On Saturday, the Independence Institute held its 6th annual Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms party. We shot sporting clays in the morning, and then ate, smoked, and drank in the afternoon. Fred Barnes (of the Weekly Standard) and Jonathan Hoenig (financial journalist for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and others) were the guest speakers. If you missed the event, you can view pictures at the Independence Institute website, coverage (with a slideshow) at Face the State (a right-wing Colorado news website), coverage with a slideshow and a soundtrack at the Colorado Independent (a left-wing Colorado news website), and in Westword (the Denver metro area's weekly alternative and entertainment newspaper).
If you would be interested in listening to radio replays or other audio podcasts of my analysis of Heller, there are plethora of links on my home page.
In a New York Sun op-ed titled "Heller's Kitchen," I examine the potential effect of Heller on New York City gun laws. I hope that a re-invigorated Second Amendment will have much broader effects than the ones I wrote about, but I think that the items I wrote about (air gun ban, part of the magazine ban, carry licensing) are the New York City laws which are almost certainly indefensible if New York City is legally required to comply with the right to keep and bear arms.
After the D.C. city council banned handguns in 1976, and the voters of Massachusetts overwhelmingly rejected a handgun ban initiative that same year, the next U.S. jurisdiction to enact a handgun ban was the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, in 1981. Chicago did the same in 1982, and four other Chicago suburbs, including Wilmette, later followed suit.
The Mayor of Morton Grove has announced that he will propose repeal of the handgun ban. [Note that the linked NPR story misspells the name of Second Amendment attorney Stephen Halbrook.] Wilmette, meanwhile, has suspended enforcement of its handgun ban. [HT Snowflakes in Hell.]
Both Morton Grove and Wilmette were among the cities sued on Friday by the NRA. Their decisions are sensible. While the issue of Second Amendment incorporation is still unresolved, Richard Daley's government in Chicago can spend its own funds to fight the issue all the way to the Supreme Court. If Daley wins, the suburbs can re-institute their bans. If Daley loses (an outcome that seems more likely than not if the Supreme Court takes the case), then Wilmette and Morton Grove have saved themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorneys fees, since they would have to pay their own lawyers, and have to pay the plaintiffs' lawyers for bringing a successful civil rights claim.
Morton Grove was the site of perhaps the worst legal defeat for the Second Amendment in American history. The lawsuit against the ban lost 2-1 in the Seventh Circuit, and then 4-3 in the Illinois Supreme Court (notwithstanding specific legislative history from the 1966 Illinois constitutional convention that the right to arms provision would prevent handgun bans). The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in the federal case. Attorneys Stephen Halbrook and Don Kates were closely involved in the Morton Grove litigation.
In Heller, the Morton Grove cases were the strongest precedents which plainly supported the constitutionality of a complete handgun ban, even under an individual right to arms.
Ironically, Morton Grove proved very helpful to pro-Second Amendment forces in other states. The case received much national attention, and Morton Grove's ban was the key example used by NRA lobbyists to promote state preemption laws all over the country in the 1980s. These state laws eliminated or restricted many local gun controls, and always outlawed local handgun bans. The preemption laws were important in stopping the spread of local handgun prohibition. As a result, when the time came for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Heller, handgun bans remained freakish exceptions to the national norm.
It is very pleasing to see constitutional rights being re-established in the site of one of their most notorious defeats.
Justice Stevens' dissent in Heller begins by acknowledging that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. The rest of the dissent critiques Justice Scalia's arguments for construing the individual right according to the Standard Model of the Second Amendment. I have not yet studied the Stevens dissent in depth, but on my initial read, I was confused as what exactly is the scope of the individual right that Justice Stevens thinks the Second Amendment does protect?
The Brady Center's amicus brief did present a coherent description of a very narrow individual right protected by the Second Amendment. For the D.C. brief, in contrast, it was hard to figure out what the D.C. lawyers thought the Second Amendment did mean.
I think that one of the greatest weakness of the alternatives (narrow individual right, collective right, states' right) to the Standard Model has been that the non-Standard proponents have had a difficult time articulating what their theories mean, and an even more difficult time explaining how their theories might be applied. In my own view, the reason for the weakness of the alternative theories is that they are not really alternative theories at all; they have just been a continuing repackaing of efforts to deny the validity of the Standard Model.
