Legislation that NEEDS to pass
Those who know me, know that I feel there are already too many laws. BUT, this is one that everyone needs to call or write their legislators about.
It will require that ALL bills be read before being voted on, and make it perjury to vote on something that they haven’t actually read or heard read.
MAKE CONGRESS READ THE LAWS IT PASSES
More from my visit to the Supreme Court
I’ve found some people with pictures. Clayton Cramer has a few from the night before, as well as the day of the hearing. Unfortunately none of those pix have me in them.
The guy who was FIRST in line blogged it – also with lots of pictures.
I did find one at the Brady Bunch. I refuse to link to them, but if you go to bradycampaign.org, the slideshow on the left has me in the 3rd frame.
I emailed them to see if I could get a better picture – we’ll see.
I copied out just that frame – I’m the 7th person from the left in the black suit & tie.
Edit: – Odds are available (and favorable) at INTRADE.
DC V. Heller – debriefing
Well, I went. I got up early, caught the very first bus available, and arrived at the steps of the Supreme Court promptly at 6:00 this morning. I thought it looked promising, because the only people I could see were the news crews (5 of them) on the right side of the stairs to the plaza. I asked one of the guards where to go for the full session, and he pointed me to the line that was behind the news people. It was worse than Best Buy on Thanksgiving. As I walked down the block and around the corner, I guessed that I passed about 150 people. Apparently I’m not the only person interested enough to get there early. These people had been in line since Sunday night!
So, I got in line. Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to view the entire hearing, I got in line. It was cold, but not too bad, as there was a construction barrier on the other side of the sidewalk that blocked the wind. One lady (who had been camping up front – from IL or IA if I remember correctly) walked back and was asking people their views. According to her, there weren’t more than 2 or 3 people in line that sided with DC.
About 7, security moved the front of the line from where the news crews were to the base of the steps leading from the plaza to the court building. That shifted my place from East Capitol Street to First street, next to the news crews. There were now 7 of them. That pleased the head of security for a little while, and then they shifted the entire tail end of the line from East Capitol St. to Maryland Ave. At this point, there were about 75 people in line behind me. This wasn’t a good choice, because the wind had picked up, and it was quite cold without the barrier blocking it. A single guy with a sign (actually several that he flipped through) was there. One of his signs was:
Gun Murders
1900-2000 = 500,000
2000-2100 = 1.3 millionFeel free to critique on your own…
While I was standing literally on the corner of Maryland and First St, the grounds crew was cleaning trash. One of them in a Cushman drove up and honked at the other, who was on the sidewalk. Apparently he had found a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels. Both of them had a good laugh, and then dumped it down the storm drain before throwing the empty bottle away. I assume that it came from the hedges where the overnight camping had taken place.
About now, a lot more security became apparent. The number of officers tripled to about 15. The move to Maryland Ave only lasted a little while. About 30 more people had shown up, and it was obvious that the line would quickly block the employee entrance to the court. We were shifted around one more time, and I ended up back near the news crews again.
By now, another guy with a sign was there – his sign said
McCain says Guns for DC – But No Vote
I think (from a conversation he had later) that he thought that DC should have a vote, but still no guns.
About 8:45, the 2nd Amendment Sisters unfurled their banner. They had been joined by a group Maryland Shall Issue, who were easily spotted by their distinctive blue hats. Shortly after that, 8 DC police cars pulled up across the street, and remained there throughout the morning. There were two new guys with a signs, which were:
Criminals Prefer Unarmed Victims
and
Don’t Kill DCs Gun Ban
About 9, the Brady bunch showed up with 5 or 6 people. One of them had a canvas bag with 30-40 of their placards. Shortly after they showed up, another guy with a jacket with ‘Tyrany Response Team‘ and a sign that read ‘Ban the leaders in Washington, Not Guns!’.
About 9:30, I thought that the rest of the Brady bunch had arrived, as the guy was passing out placards, but it appears that it was just a tour group passing by, leaving only about 6 with signs there.
About 9:45, another group (sorry, didn’t get the name) showed up with a banner and had a discussion with security about the use of the boards & PVC pipe for their sign supports. Their sign read:
Firearms = Safety, Security, Freedom
The first group, which was seated for the entire session, was about 70 people. Fortunately everyone who had camped out overnight was in that group. That moved me up to about halfway to the door – on the plaza. About 20 minutes later, a second group of about 40 was taken in for 5 minutes in the gallery. Another 15 minutes, I was # 34 of the next group of 40 and I was inside the atrium to the Court. It was WARM (Yay!). The guard gave us a brief lecture on what happened next, where the lockers & coat check were, and then we went through the first security check. I dumped everything in a locker (no cell phones, cameras, pagers, etc) allowed in the courtroom, and then got in line to go through the second security check to go into the courtroom.
