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Notes -
The Brooklyn District Attorney's website reports:
Taylor, also known as CarbonMike, was both a CTRL-Pew 3d printing enthusiast and a New Yorker, a combination that Didn't Go Well.
The specific charges and sentencing are complex, but if I'm reading matters correctly, almost all sentences run concurrently, so the headline charge about ghost guns, like the charges about possession of pistol ammunition and so on, are kinda swamped by a ten-year sentence for 'assault weapons' and for 'owning five firearms'. There are a few border issues on the text of the statutes, but there's not a ton to argue on whether Taylor complied with these statutes.
((Not least of all because many are vague or broad enough that it's very much up to the local DA to make the decision anyway.))
There's a lot to be debated about whether the laws are constitutional, but not much chance that it matters. The New York Assault Weapons Ban has been the target of prolonged lawfare since before Bruen, with the FPC currently supporting Lane after the state was getting good enough reception in Vanchoff v James about lacking credible threats of prosecution, and that's the case with the stance furthest along. Other statutes, like possession of ammunition or "ammunition feeding devices" without a matching pistol permit, are difficult to write cases to challenge before enforcement at all. Even if the statutes for each of the longer sentences are overturned, bail pending appeal is extremely unlikely. Taylor will have served most if not all of his sentence first, especially given the glacial pace that courts have set for these matters (cfe Duncan).
Taylor also makes the argument that he did not have a fair day in court, and while almost every defendant does that to some extent, his argument is unusually compelling. No few gunnies finding a pull quote from the judge allegedly claiming that "Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York." but the gameplay about objections, if honestly stated, is as bad or worse. (I'm unable to find a direct trial transcript.).
Also doesn't matter. There is a right to an impartial judge, but this mostly covers matters like giant campaign donations or hating an entire nationality or literally copying text from a party's submissions, rather than just figuratively being on the prosecutor's side. Even assuming Taylor's (and his lawyer's) summary is accurate and complete, the appeals courts don't care that lower courts hate people accused of making guns.
In some ways, Taylor might be the ideal test case: nothing in the visible court records or DA chest-beating show nefarious intent like violent personal history or planned mass shooting or intent to resell (and New York law places a presumption on multiple possession as for sale), he (was) traditionally employed, he credibly claims that he's never fired a single one of the guns, and at 52, he's aged out of the various high-criminal-risk age brackets. To beat the HBDers to the punch, he's even visibly a minority.
((To beat the HBDers with a stick, if we're framing absolutely everything as part of the progressive stack, I think there's strong evidence that the real top of the stack is whatever matches the politics today in a far more direct manner than mere race.))
Of course, the Brooklyn DA brought the case, knowing that. The judge acted like this, in this case, knowing that. And no matter how dim you might think they are, they're winning, and this know what it takes to win. Whether that's because the courts punt on serious cases because defendants fail to present long evidence of futile requests, because they credibly believe that Taylor's not Perfect Enough for the courts to actually handle or for various gun rights orgs to fund, or because even if they're wrong they'll never suffer for it, doesn't really matter. It's possible that Brooklyn DA took the case because Taylor's social media made it easier to prove, it might be that we're only gonna hear about this case out of many because of said social media, and it doesn't really matter.
There's a lot of ways to snark, in "What's the penalty for being late?" fashion, about how Taylor's non-violent noncompliance with a law has gotten a much longer sentence than nutjobs who were separately violent, or a comparable sentence to a man who literally burned another man to death on the pyre of an Approved Cause. And that's not entirely fair, because the federal system doesn't have parole and New York does, and anyway there's a million different squiggly little variables about the crimes and sentences, and there's nowhere near enough cases to make a deep statistical analysis even if I wanted to try. Gun control advocates will certainly quibble, at the edges, about whether this is really 'non-violent non-violent', since there's always the possibility of later bad acts or theft or loss or mental break.
And Taylor ain't dead yet, despite an (alleged) no-knock raid. The actuarials put decent odds on him even seeing the light of day as a free man again, parole or no. Unlike Mr. Lee, had Taylor expressed his dislike of current law enforcement with a bit what the ATF calls a destructive device through a bit of what I call a broken window, the odds would not be looking so good. But there's no magic court case, here, and no golden BB. This isn't even the strawman of a scifi writer drawing up villains who just want their laws as threats to hang over innocent men. If you are ruled by people who hate you, giving puppy-dog eyes and saying this is just a paperwork crime and no one was hurt won't buy you a cup of coffee before you get absolutely reamed in all the least fun ways, and contra a once-prolific-now-banned poster here, everyone who cares about this stuff is ruled by men who hate them.
This is what table stakes looks like.
My favorite was Hawaii, where they said "That doesn't vibe with our 'Aloha spirit' so we're going to ignore it." So, why are federal gun laws enforced in gun-friendly states?
I can think of several factors that contribute to this.
First, what does it mean for a state to be "gun-friendly"? I mean, most people on the pro-gun side support "reasonable" restrictions — where "reasonable" is often heavily influenced by status-quo bias (the conservative side of the leftward ratchet) — and the "2nd Amendment right to personal nukes" position is mostly just a few fringe (if vocal) libertarian types. And states are not politically homogenous; even your most "gun-friendly" state is going to have plenty of people — particularly in the cities — who support increasing gun restrictions.
In particular, the people in state government — particularly the lawyers and paper-pushing bureaucrats — you'd be counting on to push and coordinate this resistance to enforcement skew both urban and especially college-educated, which means they skew left and anti-gun. (Personnel is policy, and modern forms of government ensure urban leftist personnel.)
