Williams v. Maryland ~ Petition for Writ of Cert

[OleCuss]

What I'm saying is to bring up Wickard and Carolene to get the popular support. We don't have the votes? Why not stir up the public to get them then? I'd venture that most people if they knew about Wickard and Carolene would be pissed off beyond belief about it and demand action on it--they get worked up all the time about far less. As mentioned in another thread, people like the idea of having rights. What if they knew the truth that they effectively have NONE, since the government can claim anything to be permissible to restrict and that any law can stand so long as they can come up with a reason to explain to themselves that they're right? How do you think people would really feel if they knew they're regarded as cattle by the government, who holds that ITS interests are what determines if it can or can't do something, not the people's rights and what the Constitution says?
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QFT!

[M. D. Van Norman]

every single day without getting caught or punished.

[randian]

If you live in Texas and are caught carrying without a license, you're going to be convicted. I've long held here that I expect that to be constitutional.

Yes, but Texas licenses are shall-issue and Maryland's are not. Maryland's licensing system exists only in the technical sense. Surely that merits a big difference in analysis.

[yellowfin]

If our government(s) has (have) limits, they are so laughably loose they're barely identifiable as existent. CA and NY's legislatures pass 400-600 bills a year, I don't even know how many Congress passes, and the three spend more money than existed in the world just a decade or two earlier and owe more than the entire country even makes. That seems pretty unlimited to me.

After all, they knowingly break laws every single day without getting caught or punished.

The government? They certainly do. Hence why I say they're virtually unlimited and invincible. Courts utterly refuse to do anything about it.

[Patrick-2]

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I suspect that licensed carry is going to carry the day, whether concealed or open. If this is correct, they won't take Masciandaro either, they'll wait for a licensing standard case.

Masciandaro had a VA permit but found himself on federal property after he pulled over to sleep.

If any of you ever want to carry in Virginia, please understand that like Maryland, it is heavily dotted with federal property where rules differ. Just driving from DC to Baltimore up Route 295 (major road) puts you under the auspices of the US Park Police until you get north of BWI airport (almost 30 miles). Likewise, the DC Beltway is comprised of almost 40 municipalities and jurisdictions, some state, some federal and some local. And the military property is huge, not all of it gated.

That is why carry for a guy like me is almost impossible - I traverse so many of these federal areas regularly that it'd be like playing "Where's Waldo" with my gun every hour.

[Maestro Pistolero]

Masciandaro had a VA permit but found himself on federal property after he pulled over to sleep.

Interesting, I didn't know he held the VA permit. That may change things a bit, as I am unaware of any federal carry permit available to ordinary citizens. Unlike Williams, there is no permit that he might have applied for. And currently, unlike at the time of his arrest, he could carry under VA law (the park IS in VA, right?).

[htjyang]

What I'm saying is to bring up Wickard and Carolene to get the popular support. We don't have the votes? Why not stir up the public to get them then? I'd venture that most people if they knew about Wickard and Carolene would be pissed off beyond belief about it and demand action on it--they get worked up all the time about far less. As mentioned in another thread, people like the idea of having rights. What if they knew the truth that they effectively have NONE, since the government can claim anything to be permissible to restrict and that any law can stand so long as they can come up with a reason to explain to themselves that they're right? How do you think people would really feel if they knew they're regarded as cattle by the government, who holds that ITS interests are what determines if it can or can't do something, not the people's rights and what the Constitution says?

My guess is they'd be more pissed off than I am every day about it. The economy and government spending are front page every day--guess what's responsible for it? It's the legal presumption that government can regulate anything they want whenever they want because they say so and spend endless amounts of money whenever they want on whatever they want because they want to. We're in this mess in total both in gun rights and the economy because of the same root reason. Is there a REAL reason why that information absolutely must be held back as it is being?

You're forgetting the fact that most people have no problems with most of what the government is doing. But you can try this experiment: Randomly pick out 10 people on the street and ask them 2 questions:

i. Is the federal government spending too much money?
ii. Do you support cutting funding for cancer research?

I think you'll find that most people will contradict themselves.

And try bringing up the fact that the Framers never mentioned federal funding for cancer research during the Constitutional Convention. That is when you make the heart-breaking discovery that most people don't care about the constitution and what a bunch of dead white males said 2 centuries ago. Most people care about bread and butter issues. Metaphysical discussions about the role of the State does not interest most of them. They are quite capable of agreeing with you philosophically while disagreeing with you on detail.

Not only is being a gun owner and being broadly familiar with 2A litigation a minority interest, but being serious about the Framers' constitution is also a minority interest. That's why many of my fellow conservatives consider the constitution to be in exile. Personally, I'm amazed that we still have as much of it left as we do.

Rights are largely theoretical whereas something like funding for cancer research is much more practical. How many people care that they have a right to petition their government, to demonstrate? Most people I know don't see serving on a jury as a right. They don't see it as a check on the State. They see it as a nuisance that they try to get out of. Most people have no fear of the government because most people do not have their homes broken in by SWAT teams and businesses closed by the IRS. Most people probably don't see self-defense as a right, either. They probably see it in the same light as jury duty, a burden that they are only too happy the government will relieve them of. I mean, you haven't heard of Zumbo?

