Eric Holder: School Fights are "Relatively Minor Transgressions"

    Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at Frederick Douglas High School in Baltimore, MD.   I wrote about the announcement of the appearance at The Weekly Standard earlier in the day.  The event was billed as "Solutions to Enhance School Climate/Improve Discipline Policies and Practices".  Holder was there with Education Secretary Arne Duncan as part of President Obama's anti-gun violence initiative launched in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
    Part of the president's plan was to "disseminate best practices on school discipline policies and to help school districts develop and equitably implement their policies."  In fleshing out this proposal, Holder made a rather strange, even alarming, statement:

As it stands, far too many students across the country are diverted from the path to success by unnecessarily harsh discipline policies and practices that exclude them from school for minor infractions.  During critical years that are proven to impact a student’s later chances for success, alarming numbers of young people are suspended, expelled, or even arrested for relatively minor transgressions like school uniform violations, schoolyard fights, or showing “disrespect” by laughing in class.

    Holder's formulation conflates "schoolyard fights" with school uniforms violations and laughing in class, clearly a false equivalence.  While the latter two items might be characterized as "relatively minor transgressions," does a physical altercation really fit the bill?  Fights do not begin spontaneously - usually there is an aggressor, which probably indicates an assault and battery has occurred.  Certainly not all fighting in school rises to the level of arrest, but shouldn't suspensions or even expulsion be on the table?  And has anyone ever really been arrested, or even expelled, for a uniform violation or laughing in class?  Unlikely.
    Why would Holder muddy the waters in this way?  How does preventing violence in schools square with downplaying the seriousness of... violence in schools?  As I pointed out in my Weekly Standard post, the whole Baltimore event seemed predicated on the idea that unfair, discriminatory, and ineffective school discipline could lead to gun violence.  If Holder truly subscribes to that line of thinking, he should stop trying to get schools to go easy on violent offenders by comparing them to the merely disrespectful and dress code violators.

W.H. Touts $30 Million Award for Technology that Led to 3D Gun

    Just this week, news broke that the "world’s first entirely 3D-printed gun" was successfully built and test-fired by an engineer in Texas.  The technology involves a special printer that uses melted polymers to generate plastic components for a variety of uses, now including working firearms.  Today, in a press release announcing a $200 million program for a "Competition for Three New Manufacturing Innovation Institutes," the White House also touted a $30 million award in a similar competition in August 2012 for the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute.  President Obama mentioned the new institute in his February State of the Union speech.  The purpose of the institute is to help develop the very 3D technology used to produce the newly revealed 3D gun:

Pilot Institute 

In August 2012, the Administration announced the winner of an initial $30 million Federal award to create a pilot institute, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII).  Headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio, NAMII consists of a consortium of manufacturing firms, universities, community colleges, and non-profit organizations primarily from the Ohio-Pennsylvania-West Virginia ‘Tech Belt’.  NAMII was selected from amongst twelve teams from around the country that applied for the award.  The members of NAMII will co-invest $40 million against the initial Federal award.  

Additive manufacturing, often referred to as 3D printing, is a new way of making products and components from a digital model, and will have implications in a wide range of industries including defense, aerospace, automotive, and metals manufacturing. Like an office printer that puts 2D digital files on a piece of paper, a 3D printer creates components by depositing thin layers of material one after another using a digital blueprint until the exact component required has been created. The Department of Defense envisions customizing parts on site for operational systems that would otherwise be expensive to make or ship. The Department of Energy anticipates that additive processes would be able to save more than 50% energy use compared to today’s ‘subtractive’ manufacturing processes.

