“Speak English” OK’d by City
Joe Vento, owner of Geno’s Steaks in Philadelphia, has been cleared of any wrongdoing when he posted as sign asking patrons to speak english when ordering.
I’m very glad that Joey’s betters have given him the green light, but I’m afraid James Madison already did that. I hope others will join me in saying that the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission can still go to hell for even putting on the charade that they had any authority under any law to make an issue out of this. As Wyatt Earp says, it was a waste of city taxpayer money. Thankfully, the city didn’t make an issue of this to the point where their betters have to remind the City Commission that they are not, in fact, part of Communist Cuba, but are still part of the United States.
When they outlaw fire extinguishers …
… only out oh hell, when they do that it means society is coming apart at the seams. The British people need to stand up and take their individuality back from the state, or it’ll be over from them.
Heller Coverage from Around the World
Old enough to die for your country …
… old enough to buy a beer, is what I say.  But Obama doesn’t think so.
Ricker Quote of the Day
He’s been commenting on gun blogs so much, maybe I can start a regular feature:
I do not describe the regulars who read a blog named the “The Bitch Girls†to be the AHSA target market. I think it should be clear from my comments here and on other “whacko†blogs that AHSA is reaching out to a more educated, sophisticated and straight thinking hunter and shooter demographic. Unfortunately, a “bitter†female with a gun and a chip on her shoulder probably would not find AHSA’s message of civic responsibility much to her liking.
He means a target market he hopes is smart enough, educated enough, and sophisticated enough not to notice who leaders in his organization like to hang out with?
Quote of the Day
It does not sound to me like those who are going to vote against us would have felt differently, even if we had used a time machine to bring James Madison into the courtroom to explain our position.
Clayton Cramer’s Take on Oral Arguments
Found here. Unfortunately, Clayton didn’t manage to get inside, but I heard that Bitter was able to get him in front of the media cameras a few times, which is good. Alan Gura managed to use one of Clayton’s discoveries during the oral argument phase. Good show.
More on Machine Guns
I think EVERYONE associated with this case who knows anything about appellate argument — and I’ve talked to many in that class — agreed that if you cannot come up with a 2nd Amendment test that lets the government do a lot of things with full autos, you lose. That’s bottom line. You can have a second amendment for things other than full auto, or you can have no second amendment. Take your pick, there is no third alternative. Life isn’t fair. I was very relieved when the Court showed signs of taking the view that Heller is asking to own a .38, not a Thompson, so we can deal with the full auto issue if and when someone brings a case (which I hope will be about ten years down the road).
I think ragging on Gura for this is not very productive. The guy just, in all likelihood, won a case that gives us a second amendment that means something. I was not happy that so much of the oral arguments focused on machine guns, but what are you going to do? He was the one up there, and not us. It’s a lot easier to think “He probably could have answered that question without mentioning machine guns” when you’re sitting there listening rather than on the spot being grilled by justices in the highest court in the land.
That said, I’ll leave the comments open for folks who want to outline ideas for how to make the distinction between arms that are protected by the second amendment, and arms that aren’t, that meet the standard laid out by Dave above.
Drug Raid Gone Wrong
Radley Balko has a new article on the Chesapeake drug raid that went horribly wrong. I think I blogged about that a few months ago when it first happened.