more productive if she declared martial law. It was a good speech; a number of people told me they were afraid to say anything against it.

WMSA Board Member Larry Swickard reminds us that if the presidential candidates are less than inspiring on our issue, that makes it all the more important to get out and vote for other offices. We must make the congress and legislature executive proof, in case the new executive decides to take away our hard won gains.

Larry also credits me with the “Jamison dictum” that regardless of other issues we must vote for our gun rights. I do not think that this originated with me. However I must stress that if we lose other matters they could be corrected. If we lose our gun rights we might not get them back in our lifetime. We lost the right to carry concealed in 1879, and did not get it back until 2004. We had the racist permit to acquire system imposed on us in 1922 and did not get rid of it until 2007. I might point out that we did not get back all of our rights in either case. I must also point out, that we have not ended the struggle.

Pirates seized a ship off of Somalia holding the crew hostage. The French Army seized the ship and pirates. Nude pictures of the French First Lady are published, and the French get macho. I just mention the coincidence. Piracy continues to be a problem in that area. Ships are warned not to carry guns as this might irritate the pirates. No one seems concerned about the sailors being irritated by kidnappings and murder.

We shall overcome.

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