The Bit You Don't Say

Scott Morefield's latest article is about how to prevent the loss of gun rights if Congress decides to limit them (in the case of a Democratic congress (and let me take a moment to smile at the thought of a Democratic congress)).   Anyway he outlines three strategies that might come into play.   One of them is Jury Nullification.

In truth, a jury can, in theory, declare someone innocent of a crime regardless of what the law says, regardless of actual guilt or innocence, but simply on the basis that a particular law is unjust.

The establishment doesn’t want you or anyone else to know that, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less true. When it comes down to brass tacks, how many small town red state juries will vote to convict, say, a mother who used her AR-15 to defend herself and her small children from a home invader, or an elderly man for keeping the gun his grandfather passed down to him?

It's a slippery argument - because how many small town red state juries would vote to convict if a white person shot a black man down because he or she was afraid. It is basically an argument in favor of letting people's initial prejudice set the terms for laws.  To take Morefield's own example if a black guy fired a weapon to defend himself from a white man, would red state juries be as likely to nullify as if a white guy fired a weapon to defend himself from a black man? 

Morefield argues that the 10th amendment and State's rights be invoked to protect the right of individual states to allow gun usage, which seems a risky proposition to me, depending on the law in question.  While I agree that allowing Tennessee to be Tennessee is fine; they have to understand that the firearm rights offered by Tennessee only apply to those in Tennessee.

Finally there's this nugget.

It’s easy to think that leftists, when and if they get total control, would resort to the practices of their 20th Century ideological forebears – leftist ‘heroes’ like Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao – and just start killing people willy-nilly, particularly those they disagree with. And don’t get me wrong, they likely would if they could.

This is why democracy doesn't work anymore.  If one side of the aisle believes the other side to be murderers in principle (even if current conditions preclude it) how can you make lasting agreements with them?  All agreements and compromises with the conservative part of our nation have to involve the knowledge that they believe us to be murdering monsters.  And there's no shame in breaking promises to murderous monsters. 

I don't think it's a good idea for us to look at them in the same light (for one thing, Morefield and his ilk aren't all conservatives or all inhabitants of a red state) - but it is worthwhile to remember that all compromises with them have to include the possibility of betrayal.