Battling The Excesses Of An Authoritarian Demagogue? Don't Look To FaceBook's Mark Zuckerberg

"You did GOOD, Mark! Defending my lies from those nannies at Twitter!"

"This order is a reactionary and politicized approach to a landmark law. It threatens the future of online speech and internet freedoms"
 - Twitter response to Trump's executive order designed to regulate existing law toward authoritarian ends

"President Trump  said Twitter is trying to censor him and he wants to use his presidential  power to crack down on them.":  - CBS reporter Paula Reid this morning

"I see this order as just a distraction intended to divert attention from the devastation of Covid 19"- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi


What is Trump's game and why is he really so furious at the prospect of mail voting?  It is because he's been exposed as the shameless con man he is for trying to manage perceptions about the virus and he knows a majority of citizens aren't buying his act. Hence, with the economy cratering too (40 million now unemployed) he has nowhere to go but down - and certainly will be blown out in November. That is, unless he can get enough states to back off mail ballots using his fulminations and "terrible twos" -style  of  tantrums

In his latest con, Trump issued an "executive order" yesterday in retaliation for Twitter putting flags on his lying tweets about  voting, e.g.

.

The flag simply read:  'Get the facts about mail voting'  

Simply a heads up to those who gobble Trump's tweets with zero discrimination.  Certainly not "censorship" as the Right's crybabies are trying to portray.  But leave it to Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook honcho, to try to offer his absurd two cents.  Likely terrified of Trump's twitter fulminations, Zuckerberg and his other spokesmen tried to defend their own cowardly stance by saying (WSJ yesterday,  p. A4):

"We prefer not to be an arbiter of truth"

But given Trump's outrageous lies about mail voting, it's clear Zuckerberg has no problem being an enabler of lies.   What else could he be? Because if you're not prepared to at least flag lies when they appear - irrespective of the source- then you and your platform are useless. Worse,  you're contributing to the ongoing national polarization.

Zuckerberg and his ilk have always taken the position of laissez faire social media speech and they just assume FB users are grown up enough to engage in "robust debate" and recognize falsehoods when and where they appear. But that is a helluva ask, especially after Russian bots overloaded Facebook's boards back in 2016, playing no small part in Hillary's narrow electoral college loss. Oh, and seeing a record for retweets of the bots' anti- HRC balderdash.   As per a WSJ piece from Oct. 17, 2017 (p. B2):

 "470 Russia-backed Facebook accounts including Blacktivist and Secured Borders quietly infiltrated communities on social media. The issues they targeted spanned the U.S. political and social spectrum, including religion, race, immigration, gun rights, and gay rights. "

Adding:

"Facebook said the accounts were created by Russian entities to exploit tensions among Americans and interfere with U.S. elections

 Yep, Markie, there's a lot of insight for truth there! 

According to one FB spokesperson quoted in the WSJ piece:

"We have crafted our policies to focus on misrepresentations that would interfere with the vote."

Well, if Trump's deranged tweets against mail ballots aren't doing that, I don't know what would qualify.  The scumball is blatant and aggressive in his  single-minded campaign and even had the temerity to screech Wednesday:

"Clean up your act NOW!"

This from a Turd  whose own act has been one prolonged exercise in authoritarian depravity and irresponsibility. This is the same president who on Thursday Tweeted out a video of a supporter saying, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”  A  classless degenerate who's hurled the office of  the presidency further  into the gutter in the last week with his attacks on Joe Scarborough  for allegedly killing a woman.(Lori Klausutis)  when she worked as part of Scarborough's staff when he was a FLA congressman.   This despite a medical examiner's report that Lori had a heart condition which caused her to lose consciousness,  fall and hit her head.  

Thus, Trump is using her as his own political football  against perceived enemies as he causes the family no end of grief and pain.   But why be surprised when he's directly responsible for tens of thousands of  COVID 19 deaths for not acting in a competent and responsible manner? For initially calling the virus a hoax, wasting a valuable 2 weeks before acting,  which a Columbia University study disclosed probably resulted in 54,000 more deaths.

As for his executive order to try to punish Twitter, don't make me laugh.  Incredibly before signing his order yesterday the fool blabbed (WSJ, p. A1 today) :

"We're here today to defend free speech from  one of its greatest dangers."

Failing to have the self-awareness or intellect to grasp that HE   - as an autocratic demagogue -  is the singular greatest danger to liberty and that his lies are a perversion of  free speech.

