Third Way Dispatch

Imagine this. You’ve been invited to give the keynote address at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention. You stand throngs of thousands with the American flag behind you and the words ‘… cold dead hands’ emblazoned on a screen. You begin:

“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia. (Wild cheers)

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. (scattered murmurs)

“Nothing in the [DC gun ban decision] should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill (audible groans), or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings (a collective gasp), or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. (booing)

“[There is] another important limitation on the right to keep and bear arms. (the sound of magazine clips being loaded)

“The sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ This limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ (a warning shot is fired into the rafters)

“Nor, correspondingly, does our analysis suggest the invalidity of laws regulating the storage of firearms to prevent accidents. (Medics are called)

These are the exact words (minus the stage directions) in the Scalia decision. And if you happen to be wondering why there has been muted reaction from the NRA, why Wayne LaPierre looked so uncomfortable talking about the decision on Chris Matthews, why NRA hatchet man Chris Cox could only call it a “monumental decision” in a press statement it is because it is what it is: a stinker for the NRA.

The entire NRA argument for the past 40 years is that gun laws would lead to gun confiscation. They warned that every new restriction was a slippery slope, a potential avalanche toward the rock bottom of abandonment of gun rights. Justice Scalia just told them to get a new argument.

The Scalia decision overturns the DC gun ban and it may effect a few other local laws, but the big laws on the books and the big proposed laws are all safe – the Brady Law, assault weapons ban, gun show loophole bill, reporting of secondary sales, beefing up the background check system, and on the state level – licensing, registration, permits to purchase and limitations on concealed carry.

There is a reason the NRA never wanted this case to go to court. It wasn’t because they feared losing. They feared winning. And they won. They won the skirmish over DC and lost the war on whether gun rights and gun restrictions can coexist. The most conservative court in eons said they could and they should.

I am a big fan of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas and so I was especially pleased to be asked by them to submit a piece in their special “What’s Next?” edition. My submission is about guns and about the fact that there are 280 million of them in private hands while there are also 300,000 gun crimes. That means that 279,700,000 guns did nothing wrong last year. It also means that we need a new strategy to go after gun crime and target the 300,000 problem guns as expertly as possible, while leaving the rest alone as practically as possible. Here is the link to the article – Deepen Gun Ownership.

In 2006, DNC Chairman Howard Dean ordered the Party to spend a bunch of money in Philadelphia. He poured money in so local organizers could put together an effective operation. For this, he was pilloried by folks inside his own party.

The catch is that this wasn’t the City of Brotherly Love – it was Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Back then, Dean was criticized by many in and out of the Democratic Party, for his “50-State Strategy.” He was widely mocked for his focus on party building in deep red states. Why, they asked, was Dean throwing away money by paying people to “wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose?”

Dean believed, as we did, that it was folly for a major party to write off large swaths of the United States, and that the only way to build a national party was to make it truly national.

Yesterday, Third Way and a group of national Evangelical leaders held a press conference and announced something audacious and potentially historic – we called for a halt to the culture wars.

We did so with the release of Third Way’s new paper Come Let Us Reason Together: A Fresh Look at Shared Cultural Values Between Evangelicals and Progressives. EJ Dionne devoted his Washington Post column to our paper on Tuesday, A Culture War Treaty, and I discussed it with Christian conservative radio host Paul Edwards on the Paul Edwards Program this week.

The Democrats are showing signs of change on abortion. Yesterday, the Democratically controlled House easily passed an appropriations bill that contains a major – and brand new – abortion initiative. But unlike Democratic abortion bills of yore, this one brings together both sides of the debate and is aimed squarely at abortion reduction.

At backwardsbush.com the ticker reads 571 days, 8 hours, 52 minutes, and 22.6 seconds until the end of the Bush presidency. It’s time to resynchronize our watches to 0 – the Bush presidency ended today at 11:35 am when the Kennedy-Kyl Immigration Bill died. The President’s arm twisting brought over 12 Republicans. That’s 12 out of 49. That’s 24.5% of the caucus. That’s a .245 batting average. That’s Bobby Abreu-ville.

And that’s the good news. If this bill were voted on in the House, Bush would be batting below the Mendoza line.