"No one wants this — a country where the number one cause of death for our kids is guns. Gov. Gavin Newsom
I differ with you “no one wants this”, apparently the NRA, firearm manufactures, gun lobbyist, gun enthusiasts, ultra-right Republicans that are and show pictures of them arming their children and those who continually, even after it has been pointed out repeatedly, post, say, write, judicate and legislate that the 2 Amendment gives every citizen a right to own firearms. The Second Amendment does no such thing, and it is way past time that all those folks including Democrats who sing the same lie STOP. I am sick and tired of innocent people dying because of this lie.
We have, “…a well regulated militia” it is the National Guard and Reservists. So, until you all have the courage to own the truth and stop lying, we will keep burying the victims of school shootings, neighborhood shootings, mall shooting, theater shootings, hospital shootings and wherever there is an unhinged or angry person with a firearm willing to kill the innocent.
What kind of people allow small children and their teachers to be shot at school? How hard does someone's heart have to be to refuse to protect people in public places? It's all about greed and money.
It's not all greed methinks. There is a huge component political and moral cowardice. We elect followers and not leaders. They value their careers in politics more than any other value, and they won't do anything to put it at risk. It has become their identity, and they are fearful of becoming ciphers if they lose their office.
Agreed! After Uvalde, for the first time in 30-plus years, Mitch McConnell agreed to allow Republicans to participate in the bipartisan gun safety committee because his BFF at the time, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema asked him to. It also may have had to do with the fact that 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered, McConnell felt he should pretend to do something before the midterm elections. The bottom line was all of the ten Republicans on the Committee were bought and paid for by the NRA. Most of them had received millions of dollars; Mitt Romney topped the list at $13 million. While it had to be clear from the get-go, that the Republican Co-Chair of the Committee Senator John Cornyn wasn't going to agree on any bill that eliminated assault rifles and extended magazines, and called for a universal background check, Democrats led by Senator Chris Murphy (who has worked very hard for gun control, but gotten almost nothing done) were willing to agree to draft a bill that did next to nothing about guns. So...the first gun safety bill that was passed in 33 years was ineffective, has done little to reduce gun violence, and yet they all pretended that mass murderers are the mentally ill, when only 4% of gun violence is committed by someone who is mentally ill. The combination of cowardice by Democratic members and desperation produced the weakest of all bills possible.
You just wrote what I was about to. There will be no peace from gun violence in this country any more because there is too much to lose. There are now over four hundred million guns in the U S where the population is presently around three hundred thirty million. One has to wonder what kind of pernicious thinking is running loose to allow such violence to continue when the majority of the population wants relief from it. So I’m going to add one thing. Add fear to your mix of greed and money and now the mix is highly toxic.
It shows just how strongly self interest dominates many people's actions. Dead children are mere collateral damage. There are no safe places anymore; even our homes can't protect us from gunfire. This is beyond grotesque.
Even if, arguably, it does convey such a right (seems to depend on the vagaries of which specific lawyers become SC justices), what happens when it collides with the rights of the remaining 300 million to feel and be safe as they go about the quotidian tasks of daily life--schooling, shopping, movies and concerts, attending religious services. Every other right we have is balanced against the rights of others. The folks who say that guns have more rights than people seem to be on to something. Writing as a gun owner and non NRA member.
No, it does, but only because of what The Supreme Court currently allows. This "interpretation" has only been in place since the District of Columbia v. Heller SCOTUS decision, (2008). Here again is another example of our sacrosanct Supreme Court in action.
If you haven't seen it, do watch Senator Sheldon Whitehouse In this May 2nd Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He has written extensively about SCOTUS, and his demand for Supreme Court reform is worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojOBGTUDPVA
I agree w/ our luck in having him! He is splendid to watch and listen to. Viewer comments on the YouTube video applaud him wholeheartedly. People are paying attention.
Yes, Roberts does not want to face Whitehouse for all the obvious reasons. The Senator’s book on dark money in the court, The Scheme,” is the product of a series of research papers Whitehouse delivered on the floor of the Senate - also available on YouTube, search under his name.