    This announcement comes in the midst of the ongoing gun-control debate led by the White House and spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden.  Some lawmakers, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, have already called for legislation to ban the plastic guns and regulate the technology involved.  Rep. Steve Israel, D-NY, renewed a call to pass his recently introduced Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act which renews the current ban on undetectable weapons that expires this year.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

A Proposal: Tying Voter Registration to Firearm Background Checks

    Republicans have long expressed skepticism about the extraordinary efforts to register as many people to vote as possible.  The 1993 Motor-Voter law mandated offering voter registration at DMV offices, and applications for welfare and other government benefits are often accompanied by solicitations to register to vote as well.  More recently, voter registration popped up in the draft version of an Obamacare application.  While the (mainly) Democrats who propose such ideas contend they are simply trying to make sure the franchise is not denied to any citizen, the GOP has often accused the Democrats of mostly trying to pad their own voter rolls.
    Recent gun control legislation, however, could provide an opportunity to test the sincerity of the Democrats' professed altruistic motives.  The recent push in Congress for universal background checks has been primarily a Democratic party idea.  The GOP should propose an amendment requiring that all background checks also include an opportunity to register to vote.  Since 1998, even with all the current exceptions, over 167 million background checks have been run.  The Democrats should be thrilled at this opportunity to broaden participation in our democratic process.  As Jay Carney said in March defending the inclusion of voter registration in the Obamacare application, “I'm not sure that it's such a terrible thing that people might want to register to vote.”
    From the Republican perspective, according to a 2008 election exit poll, gun ownership among Democratic voters was less than half of that of Republican voters, so the GOP has nothing to lose by offering this amendment.  If the Democrats reject the amendment, they expose their hypocrisy on voter registration.  If the amendment passes and Democrats ultimately win passage of the legislation, at least the GOP could find consolation in the two-to-one advantage in new voter registration solicitations. Sometimes, clouds need a little help with a silver lining.

Kerry: Guns in U.S. "Scare" Foreign Students, Yet They Keep Coming

   In an interview broadcast on CNN Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that one of the reasons foreign students are increasingly avoiding the United States is the fear of gun violence:

We had an interesting discussion about why fewer students are coming to, particularly from Japan, to study in the United States, and one of the responses I got from our officials from conversations with parents here is that they're actually scared. They think they're not safe in the United States and so they don't come.

    CNN adds:

[Kerry] noted Japan's restrictive gun laws – which prevent private ownership of nearly all firearms, including handguns – and said the country was safer "where people are not running around with guns." 

    CNN also noted an Institute of International Education (IIE) report enumerating the decline in students from Japan coming to the United States: 

In 2011, Japan sent 21,290 students to study in the United States, making it the seventh largest country of origin for international scholars. That was down 14% from the previous year, according to numbers from the Institute of International Education. 

Figures have shown international study is down markedly among Japanese students to all destinations, including the United States. Experts have attributed the decline to Japan's low birthrate, the expense of foreign study in a poor economy, and a desire among Japanese young people to remain at home rather than venture to other countries.

    What neither Kerry nor CNN noted, however, were the other statistics reported by the IIE (via Bloomberg):

The total number of international students in the U.S. climbed 4.7 percent in the 2010-2011 academic year to 723,277, with the fastest growth coming from China [23 percent increase to 157,558] and Saudi Arabia, which sent 22,704 students, a 44 percent increase.

    The increase from China is a stark contrast to Japan's decrease.  Both Asian countries have restrictive gun laws, yet students in China do not seem to harbor the same anxieties about gun violence that Kerry attributes to those in Japan.

    An even broader measure of foreigners attitudes, the Japanese in particular, towards travel to and residence in the United States can be gleaned from a July 2012 report issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [emphasis added]:

During 2011, there were 159 million nonimmigrant admissions to the United States according to DHS work-load estimates. These admissions included tourists and business travelers from Canada, Mexican nationals with Border Crossing Cards, and I-94 admissions.  I-94 admissions accounted for 33 percent (53.1 million) of the total admissions (see Figure 1). The majority (87 percent) of I-94 admissions were temporary visitors for business and pleasure, while 6.4 percent were temporary workers and families and 3.4 percent were students. The leading countries of citizenship for I-94 admissions were Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

    Although the DHS report says that some of the increase can be attributed to the way entries and re-entries by the same individual are counted, by almost any measure in this DHS report, visitors to the United States are on the rise.  Secretary Kerry's remarks on gun violence come at a time the Obama administration and its supporters are increasing pressure on Congress to pass gun control legislation.  A more comprehensive look at the facts behind Kerry's remarks does not bolster the administration's case as well as the secretary may have intended.

Note: I had this post ready to publish last night, but Glenn Kestler, Fact Checker Extraordinaire at the Washington Post, beat me to it this morning.

