The Freedom Bulletin

In September of last year, Ryan Jerome, a jeweler from Indiana, traveled to New York with $15,000 of gold that he planned to sell to a refinery on Long Island. He checked a website about gun laws to make sure it was okay to bring his gun, for which he had a concealed carry permit. He interpreted the site as saying it was okay, so he took along the .45 caliber Ruger to protect himself and his gold. He and his girlfriend stayed in New York longer than they planned in order to ride out a dip in gold prices. One day they visited the Empire State Building to pass the time, where he asked a ticket seller what he should do with his gun and was directed to the security office to check the weapon. When he did that, however, security called the police, who charged him with illegal weapon possession and threw him in jail for two days before he was released on bail. He now faces 3 and 1/2 to 15 years in prison. The problem? Jerome’s Indiana concealed carry permit was not valid in New York.

To punish a person who did not hurt or even endanger anyone, who took precautions to make sure he wasn’t breaking the law, and is a Marines veteran to boot, is clearly unjust. As his lawyer said, ”Ryan Jerome is neither a criminal nor someone with an illegal gun.”

Jerome’s supporters are trying to get Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (whom you may remember from the DSK case)  to dismiss the charges. Visit their Facebook page to learn more and support him.

Last week federal judge Marcia Cooke overturned the Firearms Owners’ Privacy Act, a Florida law restricting doctors from asking people about guns unless there is a compelling medical reason.

The debate over this law involves an interesting conflict between the First and Second Amendments. The founding philosophy of America (and one that I strongly believe in) is that people have the right to live their lives however they please, as long as they don’t interfere with anyone else’s right to do the same. The right to bear arms is part of this and is specifically protected in the Bill of Rights, and so is freedom of speech. One person’s right to free speech should only end when another person’s liberty begins. But where exactly do you draw the line?

In my opinion, speech designed to pressure another person into acting as you want them to violates that person’s right to live their life as they please. Doctors, motivated by the desire to make people healthier, are one of the biggest culprits of this. When doctors ask people questions, or tell them what to eat, how much to exercise, or what medical tests to have, they are not using physical force, and people are not obligated by law to comply. But I still believe that this is coercive and therefore should not be protected by the First Amendment. Due to doctors’ elevated status in our society, it is difficult, if not impossible, especially for shy people, to refuse to answer a doctor’s questions or to decline medical procedures that a doctor firmly instructs them to have. Doctors need to treat their patients more like customers, only performing the medical procedures that the customers indicate they want and only giving advice when it is asked for. This might sound like a radical proposition, but a customer’s gun ownership is not a doctor’s business, nor are their eating habits, exercise, emotional state, sex life, drug use, or really any aspect of their life. What we need are more laws restricting doctors, however well-intentioned, from using their authority to pressure people into giving up their privacy rights or their freedom to live as they choose.

The Firearms Owners’ Privacy Act doesn’t even go as far as the laws that I would support – it still allows doctors to ask about guns if there is a compelling medical reason, and it doesn’t outright ban such questions but merely says that doctors “should” refrain. It was wrong to overturn this law. Florida Governor Rick Scott is appealing the decision, and I hope he prevails.

Clint Cornelius, 33, was sentenced to a year in jail today. His crime? Parking his car, with guns and ammunition inside, at Mount Holyoke College.

He was initially charged in 2007 with three counts of possession of a firearm without a license, six counts of possession of a large-capacity firearm, and possession of ammunition without a license. A student had seen the guns in the car and, even though they were not hurting anyone and are supposed to be protected by the Second Amendment, decided to alert campus police. The officers then searched his car. He and his lawyer challenged the search and sought the dismissal of the charges because Cornelius,who had recently moved to Massachusetts from Georgia, should have had 60 days to obtain firearms permits, but the Supreme Judicial Court rejected these arguments.

He agreed to plead guilty to the ammunition charge, and his lawyer and the prosecutor agreed to a sentence of one year in jail. The judge said that the sentence “causes me some pain,” and I agree with him. In fact, I would go so far as to say that sentencing Cornelius to jail is an injustice. Nothing that he did was the least bit immoral or violated anyone’s rights. There was no evidence that he planned to use the guns to cause anyone harm. To investigate, prosecute, and imprison him for having guns in his car is an utter waste of law enforcement resources, causes suffering to an innocent man, and benefits no one. Clint Cornelius did nothing wrong and deserves to be free.

It looks like the Patriot Act is going to be extended for another four years. Both the House and Senate voted to renew some key provisions that were set to expire at midnight tonight. But the truly notable story from today is that of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

It started yesterday, when the freshman senator wanted to offer amendments to the legislation, including one to prevent warrantless access to some gun records. Although Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had promised a week of debate and an open amendment process, he chastised Paul, ”The national security of the United States is at stake, and the junior senator from Kentucky is complaining that he has not been able to offer amendments…When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we would be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot attacks against our country, undetected.” Paul called this a “scurrilous accusation” and said, ”To be attacked of such a belief when I’m here to discuss and debate the constitutionality of the Patriot Act is offensive and I find it personally insulting.” Then, Reid said, ”It’s hard to imagine why the senator from Kentucky would want to hold up the Patriot Act for a misguided amendment that would make America less safe.” Well, maybe because it would make America more free, which is anything but misguided.