Wow! Sen. Whitehouse is dogged and thorough and determined. We need to support him and his efforts to hold SCOTUS accountable. It was extremely disappointing that Kagan, Sotomayor and Brown-Jackson apparently signed on to the letter saying the Court could police itself. Evidence proves otherwise. Prima facia.
I didn't understand it either until I read that Sotomayor has made 3.4 million dollars in book advances and royalties since she joined SCOTUS. And, Jackson signed a book contract for a memoir on January 5, 2023, although I can't find the amount of her advance. I haven't read that Kagan has signed a book contract.
I need to clarify that I'm not comparing--in any way--these contracts to what Republicans have done. First, SCOTUS does not limit the amount Justices can make in book contracts. And, secondly, unlike Republicans, Sotomayor lists the money she has made in her financial statements. Still, the question is whether or not the money they are allowed to make, even with book contracts, is excessive. We can't blame Jackson for being new and signing a contract, when Amy Coney Barrett was paid $425,000 in 2021 for her book deal, which is worth two million dollars.
The problem, when you refuse to allow others to enforce ethic violations is that everybody starts looking guilty.
I have no problem writing books and getting paid for your work. I do have issues with being sworn in at a billionaire’s home. I do have issues with seats being bought and paid for.
In my cynicism, the first thought I had about trump's team putting forth no defense and requiring a unanimous jury is that someone from trump's camp got to a juror. Wow, I really am cynical. Oh wait, that doesn't feel cynical at all with all the law breaking we've witnessed with our own eyes.
My first thought also, especially in light of the "sealed motion filed last week" which you mentioned in yesterday's post discussing The Access Hollywood Tape and the Jury. I will not be at all surprised to find out that some type of shady business occurred that was discovered by Carroll's attorney.
Joyce, three comments: 1) the incredible Fred Guttenberg and Thomas Gabor published. AMERICAN CARNAGE is a masterpiece. 2) VOTE Democrat and bring ten voters to the polls every hour to vote Democrat. 3) We’re in trouble.
May 4, 2023·edited May 4, 2023Liked by Joyce Vance
Professor, thank you for ALL your points this evening. As a retired trial attorney, I appreciate the copy of the jury's correction of the 10 count jury form. In court, I was always alert to assist the clerk & reporter.
I agree completely with Joyce's post. But, I also know nothing will change. In fact, the Right has hardened in its support of gun violence. Gov Greg Abbott dismissed the slaughter of five people in Texas by noting the dead "were illegal". When children, mostly Hispanic, were gunned down in a Uvalde school, Abbott didn't attend one funeral. So they combine their support for gun violence with their racism. The Right does not care because it does not affect them. They don't care about dead children, dead mothers, dead anyone. They. Do. Not. Care. If the gun violence ever comes to the floor of the House or Senate or to their homes or their children, then they may change their minds. Until then, don't count on it.
I will never live long enough to understand the perversity of the Republican governors, House and Senate members! After each mass shooting, it appears that governors and state legislators decide to make it easier and easier to obtain weapons. In what universe does that make sense.
It's poking a finger in our eye and saying: Your life and safety really don't matter. The answer to a bad guy with a gun is not a good guy with a gun; it's everyone and anyone who wants a gun - good guy or not!
I used to watch a lot of MSNBC since I'm home a lot during the day. But when the news broke about the shooting in Atlanta, I refused to watch a replay of a tragedy that occurs daily!
I may be a little biased, but I really appreciated Katy Tur's coverage-she played the entirety of Senator Warnock's speech & then the press conference where the chief did a really good job. It wasn't uplifting but it was informative.
Sorry to be oblivious to the sombre mood arising from the latest mass shooting, but I am so eager to see your piece about our incredibly goofy 2nd amendment jurisprudence. Now that our eminently respectable justices are feeling increasingly free of stare decisis, wouldn't it be nice for them to depart from the "fraud" identified by Chief Justice Burger, and relegate that to the trash heap of history, along with Roe v. Wade and Chevron? (To show you how nerdy I am, it brought tears to my eyes to make a statement about the imminent risk to Chevron. I'm a state bureaucrat now, but at heart I'm still a federal agency staff attorney.) Thanks for this & all your commentary--I read & listen to as much as I can get!