Barack Obama: "The Price of Our Freedom"

    President Barack Obama, December 16, 2012 - Interfaith Prayer Vigil in Newtown, CT after Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre:

Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

President Barack Obama, January 16, 2013 - White House Press Conference announcing gun violence proposals:

Because while there is no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence completely, no piece of legislation that will prevent every tragedy, every act of evil, if there is even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there is even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try.

State Senator Barack Obama, March 30, 2011 - Illinois General Assembly debate on bill to provide medical care to a child born live during an abortion procedure. (This is rather lengthy, and excerpts have appeared before, but I believe it is useful to read Barack Obama's words in context.)

    I reproduced Barack Obama's words in full, but I'd like to again highlight some of what he said:

"...that brief period of time that they were still living..."

"...keep that child alive..."

"...or child... still temporarily alive..."

"...caring for fetuses or children..."

"...to kill a child ...if this is a child..."

    Fast-forward again to January 16, 2013:

...if there is even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try.

    Back to 2001: "And as a consequence, I'll be voting Present."  When it comes to the unborn, and even the briefly born, Barack Obama has been voting "present" ever since.

Presidential Memo Expands the Definition of "Federal Law Enforcement Agencies"

    As part of the president's 23 "executive actions" on gun violence, a presidential memo was issued regarding firearms tracing in connection with criminal investigations.  The memo instructs that:

Federal law enforcement agencies shall ensure that all firearms recovered after the date of this memorandum in the course of criminal investigations and taken into Federal custody are traced through ATF at the earliest time practicable. Federal law enforcement agencies, as well as other executive departments and agencies, are encouraged, to the extent practicable, to take steps to ensure that firearms recovered prior to the date of this memorandum in the course of criminal investigations and taken into Federal custody are traced through ATF.

    However, another provision defines which agencies are included in "Federal law enforcement agencies":

(e) For purposes of this memorandum, "Federal law enforcement agencies" means the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, the Interior, Agriculture, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, and such other agencies and offices that regularly recover firearms in the course of their criminal investigations as the President may designate.

     This is a pretty sweeping definition compared to the Justice Department's definition:

A federal law enforcement agency is an organizational unit, or subunit, of the federal government with the principle functions of prevention, detection, and investigation of crime and the apprehension of alleged offenders.  Examples of federal law enforcement agencies include the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). 

     Since the memo also addressed "other executive departments and agencies," it is unclear what this partial deputizing of other agencies as "law enforcement" means.  Perhaps further examination of other executive actions on gun violence will make this more clear.

Guns and Executive Action

    Politico is reporting that Joe Biden's task force on gun violence has 19 "executive actions" queued up for consideration by President Obama.  Since an executive action is a unilateral action by the president, the administration will have to walk a fine line in the presentation and implementation of these ideas.  By leaking the number, the issuance of less than 19 will result in speculation about which actions were deemed too extreme to implement or too weak to bother with.  Also, since any of these actions could have been taken at any point in the previous four years, the administration will open itself up to questions about why nothing was done sooner.

    While "executive action" is a rather broad term, the history of "executive orders" and gun control is quite narrow.  The only executive order specifically addressing gun control that my research turn up was issued by Dwight Eisenhower on February 16, 1960:

Executive Order 10863--Authorizing the Attorney General to seize arms and munitions of war, and other articles, pursuant to section 1 of title VI of the act of June 15, 1917, as amended...
Section 1. The Attorney General is hereby designated under section 1 of Title VI of the act of June 15, 1917, as amended by section 1 of the act of August 13, 1953, as a person duly authorized to seize and detain arms or munitions of war or other articles, and to seize and detain any vessel, vehicle, or aircraft containing such items or which has been, or is being, used in exporting or attempting to export such arms or munitions of war or other articles, whenever an attempt is made to export or ship from or take out of the United States such arms or munitions of war or other articles in violation of law, or whenever it is known, or there is probable cause to believe, that such arms or munitions of war or other articles are intended to be, or are being or have been, exported or removed from the United States in violation of law.