Today Democrats in the Senate agreed to hold votes on two of Paul’s amendments. But Republican leaders tried to stop this, according to Paul because they did not want to alienate supporters of Second Amendment rights by voting down the gun-records amendment. During debate on this amendment, Paul said, “It’s very important that we are always vigilant, that we are eternally vigilant about the powers of government…Are we so afraid that we’re giving up all of our liberty for security?” Sadly, the amendments were defeated, the provisions were renewed, and the legislators left for their Memorial Day recess a few hours later than planned.

Senator Paul, I salute you for your courage. Although you inconvenienced a few people and did not ultimately stop the renewal of the Patriot Act, you succeeded in making individual liberty and the constitution subjects of discussion, and most importantly, what you said was right. Thank you for the work that you do.

Not surprisingly, many people have been calling for increased gun restrictions since Jared Lee Loughner allegedly used a Glock to kill 6 people and attempt to kill Representative Gabby Giffords on Saturday. Sadly, lots of people seem to have the philosophy that whenever something bad happens, everything whose existence enabled the bad thing to happen should subsequently be banned. I completely disagree with this philosophy, and I will address some of its proponents point by point.

Guns do not kill people, people kill people.

Harold Evans at the Daily Beast calls this a “routine bromide…chanted by ditto heads” and “a cowardly way of evading responsibility.” He claims that “Guns kill people. A single gun can kill a lot of them in seconds.”

Really, Mr. Evans? Have you ever seen a gun get up and decide to kill someone?

Evans writes that if Loughner had not been able to acquire a gun and a large magazine, he would not have been able to kill 6 people and wound 13. Gail Collins at the New York Times criticizes Arizona for allowing people to carry guns in a holster under their armpit and points out that if Loughner had had a pistol and not a Glock, he may have shot Rep. Giffords but not so many bystanders. And Drew Western at the Huffington Post calls it “surreal and shameful” that people are allowed to have guns near elected officials (and calls such people “gun-toting bullies”).

I’ll admit, for the purpose of this argument, that if guns were banned (or Glocks, or high-capacity clips, or guns near elected officials), shootings like Saturday’s would be less likely to occur. But that is no reason to ban guns (or Glocks, or high-capacity clips, or guns near elected officials). It is simply wrong to claim that if a tragedy wouldn’t have happened but for X, then X should be banned. What should be banned are all and only the things that violate people’s rights. Carrying a gun under your armpit doesn’t violate anyone’s rights. Neither does owning a Glock or a high-capacity clip or bringing a gun near a public official. Shooting innocent people, however, does violate their rights. And that is rightfully banned.

In an editorial, the New York Times writes that high-capacity clips “serve absolutely no legitimate purpose outside of military or law enforcement use.”  And Sam Stein at HuffPo begins his article with the question, “Is there a good reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun?”

This mentality is simply wrong. People should not have to provide a good reason in order to be able to do something. As I’ve written numerous times, people have a right to do anything that does not violate the rights of others, no matter how pointless it may seem. The government should have to provide a good reason to ban something, not the other way around.

“Having won a Supreme Court ruling establishing a right to keep a firearm in the home,” writes the Times, “the gun lobby is striving for new heights of lunacy, waging a campaign to legalize the possession of a gun in schools, bars, parks, offices, and churches, even by teenagers.”

Allowing people to do things that, in themselves, hurt no one and violate no one’s rights - what lunacy!

And a final point: Evans thinks that politicians have refrained from banning assault weapons merely because they are “scared of the NRA.” Collins writes that Congress “did not have the guts” and are “afraid of the NRA.” And Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) is quoted as saying, “Everybody is petrified of the NRA.”

Notice a theme here? Please do not assume that people who disagree with you are motivated solely by fear. You might disagree with Congress’s failure to ban assault weapons, but at least admit the possibility that they just might, well, think that assault weapons shouldn’t be banned.

Harold Evans dares his opponents to “tell the Arizona shooting victims that guns don’t kill.” Well, to Rep. Giffords and the other 12 people who were wounded, and to the souls of Judge John Roll, Christina Green, Gabe Zimmerman, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwin Stoddard, and Dorothy Morris, I say, guns don’t kill. People have a fundamental right to purchase any kind of gun or ammunition they want, and carry it anywhere they want. It was unjust and tragic that you were wounded or lost your life. The blame for that rests solely on the person who decided to shoot you. The answer to this tragedy is to punish that person, not to punish everyone by taking our freedom away.