So I encourage commenters who have had the time to study the Stevens dissent carefully to describe the individual right that the Stevens version of the Second Amendment would protect. Further, if the Stevens individual right model were correct, what would be the practical applications of that right?
Miller, Colt 45s, and Natural Law. Scotusblog. This article for the "Heller Discussion Board" provides a brief overview of Brian Frye's excellent article on Miller, which was cited by Justice Scalia. Next, the article says that DC's ban on all self-loading rifles and handguns is almost certainly unconstitutional under the Heller test. Finally, the article discusses the presence of natural law in the Heller opinion, and suggests that the strong judicial affirmation of the natural law right of self-defense may, in the long run, have significant global effects.
Over at ReasonOnline, I argue against the complaints of libertarians who complain that Heller did not go far enough. I analogize Heller to the initial Supreme Court decisions in the 1930s which began to enforce Equal Protection and the First Amendment. It would be unrealistic to expect a 1934 court to enforce those rights in a maximalist way, without the foundation of decades of doctrinal development. The same point applies to the Court's new jurisprudence of Second Amendment enforcement.
Conservative Activists Key to DC Handgun Decision is my article for Human Events. This article is not about EJ Dionne's unfounded complaints about "judicial activism." It's about the influence of citizen activists who made helped ensure that handgun prohibition remained rare in the U.S., and that a sufficient number of Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Presidents who agreed with the Standard Model of the Second Amendment.
Due to server problems, I haven't been able to log in to post anything until moments ago. My initial impressions on the Heller decisions and its implications are here, in a Pajamas Media article. I also did a 14-minute podcast about Heller on iVoices.org. Tomorrow I'll have a piece on the Human Events website looking at some of the political background for the case. Later today, I'll be writing a short item for Reason's Hit & Run weblog and something longer for Scotusblog.
It is a great honor to be part of the VC, whose thoughtful analysis of the opinion today has been the best in the world. As readers of Heller already know, Eugene Volokh is cited thrice in the majority opinion--and the Second Amendment isn't even his main area of scholarly research. Kudos also to Jim Lindgren, whose Yale Law Journal article demolished the Michael Bellisiles fraud book Arming America, a book which, if the fraud had not been exposed, might have gravely misled the historically-minded Court.
Finally, for those of you are counting VC cites, my brief for a law enforcement coalition International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Association (ILEETA) is cited four times in Justice Breyer's dissent, as part of his presentation of the pro/con data on handguns.
A Dutch court is currently considering whether the United Nations and the government of the Netherlands are immune from a suit brought by families of some of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. At Sbrenica, Dutch forces, operating as UN "peacekeepers" lured Bosniacs into areas which were claimed to be safe havens, disarmed the Bosniacs, and promised that the UN peacekeepers would protect the disarmed Bosniacs. When Serbs attacked, the Dutch peacekeepers (unlike peacekeepers guarding some other safe havens) fled, leaving the Bosniacs to be murdered.
In a 2003 article for National Review Online, Paul Gallant, Joanne Eisen, and I made an argument that the UN should be considered complicit in the massacre. The article did not examine the legal arguments for or against the UN or the Dutch government having legal immunity from a civil suit, or from any other legal remedy. Comments from VC readers who can provide information on the particular issues before the Dutch court regarding civil immunity would be especially welcome.
[David Kopel, June 14, 2008 at 11:52am] Trackbacks
That's the topic of an excellent analysis by Prof. Michael O'Shea, of the Oklahoma City University School of Law. Professor O'Shea and I will both be contributing articles to forthcoming symposium on Heller in the Syracuse Law Review.
[David Kopel, June 13, 2008 at 10:59am] Trackbacks
The Irish Times
reports that the
Lisbon Treaty has been
defeated in a referendum
held in the Republic of
Ireland. The Lisbon
Treaty is a new version
of the proposed EU
Constitution, which had
previously been rejected
by the voters of the
France and the
Netherlands. This time,
the French and Dutch
governments refused to
allow a popular vote. In
the U.K., the Labour
Party had promised a
referendum, but that
promise was broken.