 Here it is useful to go to the Wikipedia entry:

"There is no constitutional provision nor statute that explicitly permits executive orders. The term executive power in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution refers to the office of President as the executive. They are instructed therein by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article II, Section 3, Clause 5 or face impeachment. Most executive orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties, the intent being to help direct officers of the U.S. Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the federal government: the consequence of failing to comply possibly being removal from office"

In other words, these more comport with a wish list based on appeals or pleas from a president to the legislative branch to formalize into law what he seeks to do. In Trump's case, most legal experts note his scribbles on fancy paper are "essentially toothless" - they don't change existing federal law- nor can they without formal legislative input. Hence, only congress has the power to curtail Twitter's legal protections.

As Mike Masnick of Techdirt explained:

To be clear: the executive order is nonsense. You can’t overrule the law by executive order, nor can you ignore the Constitution. This executive order attempts to do both. It’s also blatantly anti-free speech, anti-private property, pro-big government — which is only mildly amusing, given that Trump and his sycophantic followers like to insist they’re the opposite of all of those things.

As for Zuckerberg's act and the insipid claims of supporting "free speech" I was gratified to see one professor (Bridget Barrett) call  it out in the WSJ piece.  As she aptly noted:

"To give a less kind reading of that, they (Facebook) want to stay friends with the folks who are regulating them."

As for the two Trump tweets that were flagged, they were:

"There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent"

And then: "This will be a Rigged Election!"   

Both hysterical expulsions I'd more expect from a high school sophomore who flunked his Government class.  And as Ms. Barrett of UNC Chapel Hill pointed out:

  "The posts appeared to violate two of Facebook's own rules around voter interference which bar posts that  misrepresent methods for voting and whether votes will be counted."

Again, that makes Zuckerberg a liar enabler, as well as a punk for Trump, to help spread his bunkum.   In the meantime, kudos to Twitter for continuing to courageously flag Trump's most outrageous tweets - including beckoning "shooters"  to fire at the "thugs"  in Minneapolis.   While  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has taken some heat for being too mild in response to Trump's flagrant speech crimes, he is at least doing something!  That's more than can be said for Mark Zuckerberg and his "clown car" of Trump enablers and sycophants at Facebook.

See Also:
Anything to get reelected: Trump once more stokes violence 

And:

• White supremacists are thriving on Facebook, despite its promises to crack down 

And:

Donald Trump

Twitter Put up a Fact-check — so Trump Threw a Tantrum

by Cody Fenwick | May 29, 2020 - 7:11am | permalink

— from Alternet

Why Holman Jenkins & His WSJ Wrecking Crew Want To Get You Back To Work Prematurely

In  what Janice calls "Americans' last IQ test"  we beheld Capt. Bonespurs bellowing about getting the U.S. economy open before May.  Fortunately, the CEOs of major companies in a meeting with the imp pushed back, saying 'Whoa! We need lots more testing first!"  This echoes Dr. Tara Narulla's warning this a.m. - to those who have ears to listen and a brain to process: 

"We need tests to be ubiquitous, efficient and to have a rapid turnaround time.  Without that we're really flying blind - and it's not just a question of opening the economy but keeping the economy open. If we can do that and fix the problems on the supply side then hopefully we can reopen the economy and keep it open."

Clearly, Dr. Tara gets it - like nearly all medical specialists and especially the epidemiologists.  She gets that the economy cannot be prematurely opened - without enormous viral blowback  i.e. until an effective mass testing program is underway. This is one which can test 20 % or more of the population, as opposed to the barely 1 percent thus far.  But while she gets it, and millions of Americans do as well, we behold a build up of  irrational impatience in a number of places, from Vegas to Lansing, Michigan, even as the mitigation is beginning to work.  For example, we saw last night and this a.m parading Tea baggers holding 'Don't Tread on Us!' signs as well as others with 'Liberty once lost is lost forever' signs.  Hey, Trumpista dolts, how about your life once lost is lost forever?  Then you won't have to worry about any income, period!