“And the ultimate irony is that the same crowd that insists on having their assault weapons also wants to prevent women from having an abortion, because: pro-life. They are explicitly okay with those babies being mowed down in the nation’s schools, hospitals, shopping malls, and churches once they’re born, with only the thin veneer of thoughts and prayers to notice their deaths.” I have been thinking this for the last twenty years, but I could never have said it as well as you did.
I am awaiting your 2nd amendment article. I'm no lawyer, but I am an historian, and I can tell you everything Scalia wrote about the 2nd amendment was historically inaccurate, including the historical interpretation. The 2nd amendment was not to protect citizens of states from the US as Scalia indicated. The 2nd amendment was to protect the states from the federal government encroaching on the rights of states to protect themselves from armed rebellion from their own citizens. The constitution primarily came about because of intra-state rebellions, culminating with Shay's in Mass. The states, who incidentally "we the people" refers to, not the individuals, were in no mood for a federal system that might consolidate the military and limit the ability of the states to protect themselves from the people within the states. The 2nd amendment was adapted solely for the purpose of regulating guns within the states and by the states because they feared their own citizens from having guns.
So not only was Heller historically incorrect, it was malpractice to his own interpretation of original intent . Of course I think that interpretation itself is misconstrued by interpreting words as intents.
If you're an historian, you've probably read Carol Anderson's book THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. She makes the persuasive case that the 2nd Amendment was driven by the demand of *southern* states to protect themselves by preventing and putting down slave revolts. As an effective fighting force, "the militia" left a lot to be desired but they were good at keeping the enslaved in line.
Anderson argues that inclusion of "the second" was a sine qua non for the southern states: they wouldn't vote to ratify the Constitution without it.
We hear a lot about "America's love affair with guns," but I'm inclined to believe that it's rooted primarily in white male America's love affair with guns, and that race and racism have a lot to do with it.
In “Twilight of Democracy,” Anne Applebaum argues convincingly that pro-Putin autocrats (my label) have no need of modeling party-strategy after Russia or Hungary, that Republicans need look no farther than our own, homegrown Confederate playbook for the means of autocratic rule.
According to Anderson, Madison (though a Virginian himself) was being pushed by Patrick Henry and others. Also it wasn't just because black folks couldn't form a militia -- they couldn't even legally own firearms -- it was also because armed white slave patrols, a form of militia, were very much a thing.
well i am aware medieval doctors developed herbs to induce miscarriage if women became too ill (from what I understand only about half survived the treatment); I know England allowed those herbs to be administered until Cromwell and his chief justice outlawed them after quickening, (quickening occurs when 12-14 weeks) and Alito does admit most of the early abortion laws took effect after quickening. I'm not sure Alito knows when quickening occurred or what it means, but the term was used to refer to when the baby kicked and the assumption was it was now a baby, i.e. a life. Hale himself, in the decision Alito cites states that at quickening the fetus is alive and that no interference can be placed upon that life once quickening occurs---isn't that Blackmun's first trimester where the state should have less interest? I also know he ends his history in 1950, and several states thereafter began legislating for some abortion access. I think, perhaps, N.Y. was the only with complete access, but that's from memory but nearly half of the states had granted some legal protection for abortion access by the time of Roe. Is that the inaccuracies you mean?Or do you know more? One thing was clear to me some eleven years before Roe, and that was the total immorality of restricting abortion access. If you're interested in how a teenage boy came to that conclusion, I wrote about here https://ken9yvonne.substack.com/p/a-few-thoughts-on-the-common-law-1b3
John Brown’s failed raid at Harpers Ferry (Oct. 1859) sent a shockwave through the South. He had plotted a slave revolt, by stealing arms from the federal garrison there and passing them out to blacks enslaved on area farms. In his own revolt, the “ Southern Instigator “ Robert Barnwell Rhett, editor of the Charleston Mercury and former SC congressman, took to the front page of the Mercury, exhorting militias from every parish to arm and ride.
