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Why is this the coward's way out? If it's more convenient or efficacious to do an extremely minor amount of paperwork and pay a trivial filing fee, that seems totally reasonable.
[ For real law nerds, the real question is why does Alabama use
-as the delimiter for their legal clauses rather than.like everyone else. ]Not challenging illegal government authority is a slippery slope. Presumably.
If nobody does anything about undue power it becomes normal, and eventually legal.
Presumably one doesn't challenge the illegal actions of the government unless they are both illegal and have some specific articulable harm to someone.
The harm here (if there is any) seems trivial enough not to
Incidentally, one could make the inverse of a slippery slope argument -- if you cry "fascist" at every government overreach no matter how minor, it detracts from the real battles. Save your powder and so forth.
I always wondered what was actually more effective, to ruthlessly attack even the most minor of transgressions or to keep around the potential of a killing blow.
Seems to me that the logistics of maintaining power require constant use and practice. But that goes both ways. Power will learn to contain what it is confronted with.
In France we are fond of violent riots, but that means any French regime has riot police, vastly limiting the utility of direct action as a political tactic.
But then again I see the US's 2a growing ever more theoretical a right to contest the government militarily precisely because that's not a button you want to press often.
Before covid there were several cases of armed protestors getting blue states to change their legislative plans in red-friendly ways- some firearms related and some not.
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I think it's both situational and tactical. Lawsuits are very expensive and you can waste 8 years only to have them thrown out because you didn't pick the right vehicle. At the same time, in a situation where one has a benefit in leverage and relative effort, it is beneficial to flood the field. I don't see a one-size-fits-all piece of advice.
Also I think the 2A is doing rather well. There will always be some gap left when imposing federal dictat on recalcitrant States (same when it was abortion from the left), but most of the US has shall-issue CCW.
Where's the gap in gay marriage? The gap in abortion was rather smaller and always contested until Dobbs. Meanwhile, we've got multiple states (including NY, of Bruen fame) with "shall issue" CCW which have so many exceptions in places where you are allowed to carry, that you'll very likely be a felon if you attempt to take advantage of it. And I still can't buy a gun in any state (including my home state of NJ), whereas leaving the state for an abortion (or marriage) was never forbidden.
Heller and Bruen were absolutely empty victories. The case which matters is Rahimi, which says "when push comes to shove, the Court will find a reason to accept a gun restriction".
Prior to Dobbs, there were States with just a single abortion clinic. Most everyone with a fetal anomaly detected at the point of anatomy scan (can't get those before 20 weeks) had to fly out to what, 2 dozen clinics?
Gay marriage doesn't have a gap because even Republicans got behind it. At its peak (ironically the T part of the LGBT movement sunk it a bit recently) it was polling 67% -- that's more than Reagan got against Mondale (59-41) or LBJ v Goldwater (61-39) both considered historic landslides.
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That a high roll scenario is being required to enter your name into an overt registry of gun owners does not suggest the 2A is "doing rather well".
Heck, I'm in Alabama, which is the best-case scenario with so-called “constitutional carry”, but I still consider 2A effectively dead considering my only options to arm myself are:
Submit my name and address into the federal covert gunowner registry that comprises the FBI logs of background checks submitted by FFLs;
Open myself up to entrapment*, which to my knowledge is still a 100% permitted strategy when done with agency approval, by buying from a non-FFL stranger;
Buy from a non-FFL non-stranger, which is logistically a massive nuisance since it requires them to have already owned the gun in question for at least a year, or since before I mentioned the topic to them, lest box
21.aof the 4473 render their involvement moot.*I do not have the firearms knowledge to know with certainty whether a given gun secretly has some illegal modification, nor do I trust my ability to reliably identify a glowie posing an an individual at a gun show.
Yes, you need to not be a felon to purchase a gun. If you aren't knowledgable about guns, buy one from a reputable retailer carrying a reputable manufacturer.
The real kicker is of course no one actually cares if you own a gun. Even in California there's millions of them and no one gives a shit until you start wandering around the neighborhood firing into the air (and even then, they seem annoyed they can't rationalize ignoring it).
Grow up and realize you are not the center of the universe.
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Most of the US by state, or most of the US by where the population is? The latter is much more important in this instance- sure, it's great if the flyover states have decent gun laws, but if 100 million people live in the Northeastern Megalopolis or California, where shall-issue CCW for the most part does not exist (and AWBs universal- their laws tend to be worse than Europe's are)... then that's still a significant problem.
Population-wise ~250M/350M live in a shall issue State. About 70%.
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Outside of Cali, Hawaii, Massachusetts and the NYC and DC metros the shall issue permits are genuinely shall issue- even Chicago has shall issue CCW. The biggest states are California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio- and other than NYC(and that means not upstate) and California CCW permits in those places are available to any law abiding citizen who wants one.
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I'm filling out this form verbally fellating a judge “praying” that he “grant” a fucking permit for something I (should) have every right to do “without resort to regal proceedings”.
That I rolled over and complied with these (arguably) illegal demands, because it was more “convenient” to do so, is essentially a vote of support for the State to shoot down the guy who eventually tries to make the DMV actually abide by the law, on the basis that it's the "usual process" or something like that.
I mean, that's just a matter of framing. The other way of framing it is:
This is a fairly common way of approaching one's relationship with the world. Most people do not do the bare minimum of things that they are strictly required to do but the things that makes everything the most straightforwards.
It might be edgy to post online about how you have every right to do this without a legal proceeding and therefore that is somehow preferable. My view here is that it's very evidently not preferable in any actual sense that matters.
You don't have to argue practicality to me. I already did it, for all the reasons you name. I was only elaborating in reply to this comment asking why I said that what I did is “cowardly”.
Bending over and doing the wrong thing because it's “preferable” to me...
...doesn't magically make it the right thing.
Suing the DMV would not be "strictly required", either, but if I were to win* it would "mak[e] everything [more] straightforwards" for the next guy who would then only have to fill out an Alabama DS-60 clone instead of waiting for a court order to get approved — so by your own logic, that seems like the right thing to do?
*As a boring tactical matter, I probably wouldn't anyway; I don't have any history of crimes involving moral turpitude, I do have a reasonably well-paying job, and I think my county offers hardship fee waivers for the court order even if I were bereft, so I'd be a pretty poor candidate plaintiff due to the question of standing... but that's just contingent.
It's not wrong in any way to do more than the absolute bare minimum in a given interaction. It is fully permitted (it's even morally exemplary) in most cases to do more than what you are strictly required.
For example, an individual might go to the DMV with 4 pieces of identification rather than the legally-required 3 simply to ensure a smooth process (and to keep the line moving). This is likewise not in any way wrong.
First off, I doubt that. The DMV would likely just grant your request which would moot the case since you had already received all the possible relief that you were asking for. So the next guy would be in exactly the same position.
Legal maneuvering aside, it's hardly the thing to stand on unless you're angling for teenaged petulance. It's unbecoming. Be better.
I find it extremely unlikely that the DMV would waive policy only for special ol' me, just because I threatened to take them to court over their illegal behavior. Are you saying that, or that they'd predictably chicken out on their half of the case only after the lawsuit is actually underway? In either case, such action seems like it'd just be begging the ACLU to throw together a form letter to get them to repeat it on cue.
I mean, after you sued and wasted months on it they would grant it, which would moot your case. I don't think anyone (again, angsty teenagers notwithstanding) thinking that filing a form letter and then possibly wasting a day at the DMV then waiting months for a resolution in the courts is preferable to filing a name change for $50 to get an official stamp on it.
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