When Fun is Banned

It turns out that Steve Jobs wanted to play a bit of Willy Wonka with an Apple customer, but California bans that kind of fun:

Inspired, perhaps, by Willy Wonka, Apple’s CEO wanted to put a golden certificate inside the 1 millionth iMac box. Whoever bought it would have the price refunded and be flown to Cupertino for a tour.

Where Jobs would meet them in top hat and tails. …

Indeed, he was only thwarted in his quest to plumb the Depps of amusement by California law.

It states that entry to sweepstakes should not require the actual handing over of money.

What do you expect? It’s California where they don’t like fun or capitalism.

Back From Boston

Got in last night, went out for dinner with Bitter in Philly, and crashed. It’ll take me a bit to get caught up with everything. I appreciate everyone’s patience through the light posting. I think I’ve reached my convention quota for the year. Politics aside, every time I’ve gone to Boston it’s been a good time. It’s a great city.

On The Boston Massacre & Benefit of Clergy

As things usually go when I’m staying in hotels, I had some difficulty sleeping last night, so I took to reading more about the Boston Massacre, and was struck by the level of similarity to the recent Trayvon Martin shooting. Both events involved mistakes on the part of both participants, both were seized upon by propagandists who fanned the anger of the mob, and both resulted in politically motivated charges of murder. No lawyer in the Town of Boston wanted to take up the case of the British soldiers who fired on the crowd, until it fell upon a 34 year old Boston lawyer named John Adams, who agreed to take the case. Adams had designs on political office, and realized taking this case ultimately would be this ruin of those ambitions, but felt it was important that the British soldiers receive a fair trial, and that the law should prevail, rather than the mob.

There was actually two separate trials, one of the commanding officer, and other of the remaining enlisted soldiers. This complicated things for Adams, because the easiest defense would be that the commanding officer had never given the order to fire, and for the soldiers that they had only been following orders. Captain Thomas Preston, the commanding officer, was acquitted, having claimed successfully that he never gave the order to fire. No transcript survives from Preston’s trial, but one did survive from the trial of the remaining soldiers, which was complicated by defense Preston had successfully made. Concluding with an eloquent closing argument, Adams managed to get all but two of the soldiers acquitted, with the remaining two convicted of manslaughter, rather than murder. In the sentencing, the two soldiers successfully appealed to the benefit of clergy, and were sentenced to having their thumbs branded.

One striking thing reading the archive of the trial is how little the practice of law has changed. I was unfamiliar with the term “benefit of clergy,” which has a rather fascinating history. Today we would call this as probation. The branding was to ensure you could not take advantage of it again in a future court, given there were no computerized criminal records in those days. In those days most felonies were capital offenses, but the legal system usually tried to figure out ways to get around having to hang every person who committed felonies. In the English legal system, one available alternative to the gallows was to waive the death sentence is exchange for enlistment in the military. Another was to sentence the convicted individual to “transportation,” to America, and later Australia, upon pain of death if one attempted to return. A third was “Benefit of Clergy,” which was based on the principle that the church was entitled to regulate its own affairs. In the early days, when literacy was generally limited to the clergy, courts would demand the reading of a biblical passage, to ensure the individual was entitled to being turned over to the church for punishment. Usually Psalm 51, which became known as the “neck verse,” for it’s ability to save one’s neck. With the expansion of literacy, this defense became more widely available, and eventually became generally available without the need to read from the bible.

This concept fell off favor with 19th century legal reforms that introduced the concept of the modern prison or penitentiary. But it was surprising to find an 18th century version of what is essentially the modern concept of probation.

A Subtle Message…

He may not be my representative, but I do believe that Representative Stephen Bloom is my favorite lawmaker in Harrisburg. He uses social media frequently to keep in touch with his constituents. Yesterday, he posted a picture on Facebook that you could say highlights his dedication to making use of every possible resource…

I also get Mr. Yuk stickers, which come in extremely handy when reviewing stacks of legislative co-sponsorship memos…

Sights of Beantown

Fortunately, today I managed to get over to the Freedom Trail a bit for some sightseeing before it got dark. Here’s some sights around Boston:

The driver let me drive the water taxi over this morning. First time I’ve handled a boat since I was 18, I think, when my Uncle kept a boat on the Chesapeake in Maryland. I was surprised by this, I figured in Nanny America, there’d be police waiting her haul her off. She even offered to let me dock it.

Marketing Fail

I don’t even know where to start. Wyatt has the story about a Chinese company making a line of sunglasses named for Helen Keller.

He provides a punchline that I fear the company will take to heart:

The company is currently working on an FDR running shoe.

I am concerned that he just gave their marketing department a new idea.

The Torches and Pitchforks are Still on Standby

Wow. If anyone thought that incumbents could cruise to safety in 2012, Pennsylvania just showed that voters are still pissed off. The Speaker of the House – a race I didn’t see anyone mentioning as seriously competitive prior to last night – just barely squeaked out a challenge from within his own party. He even lost the part of the district he lives in! A total of five sitting incumbent state lawmakers lost their seats last night, and members of Congress were sent some walking papers, too.

For gun owners, here’s what’s relevant:

Babette Josephs is gone. She was defeated in a primary after she was caught illegally campaigning inside of a polling place. This video made from soundbites of Philly politicians pushing gun control features her rants about how only a few people who show to protest in Harrisburg are the only people in all of Pennsylvania who oppose radical gun control. She was pushing the idea of overturning Castle Doctrine here in the Commonwealth in honor of Trayvon Martin. My favorite comment from her was actually on Facebook about breastfeeding. She said a staffer was a new mom and bragged that her office was breastfeeding-friendly. Great, that’s the law since it’s a state building. I guess as a Philly lawmaker, she probably should be patted on the back for not breaking the law, but I still like to hold my standards a little higher. Sebastian had an experience with her office that showed they may be breastfeeding-friendly, they were hardly tolerant of gun owners coming in to have a conversation.

