“You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient,” Obama said during remarks at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Council, the nation’s largest gay rights organization.

The reaction of the crowed at the recent Republican debate was shameful. The reaction of the candidates – more so. It angers me that even those representatives of the party that champions our citizens in uniform would allow such a thing to happen.

In all of the neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River – a broad swath of the city with more than 52,000 households, many of them in areas beset by poverty and drug-related violence – about 240 guns have been registered…

In the 20016 Zip code, encompassing some of the District’s wealthiest enclaves in upper Northwest, 151 firearms have been registered. That is more than 10 percent of the citywide gun total in an area with about 14,000 households, according to U.S. Census data.

No other residential Zip code in Washington has seen as big an influx of legal guns since the ban was ruled unconstitutional…

In the District’s poorest, most crime-scarred precinct, Ward 8 in far Southeast, residents have registered about 140 guns. In Ward 3 in upper Northwest, where the violent-crime rate is nearly 10 times lower and the average family income is more than five times higher, about twice as many firearms have been registered.

It’s open to conjecture why residents in some of the District’s toughest neighborhoods have registered fewer guns than people in other parts of the city. D.C. police Lt. Jon Shelton, head of the firearms registration unit, said it could be simple economics.

“You have to figure, what are legitimate guns costing now?” he said. “A basic revolver is going for $350 or $400. And you’re talking about $650, $700 for a quality 9 millimeter. So who’s got that kind of money to just throw out there for a gun?

“Legitimate people I’m talking about now. A lot of them, these days, they’re having a hard enough time putting food on the table for their kids.”

Allow me to conjecture: the cost in time and money of getting licensed by the District is prohibitive to most working-class people; indeed prohibitive to anyone who doesn’t have hundreds of dollars and lots of time to spare.

I discovered this for myself I went through a similar process last year in Massachusetts.  In order to get the standard Class-A License to Carry Firearms* and be able to take it to a gun range to shoot, one needs to:

1. Attend a state-approved Basic Firearms Safety course;
2. Attend an orientation at a gun club;
3. Be interviewed by the local police department during regular business hours, and;
4. If approved, pick up the license about five weeks later, again during regular business hours.

Putting aside the question of whether or not this is good policy, let me just relate how costly it was.  The safety course took up an afternoon and cost $150.  Attending my local gun club’s orientation and becoming a provisional member cost me another afternoon and an additional $175.  The police interview and license application required me to take a few hours off of work and $100, and I then had to take more time off of work to retrieve my license in person after it was approved (the PD would not mail it to me).  That’s $425, two afternoons, and two late-arrivals at work just to be able to purchase a handgun.  That almost doubles the dollar cost of a cheap revolver and — factoring in time — probably doubles the cost of a semi-automatic.

Compared to DC, though, Massachusetts comes off looking like a bargain.   As the Post’s own Christian Davenport discovered last year, the equivalent process in the District costs $830 and nearly two full working days.  Again, this is simply to acquire a license from the District and does not include the cost of purchasing a firearm which — by the by — also cannot be done without traveling out of  DC.  When all is said and done, it’s impossible to legally purchase a handgun in DC without spending anything less than $1,100 and giving up about three days of one’s time.

As a non-married man with no kids, a middle-class, salaried job, and a boss willing to let me trade a late evening for a late morning, the Massachusetts process was more annoying than onerous; I was in no particular hurry, had few responsibilities to anyone beside myself, an accommodating employer, and I could afford it.  I could have afforded  the DC process as well, though not easily.

It takes little imagination to see how these requirements make gun ownership well beyond the means of anyone who works for a lower hourly wage, especially if he or she has dependents.  So while everyone has the theoretical right to a constitutional right, the District has set up a system with such onerous rules and high costs that only the marginally well-off have any chance of actually exercising it.

Post-Reconstruction, that’s not how our Constitution works.  Though Heller made it clear that regulations are perfectly compatible with the 2nd Amendment, there’s a certain level of difficulty and cost that makes  a less about regulating a right for society’s benefit and more about doing everything legally permissible to stop them from exercising constitutionally protected rights.  Unsurprisingly, the latter is exactly how DC Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray phrased the matter when he said that the District “going to have the strictest handgun laws the Constitution allows.”

If this is substantively different from the District creating a byzantine and expensive licensing process to attain a 1st Amendment permit — though car licensing makes for a better comparison in terms of potential for physical harm, necessity of skill, and cost, James Madison did not include it in his list of proposed amendments  — I’m unable to see it.

_{* A somewhat misleading name.  Basically, “carry” denotes everything from concealed carry to traveling to a gun range with the weapon locked, unloaded, and disassembled in the trunk of my car.  Each of these licenses contains a list of restrictions, spelling out under what circumstances one may carry (e.g., to the gun range to target shoot); in practice, a “unrestricted” license is virtually identical from a conceal-and-carry license in other states.  One’s restrictions are determined by the local police department, who are given wide discretion in these matters.}

And now a question for your first-year law school Criminal Law exam: Is it fraud if you solicit donations to fund a campaign for an office for which you are inelligible?

Locals know that in DC, there are two endorsements that can really swing a race: that of the Washington Post, and that of the former mayor-for-life, Marion Barry.  The Post’s endorsement is key in Wards 2, 3, and 6 (aka the white belt) and Barry’s is key everywhere else (aka the black belt).

The Post has endorsed Fenty.

Barry has endorsed Gray.