yes true. However I have little sympathy for Brown because he goal was foolish with little chance of success and he caused death, I believe, even in trying to recruit before he got to the depot. It was a US army depot and therefore he attacked the US govt and it certainly created a storm in the south. But I tend to disbelieve it had little consequential influence for the civil war. I believe by that time the south had already decided not to support any democratic candidate from the north, maintaining slavery had become so paramount they had determined before Harper's Ferry that if they could not have control of the govt. Buchanan, though from Pa., supported their plan and actually encouraged them to select their own southern candidate in 1860. Whether he encouraged a secession I don't know, I've seen no suggestions, but he did favor the candidacy of Breckenridge, his v-p. But since '56 there had began to be a cabal calling strongly for secession, and by '58 a year before Harper's Ferry, a growing consensus that if they could not successfully end the contentions over slavery permanently within the US. Of course, in his letters, Jefferson Davis was one of the leading proponents of secession. The irony in this that Jefferson Davis was a much younger brother and his land was primarily managed by his older brother, Joseph. Joseph Davis was a very strange man, he did not free his slaves and the Davis Bend plantation was the largest slaveholding plantation in Mississippi. But he did grant his slaves a great deal of self-governance, and there some were even trained in medicine to provide health care. He was a great believer he the concepts of Owen but also in slavery. Socialistic slavery makes no sense in me. He left his slaves in charge and moved to the north during the war. What I have always wondered is how his unusual ideas might have affected his younger brother, and if Davis's letters that began to circulate to encourage southern secession might have been either revenge against his brother, or perhaps a way to make him seem more southern to his compatriots. I've never seen anyone pursue the issue from that perspective which could be interesting.
But Harper's could have well put the nail in the coffin because it also created a great deal of conversation in the north to end slavery now and a great deal of followers who did see him as something of lightning rod and some of those followers who thought slaves were Gen'l Benjamin Butler and Col. Robert Shaw (portrayed by Matthew Broderick in the movie Glory. So the effects of Harper''s Ferry did resonate. And it also one of the reasons the 2nd amendment was passed---to prevent uprisings like Brown was attempting, and just think, there were not enough guns available to supply a private uprising so the first stop had to be get the weapons that would be needed. The 2nd amendment prevented Brown from creating an Oath Keepers weapons stockpile. Now the interpretation of the amendment enabled it.
The hell with the second amendment! This is not what they had in mind when it was written. I am in California and just read that the gun group is taking the 10 day waiting for new gun owners to court.
“ a right delayed is a right denied” if that isn’t horse poop I don’t know what it is. How many lives can be saved in those ten days?
As I have noted in the past the change will come when the generations that have lived the rise in gun violence come to power. Not before. Thoughts and prayers- sure the people would rather have their loved ones alive.
I wish I could chock what is happening in our country to hypocrisy. That I can understand. This is more aligned with a faction in the country wanting to destroy everything. That I don't understand.
I’ve finally concluded that “victims” isn’t a strong enough term to describe people lost in American mass shootings. A more accurate term is “involuntary martyrs “. They have been sacrificed to the gun lobby.
"No one wants this — a country where the number one cause of death for our kids is guns. Gov. Gavin Newsom
I differ with you “no one wants this”, apparently the NRA, firearm manufactures, gun lobbyist, gun enthusiasts, ultra-right Republicans that are and show pictures of them arming their children and those who continually, even after it has been pointed out repeatedly, post, say, write, judicate and legislate that the 2 Amendment gives every citizen a right to own firearms. The Second Amendment does no such thing, and it is way past time that all those folks including Democrats who sing the same lie STOP. I am sick and tired of innocent people dying because of this lie.
We have, “…a well regulated militia” it is the National Guard and Reservists. So, until you all have the courage to own the truth and stop lying, we will keep burying the victims of school shootings, neighborhood shootings, mall shooting, theater shootings, hospital shootings and wherever there is an unhinged or angry person with a firearm willing to kill the innocent.
What kind of people allow small children and their teachers to be shot at school? How hard does someone's heart have to be to refuse to protect people in public places? It's all about greed and money.
It's not all greed methinks. There is a huge component political and moral cowardice. We elect followers and not leaders. They value their careers in politics more than any other value, and they won't do anything to put it at risk. It has become their identity, and they are fearful of becoming ciphers if they lose their office.