     Even this order did not establish a new executive power, but simply designated the attorney general as an authorized person under a previously existing law to seize arms or munitions being illegally imported or exported from the country.  It seems likely that any executive action or order by President Obama would be in the same vein.  On the other hand, for an administration whose previous "executive actions" included allowing illegal guns to end up in the hands of Mexican drug gangs (Fast and Furious,) the president may welcome this opportunity to show he can be tough on guns, even if it means that legal gun owners in the United States bear the brunt of the new sanctions.

Bill of Rights Day and Gun Control

    In a coincidence which is likely to be viewed with increasing irony in the coming months, on Friday, the same day as the horrific murder spree in Newtown, CT, the White House issued a proclamation signed by President Obama declaring December 15, 2012, "Bill of Rights Day."

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the 150th anniversary of our Nation's Bill of Rights, he called it the "great American charter of personal liberty and human dignity." He understood that the freedoms it protects -- among them speech, worship, assembly, and due process -- are freedoms that reinforce one another. They form the bedrock of the American promise, and we cannot fully realize one without realizing them all. Today, as we work to reinforce human rights at home and around the globe, we reaffirm our belief that government of the people, by the people, and for the people inspires the stability and individual opportunity that serve as a basis for peace in our world.
In adopting the 10 Constitutional Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, the Framers sought to balance the power and security of a new Federal Government with a guarantee of our most basic civil liberties. They acted on a conviction that rings as true today as it did two centuries ago: unlocking a nation's potential depends on empowering all its people. The Framers also called upon posterity to carry on their work -- to keep our country moving forward and bring us ever closer to a more perfect Union.
Generations of patriots have taken up that challenge. They have been defenders who stood watch at freedom's frontier, marchers who broke down barriers to full equality, dreamers who pushed America from what it was toward what it ought to be. Now it falls to us to build on their work. On Bill of Rights Day, we celebrate the liberties secured by our forebears, pay tribute to all who have fought to protect and expand our civil rights, and rededicate ourselves to driving a new century of American progress.

Even before the day was over, the airwaves and internet were filled with those who might have been happier with a less full-throated endorsement of the Bill of Rights, at least when it came to the second of the first ten amendments.

    As the scope and enormity of the crime became clearer throughout the day, there were a significant number of high profile reactions from those who set aside the usual "this is not the time to discuss policy, but rather a time to grieve" protocol.    Some, including E.J. Dionne, Jr. in the Washington Post, simply ignored the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in calls for strict gun control.  Michael Cooper in the New York Times only referenced the Constitution in a pre-massacre quote from the president of the NRA.

    Others, such as Ed Schultz of MSNBC, were more explicit in their criticism of the Second Amendment (via The Blaze):

Despite the fact that the Connecticut school shooter reportedly used guns legally owned by his mother, MSNBC host Ed Schulz said the shooting is proof that we must “come to grips with a changing society” and stop “hiding behind the Second Amendment.” 

* * * *  

“Tonight is… a time we as a people come to grips with a changing society,” Schultz said. “We need to be the Founding Fathers on how we deal with the sickness in our country called ‘gun violence.’ Hiding behind the Second Amendment doesn’t cut it anymore.”
He continued: “Hiding behind the Second Amendment can no longer be the shield for access. The people who wrote that document owned slaves, oppressed women, and were short on tolerance.”
The MSNBC host went on to say that lawmakers in Washington need to stop doing the bidding of the gun lobby.

    Even the president in his initial statement hinted at a possible change in his previous hesitancy to address the gun control issue:

As a country, we have been through this too many times.  Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago -- these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children.  And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.

     His remarks at Sunday's memorial in Newtown were more direct:

We can’t tolerate this anymore.  These tragedies must end.  And to end them, we must change.  We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true.  No single law -- no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.
But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.  Surely, we can do better than this.  If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that -- then surely we have an obligation to try.
In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens -- from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators -- in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.  Because what choice do we have?  We can’t accept events like this as routine.  Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?  Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

    Although the president did not specifically address the Second Amendment or gun control, it is difficult to see how he could resist the pressure that will be exerted by many liberals and Democrats who have often oversimplified the gun control argument as dominated by the "gun lobby."  The reach of the NRA just doesn't go that deep and the love-their-guns-more-than-children insinuation aimed at 2nd Amendment defenders is too ludicrous to be taken seriously by the general public.  The American people realize that while "tragedies must end" sounds like a worthy goal, it is not a justification for undermining the basic liberties upon which this country was founded.