I was seated in the gallery at about 18 minutes into the hearing. When Chief Justice Roberts was questioning Mr Dellinger about how a total ban can be considered ‘reasonable regulation’. The seat gave me a view of Chief Justice Roberts and everyone on his right.
The transcript of the oral arguments is available from the Supreme Court in PDF format. An video version with slideshow is available from c-span.org (RealPlayer) For the extra scholarly (or if you just have trouble sleeping) the NRA has made all of the amicus briefs in the case available at http://www.nraila.org/heller/.
I really must commend the Supreme Court staff, who obviously went to extreme lengths to seat as many people in both the observer’s gallery and the temporary gallery. It appeared that extra chairs were in the regular gallery, and it looked like they had to scavenge other offices to find chairs to put in the temporary gallery.
When my time was up, I went downstairs to the museum and giftshop. After I left the building, I talked briefly with a few of the Maryland Shall Issue, and then headed home.
I was surprised that I didn’t see any obvious representatives of the NRA, GOA, SAF, JPFO, PinkPistols, or anyone else there.
If you were there and noticed a man in a black suit and tie, wearing a red-white-and-blue tie-die button down shirt, that was me.
DC V. Heller
On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the DC V. Heller case. The background of this case is quite simple. A security guard who was licensed to carry a handgun at work wanted to keep a gun at home for self defense. The DC government said no. The last appeals court ruled that DC’s law violated the 2nd amendment – and here we are. A decent write up is in the Washington Post. Because this is such a significant case, and I live close by, I’m planning on going to hear it.
Here’s my inexpert analysis:
First, the preamble of the Bill of Rights (did you know that it had a preamble?) says:
The Preamble to The Bill of Rights
Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Which colors the meaning of ALL of the first ten amendments – whose purpose was to ‘prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers’, and those amendments were to be ‘restrictive’ upon the government.
So, what does the 2nd amendment say?
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.
Kinda awkward, isn’t it. Maybe a diagram will help…
Happy Re-Birthday to Me
Happy Spiritual Birthday To Me – March 16, 1983
I had been raised in a ‘Christian’ family all my life. We had attended church (mostly military chapel services) nearly every Sunday for as long as I can remember. My father had been transferred to Southern California in 1982, and the tradition continued there. I was part of the youth group for teens, which was taught by a civilian, which I considered unusual. It was obvious that he was a civilian because he had a full beard, long hair, and a slight pot-belly. But, he was the first person that I ever remember hearing a clear presentation of the Gospel from. I got saved that night.
The main chapel on base began to feel different to me after that. We would occasionally go to a ‘field’ chapel, which was held in a quonset hut, and attended by mostly lower enlisted men. The chaplain there was not the same type that the main base chapel had. His sermons were always more practical, less placating, just much more ‘real’. The main chapel service was quite formal. Every (protestant) service was extremely structured, and never deviated from that structure. A seated hymn was always followed by a standing responsive reading, which was followed by announcements and offering, which was followed by …. You get the picture. It seemed like the rigidity of the structure was there to make up for the emptiness of the service. The main chapel was my Mom’s favorite, all of her military wife friends were there. Dad was equally comfortable at either one – he enjoyed the main chapel among his peers, but he also enjoyed the field chapel with the troops.
Whenever possible, I tried to convince Mom & Dad to go to the field chapel. I overheard them discussing it once – they weren’t sure If I wanted to go there because I had my learners permit and it was a farther drive, or if I was just more comfortable where the congregation was closer to my age.
To this day, I have problems at any church that feels large and seems have too rigid a structure. They just feel ‘cold’ to me.
DC – one step closer to a police state
Washington DC police plan to conduct house to house searches for illegal weapons (and all weapons are illegal in DC).
Hopefully someone will get a youtube video of just how ‘polite’ the cops are when you tell them no-thank-you.
I also think that something like this might sell really well to anyone in the truly safe and ‘gun free’ areas of the city that they are searching.
Why Lawyers Aren’t Really Human
If you disagree, read this article from 60 minutes where two lawyers kept a secret that let an innocent man rot in jail for 26 years! And if their client hadn’t released them to talk after his death, they would still be keeping it.
“Well, the vast majority of the public apparently believes that, but if you check with attorneys or ethics committees or you know anybody who knows the rules of conduct for attorneys, it’s very, very clear-it’s not morally clear-but we’re in a position to where we have to maintain client confidentiality, just as a priest would or a doctor would. It’s just a requirement of the law. The system wouldn’t work without it,” Coventry explained.
I think that a system that ‘requires’ attorneys to allow a man to spend 26 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit is already quite broken.
They couldn’t contain it, the truth had to come out, so what did they do?
We made an affidavit that we had gotten information through privileged sources, that Alton Logan was not in fact guilty of killing the officer, that in fact somebody else did it.
