WASHINGTON: Yesterday Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced his opposition to Kagan’s appoint to the Supreme Court. We here at the NIP hope that other Senators will put personal interests aside and remember their oath of office. Hatch enumerates two main objections, lack of experience and a proclivity toward judicial activism. The NFL draft has tighter standards than this judicial process. It’s time to take it seriously.

Orrin Hatch Opposes Kagan as SCOTUS

I have carefully examined Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s record, actively participated in the entire Judiciary Committee hearing, and considered the views of supporters and opponents from Utah and across the country. Qualifications for judicial service include both legal experience and, more importantly, the appropriate judicial philosophy. The law must control the judge; the judge must not control the law. I have concluded that, based on evidence rather than blind faith, General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard and that, therefore, I cannot support her appointment.

Supreme Court Justices who, like General Kagan, had no prior judicial experience did have an average of 21 years in private legal practice. General Kagan has two. The fact that her experience is instead academic and political only magnifies my emphasis on judicial philosophy as the most important qualification for judicial service.

Over nearly 25 years, General Kagan has endorsed, and praised those who endorse, an activist judicial philosophy. I was surprised when she encouraged us at the hearing simply to discard or ignore certain parts of her record. I am unable to do that. I also cannot ignore disturbing situations in which it appears that her personal or political views drove her legal views. She promoted the Clinton administration’s extreme position on abortion, including the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. As Dean of Harvard Law School, she blocked the access by military recruiters that federal law requires. And she took legal positions on important issues such as freedom of speech that could undermine the liberties of all Americans.

General Kagan is a good person, a skilled political lawyer, a brilliant scholar, and was a fine law school dean. I like her personally and I supported her to be Solicitor General. But applying the standard I have always used for judicial nominees, I cannot support her appointment to the Supreme Court.  Orrin Hatch

However, on Monday the FBI released crime statistics that should cause the applauding anti-gunners to sit on their hands. The statistics indicate that between 2008 and 2009, as gun sales soared, the number of murders in our country decreased 7.2 percent.  That amounts to about an 8.2 percent decrease in the per capita murder rate, after the increase in our nation’s legal and illegal population is taken into account. And it translates into about a 10.5 percent decrease in the murder rate between 2004, when the ban expired, and the end of 2009. And finally, it means that in 2009 our nation’s murder rate fell to a 45-year low.

If you have a desire to protect your 2nd amendment rights you need to do all you can to oust those from office who seek to take them away from you, like Dianne Feinstein:

WASHINGTON

Calderon also misinformed Congress, claiming that violence in Mexico rose significantly after the U.S. ban expired in 2004. In fact, Mexico’s murder rate has been stable since 2003 and remains well below rates recorded previously. However, he did not explain why violent crime has declined significantly in the U.S. since the ban expired, or how a ban on flash suppressors and bayonet mounts relates to drug thugs in Mexico or anywhere else.

Notwithstanding the Washington Post’s judgment that Calderon “made a powerful case,” we suspect his speech fell on mostly deaf ears in Congress and in Arizona, which he inappropriately criticized for having an illegal immigration enforcement law that is similar to Mexico’s. But it had some effect, however. New York Democrat Rep. Carolyn McCarthy issued a statement incorrectly claiming that she has repeatedly introduced legislation to “reinstate” the ban. She has repeatedly introduced legislation, of course, but not to reinstate the ban. Rather, her bills have proposed to apply the “assault weapon” label to far more firearms than were covered by the expired ban, including the M1 Garand service rifle, the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22, and any semi-automatic shotgun or rifle a future attorney general might claim is not “sporting.”

This week, Daley called for “redress against the gun industry” in the World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands. Wrapping up the sixth annual Richard J. Daley Global Cities Forum:

Daley convinced more than a dozen of his counterparts from around the world to approve a resolution urging “redress against the gun industry through the courts of the world” in The Hague.

“This is coming from international mayors. They’re saying, ‘We’re tired of your guns, America. … We don’t want those anymore because guns kill and injure people,’ ” Daley told a news conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun-Times

Daley’s global gun control fantasy received the endorsement of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D), whose enthusiasm for international law is apparently matched by his novel interpretation of the United States Constitution.  “I love the Second Amendment,” Nutter recently said, but “I have a First Amendment right not to be shot.”  Nutter’s utterly ignorant statement proves that in our country, you can be elected to public office while knowing remarkably little about the Bill of Rights.  Nutter acknowledged that the Daley’s scheme is a “long shot.”  But, he said, “you never know until you try,” adding “The political establishment in many state capitals—and certainly in Washington [is] so deathly afraid of the NRA that people cannot make the right decision for their own constituents.”

And that’s not the only outrageous proposal put for forth by Chicago politicians of late.  Illinois State Representatives John Fritchey (D) and LaShawn Ford (D) have decided that the best way to battle crime in “gun-free” Chicago is to militarize the city.  The two legislators recently called on Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D), Mayor Daley, and Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis to bring in the National Guard in an effort to thwart crime.

So in a city that is quickly starting to sound more like a banana republic, law-abiding citizens are denied the means to defend themselves, while the best suggestion anti-gun lawmakers can come up with to address crime is to emasculate the Chicago police department, and bring in soldiers to occupy the city and patrol the streets!

It’s a sad day in America when lawmakers would rather turn to National Guard patrols of city streets than to allow law-abiding citizens the choice to legally own and carry firearms for self-defense.

