If this be extremism, make the most of it!

Earlier this week, I commented on the peculiar columns of one Terrence Cummings, victim-disarmer extraordinaire. In doing so, I finally achieved a long dreamed of status.

I have, at long last, been tagged as an “extremist.” It only took the better part of three decades to get there. I need a badge, or something.

I appreciate your diligence in defending gun rights. It clearly aligns with the usual argument of extremists. It is expected and not surprising.

Cummings “clearly” needs to acquaint himself with the First Law of Holes.

Or invest in a power shovel. And possibly a jackhammer, to deal with those bothersome rhetorical boulders.

Just what does Cummings consider the arguments of extremists? You could read the original column again. But I’ll give you the synopsis.

• I pointed out that Kyle Rittenhouse used an Smith & Wesson M&P, not a Colt AR-15, as Cummings claimed.
• I cruelly noted that Rittenhouse did not take his rifle across state lines as Cummings mistakenly believes.
• I cited Wisconsin v. Rittenhouse.
• I cleverly observed that a PBS interview with a retired judge differs somewhat from a Supreme Court of the United States ruling.
• I quoted the US Constitution. (OK; in Biden’s Amerika, that probably does make me an extremist.)
• I cited seven separate SCOTUS cases dating back over 165 years.
• I specifically cited Bruen, in which SCOTUS rejected Cummings claim that the 2A only applies to muskets.
• I specifically cited Caetano, in which an earlier SCOTUS had already said the same damned thing.

I’m afraid that I am slipping a bit in one respect. I’ve never once erected a single idolatrous shrine for worshiping guns.

If “extremists” use objective facts, state and federal law, lower court rulings, the Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions; what is a good, succinct term for folks like Terrence Cummings who actively reject all that, and prefer falsehoods and feelz?

Keep it clean in comments, please.

Bruen strikes again.

Texas judge rules gun-buying ban for people under felony indictment is unconstitutional
U.S. District Judge David Counts, whom then-President Donald Trump appointed to the federal bench, dismissed a federal indictment against Jose Gomez Quiroz that had charged him under the federal ban.
[…]
“Although not exhaustive, the Court’s historical survey finds little evidence that … (the federal ban) – which prohibits those under felony indictment from obtaining a firearm – aligns with this Nation’s historical tradition.”

Hence, he ruled the ban unconstitutional as the “Second Amendment is not a ‘second class right,” as noted in a 2008 Supreme Court ruling. “No longer can courts balance away a constitutional right,” Counts wrote. After the New York case, “the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text align with this Nation’s historical tradition. The Government does not meet that burden.”

Hardly surprising, assuming honest courts (a big assumption). Bruen threw out New York’s Sullivan Act of 1911 “good case” licensing requirement for lack of general, historical tradition. If a century+ infringement couldn’t make the grade, what chance — again, in an honest court — did an infringement, dating back no more than 54 years, have: Gun Control Act of 1968.

Much of the GCA ’68 is on very thin ice.

California v. Diaz
Diaz was busted for carrying an unregistered handgun without a license. The court cited Bruen and tossed the charges.

California’s under-21 semiauto sales ban
The appeals court’s 2-1 majority on May 11 had said the judge erred in upholding an “almost total ban” on semiautomatic rifles for young adults. It upheld a requirement that young adults obtain hunting licenses before buying “long guns.”

Wednesday’s order is a temporary victory for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who defended the ban.

It’s only a temporary victory in that it’s a stalling action against the inevitable state loss: the lower court — already hostile to the state’s violation of rights for those under 21 — is directed to further examine the ban in light of Bruen.

Unconstitutional GCA restrictions are beginning to drop like flies, now that the Supreme Court has put the lower courts on notice that the intermediate scrutiny game doesn’t play anymore.

Strict scrutiny allows unconstitutional infringements if a judge decides it’s “close enough for government work.”

And that’s strict scrutiny, applied comparatively rarely. Intermediate and rational basis review can allow laws that aren’t needed, don’t address the problem, and punish those who aren’t responsible, which is why people-controlling victim disarmers hate strict scrutiny. Bottaro appears to prefer intermediate scrutiny, in which restrictions on rights are merely “related” to the supposed need.

Strict scrutiny supposedly required that an infringement at least do something to aid in the government’s alleged compelling interest. It’s not as good as the much tougher Bruen general, historical tradition test, but I wonder why courts wouldn’t use even strict scrutiny…

That’s rhetorical, of course. I’ll show you why.

Note that post GCA of 1968, violent crime continued to rise.

FOPA of 1986 (ban on new machine guns): crime still rising.

Strict scrutiny would have required the law to work. The GCA doesn’t; never did.

Brady background checks? NICS? Lautenberg’s retroactive “domestic violence” prohibited persons? All of those came after the 1991 violent crime peak, when crimes rate were already on the way down. Check the trend; no discernible difference.

Until you get to 2001, when the drop in crimes rates slowed. Despite that the GCA, FOPA, Brady, NICS, and Lautenberg are all still ineffectively on the books. The misnamed “assault weapon ban” of 1994 did expire, but for some reason — ineffectiveness comes to mind again — the crime, with a slight bump, continued to drop.

The laws didn’t — and don’t — work as advertised (which begs the also rhetorical question of “What are they really for?”).

Aside from the recognition of constitutionally protected rights, Bruen may do something else good. Finally, Congress may be required to pass only laws that work as advertised.

Some, anyway. Even Bruen signaled that some restrictions — which never existed prior to 1968 are still peachy: felons, mentally deficient persons, and unlawful drug users. I chalk that up to cultural inertia on the part of all the SCOTUS justices (yes, Thomas, too). I would be very interested in seeing the SCOTUS — and Thomas’ — reaction to a well-funded challenge, on the basis of their own BRUEN decision, by a former felon drug abuser who has been clean and honest for years.

Hopefully, such a challenge will also mention automatic voting rights restoration upon completion of sentence, and ask, “What makes the Second Amendment right second class this time? Where’s the general historical tradition for that, since it never existed prior to 1968?”