Boondocks No. 60

Monday, March 17, 2008

D.C. Gun Case To Be Heard Tuesday. It looks like tommorow the oral arguments on constitutionality of gun ownership restrictions will be heard by the Supreme Court, with stacks and stacks of amicus briefs.

Many New York State and City gun control statues would likely be viewed as unconstitutional should the incredibly stringent DC ban be overturned.

At oral arguments on Tuesday, the nine justices will, for the first time in nearly 70 years, try to interpret whether the Second Amendment provides an individual right to own firearms or only the right of a state to keep a militia without federal interference.

The law at issue before the court is a handgun ban in Washington, D.C. The ban, considered the most restrictive in any major American city, also requires rifles and shotguns to be kept disassembled or equipped with a trigger lock, which critics of the measure say makes them less useful for self-defense during home invasions. The law is being challenged by a security guard, Dick Heller, who wants to be able to keep a handgun at home.

Indeed as Jacob over at NY Riffle and Pistol Assocation notes, NY's Sullivan Act will be likely overturned should the Supreme Court rule against the DC Gun ban.

“New York’s gun control laws will hang in the balance when the Supreme Court this week takes up the question of whether Americans have a constitutional right to own guns … In most states, law-abiding adults face few impediments to gun ownership. But in some metropolitan areas, including New York, licensing requirements are strict. Such municipal laws would come under scrutiny if the Supreme Court struck down the Washington ban as violating the Second Amendment. “I can guarantee that if we win this, New York’s laws will be challenged,” a lawyer who is representing Mr. Heller, Robert Levy of the Cato Institute, said …”

This is something definitely to watch. Hopefully the court will protect our constitution with it's upcoming ruling, and finally do what is right after all these years of bucking the question. P'Link

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

District of Columbia v. Heller This is the question that will be argued in front of the Supreme Court today:

Whether provisions of the D.C. Code generally barring the registration of handguns, prohibiting carrying a pistol without a license, and requiring all lawful firearms to be kept unloaded and either disassembled or trigger locked violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?

You will eventually be able to hear the oral arguments, and even further down the line, the decision on Oyez: District of Columbia v. Heller, (No. 07-290), U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument.

Right now, they just have the question posted, as we all sit and weight to see how this will play out. However, according to ABC News:

The court planned to release audio recordings of the arguments as soon as they conclude.

They also note...

The court has not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment in the 216 years since its ratification. The basic issue for the justices is whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Even if the court determines there is an individual right, the justices still will have to decide whether the District's ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws. This issue has caused division within the Bush administration, with Vice President Dick Cheney taking a harder line than the administration's official position at the court.

This will be very interesting to watch. From the AP Wire, it looks like some protesters are out in front of the Supreme Court with signs that read:

Ban the Washington elitists, not our guns

Nice. Very nice. P'Link

Supreme Court Oral Arguments Now Online. For the D.C. vs. Helner case on the second amendment.

• Listen to the Argument on C-SPAN Realplayer Video
• Supreme Court Transcript Text

Worth a listen or maybe even a read of the 110 pages. It's not that legalistic sounding, so if you have taken constitutional law in college or even remember high school civics, you can get the basics of the arguments.

One of best quotes I've heard so far:

So if you have a law that prohibits the possession of books, it's all right if you allow the possession of newspapers?

—Chief Justice Roberts

Great. P'Link

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Google News and the Positions on the Heller Case. This is what CATO-Foundation's Robert Levy has to say about it:

On March 18, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Heller v. District of Columbia, a Second Amendment challenge to D.C.'s ban on all functional firearms in the home. The issue is straightforward: Does the Second Amendment mean anything at all? The city and its allies contend that the Framers ratified a provision in the Bill of Rights that should be interpreted to have no content whatsoever. In effect, the city argues that the right to keep and bear arms can be exercised only in the context of militia service—that is, exercised by persons chosen by government, at a time and place chosen by government, and in a manner chosen by government. At the same time, the city concedes that one of the original purposes of the Second Amendment was to deter government tyranny. Astonishingly, the city pretends that its inherently contradictory positions can somehow be reconciled.

And what Paul Hemke of the Brady Campaign has to say:

The lower-court decision in the DC gun case was an example of judicial activism at its worst.

The lower court court ignored longstanding Supreme Court precedent, discounted the express language of the Second Amendment, and substituted its policy preferences for those of the District's elected representatives. We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will reverse this clearly erroneous decision and make it clear that the Constitution does not prevent communities from having the gun laws they believe are needed to protect public safety.

From Google News. P'Link

CS Monitor: Historic Case to Decide Gun Rights. The significance of the Heller case has been discussed in an article in CS Monitor.

It argues that this case is truly unique and there is no precedent on one side or another. The Miller sawed-off shotgun case didn't look at the same broad sweeping prohibitions in 1942, and did not comprehensively look at the meaning of the second amendment.

It presents what Georgetown University Law Center Professor Randy Barnett calls a "clean case."

"There is really no precedent standing in the way of the court enforcing the original meaning of this provision," Professor Barnett told reporters recently. "That's what makes this a historic case. That's what makes it a case that none of us … have probably witnessed in our lifetime and may never witness again."

But that's also what makes it unpredictable, according to other analysts.

"We have no track record on any of this," says John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who embraces the militia-service view.

The justices must decide what the authors of the Second Amendment meant when they wrote and approved these words: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It should be interesting to see how it plays out, but it seems obvious the court will be extending our second amendment rights based on their questions and response to what was presented to them in one form or another.

That will be great, as this part of the constitution has long deserved the attention of government, and respect from our lawmakers that too often look for political expedient solutions to our violent society, rather then fighting for the kind of policies that will help end violence through ending poverty and the desperate conditions so many Americans live in today. P'Link

Justices Question DC Gun Ban. Many justices, especially conservative ones that make the majority of the court, opined yesterday that there is a definite 2nd amendment right.

"What is reasonable about a total ban on possession?" Chief Justice John Roberts asked Washington, D.C.,'s lawyer, Walter Dellinger, referring to a provision barring private possession of handguns.

Dellinger said the ban was only on the weapons that have been considered especially dangerous.

Justice Samuel Alito, who like Roberts was appointed by President George W. Bush, cited another provision requiring rifles or shotguns be kept unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock, and said it did not seem as if they could be used as such for the self-defense of one's home.

Read Conservative Justices Question D.C. Handgun Ban on Reuters. P'Link

Good Year for Maple Syrup. Those of us who love that sweet stuff that comes out of Sugar Maple Trees this year have good reason to rejoice.

Anyone who enjoys the taste of real maple syrup has to be encouraged by what is going on in the industry, several of those involved said.

With temperatures expected to be in the 40s during the day coupled with freezing nights for the rest of the week _ the type of weather that is needed to get sap flowing _ a couple of local maple producers are hoping this will be a good year. At Baker's Maple in Bainbridge, owner Reed Baker said the season started March 1 with the first syrup produced March 6.

"We're off to a good start," he said.

The light amber color is typical for the sap this early in the season, he said. If the daytime temperatures continue to rise, it'll be darker, with a stronger maple flavor, he said.

"This year is more of a normal (weather) pattern than we've seen in recent years," Baker said.

Of course, tapping for syrup is great fun, as is boiling it. Just don't do it inside where you can ruin your wallpaper, as my parents learned one year when they did it renting a farm in Knox.

Cleaning sap lines is less fun as is anything else that touches that sticky but great sap that comes out of trees this time of year. There is nothing quite like as that's great syrup.

Read Syrup off to 'good start". P'Link

Tedisco Joins LumberJacks from Paul Smiths. It looks like the Minority Leader, got to throw an axe with the lumber jacks from Paul Smiths in their axe throwing competition that was in Albany for the Great Outdoors Show Last week.

Glad to see he found someway to keep himself busy, doing some productive.

I know some of the timber industry professionals who have participated in those competitions in the past. Axe throwing is fun, if you have a well balanced axe, but it's pretty useless in practice.

See his blog, Tedisco's Take. P'Link

Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label. The Times looks at the fight by Monsanto to save it's repudiation of it's profitable posilac product that has a bad name in the media and is kind of expensive for farmers:

It may be the last stand of Posilac.

Posilac is the brand name of a Monsanto synthetic hormone used to increase milk production in cows.

A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.

The group, called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or Afact, says it is a grass-roots organization that came together to defend members’ right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin, also known as rBST or rBGH, an artificial hormone that stimulates milk production. It is sold by Monsanto under the brand name Posilac.

It posilac only was cheaper and offered more benefit and less risk of matasis, it might have more of a fighting chance. But going up against the media, and having a relatively low benefit for farmers, it losing it's popularity.

Read Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label in the New York Times. P'Link

In the Supreme Court Today: Gun Control. From the article:

It’s always perilous trying to predict how the court will come out based on the questions the Justices ask at oral argument. But it appears that Justice Anthony Kennedy believes that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to own guns — not simply members of militias, as the text of the amendment has generally been intepreted. He may well be the fifth and deciding vote for this position.

That would not necessarily decide the case. Even if the Second Amendment gives individuals a right to own guns, there would still be the question of whether Washington’s gun control law — which bans private ownership of handguns, and puts conditions on the ownership of rifles and shotguns — is constitutional.

Read In the Supreme Court Today: Gun Control - The Board - Editorials - Opinion - New York Times Blog. P'Link

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Friday, March 21, 2008

Urban Dictionary: On a Hick. I probably have known about the Urban Dictionary for a while, but I particularly enjoyed reading their definations of a hick.

A few of the really good ones:

3. Hick

Derogatory term for a someone from the country. Somewhere between a bumpkin an a redneck, though they tend to get wrongly lumped in either category. Unlike bumpkins, they are aware of the world beyond their rural setting, and probably have lived briefly in the city before returning to the quieter life they prefer. Unlike rednecks, they are generally educated, nice people who don't chastise non-religious people and aren't racist.

4. Hick

A wannabe cowboy; typically seen wearing wranglers and cheap western shirts bought at WalMart. They appear to have their own language that only they can understand. They tend to pronounce things differently than a normal citizen would. Bonus points if you can pull off the accent, the look, AND impress your friends with a good old fashioned racist remark!

6. Hick

A person who lives in the south or midwest who raises some kind of livestock or has a confederate flag still flying at their house.

Now I know what I want to be when I grow up. P'Link

Saturday, March 22, 2008