Most bullies are cowards ... that’s the profile, is it not? Trump, Trump politicians made-in-his-image, the whole lot for sale and soulless.
Truth!
What’s happening now has been MoscowMitch’s wet dream for 37 years. And he couldn’t care less how it was achieved. Children dying be damned.
Agreed! After Uvalde, for the first time in 30-plus years, Mitch McConnell agreed to allow Republicans to participate in the bipartisan gun safety committee because his BFF at the time, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema asked him to. It also may have had to do with the fact that 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered, McConnell felt he should pretend to do something before the midterm elections. The bottom line was all of the ten Republicans on the Committee were bought and paid for by the NRA. Most of them had received millions of dollars; Mitt Romney topped the list at $13 million. While it had to be clear from the get-go, that the Republican Co-Chair of the Committee Senator John Cornyn wasn't going to agree on any bill that eliminated assault rifles and extended magazines, and called for a universal background check, Democrats led by Senator Chris Murphy (who has worked very hard for gun control, but gotten almost nothing done) were willing to agree to draft a bill that did next to nothing about guns. So...the first gun safety bill that was passed in 33 years was ineffective, has done little to reduce gun violence, and yet they all pretended that mass murderers are the mentally ill, when only 4% of gun violence is committed by someone who is mentally ill. The combination of cowardice by Democratic members and desperation produced the weakest of all bills possible.
You just wrote what I was about to. There will be no peace from gun violence in this country any more because there is too much to lose. There are now over four hundred million guns in the U S where the population is presently around three hundred thirty million. One has to wonder what kind of pernicious thinking is running loose to allow such violence to continue when the majority of the population wants relief from it. So I’m going to add one thing. Add fear to your mix of greed and money and now the mix is highly toxic.
It shows just how strongly self interest dominates many people's actions. Dead children are mere collateral damage. There are no safe places anymore; even our homes can't protect us from gunfire. This is beyond grotesque.
Elected Republicans, the gun lobby and gun manufacturers..
Agree, the Second Amendment does not give citizens the right to own firearms.
Even if, arguably, it does convey such a right (seems to depend on the vagaries of which specific lawyers become SC justices), what happens when it collides with the rights of the remaining 300 million to feel and be safe as they go about the quotidian tasks of daily life--schooling, shopping, movies and concerts, attending religious services. Every other right we have is balanced against the rights of others. The folks who say that guns have more rights than people seem to be on to something. Writing as a gun owner and non NRA member.
I have long since given up going to the movies. For this very reason.
No, it does, but only because of what The Supreme Court currently allows. This "interpretation" has only been in place since the District of Columbia v. Heller SCOTUS decision, (2008). Here again is another example of our sacrosanct Supreme Court in action.
Indeed. Indeed. Indeed.
If you haven't seen it, do watch Senator Sheldon Whitehouse In this May 2nd Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He has written extensively about SCOTUS, and his demand for Supreme Court reform is worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojOBGTUDPVA
Thanks for flagging this. He's been utterly relentless in this issue for a long time. We are very lucky to have him!
I agree w/ our luck in having him! He is splendid to watch and listen to. Viewer comments on the YouTube video applaud him wholeheartedly. People are paying attention.
I agree Joyce. His passion on this issue is uplifting.
Yes, Roberts does not want to face Whitehouse for all the obvious reasons. The Senator’s book on dark money in the court, The Scheme,” is the product of a series of research papers Whitehouse delivered on the floor of the Senate - also available on YouTube, search under his name.
Wow! 👏👏👏 to Senator Whitehouse.
He is fantastic!!!
Wow! Sen. Whitehouse is dogged and thorough and determined. We need to support him and his efforts to hold SCOTUS accountable. It was extremely disappointing that Kagan, Sotomayor and Brown-Jackson apparently signed on to the letter saying the Court could police itself. Evidence proves otherwise. Prima facia.
I didn't understand it either until I read that Sotomayor has made 3.4 million dollars in book advances and royalties since she joined SCOTUS. And, Jackson signed a book contract for a memoir on January 5, 2023, although I can't find the amount of her advance. I haven't read that Kagan has signed a book contract.