Former French President
Valery Giscard d'Estaing
explained: "Public
opinion will be led to
adopt, without knowing
it, the proposals that
we dare not present to
them directly... All the
earlier [EU
Constitution] proposals
will be in the new text
[Lisbon Treaty], but
will be hidden and
disguised in some way."
Treaty proponents
lamented that Ireland,
with only 1% of the EU
population, could derail
a 27-nation treaty. But
the very fact that only
1% of the EU's
population was allowed
to vote on a treaty
which would massively
reduce national
sovereignty and
democratic
accountability was
itself an illustration
of the enormous
"democratic deficit" of
the EU in general, and
the Lisbon Treaty in
particular.
According to French
President Nicolas
Sarkozy, the Lisbon
Treaty would be defeated
in every EU
nation if referenda were
allowed.
The referendum debate in
Ireland involved some
Irish-specific issues,
such as the Treaty's
impact on farmers, its
threat to Ireland's
official foreign policy
of neutrality, and the
danger that Ireland
might be forced to raise
its low corporate income
tax rate of 12.5% (which
almost everyone agrees
has been an essential
part of the economic
success of the Celtic
Tiger). But the broader
opposition seemed to
stem from the sheer
incomprehensibility of
the Treaty. Even
Taoiseach (Prime
Minister) Brian Cowen
admitted that he had not
read the Treaty, which
is over 400 pages long
and deliberately written
to be obscure. Treaty
proponents included both
of the two largest
political parties (Fianna
Fail and Fine Gael), and
they appealed to the
Irish people's strong
support of trade with
Europe, and to Ireland's
optimistically
internationalist
orientation.
A group named
Libertas was formed
to lead the opposition,
and Libertas agreed with
the principles of
international trade and
Ireland's integration
into Europe. But
Libertas was successful
at convincing Irish
voters that the Treaty
was perilous threat to
the democratic
sovereignty which is the
glory of European
civilization, and for
which the Irish had
struggled for so many
centuries to win for
themselves.
More coverage at the
excellent British site
EU Referendum (which
astute readers may
remember for its
outstanding work in
exposing media
complicity in
cooperating with
Hezbollah to create
staged pictures of the
alleged Israeli
atrocities at Qana,
Lebanon).
The Brady Campaign's preemptive announcement of defeat in District of Columbia v. Heller contains an interesting bit of spin:
But given that McCain stood by his support for closing "the gun-show loophole" during a recent speech to the N.R.A., the Brady Campaign president hopes that new gun restrictions can make headway regardless of who wins in November.Plus ca "change," plus c'est la meme chose. In 2000, the NRA endorsed Texas Governor George W. Bush, who supported a similar provision regarding gun shows. Accordingly, the NRA's endorsement of McCain is not good evidence that gun control is more popular in 2008 than it was in 2000.
"For John McCain to be the political candidate of the NRA shows how things have changed," Helmke said.
- Inaccurate Statement by Brady Campaign's head
- "We've Lost the Battle on What the Second Amendment Means,"
Recently the Denver Post published a searchable database of all state employees in Colorado. (The salary database is part of the Post's on-line Data Center, which publishes a wide variety of useful data.) The database provides the name and the job title of each employee. It does not include home or work addresses, social security numbers, or state employee ID numbers. In response to strong objections from advocates for victims of domestic violence, and other objections related to employee safety, the Post stated that newspapers in other states had published similar databases, and there had never been any safety or violence problems as a result. So here is my bleg: Do VC readers know of any safety of violence problems that have resulted from the publication of a person's name in an on-line database when: 1. the published information was already a public record (but was not previously available on-line), AND the publication did not disclose the person's address?
Do any readers have a cite for Rebecca Peters, the head of the international gun prohibition lobby IANSA, calling for drug testing of gun owners? Any cites for politicians or other prominent gun control advocates making similar calls?
A five minute YouTube production from the Independence Institute features an interview with persecuted Ethiopian journalist and cyberactivist Habtamu Dugo, as well as photographs from Ethiopia shot by Mr. Dugo.
On Tuesday, the U.S.