Once you start talking about originalism, you can be sure that the public will be reminded that the Framers owned slaves, that there was no women's suffrage, no federal funding of cancer research, that people sometimes starved or froze to death on the street...etc. essentially the type of "blood will flow on the streets!!!" rhetoric that you are used to from the Bradyites.

You're talking about a mass public education campaign. The problem with this idea is threefold:

i. Where's the money for such a massive, sustained campaign going to come from?
ii. What about the money to counter the other side? (CNN, New York Times,... you name it)
iii. You're even assuming that you can persuade people to give up federal funding of cancer research and any number of other things that most people consider to be objectively good.

What can I say? You must be an optimist.

It is precisely because many of us see such a mass public education campaign as being hopeless; that we'll never have the resources to mount it and even if we do, we are not nearly as optimistic about the public's willingness to forgo the benefits of Big Government as you are; that we are not nearly as optimistic as you are about the people's willingness to subscribe to a largely theoretical (as it doesn't exist right now) regime of liberty, low taxes, limited government over the current regime of government benefits for nearly everyone that we decide to engage the public on more pressing and practical bread and butter issues because ultimately, metaphysics and constitutional theory does not sway nearly as many votes as you think.

[yellowfin]

Most people where? In Manhattan and L.A., sure maybe. The real USA? Not so much.

[htjyang]

Most people where? In Manhattan and L.A., sure maybe. The real USA? Not so much.

What about most people in Austin, Texas? Chicago? Seattle, Washington? There are other major metropolitan areas other than LA and NYC. As I mentioned before, there are 80 million gun owners out of a general population of more than 300 million. And my bet is that a significant number of those 80 million are in favor of banning or at least further restricting SBRs.

[dantodd]

Interesting, I didn't know he held the VA permit. That may change things a bit, as I am unaware of any federal carry permit available to ordinary citizens. Unlike Williams, there is no permit that he might have applied for. And currently, unlike at the time of his arrest, he could carry under VA law (the park IS in VA, right?).

Yes. Some have hypothesized that Masciandaro is more likely to be picked up than Williams specifically because the law has changed so a SCOTUS ruling that 2A extends beyond the home there would not invalidate any existing laws. This means the lower courts could individually deal with specific state and local laws rather than having them all completely invalidated by a strong ruling in Williams.

Why SCOTUS didn't hold off on Williams and just remand it post-Masciandaro I don't know. So there is plenty of room for pessimism and a little light as well.

I selfishly don't really want the primary bear case to be Masciandaro just because it is so hard to spell.

[dantodd]

And my bet is that a significant number of those 80 million are in favor of banning or at least further restricting SBRs.

I think a question like that is one that is highly contingent upon how one asks it and what questions you use to build up to it.

If you ask "should we outlaw street sweeper shotguns like those used by gangs?" you might get a different answer than if you asked "should little people have the right to buy and use a shotgun built specifically for someone of their size?"

[kcbrown]

I think a question like that is one that is highly contingent upon how one asks it and what questions you use to build up to it.

If you ask "should we outlaw street sweeper shotguns like those used by gangs?" you might get a different answer than if you asked "should little people have the right to buy and use a shotgun built specifically for someone of their size?"

Any question about whether or not a law is needed should always immediately be considered illegitimate if it's asked in the context of people doing already-illegal things. The first form of the question you cite above is one such example. It's an illegitimate question on its face, because the way gangs use such firearms is already illegal, as is the case with any other firearm. You can ask that same question about revolvers, for instance, and it would be clearly illegitimate for that very reason.


The use of any object by a citizen should always be presumed to be done lawfully, because the vast majority of citizens are law-abiding.

[Gray Peterson]

Why SCOTUS didn't hold off on Williams and just remand it post-Masciandaro I don't know.

To tell the criminal defense bar to stop using the 2nd amendment. Masciandaro was always the cleanest criminal defense case in the sense of no real danger of current jail time and stuff like that, and doesn't effect a current law.

If they don't take Masciandaro and Lowery, it'll foreclose ANY use by criminal defenses of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court manages it's own case load, lives of the people effected be damned.

[kcbrown]

To tell the criminal defense bar to stop using the 2nd amendment. Masciandaro was always the cleanest criminal defense case in the sense of no real danger of current jail time and stuff like that, and doesn't effect a current law.

If they don't take Masciandaro and Lowery, it'll foreclose ANY use by criminal defenses of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court manages it's own case load, lives of the people effected be damned.

So, that would mean that SCOTUS has taken its (quite correct) assertion that one needn't have been implicated under the law in order to challenge the law and turned it on its ear. In other words, to turn that into a requirement that one not be implicated under the law in order to challenge it.

I can't express strongly enough just how bad that is, in so many ways. It completely eliminates any standing one might have as a result of running afoul of the law. It means that the government can pass any manner of law it wishes and get away with it so long as those who would challenge it cannot find a suitable plaintiff with standing.


And you guys think we haven't already lost the republic...

[OleCuss]

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And you guys think we haven't already lost the republic...

That's a tough one. I think that we could be reasonably described as a serfdom and/or as a krytocracy. In that sense, yes, we've lost the republic.

But I see some movement toward recovery of much of that republic. It won't happen fast - full recovery will not happen within my lifetime.

But it is worth fighting for.