I need to clarify that I'm not comparing--in any way--these contracts to what Republicans have done. First, SCOTUS does not limit the amount Justices can make in book contracts. And, secondly, unlike Republicans, Sotomayor lists the money she has made in her financial statements. Still, the question is whether or not the money they are allowed to make, even with book contracts, is excessive. We can't blame Jackson for being new and signing a contract, when Amy Coney Barrett was paid $425,000 in 2021 for her book deal, which is worth two million dollars.
The problem, when you refuse to allow others to enforce ethic violations is that everybody starts looking guilty.
I have no problem writing books and getting paid for your work. I do have issues with being sworn in at a billionaire’s home. I do have issues with seats being bought and paid for.
Just watched the Senator Whitehouse clip. He has my support! Thank you for posting this.
He is one of my many heroes... And the way he would slap each document saying "Exhibition number 1 " and so on...
Lead on, Senator! Thanks for the link!
Thank you for your strong clear voice. You are a beacon of good sense and good heart.
We're going to have to turn good sense and good hearts into good action, some of John Lewis's good trouble!
In my cynicism, the first thought I had about trump's team putting forth no defense and requiring a unanimous jury is that someone from trump's camp got to a juror. Wow, I really am cynical. Oh wait, that doesn't feel cynical at all with all the law breaking we've witnessed with our own eyes.
I thought the same thing.
My first thought also, especially in light of the "sealed motion filed last week" which you mentioned in yesterday's post discussing The Access Hollywood Tape and the Jury. I will not be at all surprised to find out that some type of shady business occurred that was discovered by Carroll's attorney.
Ditto
What I've been reading is that they were trying to set up a mistrial from before the hearing. And they asked for one at a ridiculous point.
Tacky makes me want to lunge from my chair and rattle him about.
I do feel like I'm choking on the hypocrisy. I am so damn tired of it.
Literally choking.
Yes.
Joyce, three comments: 1) the incredible Fred Guttenberg and Thomas Gabor published. AMERICAN CARNAGE is a masterpiece. 2) VOTE Democrat and bring ten voters to the polls every hour to vote Democrat. 3) We’re in trouble.
Big fan of Fred's work and I can't wait to start the book!
We bought one to read, one to lend.
That’s a great idea Sandy 👍
Seriously good. So good.
Professor, thank you for ALL your points this evening. As a retired trial attorney, I appreciate the copy of the jury's correction of the 10 count jury form. In court, I was always alert to assist the clerk & reporter.
I really loved this!
I agree completely with Joyce's post. But, I also know nothing will change. In fact, the Right has hardened in its support of gun violence. Gov Greg Abbott dismissed the slaughter of five people in Texas by noting the dead "were illegal". When children, mostly Hispanic, were gunned down in a Uvalde school, Abbott didn't attend one funeral. So they combine their support for gun violence with their racism. The Right does not care because it does not affect them. They don't care about dead children, dead mothers, dead anyone. They. Do. Not. Care. If the gun violence ever comes to the floor of the House or Senate or to their homes or their children, then they may change their minds. Until then, don't count on it.
Congress is very much at risk in the next certification. How will we protect the Capitol then? Is anyone addressing this critical issue?
I will never live long enough to understand the perversity of the Republican governors, House and Senate members! After each mass shooting, it appears that governors and state legislators decide to make it easier and easier to obtain weapons. In what universe does that make sense.
It's poking a finger in our eye and saying: Your life and safety really don't matter. The answer to a bad guy with a gun is not a good guy with a gun; it's everyone and anyone who wants a gun - good guy or not!
I used to watch a lot of MSNBC since I'm home a lot during the day. But when the news broke about the shooting in Atlanta, I refused to watch a replay of a tragedy that occurs daily!
I may be a little biased, but I really appreciated Katy Tur's coverage-she played the entirety of Senator Warnock's speech & then the press conference where the chief did a really good job. It wasn't uplifting but it was informative.
I read his words and was reminded of why he's such an important voice in the Senate. And no, you're not biased!
Senator Warnock is a national treasure.