House overwhelmingly
passed a
bill authorizing
Sherman Act enforcement
against OPEC. Among the
proponents of the idea
is
The Heritage Foundation.
A radio report which
includes my take on the
issue is available in
MP3 and
transcript. However,
it's in Russian, for the
Russian station of Radio
Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, and may be
difficult for non-Russophones
to follow.
My basic analysis is:
OPEC's actions are
plainly contrary to the
Sherman Act. In
Hartford Fire Insurance
Co. v. California
(1993), the Supreme
Court ruled that the
Sherman Act could be
applied to the acts of
foreign corporations
committed in foreign
countries, if the
purpose and effect the
foreign acts was in part
aimed at the U.S., which
OPEC's actions obviously
are. So even without the
explicit language in the
House bill, the Sherman
Act allows anti-OPEC
lawsuits. (And, notably,
the Sherman Act, as
amended by the Clayton
Act, is much friendlier
to civil enforcement by
private parties than are
the antitrust laws of
most other nations.)
Accordingly, the real
barrier to an anti-OPEC
Sherman case is the
Foreign Sovereign
Immunity Act. Indeed, in
1978 the International
Association of
Machinists and Aerospace
Workers brought a
Sherman Act case against
OPEC, only to lose the
case on FSIA grounds. So
the House bill creates
an exception to FSIA for
anti-OPEC suits.
Although I am in general
an antitrust
skeptic, my
objections do not apply
when governments are the
monopolists.
Still, my view is that
there are more important
steps that the U.S.
could take to reduce its
dependence on OPEC, such
as opening up ANWR,
building more nuclear
and clean coal plants
(even though OPEC oil is
a small part of US
electricity production),
importing more oil from
Alberta, and allowing
the current high prices
of gasoline to encourage
market solutions for
less use of OPEC
gasoline.
[David Kopel, May 20, 2008 at 5:50pm] Trackbacks
By expressing
a readiness to meet with Cuba's Raul Castro,
and also to meet with personally with the
heads of Iran, Syria, and North Korea,
Senator Obama seems to be promising that one
of the changes his Presidency would bring is
a greater willingness to engage in person
with controversial foreign heads of state.
Accordingly, there is another head of state
with whom Obama should also promise to be
willing to meet in person: Taiwan's new
President Ma Ying-Jeou. Inaugurated on May
20 as Taiwan's democratically-elected
President, Ma is a Harvard Law School
graduate who speaks excellent English.
Unlike some of the other foreign leaders
whom Obama has said he would meet, Ma won a
legitimate, free election, is very friendly
towards the United States, is not working on
a nuclear weapons program, does not
militarily threaten the U.S. or its allies,
and does not sponsor international
terrorism. A fortiori, the case for a
meeting with Ma is much stronger than the
case for a meeting with Castro et al.
Ever since the Carter administration broke
diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the U.S.
State Department has imposed a policy
against personal meetings (or even phone
calls!) between high-ranking officials of
the United States and Taiwan. As detailed in
an American Enterprise Institute
report, the State Department's ban on
direct high-level U.S.-Taiwan contacts
interferes with effective U.S. policy
towards Taiwan, and leads to unnecessary
misunderstandings.
An Obama-Ma meeting would infuriate the
Chinese Communist dictatorship. However,
such a meeting might help allay concerns
that President Obama would be easily coerced
by dictatorships, or that he might be weak
in supporting U.S. allies. In any case,
given that Obama has answered whether he
would be willing to meet with Raul Castro,
it would be reasonable for him to state
whether he will meet with Ma Ying-Jeou.
A few weeks
ago, Ethiopian journalist Habtamu Dugo was a
guest at the Independence Institute. I
interviewed him for a
podcast about Internet censorship in
Ethiopia. My Independence Institute
colleague Mike Krause
interviewed him about China's pernicious
anti-freedom influence in Africa. And here's
the 27-minute
video of a wide-ranging interview I
conducted with Mr. Dugo for KBDI public
television in Denver (for the program
"Independent Thinking").
More Independence Institute videos are on
our MySpaceTV
webpage, and more audio podcasts are at
iVoices.org.