That’s wonderful. But did they show it to anyone? Did they anonymously tell anyone that could prevent such a grave miscarriage of justice? NO, of course not. They’re lawyers, remember, Cover their tails by writing the affidavit and then …
They sealed the affidavit in an envelope and put the envelope in a lockbox to keep it safe under Coventry’s bed.
Gee, thanks guys. Big help there. Now, an argument could be made (by weak minded morally flawed individuals) that if he was already in jail, that no additional harm was being done by keeping silent. That’s not the case – the trial hadn’t even happened yet. These two lawyers did show up for his sentencing, though.
“I was in court the day they were dealing with the death penalty,” Coventry recalled.
Asked why he went to court, he told Simon, “‘Cause I had this information that this innocent guy was up there and the jury was deciding whether they’re gonna kill him or not.”
Coventry said his heart was racing when he went into the courtroom. “It was just creepy. Knowing I was looking at the jurors thinking, ‘My God, they’re going to decide to kill the wrong guy.’”
In the end, the jurors spared Logan’s life.
“It was a 10 to 2 vote. Ten for, two against. Two individuals saved my life,” Logan explained.
And the jurors saved Kunz and Coventry from coming forward. “We thought that somehow we would stop at least the execution. We weren’t gonna let that go,” Coventry told Simon.
Well that’s nice. They ‘SAY’ that they’ll keep a man from being wrongly executed. I think that they wouldn’t have said anything that day, waiting to see what the appeals did. Then they would have waited to see if he got a reprieve from the Governor, and about the time the switch was being thrown ‘MIGHT’ have said something. But maybe not – we really don’t know.
“So it’s just okay to prevent his execution if necessary, but it was not okay to prevent his going to prison for the rest of his life?” Simon asked.
“Morally there’s very little difference and were torn about that, but in terms of the canons of ethics, there is a difference, you can prevent a death,” Coventry replied.
“But the minute he was not sentenced to death, the minute he was sentenced to life in prison, you decided to do nothing?” Simon asked.
“Yes,” Kunz said. “I can’t explain it. I ddon’t know why that made the difference but I know it did.”
Morally, there is NO difference between allowing a man to be wrongfully convicted – regardless of the punishment. The difference is that these two sub-humans don’t know if they would have been able to live with knowing that they had killed someone. They knew it was wrong, and decided to place their precious ‘canon of ethics’ above what everyone else who hasn’t been to law school knows to be right.
“Couldn’t you have leaked it to somebody? To a reporter, to an administrator, to the governor, to somebody?” Simon asked.
“The only thing we could have leaked is that Andrew Wilson confessed to us. And how could we leak that to anybody without putting him in jeopardy?” Kunz replied. “It may cause us to lose some sleep. But, but I lose more sleep if I put Andrew Wilson’s neck in the in the noose.”
“He was guilty and Logan was not. So, yes his head should be in the noose. And Logan should go free. It’s perfectly obvious to somebody who isn’t a lawyer,” Simon pointed out. “Andrew Wilson was guilty, was he not?”
“Yes. And that’s up to the system to decide. It’s not up to me as his lawyer to decide that he was guilty and so he should be punished and Logan should go free,” Kunz said.
Again we find that they really don’t qualify as human. They’d rather see a man wrongly convicted and jailed for half his life than to have a murderer who confessed to them punished – if it means breaking their precious ethics. Note the last ‘up to the system to decide’ is weasel speak for ‘Nobody should ever have to take responsibility for their actions without being forced to do so by a court.’
“In terms of my conscience, my conscience is that I did the right thing. Do I feel bad about Logan? Absolutely I feel bad about Logan,” Coventry admitted.
They wouldn’t know conscience if it walked up and hit them with a baseball bat.
The attorneys say they were so tormented over Logan’s imprisonment that they convinced Wilson to let them reveal that Wilson was the real killer after Wilson’s death. Late last year, Wilson died. The two attorneys finally took their affidavit out of the lockbox, and they called Logan’s lawyer, pubic defender Harold Winston.
A member of the human race doesn’t need the permission of a murderer to do the right thing. Especially if that murderer is dead. But for some reason, they wouldn’t reveal what they knew without it. I’m really sorry they were so tormented, though. Really, I am (/sarcasm)
And just to show that it’s not just these two lawyers that are ‘bad apples’, the attorney for Logan (the innocent man in jail)
… agrees the two attorneys had to remain silent until Wilson died. “I wish there had been a way this could have come out earlier. Under the…Illinois ethics code, I think the only way would have been if Andrew Wilson had released his lawyers earlier,” he explained.
But these bottom-feeders are really proud of themselves, that they finally came forward and ‘did the right thing.’