Sorry to be oblivious to the sombre mood arising from the latest mass shooting, but I am so eager to see your piece about our incredibly goofy 2nd amendment jurisprudence. Now that our eminently respectable justices are feeling increasingly free of stare decisis, wouldn't it be nice for them to depart from the "fraud" identified by Chief Justice Burger, and relegate that to the trash heap of history, along with Roe v. Wade and Chevron? (To show you how nerdy I am, it brought tears to my eyes to make a statement about the imminent risk to Chevron. I'm a state bureaucrat now, but at heart I'm still a federal agency staff attorney.) Thanks for this & all your commentary--I read & listen to as much as I can get!
This cheered my up. I'll return to 2nd amendment theater if the absurd when I catch my breath from this latest shooting!
This latest Now and Then episode with Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman promotes humor as a form of political protest. It is brilliant IMO.
https://cafe.com/now-and-then/not-a-joke-humor-as-politics/
“And the ultimate irony is that the same crowd that insists on having their assault weapons also wants to prevent women from having an abortion, because: pro-life. They are explicitly okay with those babies being mowed down in the nation’s schools, hospitals, shopping malls, and churches once they’re born, with only the thin veneer of thoughts and prayers to notice their deaths.” I have been thinking this for the last twenty years, but I could never have said it as well as you did.
I am awaiting your 2nd amendment article. I'm no lawyer, but I am an historian, and I can tell you everything Scalia wrote about the 2nd amendment was historically inaccurate, including the historical interpretation. The 2nd amendment was not to protect citizens of states from the US as Scalia indicated. The 2nd amendment was to protect the states from the federal government encroaching on the rights of states to protect themselves from armed rebellion from their own citizens. The constitution primarily came about because of intra-state rebellions, culminating with Shay's in Mass. The states, who incidentally "we the people" refers to, not the individuals, were in no mood for a federal system that might consolidate the military and limit the ability of the states to protect themselves from the people within the states. The 2nd amendment was adapted solely for the purpose of regulating guns within the states and by the states because they feared their own citizens from having guns.
So not only was Heller historically incorrect, it was malpractice to his own interpretation of original intent . Of course I think that interpretation itself is misconstrued by interpreting words as intents.
If you're an historian, you've probably read Carol Anderson's book THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. She makes the persuasive case that the 2nd Amendment was driven by the demand of *southern* states to protect themselves by preventing and putting down slave revolts. As an effective fighting force, "the militia" left a lot to be desired but they were good at keeping the enslaved in line.
Anderson argues that inclusion of "the second" was a sine qua non for the southern states: they wouldn't vote to ratify the Constitution without it.
We hear a lot about "America's love affair with guns," but I'm inclined to believe that it's rooted primarily in white male America's love affair with guns, and that race and racism have a lot to do with it.
In “Twilight of Democracy,” Anne Applebaum argues convincingly that pro-Putin autocrats (my label) have no need of modeling party-strategy after Russia or Hungary, that Republicans need look no farther than our own, homegrown Confederate playbook for the means of autocratic rule.
There's a reason why Madison put in the words "militia" because black folks couldn't form one.
See Nate Turner and Denmark Vasey as examples.
According to Anderson, Madison (though a Virginian himself) was being pushed by Patrick Henry and others. Also it wasn't just because black folks couldn't form a militia -- they couldn't even legally own firearms -- it was also because armed white slave patrols, a form of militia, were very much a thing.
Agreed. Thanks for that addition context, Susanna.
I agree. Racism has played a big part in where we now are on gun legislation especially in the states that were part of the Confederacy.
I’d also add the wild historical inaccuracies in Dobbs.