Meanwhile, Vegas' mayor Carolyn Goodman belched out: "This shutdown has become one of total insanity!"  Uh no, my dear mayor lady, it's become an effective means to prevent Vegas' hospitals from overflowing with Covid patients.   But lest we come down too hard on these minor leaders like Goodman - or South Dakota's  clueless governor Kristi Noem (who refuses to shut down despite one of the biggest clusters in the nation) or the hoi polloi screaming protests for "taking their liberties", let's look further afield at the real culprits.  The brigands in media - mainly reactionary right trolls - who keep feeding these memes- energizing the "revolt of the dummies" to borrow J's parlance.

Start with the WSJ editorial scribes themselves (i.e. 'It's Still America, Virus Or Not!', April 13, p.  A16) who Joe Scarborough ripped to shreds just two mornings ago, e.g. "Who do these Wall Street  Journal editors think they are?  They yelp about liberals just wanting to feed money to workers instead of going back to their jobs. When they can sit in their nice home offices and not have to worry about getting sick!" 

Of course, though Joe focused on the rush to get back to jobs, the Journal's editors went even further off the deep end in their bogus arguments, ibid.:

"The First Amendment still stops government from prohibiting the free exercise of religion, and still guarantees the right to free assembly."

Incredibly conflating the first amendment and free exercise of religion with the right to assemble cheek to jowl amidst a pandemic..  So with the spread of such deformed and misbegotten memes it's no wonder we have seen as many fellow citizens as we have devolve into stupidity.  It seems, as Janice is wont to say, "in this country the virus of stupidity is as rife as the bat virus."  Well, yeah, ok, I have to agree if we see these Tea Party -like protests continue.

 Then there is the Journal's proudest provocateur and rhetorical bomb thrower, Holman Jenkins Jr. In an earlier (April 7) blog post  I already highlighted his  daft op-ed ('Was Dr. Strangelove an Epidemiologist?')  where he trots out a medical resident named Joseph A. Ladapo (of UCLA) who claimed in a recent op-ed that "the shutdowns if prolonged will only make matters worse."      Adding that even when restrictions are lifted "we will emerge right back where we started.... and no matter what our hospitals will still be overwhelmed."

Says who?  As I observed at the time one was left to wonder where this quack came by that "Eureka" brain fart.  In fact, Jenkins' balderdash was pure propaganda only spun to try to get pressure on the medical community to loosen standards and allow the virus to resume its hatchet job on hospitals, nursing homes, meat packing plants and prisons.  It can't be otherwise, i.e. like Jenkins Jr. really cares because every word he writes (e.g. 'Sweden Is a Viral Punching Bag', WSJ, April 15, p. A15) reinforces the conclusion he's out for one thing: reopening the economy too soon so he can quickly resume his evening dinners of foie de gras and wine.  Most telling in his latest (April 15, ibid.) jeremiad against the medical community:

"When it's all over, academics will look seriously at how the lockdown strategy compares with alternative strategies .  They will ask how much of our apparent curve flattening to date was due to individuals taking precautions, how much to heavy -handed government intervention. How many lives- and more realistically years- were really saved by our efforts?"

Again, the  little Neolib mutt just doesn't get it.   He doesn't get that the core issue is preventing our limited medical system (including in terms of supplies raided by Trump, Jared & Co.) from being overrun. Already in NYC the past two weeks we've beheld a system at the very brink - often with double the number of Covid patients for the ER (or ICU) capacity.  Did Holman see any of this?   The fact that New York's system didn't tip over into chaos was all because of the mitigation efforts which he belittles, suggesting some alternative mode of solutions exists. It doesn't, other than in his febrile mind.

Another crass and cynical aspect of the above quote from Jenkins' piece is the question, 'How many lives- more realistically years- were really saved by our efforts?'  This rhetorical bit and its implication may have been missed by many.  What he means by referring to "years saved" is the fact that older Americans - say in the 70-85 year bracket, don't have that many years of their life left anyway, say compared to young sprats, millennials etc.  Hence, the deaths of older Americans in his quantitative risk vs. benefit view don't count as much toward being "saved", if lost to Covid.  One hundred seniors with maybe two years left each (on average) to live in nursing homes, by his reckoning, adds up to 200 years saved. Compared to 100 millennials with maybe 50 years each left to live.  In this way, Jenkins can pretend to minimize the loss of life, the same way his conservo compadre Bill O'Reilly could when he said of dying seniors in nursing homes, "They were mostly on their last legs anyway."

But look, without any valid cures, treatments or vaccines,  we are all for the high jump anyway, say if the economy is prematurely opened. Especially before widespread effective testing and contact tracing. This is the method we are left with, whether Jenkins Jr. likes it or not. Or his WSJ compadre Daniel Henninger (WSJ, today,'Restore Laissez -Faire Capitalism', p. A13) who insists we need "a bare bones government, not a bare bones economy".   Hey, Henny, how about just bare bones - and skulls - piled up in pit graves across the country? You ok with that, mate?  After all, Henny doesn't want any "security blanket statism " (i.e. 'dirigisme') with workers begging the gov't to  help feed them and their family- say instead of the hedge fund owners ready to tap into the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program).  As revealed by Bloomberg News, most of these hedge fund operations chomping at the bit for cheap, no strings loans, only have four or five employees.   Henny, I am sure, will be fine with that "laissez-faire" giveaway as will Holman Jenkins.

Thus, whisking millions back to work prematurely serves two main purposes for the WSJ's hacks: 1) Disabling any need for the govt' to step in again to send relief checks or expand food stamps etc., and 2) To provide more billions for the rich, the one percent, hedge fund owners, Repuke donors and the like..   As I often say, you can't make this shit up. Out of the mouths of capitalist loons and baboons.

Zeke Emanuel (oncologist and Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the Univ. of Pennsylvania)- put it in stark terms for the economy über alles  humpers like Jenkins, Henninger et al on the April 6th 'Last Word' :

"Realistically COVID -19 will be here at least for the next 18 months or more.  There will be no normalcy until we find a vaccine or effective medications.   I know that's dreadful news to hear. How are people supposed to find work if this goes on in some form for a year and a half?   Is all this economic pain worth trying to stop COVID-19?

The truth is, we have no choice. Prematurely ending the physical distancing and the other measures, the deaths could skyrocket into the hundreds of thousands if not millions. We cannot return to normal  until there's a vaccine. Conferences, concerts, sporting events, religious services, dinner at a restaurant, none of that will resume until we find a vaccine, a treatment or  a cure."

At the basis of these strategies is the nature of exponential growth for this virus, e.g.

 As described by one knowledgeable WSJ columnist ('The Power of Exponential Growth', p. C4, April 4-5). 

"Exponential growth is dangerous because if each person infects more than one other person, the spread of disease quickly becomes overwhelming. Multiplying by 3 for instance. it only takes 21 steps to reach 10 billion, more than the current population of the world."

 Little Holman would do well to process and remember her words, and he might also avail himself of the recent work of sane WSJ columnist Jo Craven McGinty ('Why The Flu Doesn't Tank The Economy',  April 11-12, p A2) wherein she notes:  "Instead of gentle waves of cases cascading around the country like the flu, a tidal wave of Covid cases has swept across major cities in half the time"

The point being that the R- nought is significantly greater so the rate of transmission is faster. This is a fact any dolt has to master before jumping like a lemming onto the hurry up and re-open bandwagon.  

 Holman needs to process all this (along with his WSJ editors) before he next writes fulsome twaddle complaining about "heavy-handed government intervention".   Nobel winning economist Paul Romer on All In last week posited over 300 million tests were needed nationwide before we can even think of returning to business as usual.  This country isn't even doing one hundredth of such tests per week, so how can there be the most remote hint of reopening? Further, the U.S. federal government "has yet to launch a national test and trace strategy to find and isolate virus carriers" (WSJ, today, p. A9), without which it is sheer madness to reopen.

At minimum, as Prof. Romer indicated to Chris Hayes,  we need at least 4- 5 million tests per week to get a basic idea who's infected, where the virus is. The sad and sorry fact? The U.S. of A. has barely done 3.2 million tests in the past month - so we're way way behind the curve of testing adequacy.  Without that and contact tracing it's a bloody fool's errand to open the country up. Apart from which opening up is not like flicking on a light switch. As Anthony Fauci pointed out to ABC's David Muir in an interview on the news  last night:

"It's gonna be like a rolling re-entry not like a light switch turning on and off.... Also, we do not know everything about this virus and what it's capable of doing. It is also entirely conceivable we will see a rebound of the virus as we get into a seasonal situation, such as next fall or winter."

The other element Jenkins and his team of  greedhead buffoons don't grasp, is that the economy is inextricably bound with the nature of the virus, the pandemic.  "You want to get the economy back? Take care of the virus!"  In the words of Chris Hayes, host of 'All In' last night. Until the problem of the virus is fully solved, there is no way in hell that the economy can come back even in a diluted, weakened state. But try telling or explaining that to those like the Pennsylvania Repukes pushing against Gov. Tom Wolf to open the state up - with one Repuke Mike Turzai- blurting:

"The hurt from the economy is as great as the hurt from the virus, so we need to help both at the same time."

Uh no, dope, you can't "help both at the same time".   The reason is that the economic function -at any level - is contingent on the control of the virus.  That is only achieved with a vast testing and contact tracing program. Do you have that? If no, then you can't open the economy yet.  The worst outcome at this stage would be a second wave of deaths, illness to begin because states let up too soon.   Such a scenario would force an even longer postponement. How hard is this to process?

With inadequate testing there will always be the lurking virus clusters (like in a Smithfield meat plant Sioux Falls,SD because of its inept, dumb governor Kristi Noem) especially with the dearth of proper testing going on now - which ought to have commenced months ago.

On reading Jenkins' propaganda piffle it was also clear to me he doesn't really believe in the idea - better principle, of flattening the curve. This is when he refers to "apparent curve flattening".    But there's nothing "apparent" about it.

One can see, even if one has zero math skills and couldn't pass a Mensa test if his life depended on it (like Jenkins et al) that flattening the curve is real and is evidenced when the caseloads are less than what we'd see if the hospitals were overwhelmed. As we look to the states where strict mitigation was in force, e.g. CA, WA, we can easily see it works and they've even been able to donate ventilators and staff to the states in the east (NY, NJ etc.). 

Another aspect is that if mitigation is not coordinated simultaneously  for all states, then one would have different curves in succession at different times -  like a wave train.  This is what the US of A is in for,  looking at the red states like TX, SD, etc. none of which have firm shelter in place rules.  That means, logically - as virologist Dr. David Ho has pointed out, the curves for flattening are spread out over time.  Don't fancy the longer wait?   Then blame Trump for his lack of leadership is setting up a coherent national coordination policy!

In the case of multiple curves spread over time, we then have -  instead of one area under the curve to deal with say 'A'  (the area under the green hump above)-   a succession of areas: A1 + A2 + A3 etc. each area extending over the time axis.   That means the flattening process will take much much longer and hence the time to justify reopening the economy will take much longer.  This is what Jenkins and his band of nitwits doesn't grasp.  That includes the likes of ol' Phil Gramm - long time anti-big government gadfly (and former Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee)who in his latest effort ('More Stimulus Would Crush The Recovery',  WSJ, April 15, p. 17)  clearly has no sympathy for the 17-odd million Americans currently without income - other than what the CARES act has provided. And yet this mutt would deny them any more despite that $1200 per person, and extra unemployment cash - will barely last another month - if they are lucky.

What's Gramm's (and co-author's Michael Solon's) answer?   Well, it's to "rely on private capital and initiative and our free enterprise system".   In other words, let the loafers waiting for new handouts get off their butts and figure out - using "initiative" - ways to enhance their cash flow without depending on gov't handouts.  Else, "all this new government borrowing will consume the very oxygen a powerful recovery will need,"

What are Gramm, Jenkins Jr., Solon and the Wall Street Journal editorialists terrified of? Well, a "Depression-esque recovery" demanded by the Democrats in an election year. Which, of course would be horrific given the Democrats "have sought to use the crisis to permanently expand government spending and the role government plays in the aftermath."

Yep, for sure we don't want government providing desperate millions of our fellow citizens a lifeline to survive a few more months - with no money coming in to pay for groceries, utilities, or rent.  The Repuke barbarians would rather let those millions perish in pauperhood than let the federal government extend a helping hand.  The motto of these apes is to "let 'em lift themselves by their own bootstraps or pound sand."

Hence, the Scrooge aspects of so many of the "solutions" proferred, from raiding their own 401ks to get the money they need, to taking out loans and asking for "forbearance", to drawing down on their Social Security early.  What next will these fools offer? Going to blood banks and trying to sell blood to get nutrition for their starving kids? 

Instead, they'd rather keep that $250m now being held up (in the latest CARES bill) to support more tax breaks for hedge fund billionaires and other wealthy pals of Trump and the Repubs.  As noted  last night (All In) the Washington Post reported that 80 percent of the tax changes in the new coronavirus  relief package "overwhelmingly benefit millionaires."    So while a young guy like Ned Standford, featured on ABC news and just laid off, barely has a buck left to get a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, the millionaires that WSJ and Jenkins et al pander to will be sitting pretty.  But this is all the more reason people not allow themselves to be played like pawns by the Wall Street cowboy capitalists.  Will the Tea Party type Trumpsters marching in Lansing and elsewhere get it?  I didn't even bother to ask Janice as I know already what she will say.

Btw, if you're wondering why your "stimulus" check is taking longer to arrive it's because Trump deliberately held them up so his monicker could be imprinted on the checks by the Treasury Dept. (He now denies it, but the delay has already affected the timing.)  So the checks will now take an extra 2-3 days (so we're told) because Trump has to stroke his own ,monstrous ego- even while kids are going without soup and parents without basics like TP.

See also:

Conservatives and the Right

Michigan Manbaby Protest: Wait, We Thought Conservatives Were "Rugged Individuals"

And:

New study says Trump has ‘dangerously undermined truth’ with attacks on news media

And:

Glitches prevent $1,200 stimulus checks from reaching millions

And:

Donald Trump

Trump Is Getting Truly Desperate as He Runs This Country into the Ground

And:

Donald Trump

Trump's Voters Will Never Admit They Were Wrong — Even in the Face of National Catastrophe

New Zealand Acts To Implement Assault Rifle Ban - Why Not The U.S.?

The late SC Justice Antonin Scalia - your total conservative - asserted in the Heller case that no citizen has the right to own an assault-style weapon.  New Zealand PM Jacinda Ahern announcing the assault weapons ban proposal.

"Sandy Hook happened 6 years ago and we can’t even get the Senate to hold a vote on universal background checks w/ #HR8.

Christchurch happened, and within days New Zealand acted to get weapons of war out of the consumer market.This is what leadership looks like" - Alexandra Ocasio -Cortez this morning

The real question, now that New Zealand has acted to have an assault rifle ban within 6 days of the Christchurch massacre   (which saw 50 Muslims slain by a white nationalist nut) is: What is taking the U.S. so long to implement a similar ban?    

For those behind the news curve- understandable in the Trump era with its endless histrionics, BS and daily flouting of laws and norms -  assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics are on track to be banned in New Zealand.  This is after Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, announced sweeping and immediate changes to gun laws following the Christchurch mosque shootings.  Ardern yesterday said point blank:

“I absolutely believe there will be a common view amongst New Zealanders, those who use guns for legitimate purposes, and those who have never touched one, that the time for the mass and easy availability of these weapons must end. And today they will,”   

Adding: "In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country,”

And wonder of wonders, even the gun sellers there seem to get it. In a text this a.m. - from the CEO of New Zealand Hunting & Fishing Co. (one of the island nation's largest gun retailers) we saw:

 "Any government measure to permanently ban such weapons merits support. Weapons of war have no place in our business or our country."

How far do the new regs go?  Parts that are used to convert guns into military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs) have also being banned, along with high-capacity magazines and parts that cause a firearm to generate semi-automatic, automatic or close-to-automatic gunfire.  

P.M.  Ardern also directed officials to develop a gun buyback scheme for those who already own such weapons. She said “fair and reasonable compensation” would be paid.  This is analogous to an Australia scheme implemented after the infamous Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

On April 28, 1996, a 28-year-old Australian,  Martin Bryant,  ate lunch at Broad Arrow Cafe in Port Arthur, Tasmania, a historic penal colony and popular tourist resort. After his meal, Bryant returned his tray, removed a semiautomatic rifle from his bag, and opened fire. By the time Bryant was caught a day later, 35 people were dead and 23 wounded in what became the worst mass shooting in Australian history.

Unlike the U.S., the Aussies got serious about controlling their military-style weapons. Among other things, the Australian government banned automatic and semiautomatic firearms, adopted new licensing requirements, established a national firearms registry, and instituted a 28-day waiting period for gun purchases. It also bought and destroyed more than 600,000 civilian-owned firearms, in a scheme that cost half a billion dollars and was funded by raising taxes. The entire overhaul took just months to implement.

The  New Zealand buyback scheme is estimated to cost between $100m and $200m. P.M. Ardern said the government was still working out how to fund it.

New Zealand, a country of less than 5 million people, has an estimated 1.2-1.5m firearms. The number of MSSA weapons is not known, but there are 13,500 firearms which require the owner to have an E-Cat licence, which the government is using to estimate the number of MSSAs.

