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This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

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Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#81

Post by bmelton »

hga wrote: post #77
bmelton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an animated gif somewhere that I'm having trouble finding at the moment, but for the most part, it's reflected in this article here: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/0... Long story short, acceptance of gun rights has been generally winning over gun control, though the patterns are almost the polar opposite of those reflected in the Bloomberg article. Edit: It's worth pointing out th…

At the Federal level, only Illinois flipped as the result of a lawsuit, and I can remember only West Virginia flipping due to a state level one. Do you know of any more, not counting the in-process California, Hawaii (both probably doomed) and D.C. lawsuits?

Heller v. DC was like a beacon, basically. Many towns and cities abandoned their DC-like restrictions as a result of Heller, including towns in Illinois (that weren't Chicago, obviously).

Beyond that, you're right, federally there's been very little activity, but a lot of the cases are loosely correlated, such that the cases gradually eroded the resistance to gun rights which paved the way towards gun-rights-friendly legislation.

Or, perhaps I'm romanticizing it. While I'm not in cahoots with the NRA, I do follow gun cases fairly closely, and there's been a fairly constant level of activity since 2008.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#82

Post by hga »

bmelton wrote: post #81
hga wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the Federal level, only Illinois flipped as the result of a lawsuit, and I can remember only West Virginia flipping due to a state level one. Do you know of any more, not counting the in-process California, Hawaii (both probably doomed) and D.C. lawsuits?

Heller v. DC was like a beacon, basically. Many towns and cities abandoned their DC-like restrictions as a result of Heller, including towns in Illinois (that weren't Chicago, obviously). Beyond that, you're right, federally there's been very little activity, but a lot of the cases are loosely correlated, such that the cases gradually eroded the resistance to gun rights which paved the way towards gun-rights-friendly…

Another big thing that I ought to have mentioned in my overall survey of the changes is that most, if not the vast majority of states enacted gun control preemption laws after the Supremes denied cert in 1981 in the lawsuit appealing the outright ban of handgun ownership in Morton Grove, Illinois. Almost needless to say, those didn't include Illinois, which per lawyer David Hardy (http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2008/11/winnetka_il_rep.ph...) included 6 municipalities with handgun bans. 4 surrendered, to my memory Oak Park with Chicago covering their legal bills and Chicago fought and lost in McDonald (resulting in multiple high six figure checks paid by Chicago to the plaintiffs).

I honestly cannot recall another municipality that reversed, although I wouldn't be surprised a few others did. Given how few major ones have/had handgun bans, just Chicago, D.C. and NYC (outside of a very few politically connected), and what a big deal it was nationwide when Morton Grove pulled their stunt, I'd be disappointed with my news sources if I'd missed any.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#83

Post by bmelton »

hga wrote: post #82
bmelton wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heller v. DC was like a beacon, basically. Many towns and cities abandoned their DC-like restrictions as a result of Heller, including towns in Illinois (that weren't Chicago, obviously). Beyond that, you're right, federally there's been very little activity, but a lot of the cases are loosely correlated, such that the cases gradually eroded the resistance to gun rights which paved the way towards gun-rights-friendly…

Another big thing that I ought to have mentioned in my overall survey of the changes is that most, if not the vast majority of states enacted gun control preemption laws after the Supremes denied cert in 1981 in the lawsuit appealing the outright ban of handgun ownership in Morton Grove, Illinois. Almost needless to say, those didn't include Illinois, which per lawyer David Hardy ( http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2…

You're probably not wrong, but to put my earlier comments into light, Morton Grove was one of the ones who reversed their position legislatively as a result of the Heller decision.

I think it's fair to categorize Morton Grove either way, but perhaps it is errant of me to imply close correlation.

Edit: Actually, I recant. Many cities have overturned legislation as a result of suit, but looking at the context, we aren't talking about cities, we're talking about states.

As to the discussion on how states go from rights-restrictive to rights-permissive, I agree that it has predominately been done legislatively.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#84

Post by bmelton »

meritt wrote: post #34
amelius wrote: post #22

The gun laws are missing from these graphs. How fast would America change its mind about them?

This graph is focused on expansion of rights, not retraction.

With a few exceptions, gun rights have, for the most part, expanded over the past couple of decades. More and more states are adopting some form of carry laws, and to my knowledge, those that have expanded gun rights have never reversed. The one notable exception that comes to mind is Colorado, with its ammo capacity ban, but even that's sort of up in the air at the moment.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#86

Post by 3minus1 »

smackfu wrote: post #26

They probably should have left abortion out, since it's not clear that American ever changed their mind on that. Over the last 20 years, it's still roughly 50/50. http://www.gallup.com/poll/170249/split-abortion-pro-choice-...

The article is about a pattern where laws change in a very short span, and abortion fits that pattern. The title is just a misnomer. It should be called "How Fast America's Lawmakers/Supreme Courts change their mind.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#87

Post by sjbase »

twoodfin wrote: post #9

The case comes amid a wave of gay marriage legalization... This phrase, and the title, mask the fact that in the majority of states same-sex marriage legalization came from court cases, not through legislation or referenda[1]. "America", broadly construed, is quickly changing its mind, too, but this "wave" is more a product of judicial thought than public opinion. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in…

Exactly. While the title suggests the population is changing it's mind, the data is centered on court cases.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#88

Post by classicsnoot »

rayiner wrote: post #33
classicsnoot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too hate when i don't get to use my computer as i see fit, but you have to admit that every point you have mad, previous to the comment i am responding to now, has been made from a personal, preferential point of view. I am not saying i do not agree with; i am saying its just, like, your opinion man.

You can make objective conclusions about subjective preferences. Most users do not want to wait to see information being presented to them. Nor do most users want to deal with websites that randomly change how their computer works. The distribution of subjective preferences can make design decisions objectively bad.

fair point

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#89

Post by freehunter »

mitchty wrote: post #78
anthony_romeo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, after these courts have started legalizing gay marriage, public support for gay marriage has followed. I always suspect it's a chicken-or-egg type of situation. Sometimes there is genuine public support for a given issue. Other times, change must occur first, and then people can see that society hasn't collapsed. Once polls began to demonstrate that more people supported gay marriage than were again…

In my own state of Minnesota the courts had nothing to do with legalization. Nothing likely would have changed either unless it wasn't for a bunch of anti gay bigots really pissing a lot of people off by trying to pass an amendment to the state constitution banning it. That misfire caused everyone that gave a shit about not being jerks to humans to fix that crap pronto by getting that amendment killed, then 6 months…

Well in quite a few cases, the legalization came via a state passing a bill to allow gay marriage then someone challenging it in federal court.

Re: This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

#90

Post by andrewla »

This is an interesting analysis, but it would be more interesting to look at the generalization of the trends, rather than the cherry-picked examples of "interesting" policies.

Specifically, take all US Supreme Court decisions that resulted in the invalidation of state legislature, and track what the trend looked like in terms of historical trends of states that conformed to the decision before the decision was made.

Is anyone aware of any data sources that would have this information in some form? The complexity seems to be that if a law was struck down by a state in 1956, and the Supreme Court made a decision relative to that law in 1960, determining whether the law would have been struck down could be more subtle than a binary yes/no. But even having this data in a basic form, measuring state legislature activity leading up to a relevant federal court decision, could at least give an indication of how long issues take to gain some momentum.

This ignores the other axes; like state judicial decisions being overridden or validated by the federal level, or other variants, but still would be very interesting.

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