Categories
Second Amendment rights

Gun Grabbing G-Men

red flag, gun control, 2nd Amendment, FBI

The FBI itches to take away your guns.

Or at least some people’s guns. That’s what recent revelations indicate, anyway.

What happened is that FBI agents got at least 15 people — it could be many more — to sign away their rights to obtain and possess firearms. Specifically, we read at The Epoch Times, “FBI officials had Americans fill out a form that said they want the FBI to make it illegal for them to purchase or own guns forever because of a mental health condition.”

Yes, it’s a strange case. 

“We’ve learned the FBI had no business disarming these individuals. They did not pose a threat to society. The FBI actions were wholly unlawful,” explained Aidan Johnston, president of a national firearms rights group, Gun Owners of America. GOA demands that “the FBI remove the records from the background check database by Oct. 8 and that Congress enforce the removals.”

This is all about Red Flag laws and similar legislation, such as the “federal law [prohibiting] shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing any firearm or ammunition” by anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” or “committed to a mental institution.” But these people were not adjudicated on any status like that. Somehow the FBI pressured them to “give up their rights” — which technically cannot be done. 

But can be, in practice.

I said it was a strange case. Senator Rand Paul (Ky-R) highlighted the strangeness on Fox News, noting the legal puzzle of “how someone that’s mentally incompetent to own a gun could be competent to sign away their gun rights.”

More reasons to distrust the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

J.R.R. Tolkien

The guest who has escaped from the roof, will think twice before he comes back in by the door.

Gandalf, the wizard, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954).
Categories
Today

Independence Days

September 16 marks the Independence Days for Mexico (celebrating the declaration of independence from Spain in 1810) and Papua New Guinea (commemorating the exit from Australia in 1975).

Categories
crime and punishment First Amendment rights free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture

Okay Not to Harm

freedom, slavery, equity, health, trans

A recent appeals court ruling means that (some) doctors and other medical practitioners won’t be forced to violate their ethical principles against doing harm.

The Fifth Circuit ruling affirms a lower-court decision “permanently enjoining [HHS] from requiring Franciscan Alliance to perform gender-reassignment surgeries or abortions in violation of its sincerely held religious beliefs.”

What is troubling about the decision is its apparent incompleteness.

In a truly free society, no private professionals or organizations would be coerced to offer their services to anybody. Everybody would be free to participate or to decline to participate in any transaction with a prospective customer related to any medical procedure. Just as any person is now (mostly) free to patronize or not patronize any provider of a good or service.

We don’t live in that free society. But at least we can hope that no person will be compelled to provide the types of services that violate the person’s moral conscience.

Like services they believe harm others.

That harm children . . . including the unborn.

So the court’s ruling is fine — as far as it goes. But it seems to protect only persons making religious objections, or only members of the Franciscan Alliance, not also non-religious medical practitioners who also morally object to providing abortions or sex-change operations.

Which means that there is more legal work to be done to protect the rights of all of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Lao Tzu

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.

Lǎozi was a Chinese philosopher (also called Lao Zi, Lao Tzu, Lao Tse, or Lao Tze), The Tao Te Ching (6th–5th century BC), Ch. 33, as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992).
Categories
Today

After Porto

On September 15, 1820, an uprising occurred in Lisbon, Portugal, following similar insurrection in Porto the previous month. This was no bloodthirsty mob, but, instead, a popular demand for constitutional government. Unfortunately, the country was beset with imperial and monarchical problems for some time to come.

The United Nations established September 15 as International Day of Democracy, in 2007. An Independence Day is celebrated on this date in Guatemala (a Patriotic Day), El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, commemorating independence from Spain in 1821.

Categories
ballot access judiciary

Zombie Vote Protected

zombies, voting

A few weeks before the election, a federal judge has blocked Arizona legislation to combat voter fraud.

Opponents routinely characterize efforts such as this Arizona measure to ensure election integrity as “voter suppression.” Charges of racial discrimination often get tossed in to allow for the customary level of hysterical partisan denunciation.

According to Jon Sherman of the Fair Elections Center, even if  HB2243 is “not discriminatory on its face . . . it is an open invitation. It declares open season for discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, dress, English proficiency, anything else.”

Of course,HB2243 extends no such invitation.

The legislation states that registration forms shall contain such things as a statement “that if the registrant permanently moves to another state after registering to vote in this state, the registrant’s voter registration shall be canceled.”

It also authorizes the county reorder to cancel a registration when he “is informed and confirms that the person registered is dead.”

Sounds like it could certainly suppress the zombie vote.

Legislation should be as carefully worded as possible. But no degree of precision in a law designed to prevent persons from voting who are not entitled to vote will prevent opponents from charging that it’s really, deep down inside, about “declaring open season for discrimination.”

Had the Arizona legislature passed the new law in plenty of time to grapple with legal challenges, the reformmighthave been in place for the mid-terms. Let’s hope HB2243 is in place and free of judicial encumbrance by 2024. 

Enacting this kind of legislation is of many things that need to be done to safeguard elections.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Thomas Jefferson

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography (1821), reprinted in Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Philip S. Foner, New York: Wiley Book Company (1944} p. 464.
Categories
Today

Missing Eleven Days?

In 1752, throughout the British Empire, September 2 was followed, the next day, by September 14, as the government adopted the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days.

On September 14, 1944, Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city to be liberated by allied forces.

Categories
crime and punishment folly insider corruption local leaders responsibility

First-Class Arrogance

“One thing is clear,” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell declared, “I do my job, and I will continue to do it with distinction and integrity every step of the way.” 

She marshaled this self-righteousness in response to media inquiries as to why, as The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported, “Cantrell has charged the city of New Orleans $29,000 to travel first- or business-class instead of coach.”

Mayor Cantrell defiantly refuses to pay back “the exorbitant fees” she ran up “for the upgraded tickets, including an $18,000 first-class trip to France over the summer.”

But that’s precisely what City of New Orleans policy demands of her. “Employees are required to purchase the lowest airfare available,” it clearly states. “Employees who choose an upgrade from coach, economy, or business class flights are solely responsible for the difference in cost.” 

Yet, her excuse for upgraded jet-setting is priceless. 

“As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded . . .” Cantrell offered. “As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be,” she continued. “Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn’t understand the world black women walk in.”

Hmmm. Just how much safer is it in the airplane’s high-priced seats? 

Plus, a pity that the mayor didn’t show any consideration for those fearful souls flying with her. One of “Cantrell’s flights cost nine times that of an aide who accompanied her but flew in coach.”

There is good news, however. A recent poll of registered voters shows a majority (55.4%) support recalling Queen — er, Mayor Cantrell.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts