Dr. DiLorenzo is right that it’s arrogant of libertarian lawyers to think that they’re going to win in the courts in the long run, apparently by the power of their own skills and arguments.

You’d think they would understand by now that it’s a rigged game, especially after their high-profile failures in Kelo v. City of New London (the eminent domain case) and Raich v. Gonzales (the medical marijuana case) — the results of which were awful anti-liberty precedents that will surely never be reversed.

They’ll point to Heller, but Mr. Kinsella is probably right that it will be a very limited victory after courts uphold every gun ban the slightest bit less restrictive than DC’s. If you don’t think so, look at almost every case that followed the supposedly revolutionary Lopez case, which everyone thought was going to restrain Congress under the Commerce Clause. Since then, courts have gone right on rubber-stamping just about anything Congress wants to do.

This is what happens when you take the naive view, shared by Cato and all other beltway libertarian types, that government officials are really just reasonable, serious people whom we just need to persuade with sound arguments. How silly is it to think you can make the government want liberty before most of the people want it. Talk about putting the cart before the horse!