Second, way too many on the right are believers in "the rule of law." Like the sportsman who will not respond to a cheating opponent by cheating back because he has too much "respect for the game," they believe in the importance of procedure over outcome — following the rules and doing the right thing over getting better results. They are deontologists and virtue ethicists, not utilitarians. Fiat justitia ruat caelum. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Better to suffer defeat, torture, and death while upholding your values than to attain a political victory by compromising them. (Because God will reward you for the former and damn you for the latter.)
Indeed, for any "the left is doing [x], why isn't the right doing [x] back?" question you can pose, you're sure to find someone on the right insisting that our steadfast, virtuous refusal to do [x] is the thing that separates us from the left, that to do [x] back would not just be sinking to the level of our enemies, it would be to become our enemy, and that anyone who would consider doing [x] is a leftist, no matter their other positions.
Third, quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. What works for the left against the right will not necessarily work for the right against the left. Leftists can get away with doing things for left-wing causes that would see rightists punished severely if they tried to use them for right-wing ones. It's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy.
I think a lot of what you say about the right is pre-2021 right. They realized they get no mercy and now are willing to sacrifice their principles.
I would say Desantis war with Disney is a prime example. The right traditionally would have been against punishing Disney for Free Speech, but backed Desantis when he went after Disney within the rules of the law. Even though the Spirit of Free Speech was against doing anything. When you have institutional power to punish your enemies the right seems down with it now. The no pacifist in a foxhole standard has emerged. It’s better to win sacrificing principle than lose and end up dead. Abbott has also challenged a lot of legal principles and challenged Biden to try and stop him when he’s probably wrong on the law. The right also got aggressive with abortion using bad means to do it like Texas civil suit law. My guess is if Hillary was the 2024 candidate and destroyed her hard drive and lost lock her up would be attempted versus just being a campaign slogan.
When the right feels threatened they can do more. Pinochet was on the right and his plan worked. Until recently the right didn’t realize the system was risks. It was just annoying HR ladies and an occasional weirdos to laugh about on college campuses.
It’s not like the right has been opposed to force when it’s necessary. We killed a lot of commies. The right didn’t realize they were in a war until recently.
I don’t know about that.
The American right has plenty of history with speech restrictions, especially around sexual content. DeSantis is not breaking new ground. He’s approaching from a more secular angle, but it’s the same old song and dance of a Moral Majority. Same for Texas jurisprudence.
Nor is the situation uniquely dire for the right! Keep in mind previous acts of defying the Feds have ended with the 101st Airborne deployed to high school. Or at least a good old FBI shootout. Compared to that the cultural and legal battles are tame.
I think what you’re observing is better explained by the libertarian wing receding from its high-water mark during Obama’s presidency. Trump’s branding has polarized the Republican base and it dominates any media coverage.
I agree they have done it in the past. But what is happening now is different. In the past it was doing it from a position of strength. Now it’s being down as a counterattack.
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Rumors from within DHS tells me that the federal government couldn't find anyone willing to go against the Texas state government during the border brouhaha. There's a decent chance of the federal government simply lacking a monopoly on force these days.
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I don't see how that's an explanation rather than a restatement of the original observation.
Sliders was pretty clear about 2021 as an inflection point. In my opinion, that’s way too late.
The current backlash is a development of populism which has been brewing (at least) since Obama was in office. Crediting DeSantis and Abbott with reinventing conservative opposition? That’s the same kind of mistake as people insisting Trump is going to abolish democracy. He’s not special. They’re not special. For that matter, Obama wasn’t special, either. The situation circa 2010 was uniquely suited to a libertarian opposition. Since then, that support has been redirected to Trump’s platform.
Describing that as “the right realizing they were in a war” is, uh, cope.
It's been as while since I was into econ, so I'll probably butcher some of these ideas, but some brilliant soul had the idea that the best way to model the behavior of individual companies is to a assume their actions can have no impact on supply, demand, employment or any broader trend. They're scarcely more than amoebas in the ocean, driven by forces far beyond their comprehension, let alone their ability to influence them. It is this form of analysis, a vain attempt to present itself of as rational, that I think is the cope, and it's probably worse in politics than it was in economics.
I don't see how that explains anything. It's not like the move away from libertarianism was primarily motivated by the opposition to the left, which is still extremely hostile to it. It was a repudiation of the neocon agenda first. To the extent it went against libertarianism, it was focused on economics, and to the extent that was different from what the establishment of either party wanted to do, it boiled down to the opposition immigration and free trade. Even after Trump took power, he did remarkably little to exercise it in order to implement a cultural agenda. At the tail end of his presidency we started seeing some executive orders that would herald the type of opposition we see coming from DeSantis and Abbot, but they came so late that Biden repealed them before they could have any impact.
In my opinion this shows that his timeline is mostly correct, and the fact that DeSantis and Abbot are being singled out for criticism shows they're doing something different from the other Republican governors.
"The right realizing that they were at war", might not be the right explanation for what we're seeing, but at least it's an explanation. I still don't see your argument as anything more than a restatement of the fact that the right moved away from libertarianism.
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I see 2021 as a time where the right got comfortable adopting tactics the left had been using longer.
Before 2021 I thought the GOP stayed towards traditional powers like voter backlashes or challenging things in the Supreme Court.
Post 2021 they have added more direct challenges like busing illegals to blue states, giving a FU to Biden on the border when I think his position wins in court, muddling things up in lawfare (which is different from doing what a court tells you to do), etc.
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Desantis and Abbott are probably fairly uncommon political talents, just like Obama was and Trump is.
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