The truck was legally parked off-campus, on a public street, and the guns were in the truck because Tudesko had gone hunting that morning before school.  All those factors just show the school’s lack of common sense in enforcing its “zero tolerance” policy; according to guidelines from the California Department of Education, administrators don’t have to recommend expulsion unless a violation is committed at school or at a school activity.  Even that agency’s website notes widespread criticism of “zero tolerance” policies.

On the legal side, the school made many errors, such as confusing its authority to expel students under California’s Education Code with the district attorney’s authority to enforce the state’s “Gun Free School Zones” law.  Both the district attorney and the local police have said Tudesko would face no criminal charges.

Leading California civil rights lawyer Chuck Michel—a longtime advocate for Golden State gun owners—represented Tudesko.  For more information on the Tudesko case, read the article on ESPN or visit Michel’s website at www.calgunlaws.com.

Do Not Pass Go

WEST MIFFLIN, PA: Tuesday the  Bourough of West Mifflin council passed a gun control ordinance 6-1 which makes it a crime to have your gun stolen. The ordinance is not yet posted on their web site but details are reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

The ordinance, which passed Tuesday night by a vote of 6-1, states, “Any person who is the owner of a firearm that is lost or stolen shall report the loss or theft to the West Mifflin borough police department within 72 hours after discovery of the loss or theft.”

It also sets penalties of no more than 30 days imprisonment and/or a fine of no more than $1,000 for violation of the ordinance. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

So let’s get this straight. You own a gun. You keep it at home. A burglar breaks in and steals your gun. You have to report the theft within 72 hours or you pay a fine and you spend 30 days in jail. Shouldn’t the burglar be punished and not you?

We here at the NIP can read. Apparently the West Mifflin Borough Council can’t. Because we can’t find anything in the 2nd amendment that give city councils any rights whatsoever in controlling gun ownership by American citizens. Don’t they have anything better to do?

Understanding the Latest Anti-Gun “Poll”

This week, anti-gun New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, released the findings of a poll conducted by a political consulting firm called “The Word Doctors,” whose slogan is “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” Word Doctors’ president is a pollster who has been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research and censured by the National Council on Public Polls, and who says that the key to polling is “to ask a question in the way that you get the right answer.”

At some other time in our nation’s history, an organization like this would not have been commissioned to conduct a poll, and perhaps it would not even have existed. At a minimum, its poll would have been considered biased and rejected by every newspaper in the country.

But today, as the distinction between editorials and news has become blurred, information is treated so superficially that a catchy word or two is enough to get someone elected to public office, and some in positions of authority cannot conceive of the concept of shame.

Thus, earlier this week, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) excitedly called attention to the bought-and-paid-for Word Doctors “poll,” which claimed that a majority of NRA members and other gun owners support Lautenberg’s bills to prohibit the possession of firearms by people placed (often mistakenly) on the FBI terrorist watchlist (S.1317), to require gun show promoters to send ledgers of customer information to the federal government (S.843), and to let the FBI retain records for 180 days of every gun purchase approved by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) (S.2820). The poll also claimed support for Bloomberg’s proposal to rescind the Tiahrt Amendment, which prevents unfettered release of BATFE firearm trace data. (Bloomberg, of course, wants to use the data in lawsuits against the firearms industry.)

But did the poll really show such strong support? Certainly the participants didn’t have much information to go on. The poll didn’t explain that the watchlist has been under fire by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office and the ACLU for improperly including the names of innocent people, and that many innocent people have been mistaken for those who are on the watchlist. It didn’t explain that Lautenberg’s gun show bill would do much more than require NICS checks on private gun sales at gun shows.

The poll mischaracterized the issue of NICS record retention. Instead of informing poll participants that the accused Ft. Hood murderer had been investigated by the FBI and found to not constitute a terror threat months before he went through a NICS check to purchase the gun he allegedly used in the murders, the poll simply asked whether “the FBI should be able to access and keep information about gun purchases by terror suspects in cases similar to [the accused Ft. Hood killer's]?” Worse, Word Doctors misinformed poll participants by telling them that the accused killer was still under investigation at the time he purchased the gun.

The poll also asked if participants agreed that “The federal government should not restrict the police’s ability to access, use, and share data that helps them enforce federal, state and local gun laws,” when in fact the Tiahrt Amendment fully allows access to trace information, as long as it’s related to crimes that they’re actually investigating.

And the poll also claimed that a majority of gun owners want to “balance” their rights against the need to stop criminals from getting guns. But what it actually asked was whether gun owners agreed that “We can do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them.” Coupled with the poll’s findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners believe “Criminals . . . should be punished to the maximum extent of the law” and “Law-abiding Americans should have the freedom to choose how to protect themselves, based on their personal situation,” it’s fair to conclude that gun owners understand the two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive. Since the ideas are compatible, they don’t require a “balance,” as suggested by gun control supporters.

Notably, Lautenberg mentioned none of the poll’s findings that undercut the anti-gun agenda, and Dionne mentioned few. These include findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners:

• Thinks President Obama will try to ban guns;
  
• Agrees that the Supreme Court’s decision in last year’s Heller case was correct;
  
• Agrees that the Second Amendment should prevent all levels of government from infringing the right to arms;
  
• Agrees that people should be allowed to carry guns for protection in national parks;
  
• Agrees that people should be allowed to transport firearms in baggage on Amtrak trains;
  
• Agrees that gun laws should be less strict or left as they are; and
  
• Opposes or is neutral about gun registration and an “assault weapon” ban.

One final note: Since Word Doctors had no access to NRA membership lists, there’s no way the pollsters could verify that any of the “NRA members” actually were NRA members. While this is a fatal flaw, we mention it at the end only because the poll’s other flaws were even worse.