No, the seat isn’t going pro-gun. Regardless, gun owners should still celebrate the victory of ousting a lawmaker who wasn’t even willing to give them the respect of her time. The future representative also walks into the office as a freshman rather than with her seniority.

Patrick Murphy‘s political career was largely summed up as this: Over. He lost his Congressional seat in 2010, and then he set his sights on Attorney General as a stepping stone to Governor. He seemingly expected to walk right into the position with his national fundraising contacts and support of Barack Obama. What he didn’t count on was an opponent who has, oh, actually tried cases in Pennsylvania – a teeny, tiny thing missing from Murphy’s resume. And the woman brought in Bill Clinton to campaign for her. In case Murphy didn’t notice, Pennsylvania Democrats actually like the Clintons. They didn’t support Obama in the primary in 2008, a reflection that he was out-of-touch with the state outside of Philadelphia.

The Attorney General‘s race is big for gun owners. That’s the office that handles reciprocity with other states for carry licenses. Gov. Tom Corbett made an effort to seek out states that would sign agreements when he was in the office. We know that anti-gun groups have put a target on cutting reciprocity agreements – something they previously tried to attack in the legislature when they knew the Attorney General wouldn’t do it. I believe that the woman who beat Murphy is more anti-gun than he was in Congress. It seems odd that I would celebrate her win, but she ended Murphy’s political career as a whole. Now, it’s time to beat her.

We mourn the loss of pro-gun Blue Dogs last night. Congressman Tim Holden was NRA A-rated, but he was dealt a devastating loss last night. The Democratic nominee for the district, Matt Cartwright, has never held office before and refused to return NRA’s questionnaire. However, he told the local media that he swears he’s pro-gun even though he also generally campaigned on the message that he’s farther to the left than Rep. Holden. It sounds like Democratic gun owners in that part of the state need to start picking up their phones and firing up their keyboards to actually demand some answers from Mr. Cartwright.

On the far western edge of the state, two A+ rated Democrats engaged in a pretty bitter primary fight. While they are rated the same on guns, Rep. Jason Altmire has actually made time for the NRA by speaking at the convention and actually leading on the Democratic side of the aisle. Unfortunately, unions painted a giant target on his back and vowed to end his political career for opposing Obama’s healthcare law. With gun control not a major difference between the two Democrats, Altmire fell last night to Rep. Mark Critz.

In better news, NRA’s endorsed candidate in PA-4 (the former PA-19) won the GOP primary with more than 50% of the vote. That doesn’t sound too impressive until you consider that Scott Perry won a seven-way race. Yeah, huge. That race was effectively the general election. It also goes to show that money isn’t everything in a contest because Perry wasn’t the biggest fundraiser of the field.

I’m a Hunter, But …

Looks like the media is using a lot of disinformation about NRA and what it stands for to drag out, one again, the “I’m a gun owner… but” meme:

On its Web site, the N.R.A. calls itself the “largest pro-hunting organization in the world.” Yet during election season, the N.R.A. makes endorsements based largely on candidates’ voting records on gun control — with little if any concern for their views on other issues of interest to hunters.

I’m sure it will be news to the Board’s hunting policy committee, and also to ILA’s hunting policy department, that NRA doesn’t do anything for hunting. You have a lot of these lefty hunters that think the only thing matters is an environmental record, as is the animal rights whack jobs and access to land are not big issues.

It sounds like she’s new to hunting, so I’ll give her the benefit of doubt, but if she thinks they won’t go after her hunting rifle high-precision long range sniper rifle, she’s delusional. If she thinks groups like PETA or HSUS won’t ban or restrict hunting as much as possible, she’s delusional. I would welcome a serious discussion with this author on the issues, because I think she’s missing the big picture. The hunting community is an ecosystem, and a very unhealthy one at that. If the health of that community isn’t freshly nurtured, hunting is finished. Hunters will be reduced in numbers until they no longer retain the political power to stave off attacks, and if Lily Raff McCaulou has her way, I will not be in that fight, because as a shooter, you’ve acquiesced to banning the guns I shoot with, so why would I then lift a finger when you’re finally eaten last?

Early Response to SYG Laws in Louisiana

This bill, to ease SYG in Louisiana, is interesting in what it requires:

The bill, which received unanimous approval from the Senate Judiciary C Committee, would require a “full investigation” by law enforcement and coroners in any death that results from violence or under suspicious circumstances in which a claim of self-defense is raised.

So only when self-defense is raised should we expect a full and thorough investigation? Someone is found face down in a swamp, and we can short change that investigation, eh Senator? This sounds like a mandate that the police be competent, and how do you enforce that? Another bill has already failed in committee:

Another bill inspired by Martin’s killing, Senate Bill 719, did not make it out of committee. Sen. Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb, D-Baton Rouge, said her bill was aimed at closing a potential loophole in the stand your ground law that would allow people to start a fight, try to withdraw and then claim self-defense if the other person continued to come after them.

That’s a “loophole?” I believe traditionally, and correct me if I’m wrong, you lawyers out there, but you could always regain faultlessness if you attempted to retreat from the fight, but your opponent kept pressing the fight.

And that is my big fear, but also a bit of a comfort; that our opponents will not merely try to repeal SYG, but will try to gut self-defense laws even further. It is a fear, because I always worry they could be successful. It is a comfort, because this kind of overreach is what’s ruined their fortunes in the past.