    It remains to be seen if the president will head down the path to weaken the 2nd Amendment in spite of his Bill of Rights Day proclamation or if he will focus on those other areas he mentioned ("law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators".)  If his positions on political speech, campaign finance laws, and the First Amendment are any guide, the former seems more likely than the latter.  The country will soon have an opportunity to see if President believes this is another opportunity to "fundamentally [transform] the United States of America" in the way that we, as his Proclamation says, "balance the power and security of [the] Federal Government with a guarantee of our most basic civil liberties."

Guns, Further Thoughts

    Two further thoughts on my "Guns" posting:

    Since Utopia remains a fictional country dreamed up by Sir Thomas More, I do not believe it is useful to discuss how much better society would be without guns.  Guns are here to stay, and so are knives and spears and clubs and countless other deadly weapons that fallen human beings in a sinful world have used to kill each other before guns were invented.  While the earth lasts, guns will only go away once someone invents a simpler, cheaper, more efficient way to kill.  This sounds horrible, and it is, even if stated somewhat glibly.  As good-intentioned as gun control laws may purport to be, the main effect of removing guns from the hands of the law-abiding is providing peace of mind to the criminal who is doing the shooting.  James Holmes reportedly wore body armor during his attack, but how concerned did he really need to be that anyone was going to fire back?  Let's not make it any easier on the next would-be mass assassin.

    Second, a headline of a recent Yahoo! News article reads:  Calls for gun control stir little support.  The story reports that "...Barack Obama's White House pledges to safeguard the Second Amendment in its first official response to the deaths of at least 12 people in a mass shooting at a new Batman movie screening in suburban Denver."  As quick as the White House has been to jump on liberal bandwagons to gain the support and votes of disparate groups, why would the president take this position given his past support of gun control?  Could it be that the spectacle of the administration of Fast and Furious infamy calling for keeping guns from law-abiding citizens would be too much for the public to bear?  Two-thousands illegal guns for the Mexican drug gangs, but none for thee?  The capacity for cognitive dissonance even among the supporters of Barack Obama must have some limits.

Guns

    The horrific crime at an Aurora, CO, movie theatre has given new voice to gun control advocates.  This time, there is a preemptive element to the usual calls for more restrictive gun laws.  Various writers are expressing disdain and even mocking the conservative position that the Right to Bear Arms is a necessary and reasonable check on government power.  Here are two examples [emphasis mine]:

New York Times

The country needs laws that allow gun ownership, but laws that also control their sale and use in careful ways. Instead, we have been seeing a rash of “stand your ground” self-defense laws, other laws that recklessly encourage the carrying of concealed weapons and efforts to force every state to knuckle under to those laws. 

What we do not need is more heedless rhetoric like we heard on Friday from Representative Louie Gohmert, the Texas Republican who drew a bizarre connection during a radio interview between the horror in Colorado and “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.” 

Mr. Gohmert added: “It does make me wonder, you know, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying? That could have stopped this guy more quickly?”  

That sort of call to vigilante justice is sadly too familiar, and it may be the single most dangerous idea in the debate over gun ownership. 

Roger Ebert

This would be an excellent time for our political parties to join together in calling for restrictions on the sale and possession of deadly weapons. That is unlikely, because the issue has become so closely linked to paranoid fantasies about a federal takeover of personal liberties that many politicians feel they cannot afford to advocate gun control.

The Times's and Ebert's implied reasoning can be summarized as follows: "The Second Amendment notwithstanding, it's ridiculous to think that the federal government will ever take away our personal liberties.  But tell you what: if we ever feel like the government starts heading in that direction, we'll simply have our elected representatives repeal the gun ban!"  That appalling thought process is naive at best and disingenuous at worst.


    Liberals tend to put an inordinate amount of faith in government, but this is truly Big-Brother-is-looking-out-for-you thinking.  A famous sentiment of Ronald Reagan is:  The scariest words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."  Liberals don't get the joke.