May 2007 – Page 17 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Dog Control

Eric at Classical Values is on his 9th post about California’s AB1634, requiring cats and dogs to be spayed or neutered.Â I’m neither a cat or dog owner, but this law strikes me as going way way too far, and probably won’t even solve the problems its attempting to address.

People in California, in all honestly, need to get their state government under control, and remind them who they work for, and what appropriate limits on their power is.Â Â That might mean that folks in California may need to hold their noses, and vote for another party, just to get some of these people out of office.

Terrorist Watch List Bill Out

The “Dangerous Terrorists Act” is out in PDF over at Of Arms and the Law.Â I’m really curious why the DOJ wants this so badly, and I’m also really curious why Bush has yet to fire Alberto Gonzalez.Â This is not the kind of crap I expect to be coming out of a “pro-gun” administration.

Of course, I could just chalk this up to the Aministration’s penchant for ignoring due process concerns when it comes to people they have declared “terrorists”. Â I’ve been willing to grant them a lot of leeway in dealing with foreigners captured in a theater of war, but not with the rights of US citizens. Â This is an outrage.

Three More Seasons

It appears ABC’s Lost will run for three more seasons, each 16 uninterrupted episodes.Â This seems to suggest that they didn’t have the show all that well planned out from the beginning to end.Â They do mention this:

“Due to the unique nature of ‘Lost,’ we knew it would require an end date to keep the integrity and strength of the show consistent throughout and to give the audience the payoff they deserve,” ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson said.

You better!Â If this ends up being another Quantum Leap or X-Files, I’m going to be pissed.

You Don’t Say?

From KYW1060, we learn City Council’s efforts on gun control aren’t likely to succeed:

Philadelphia city council has sent Mayor Street gun control bills and, lacking state authorization, plans to go to court, seeking the ability to enforce them. But councilâ€™s strategy faces long-shot odds of success.

Franklin and Marshall College professor and political analyst Terry Madonna says even if a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge were to side with council over the state legislature, based on history, council is not likely to prevail on appeal.

State Senator Erik Arneson said, â€œThe city could probably find many other priorities that the money theyâ€™re spending on lawyers would be better used for.â€ I couldn’t agree more!

Is This Guy Now a Prohibited Person?

Dave Hardy tells us of a pretty outrageous incident:

In the latest blow-back from the Virginia Tech shooting, State University of New York at Cobleskill suspended a student and sent him to a mental hospital for five days after he posted a photograph of himself posing with a shotgun on his Facebook page. According to reports, somebody found that image along with an away message that read, “I’m tired of people talking sh*t about my school.” As a result, last Friday Tharindu Meepegama (Thar), “a junior majoring in computer information systems, was escorted by the sheriff’s department to a psychiatric center in Oneonta, N.Y., where he was held until Wednesday.”

So is this guy now a prohibited person? Â It seems he was involuntarily committed, but I’m wondering where the due process is?Â To me, this is clearly an abuse of the mental health system.Â If jurisdictions like New York and California want to consider an interest in shooting as a reason for psychiatric commitment, I may just reconsider whether I think there’s enough due process protections in the system to consider whether it’s sufficient to strip someone of their rights.

Why Philly Won’t Get Its Assault Weapon Ban

Took a trip to the Chester County public PGC range this Saturday. Chester County has the one remaining Philadelphia suburban area public shooting range that hasn’t been closed by the PGC. If you want to get an idea of why it’s going to be hard for Philadelphia to get a state wide assault weapons ban out of Harrisburg, all you have to do is look down at your feet:

Of course, brass collectors will snatch up any actual brass pretty quickly, so this can’t be taken as a representative sample, but the Chester County range bench area is always covered in a thick layer of mostly 7.62×39 spent steel casing in various stages of rust.

Philadelphia Commerative “Assault Weapons” Drive

To commemorate the city’s passing of the new anti gun bill, which includes an expanded assault weapons ban, I have decided that I will now take an AK-47, unloaded and uncased, with a 30 round magazine, on a little drive through the city. I’ll be driving a green Honda Element in the Northeast. Any Philadelphia Police officer who wants to pull me over and arrest me, so I can have standing for a nice big fat lawsuit, feel free!

UPDATE: No fun.Â Even made an illegal turn.Â Oh well, there’s always the next drive after it’s law!

Of course, it’s still not signed yet. So this is purely symbolic at this point, just like these ordinances! But I will be sure to do another before the ink from Street’s pen is dry on the bill.

The Philly Lawsuit

The City of Philadelphia’s law suit against the General Assembly for failing to allow the city to pass gun control measures.Â Apparently it’s taken a while to get the lawsuit going.Â Â Why?Â According to the Inky:

The lawsuit has been on hold for a different reason: Clarke couldn’t find a lawyer willing to take the case.

Council has one now, Clarke said, but he declined to identify the lawyer. Clarke also declined to say whether the new laws would be enforced immediately, explaining that he did not want to compromise the legal strategy.

So it took them a while to find a lawyer who was willing to take the city’s money for a case that has no prayer of going anywhere, in an area where there’s well established precedent upholding the state’s preemption.

I wonder how Philadelphia citizen feel knowing their tax dollars are going to pay lawyers to take a lawsuit that has no merit into the court system, rather than, I don’t know, hiring police and locking up criminals.

They Passed It!

Philadelphia passed the gun control ordnances, despite state preemption. I dare city officials to try to enforce them. A letter will soon be sent by me to the state Attorney General.

Hat tip Dave Hardy

Strappnig for Urban Renewal

Pro-Gun Progressive asks the Mayor of Balitmore a simple question in regards to helping clean up his neighborhood:

Nice to know sheâ€™s not saying I canâ€™t own a gun. Ms. Mayor, can I get a hand from you in getting that permit so I can carry mine when Iâ€™m being confronted by roving gangs of drug dealing thugs who say they want to kill me? The bad guys carry theirs.

That’s a great question. But I doubt she’d bother to answer.