We also know, as reported also this a.m. (CBS) that New Zealand has no constitutional right to bear arms.  But technically, neither does the U.S.  A point I've belabored in multiple earlier posts. And given the U.S. has some 400 million guns in circulation, and has had 1,988 mass shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012, there is a need for the nation to get its collective head straight.  

What does that mean? Let's go through the salient points again.  I begin with the claim anyone has the "right" to own an AR-15 or any other military-style assault weapon.

In 2008, then Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, delivered a dual opinion still not absorbed by most gun owners. The court said the District’s ban on handguns in private homes went too far, but that regulation of gun ownership was compatible with the Second Amendment:

Scalia wrote at the time:

"It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

To get the language straight, and in Scalia's terms, it is useful to replace "assault weapons,”  with  the phrase:  “the kinds of weapons that Justice Antonin Scalia has defined as ‘dangerous and unusual’ and subject to regulation or an outright ban under the Second Amendment.”  And, if these weapons are subject to regulation, then they do not make for a "constitutional right".

As Joe Scarborough put it the morning of Feb. 21, 2018, just after the Parkland massacre:

 "Some say this is embedded in the constitution. It is not!"

Adding:

"Go back and read Heller, 2008, what Scalia and the Supreme Court said. You're right, you can have handguns in your home, and shotguns to protect your family. But the court has allowed states  - like Maryland (2017)  to ban assault style weapons.  They let this and other laws stand   - without challenge - as constitutional "

Scarborough went on to further clarify, which I can't render any more transparent:

"If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

Now let's get to the core of the matter, the wording of the Second Amendment itself:

"A self-Regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

If one claims to be an "originalist" - which most of the Right does in terms of constitutional interpretation  -  it ought not take an astrophysics degree to comprehend the amendment.   At the time this was written, muskets were the primary weapon, and no major organized standing army existed such as we have today. Indeed, the Continental Army of Washington, though it prevailed over the British, had massive war debts to pay off. There was no way to keep thousands of men under arms for sustained periods, as well as clothing and feeding them - far less recycling them with newer equipment each year!

It therefore became necessary to authorize the basis for a non-centralized force or "Militia" in order to supplement any governmentally- organized army called up. This "Militia" originated in the countryside, from citizens living across the land in various villages, towns and states. In effect, the 2nd amendment drafters were asserting the necessity for a subsidiary people's army to assist the main one. Citizens then became in effect, necessary to the security of the nation. One could then describe the state militias as "adjunct armies".

Indeed, some interpreters of the amendment believed the original content was even more diluted than I portrayed. They see the "well regulated militia" provision as actually devised as protections from any marauding, "loose cannons". These interpreters insist the framers would never in a million years have envisaged people (individuals) possessing permanent private weapons in their own homes.  And the notion of individuals owning military-style weapons like the AR-15 would have been as foreign to them as Moon rockets.

In  a controversial 1939 case, FDR's Solicitor General framed the argument to the Court:

"The Second Amendment grants people a right that is not one which may be utilized for private purposes but only exists where the arms are borne in a militia or some other military organization provided by law and intended for protection of the State."

The SC decision was unanimous.  This was barely 79 years ago, so what happened in the interim to debase the amendment to be unrecognizable today?

While the Court's decision prevailed for several more decades, it started to unravel by the 1970s as various Right wing extremist groups coalesced to challenge "gun control"  based on spurious private gun ownership  interpretations. By virtue of the infusion of millions of bucks  into state legislative campaigns they successively overturned laws in legislatures - much like the abortion opponents are now doing in many red states.

Chief Justice Warren Burger himself was adamant that  the claim of a right to keep special weapons on one's own was bogus. writing:

"This is one of the greatest pieces of fraud on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

Alas, as the strength and political power of the NRA metastasized, it was just a matter of time before more and more state legislatures (like in Florida) were bought out and their NRA political slaves passed laws contravening Justice Burger's and the earlier 1939 ruling. This is why the only way things will change is to vote out the NRA political slaves, as David Hogg and the other Parkland school massacre survivors have maintained.

In the meanwhile, this nation can only dream of  having a leader like Jacinda Ardern, who had the courage to act as opposed to letting the bodies pile up from cowardice and offering mere "hope 
and prayers".

See also:

Conservatives and the Right

White Nationalism, Born in the USA, Is Now a Global Terror Threat