well i am aware medieval doctors developed herbs to induce miscarriage if women became too ill (from what I understand only about half survived the treatment); I know England allowed those herbs to be administered until Cromwell and his chief justice outlawed them after quickening, (quickening occurs when 12-14 weeks) and Alito does admit most of the early abortion laws took effect after quickening. I'm not sure Alito knows when quickening occurred or what it means, but the term was used to refer to when the baby kicked and the assumption was it was now a baby, i.e. a life. Hale himself, in the decision Alito cites states that at quickening the fetus is alive and that no interference can be placed upon that life once quickening occurs---isn't that Blackmun's first trimester where the state should have less interest? I also know he ends his history in 1950, and several states thereafter began legislating for some abortion access. I think, perhaps, N.Y. was the only with complete access, but that's from memory but nearly half of the states had granted some legal protection for abortion access by the time of Roe. Is that the inaccuracies you mean?Or do you know more? One thing was clear to me some eleven years before Roe, and that was the total immorality of restricting abortion access. If you're interested in how a teenage boy came to that conclusion, I wrote about here https://ken9yvonne.substack.com/p/a-few-thoughts-on-the-common-law-1b3
John Brown’s failed raid at Harpers Ferry (Oct. 1859) sent a shockwave through the South. He had plotted a slave revolt, by stealing arms from the federal garrison there and passing them out to blacks enslaved on area farms. In his own revolt, the “ Southern Instigator “ Robert Barnwell Rhett, editor of the Charleston Mercury and former SC congressman, took to the front page of the Mercury, exhorting militias from every parish to arm and ride.
yes true. However I have little sympathy for Brown because he goal was foolish with little chance of success and he caused death, I believe, even in trying to recruit before he got to the depot. It was a US army depot and therefore he attacked the US govt and it certainly created a storm in the south. But I tend to disbelieve it had little consequential influence for the civil war. I believe by that time the south had already decided not to support any democratic candidate from the north, maintaining slavery had become so paramount they had determined before Harper's Ferry that if they could not have control of the govt. Buchanan, though from Pa., supported their plan and actually encouraged them to select their own southern candidate in 1860. Whether he encouraged a secession I don't know, I've seen no suggestions, but he did favor the candidacy of Breckenridge, his v-p. But since '56 there had began to be a cabal calling strongly for secession, and by '58 a year before Harper's Ferry, a growing consensus that if they could not successfully end the contentions over slavery permanently within the US. Of course, in his letters, Jefferson Davis was one of the leading proponents of secession. The irony in this that Jefferson Davis was a much younger brother and his land was primarily managed by his older brother, Joseph. Joseph Davis was a very strange man, he did not free his slaves and the Davis Bend plantation was the largest slaveholding plantation in Mississippi. But he did grant his slaves a great deal of self-governance, and there some were even trained in medicine to provide health care. He was a great believer he the concepts of Owen but also in slavery. Socialistic slavery makes no sense in me. He left his slaves in charge and moved to the north during the war. What I have always wondered is how his unusual ideas might have affected his younger brother, and if Davis's letters that began to circulate to encourage southern secession might have been either revenge against his brother, or perhaps a way to make him seem more southern to his compatriots. I've never seen anyone pursue the issue from that perspective which could be interesting.
But Harper's could have well put the nail in the coffin because it also created a great deal of conversation in the north to end slavery now and a great deal of followers who did see him as something of lightning rod and some of those followers who thought slaves were Gen'l Benjamin Butler and Col. Robert Shaw (portrayed by Matthew Broderick in the movie Glory. So the effects of Harper''s Ferry did resonate. And it also one of the reasons the 2nd amendment was passed---to prevent uprisings like Brown was attempting, and just think, there were not enough guns available to supply a private uprising so the first stop had to be get the weapons that would be needed. The 2nd amendment prevented Brown from creating an Oath Keepers weapons stockpile. Now the interpretation of the amendment enabled it.
The hell with the second amendment! This is not what they had in mind when it was written. I am in California and just read that the gun group is taking the 10 day waiting for new gun owners to court.
“ a right delayed is a right denied” if that isn’t horse poop I don’t know what it is. How many lives can be saved in those ten days?
As I have noted in the past the change will come when the generations that have lived the rise in gun violence come to power. Not before. Thoughts and prayers- sure the people would rather have their loved ones alive.
Great civil discourse as usual. Thank you!
I wish I could chock what is happening in our country to hypocrisy. That I can understand. This is more aligned with a faction in the country wanting to destroy everything. That I don't understand.
Thanks so much for this post.
I’ve finally concluded that “victims” isn’t a strong enough term to describe people lost in American mass shootings. A more accurate term is “involuntary martyrs “. They have been sacrificed to the gun lobby.
Wow.