“There may be other attorneys who have similar secrets that they’re keeping. I don’t wanna be too defensive but what makes this case so different, is that Dale and I came forward. And that Dale had the good sense to talk to Wilson before his death. And get his permission. ‘If you die, can we talk?’ Without that, we wouldn’t be here today,” Kunz said.
But note that if they hadn’t gotten the murderers permission, they would still have kept their mouths shut.
Asked what they would say to him if they were able to visit Logan in his cell, one of the attorneys said, “There’s nothing you can say. Well, it’s been difficult for us. But there’s no comparison what so ever to what it’s been for this poor guy.”
“How has it been difficult for them?” Logan inquired.
“Alton, whether or not you can understand it, we’ve been hurting for you for 26 years,” Kunz said. “How often did I think about it? Probably 250 times a year. I mean I thought about it regularly.”
I think that this scum-sucking lawyer wants us to feel sorry for him. After all, he was troubled something like 250 times a year over the last 26 years. Assuming that the ‘troubling’ was more than just a passing feeling (which I doubt), that leaves 115 days a year that he wasn’t troubled WHILE AN INNOCENT MAN WAS IN JAIL. Multiply that by 26 years, and you come up with 2990 days, or 8 years and two months. Which to me sounds like a lenient sentence for withholding that information.
The process has been started, but an innocent man is still in jail, and two lawyers who value their own version of ‘omerta’ over anything non-lawyers would recognize as right now have salved (what they claim to be) their consciences.
Don’t let their appearance fool you, anyone with a law degree that walks into a court room ‘believing in the system’ to work has resigned from the human race and joined a species known as ‘lawyer’. They look like humans, they sound like humans (sometimes), but they have a language all their own and have replaced what humans call ‘morality’ with their ‘code of ethics’.
Firearms Safety
As a firearms instructor and former competitor, unsafe behavior around firearms REALLY bothers me. A recent unfortunate event in Georgia, where a former police officer ‘accidentally’ shot and killed his wife at a family home. More troubling still is that the room where the ‘accident’ happened had another cop, as well as a 911 dispatcher. An occasionally heated discussion involving a few family members that were there took place at Shooting The Messenger blog. While some of the comments may border on offensive, especially considering the loss of this family, it has been very instructive as to the mindset that allows this kind of ‘accident’ to happen.
The sequence of events (reconstructed from comments) appears to be:
- Something went wrong with the firearm, and it jammed
- A magazine was inserted
- The firearm was passed from one person to another
- It was ‘tapped’ on the table, causing it to discharge
- The bullet went through the woman’s arm into her chest, killing her
You’ll notice that I put ‘accident’ in quotes – because with firearms there are NEVER any fatal accidents, only negligence. That’s because of the NRA firearms rules that I teach and practice. They are:
- ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
- ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
- ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.
The phrasing may appear to be awkward at first, but there is a very good psychological reason for it. If you notice, all of the rules are ‘positive’ actions, which you can conceptualize immediately. If any of them had a ‘never’ or ‘don’t', your brain must first construct the action and then negate it.
For those trained in the military or by instructors trained in the military, another set of rules may be more familiar.
- All guns are always loaded!
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy!
- Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target!
- Always be sure of your target and what is beyond!
I prefer the NRA rules because they are simpler, positive, and progressive. Following either set of rules will keep you safe.
So, to analyze the rules….
1 – ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
It is possible for mechanical failures to occur. I’ve had a few happen to me. Following rule 1 ensures that nobody gets hurt if/when they do. There are situations where there is no safe direction, and firearms shouldn’t be handled then. If everyone followed ONLY this rule, accidental or negligent discharges wouldn’t injure or kill anyone.
2 – ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
Under normal circumstances, a properly maintained firearm will not fire unless the trigger is pulled. Keeping your finger outside the trigger guard ensures that the trigger isn’t pulled accidentally. When police forces switched from revolvers to semi-autos, many chose the Glock as the replacement. For quite a while, the Glock had the reputation of going off ‘all by itself’. This was shown to be false. What was actually happening was that the officers were used to the long double action trigger pull of their revolvers, and were resting their fingers on the trigger. As designed, it would fire when the trigger was pulled.
Here are two instances of officers having ‘accidents’. An officer nearly kills a suspect while he is on the ground being handcuffed. And another idiot officer in a room full of kids – just after he says ‘I’m the only one in this room professional enough to carry a Glock .40′ – Bang, he shoots himself in the leg with an ‘unloaded’ gun.
3 – ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.
Another no-brainer. If you are not actively using it, unload it. Depending on your circumstances, ‘use’ may mean different things. A hunting rifle kept in a cabinet is ‘used’ differently than a match pistol, which is used differently than a firearm kept for self defense.
The most dangerous situation is when someone is handling a firearm and has lost respect for it. Complacency and overconfidence lead to carelessness, which leads to accidents. Just ask any four-fingered carpenter.