In a Thursday article for Town Hall, titled "Gun Owners for Hillary?", I examine Senator Clinton's success in winning gun-owner votes in the recent Democratic primaries. Susan Faludi's op-ed in the New York Times examines some of the changes in Mrs. Clinton's style which have made her more attractive to white males; my guess is that these changes are also particularly appealing to gun owners, who tend to place a high value on self-reliance and grit.
"The Colt
revolver was:
a. The single most important development in
firearms technology.
b. The single most important development in
personal defense technology, at least for a
small person's ability to defend herself
against a group of larger assailants."
Agree or disagree with item a or item b, or
both. If you disagree, please cite specific
examples of more important development(s),
and why you believe they are more important.
Impressively erudite answers in the
comments! For further refinement:
For a., only consider firearms, not
ammunition. This eliminates the (persuasive)
argument in favor of the breech-loading
metallic cartridge. It leaves an argument in
favor of the machine gun--although one could
counter-argue that the Gatling Gun was just
a very sophisticated extrapolation of the
revolver. To which one could sur-reply that
the Gatling didn't change things all that
much, in practice, but the Maxim Gun did,
and the Maxim was in no way derivative of
the revolver.
On b., only consider weapons, and not other
technologies (such as telephones).
International
Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge,
in an April 26 interview in the Financial
Times, urged Western patience with
China's oppression of Tibet. Rogge stated
that the People’s Republic of China has
existed since 1949, and he noted that
European colonial powers abused their
colonies for a long time. He concluded: "we
owe China to give them time."
Does anyone know a good source for the
lengths of European colonialism on a
colony-by-colony basis? Some colonial
periods (e.g., Portugal's rule of Angola)
were very long, while others (some of the
latter European conquests in Africa) were
not much longer than the nearly six decades
that Rogge imputes to the PRC's colonial
rule of Tibet.
I realize that one could argue about whether
Rogge is correct in dating Chinese
colonialism only to the time when the
current regime came to power. The French
government went through a complete regime
change as a result of the French revolution;
would French colonial masters in 1791 then
be entitled to tell their colonial victims:
"Please be patient with us; our regime has
existed for only two years. Never mind that
the previous French government put you under
the French colonial thumb decades ago."
But let's just use Rogge's timeline. The
Tibetans, Uighers, and Inner Mongolians have
lived under PRC colonialism for nearly six
decades. How long does this compare to the
period of European rule of various colonies,
as well as to the length of Russian/Soviet
rule for the various captive nations which
were part of Imperial Russia and the USSR?
A left/right convergence in support of a reprehensible idea. At least that's my analysis, in my media column for today's Rocky Mountain News/Denver Post.
Almost as soon as Air America stopped carrying Randi Rhodes, Clear Channel picked up her program. In my colunm for today's Rocky Mountain News, I bemoan the fact that she attracts a much larger audience than did thoughtful radio hosts such as Gary Hart and Mario Cuomo.
Notwithstanding Tuzla-gate and all the other
problems that the Hillary Clinton campaign
has faced, I think that that the extended
primary campaign is making Senator Clinton
into a stronger, more appealing candidate.
Not unlike John McCain, she is more likeable
as a scrappy fighter against a wealthier
opponent than she is as the front-runner.
Similarly, she is demonstrating toughness,
resilience, and ability to adapt to
unforeseen circumstances--good traits for a
commander in chief.
Now, with bitter-gate dominating the
political news, Senator Clinton has found
perfect pitch. Check out
this video of her speech in Valparaiso,
Indiana. If the spirits of Franklin
Roosevelt or Hubert Humphrey were brought
back to earth, and didn't know any of the
facts of the 2008 campaign, and were allowed
to watch Senator Clinton's Valparaiso
speech, I suggest that they would exclaim,
"That's my kind of Democrat!" The politics
of can-do optimism and not of bitterness;
appreciation for the religious character of
small-town America; affirmation of the
Second Amendment and the rite of passing the
tradition of responsible participation in
the shooting sports from one generation to
the next.
Yes, I know that Senator Clinton's prior
record is not exactly consistent with her
Valparaiso speech, particularly in regard to
Second Amendment issues.