This should be fun to watch. . .

Ay, caramba! Those dark-skinned foreigners are now severing the heads of fair-haired Americans? Maybe they’re also scalping them or shrinking them or putting them on a spike.

There was, of course, nothing about hair or skin color in what the governor said.* If Milbank would get out of his Beltway bubble, where most “Mexicans” are in fact Guatamalans or Salvadorans with very dark skin, he’d know what those of us in the southwest know, which is that a very large number of Mexicans are not dark-skinned at all. A couple of hours watching Telemundo would leave you to believe that Mexicans are as white as the king of Spain. Certainly there are tons of Mexicans here in Austin who, at the end of a Texas summer, are whiter than me.

Mexico is a racially diverse country, ranging from tall and pale people of pure Spanish decent to short, dark people of unbroken Mayan lineage. Arizona and Texas border the northern, whiter regions of Mexico – except for their, um, different driving style, it is difficult to tell these people from native Texans. In large part, because there’s very little difference. Those of us who have daily interaction with actual Mexicans fully understand this, and don’t stereotypically think of them as “dark-skinned.”

That’s just the editorial overlay of a jackass east coaster who thinks so poorly of his countrymen that he believes opposition to illegal immigration simply must come from a bunch of racist bumpkins. Few things so greatly display one’s ignorance as to incorrectly presume the ignorance of others.

*Indeed, she claimed that bodies were being found without heads, so we would have no clue what color hair they had. But a good journalist should never let details get in the way of a race mongering cheap shot.

From: Your constituents

Re: Revenue Enhancement Measures (Formerly known as taxes and fines)

Please stop ticketing people for parking in their own driveways.  Start ticketing cab drivers for talking on cell phones while driving.  If my last two cab rides are any indication, these guys should be a gold mine.  Thank you.

POLICY FORUM
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
11:00 AM (Luncheon to Follow)

Featuring Tim Reif, General Counsel, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (remarks off the record);Anne Kim, Economic Program Director, Third Way; and Dan Ikenson, Associate Director, Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute.

. . .

To register for this event, please fill out the form below and click submit or email events@cato.org, fax (202) 371-0841, or call (202) 789-5229 by 11:00 AM, Monday, April 27, 2009. Please arrive early. Seating is limited and not guaranteed. News media inquiries only (no registrations), please call (202) 789-5200.

If you can’t make it to the Cato Institute, watch this forum live online.

How, exactly, does Mr. Reif give off the record remarks at an advertised forum?  Particularly one that’s going to webcast live?  Erik Wemple at the Washington City Paper suggests this as a possible story under the given constraints:

Yesterday, Tim Reif, general counsel of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative participated in a discussion about trade policy at the Cato Institute. The session touched on the splintering of a political consensus that guided the country through NAFTA and other free-trade pacts but fell apart under the Bush administration. In a heated discussion, the Cato Institute’s Dan Ikenson argued that low trade barriers are so important that the United States should consider taking unilateral steps in that direction. Reif responded.

Picking up on Reif’s comments, Anne Kim argued that what Reif said wasn’t necessarily the case. Reif then said something else.

Ah, DC.

Remember, the $700 billion bailout he was talking about there was last year’s $700 billion bailout, not this year’s $800 billion “stimulus.” This all would be less confusing if they would have just taken my advice and passed an $∞ bailout, but I guess we’re getting there in bits and pieces.

Also remember, the consistent story line with Obama was “He’s so eloquent,” not, “He’s plainly lying and making crap up.” Nope, journalists and a surprisingly large section of the American electorate fell for this, and fell hard.

I got this from David Bernstein. The situation he describes of upper middle class yuppies in DC is precisely the reason Dorothy and I decided not to move back there after grad school. There’s simply too much good living to be had in the rest of this country to put up with that place.

For those who don’t know, Ward Three is a section of Northwest Washington, D.C., where many Democratic staffers, regulators, journalists, lawyers, Obama aides and senior civil servants live. Thanks to recent and coming bailouts and interventions, the people in Ward Three run the banks and many major industries. Through this power, they get to insert themselves into the intricacies of upscale life, influencing when private jets can be flown, when friends can lend each other their limousines and at what golf resorts corporate learning retreats can be held.

The good news for rich people is that people in this neighborhood are very nice and cerebral. On any given Saturday, half the people in Ward Three are arranging panel discussions for the other half to participate in. They live in modest homes with recently renovated kitchens and Nordic Track machines crammed into the kids’ play areas downstairs (for some reason, people in Ward Three are only interested in toning the muscles in the lower halves of their bodies).

Nonetheless, many people in Ward Three do have certain resentments toward those with means, which those of you in the decamillionaire-to-billionaire wealth brackets should be aware of.

In the first place, many people in Ward Three suffer from Sublimated Liquidity Rage. As lawyers, TV producers and senior civil servants, they make decent salaries, but 60 percent of their disposable income goes to private school tuition and study abroad trips. They have little left over to spend on themselves, which generates deep and unacknowledged self-pity.

Second, they suffer from what has been called Status-Income Disequilibrium. At work they are flattered and feared. But they still have to go home and clean out the gutters because they can’t afford full-time household help.

Third, they suffer the status rivalries endemic to the upper-middle class. As law school grads, they resent B-school grads. As Washingtonians, they resent New Yorkers. As policy wonks, they resent people with good bone structure.

I’m in Ward One, so don’t worry, you’re safe from (if not with) me.