Conservative Donnybrook

The District of Columbia still doesn’t get it. Even after Justice Scalia went to all the trouble to explain it to them. This is a bit of an elderly story (I didn’t see it until today), but I think it is still worthy of comment.

It seems that after winning a landmark case in front of the Supreme Court of the United States, Dick Heller, Scalia opinion in hand, went to the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters to register his handgun. His application was rejected. Apparently, it seems, any gun which loads from the bottom is a machine gun (or closely related).

There are lots of people who know more about guns than I, but I have a fair amount of familiarity with the topic. In attempting to think of a semi-automatic pistol that does not load from the bottom, I have come up blank. Perhaps someone knows of a side-loading semi. In fact, it seems to me that the only firearms I know of which are side-loading are machine guns!

It would seem that Mr. Heller is looking at another round of litigation to challenge the application of the District’s licensure of handguns. It’s a shame that Scalia’s work fell on deaf ears. Perhaps in Heller II, he will use small words so that even the District City Council members will understand.

Charles Krauthammer has a great piece in the Washington Post about Obama’s modesty or lack thereof. Obama’s penchant for portraying himself in “elevated” positions has been discussed on this blog before. What I absolutely do not understand is how otherwise reasonable people will get weak in the knees when they see Obama speak. Don’t they understand he has done nothing of record (that would distinguish himself from other law professors) throughout his professional career? Next thing you know we will be told that Obama has a divine right to rule the United States. One can only hope that sooner or later Obama’s real professional record (which is non-existent) will catch up to his continuous self-aggrandizement.

UPDATE 07.23.08: The best line of this article is “strode onto the world stage with trademark audacity.” Yet another example of Obama trying to use historical symbolism to create a professional record that simply does not exist.