Still...every good American should want
both of our major political parties to
be patriotic parties: to believe that in
every year of American history, there have
been many reasons to be proud of America,
notwithstanding its flaws; to believe that
Americans are the masters of their fate and
not the victims of economic determinism; and
to see the American people not as "bitter"
or "mean" but as hard-working, decent, and
good.
Even if you believe Senator Clinton's speech
entirely hypocritical (I consider it
to be partially but not entirely so),
"hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to
virtue." Senator Clinton's Valparaiso speech
moves the party a step closer to its
virtuous traditions.
The Real Clear Politics
polling averages already suggest that if
the election were held today, Senator
Clinton would beat Senator McCain in Ohio
and Pennsylvania, and that Senator Obama
would lose both of those states to Senator
McCain. You've got to go back to 1960 to
find a candidate who won the general
election while losing Ohio, and in 2008 it
would be very tough to defeat a candidate
who won both Ohio and Pennsylvania. Senator
Clinton is effectively using bitter-gate not
only to improve her already-solid chances of
winning the Pennsylvania primary, but to
strengthen her general election message as a
traditional Democrat who embraces the best
of America's past, present, and future.
[David Kopel, April 8, 2008 at 3:29am] Trackbacks
Christopher
Hitchens' latest
column in Slate states: "In April 2004, Barack Obama
told a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times that he had three
spiritual mentors or counselors: Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks,
and Father Michael Pfleger--for a change of pace, a white
Catholic preacher who has a close personal feeling for the man
he calls (as does Obama) Minister Farrakhan."
Pfleger is the Pastor at
St. Sabina's Catholic Church, on the South Side of Chicago.
So I searched Westlaw's ALLNEWS database for "Obama and Pfleger."
According to the April 5, 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article
cited by Hitchens:
Friends and advisers, such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church in the Auburn--Gresham community on the South Side, who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that compass set, he says.As Hitchens wrote, Rev. Pfleger is indeed an admirer of "Minister Farrakhan." Ambushed by a Bill O'Reilly camera crew, Pfleger stated: "He has--first of all, he has not called Judaism a gutter religion of blood suckers. That is not what he has said because I have heard that talk. I stick up for Louis Farrakhan because he is another person that the media has chosen to define how they want to do it. And they demonize how they want to demonize somebody. I know the man, Louis Farrakhan. He is a great man. I have great respect for him, ho has done an awful lot for people and this country, black, white, and brown. He's a friend of mine." (The O'Reilly Factor, Apr. 3, 2008.) Farrakhan spoke at St. Sabina's on May 25, 2007. (Chicago Sun Times, May 10, 2007.)
"I always have felt in him this consciousness that, at the end of the day, with all of us, you've got to face God," Pfleger says of Obama. "Faith is key to his life, no question about it. [It is] central to who he is, and not just in his work in the political field, but as a man, as a black man, as a husband, as a father.... I don't think he could easily divorce his faith from who he is."
Like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was recently an invited speaker at Rev. Pfleger's church, Rev. Pfleger believes that "racism is still America's greatest addiction." (Chicago Sun Times, Jan. 17, 2004.)
In September 2007 in Iowa, Plfeger participated in forums on the role of spirituality in politics, which the Obama campaign had organized. (US Federal News, Oct. 1 & 14, 2007; Chicago Sun Times, Sept. 12, 2007). The Obama campaign touted Pfleger's endorsement, listing him as one of about a dozen prominent ministers who supported Obama. (Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), May 8, 2007.)
As a state legislator, Obama obtained $225,000 in grants for St. Sabina. (Chicago Tribune, May 2, 2007.)
Rev. Pfleger was a prominent early endorser of Obama's successful 2004 Senate campaign, as well as his unsuccessful 2000 challenge to U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.
Rev. Pfleger's church has taken some admirable stands against the degradation of American culture, such as speaking out against abusive rap music, and hosting a speaker who exposed the anti-Catholic compilation of lies in "The DaVinci Code." (Chicago Defender, May 15, 2006.) St. Sabina also organized a rally against the genocide in Darfur. (Chicago Sun Times, May 19, 2005.) Rev. Pfleger appeared at a press conference to support state legislator Obama's bill requiring the police to keep statistics on the race of motorists who were stopped by the police, so as to deter racial profiling. (Chicago Defender, Feb. 20, 2001.)
Rev. Pfleger also appeared at a press conference announcing State Senator Obama's proposal to outlaw the sale of bidi cigarettes--a type of high-nicotine hand-rolled cigarette which is made in India. (Chicago Defender, Feb. 5, 2000.)
Rev. Pfleger does not respect the property rights of persons who sell products he does not like. He "is known for climbing ladders to deface liquor billboards." (Crain's Chicago Business, Dec. 20, 2004.)
The Westlaw database does not indicate that Sen. Obama has participated in the project which has gained Rev. Pfleger notoriety among Bill of Rights advocates: his persecution of Chuck's Gun Shop. Since all firearms stores have been driven out of Chicago, the closest firearms store to Chicago is Chuck's Gun Shop, in Riverdale, a short distance south of Chicago. Pursuant to Illinois law, Chuck's only sells guns to customers who have already obtained a Firearms Owner's Identification Card (FOID) issued by the Illinois State Police after a background check. The employees of Chuck's Gun Shop have also voluntarily undertaken the "Don't lie for the other guy" training program sponsored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to help gun store employees detect straw purchases (purchases by legal buyers conducted on behalf of prohibited persons).
Yet the Reverends Michael Pfleger and Jesse Jackson have been organized large crowds to repeatedly picket Chuck's Gun Shop. On June 23, 2007, Revs. Jackson and Pfleger were arrested for criminally obstructing the entrance to the store. The charges were eventually dropped, just as Governor George Wallace never was criminally punished for standing in a doorway to obstruct the exercise of constitutional rights. (The comparison is a little unfair, since Wallace eventually stood aside, whereas Jackson and Pfleger had to be physically removed by the police.)
In another demonstration at Chuck's Gun Shop, owned by John Riggio, Rev. Pfleger told the crowd: "We're going to find you and snuff you out....Like a rat you're going to hide. But like a rat, we're going to catch you and pull you out....We're going to snuff out John Riggio." Rev. Pfleger also promised: "We're going to snuff out legislators that are voting against our gun laws. We're coming for you because we're not going to sit idly."
Rev. Pfleger later denied that his words had been meant to invoke violence, or that he had known that "snuff out" means to "kill." Rather, the determination to "snuff out" Riggio was a determination to find out his home address, which was not publically available.
According to Roget's Thesaurus, "snuff out" means "kill" and is similar to the following words: "blow away, bump off, chill, dispatch, dispose of, do away with, do in, dust, grease, hit, ice, knock off, murder, off, rub out, stretch out, waste, wax, whack, zap." In response to Rev. Pfleger's words, Cardinal Francis George, of the Archdiocese of Chicago, stated: "Publicly delivering a threat against anyone's life betrays the civil order and is morally outrageous, especially if this threat came from a priest." (Chicago Sun Times, June 8, 2007.)
Rev. Pfleger proclaimed that the protests would continue (and that he would refuse to pay a fee imposed by a city ordinance to pay for the police services necessitated by the picketing) until the Riverdale city council decides to eliminate all gun stores, and "vote Riverdale gun-free." Or as Rev. Pfleger's picketers chanted, "Vote Riverdale gun dry." (Chicago Defender, Oct. 29, 2007).
Every American voter will have to decide how much importance, if any, to give to Sen. Obama's association with Rev. Pfleger. In my own view, I give greater attention to a religious figure who is a long-standing personal advisor to a candidate than to a religious figure who is merely one of thousands of political allies whom the candidate seeks out during a campaign. In deciding how to vote, I ignore purely theological issues (e.g., whether the Mitt Romney's LDS view of the afterlife is more plausible or less plausible than John Kerry's Roman Catholic view), but I consider the extent to which the candidate's religious philosophy may (like any other part of the candidate's worldview) influence his or her public policy decisions. In my view, it is relevant that a candidate has chosen spiritual mentors who are bigots or who are hostile to constitutional rights. Senator Obama's close relationship with Rev. Pfleger makes me less confident that a President Obama would be a strong defender of the entire Bill of Rights and of civic tolerance.
