Another DGU

Ohh Shoot has the story. Naturally it would be counted with the others (the other DGUs I mean, many of which are no more true defensive uses of the gun than this is). And besides, it was the brother's fault for being stupid enough to climb through the window.

A Kentucky man fired a shot at someone he thought was breaking into his mobile home. But it was his brother who was trying to enter the home through a bedroom window.
The brother suffered a single gun shot wound to the neck and was air-lifted to the hospital where he remains in serious condition.

Police said the man fled the scene after the incident but family members insist that the shooting was an accident, saying the two brothers would never intentionally hurt each other.

Ohh shoot.

Interpreting Heller

The Gun Guys reports on the latest struggles in Washington D.C. to understand Heller.

A federal judge on Friday upheld limitations on gun ownership that the District of Columbia put in place following a 2008 Supreme Court decision overturning the city's outright ban on handguns.

"We fully expect to go the Court of Appeals," said Heller's lawyer Richard E. Gardiner.

Urbina's opinion "misinterprets Heller altogether," Gardiner said, referring to the Supreme Court decision. In particular, he took issue with the judge's observation that the Supreme Court did not explicitly declare the Second Amendment right to be "fundamental."

The plaintiffs claimed the new process for registering guns — which includes fingerprinting, vision tests, background checks and other requirements, and which limits people to registering one pistol per month — was too burdensome.

That doesn't sound too burdensome to me. What is it with these Heller supporters?

Ted Nugent on Health Care

Ted's a good talker, but where was he during the Bush years?

Scalia's Own Logic

The Chicago Tribune published a very entertaining opinion piece by Thomas William Heyck.

I've seen the light! After many years of believing that the U.S. Constitution should be made relevant to modern society, I've been converted by the arguments of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose brand of originalism (often called "strict construction") clearly and decisively settles all the issues of gun control.

True, the Second Amendment is a tad ambiguous. The phrase with which it begins does not fit with the last part: "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." That first phrase about "a well-regulated militia" only confuses things. The correct way to deal with it is to ignore it (as the current Scalia-led majority on the court happily does). That way, we get a little wiggle room to focus on the part that counts: "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

So there you are: By their very words the Founding Fathers plainly meant to protect the right of every person to own and bear muzzle-loading flintlock arms. But we true originalists logically cannot see any constitutional prohibition of governmental regulation of center-fire weapons, whether they be revolvers, assault rifles, automatic or pump shotguns, submachine guns, Glock automatics, or whatever. This truth will upset the arms industry, the drug gangs, prospective terrorists, the National Rifle Association and most gun nuts — and Justice Scalia himself, an avid hunter. But that's the inescapable deduction from Scalia's own irrefutable originalist logic.

Don't you just love that part where he said, "That first phrase about "a well-regulated militia" only confuses things. The correct way to deal with it is to ignore it (as the current Scalia-led majority on the court happily does)." For me, that just says it all.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Policeman Charged with Murder

The Seattle Times reports on the murder charge which is being brought against a policeman who shot and killed an unarmed man. Instead of the usual cover up, it sounds like they're doing the right thing in this case in spite of the cop's explanation. He thought the car was a lethal threat. Now, where have we heard that one before?

Snohomish County prosecutors added a charge of second-degree murder Thursday against Everett police Officer Troy Meade, who previously was charged with first-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a man seated in a car outside a restaurant last year.

Meservey [the dead guy] allegedly wouldn't get out of his car. Meade first shot Meservey with a Taser, then Meservey's car, parked between two other cars, lurched forward into a fence, according to charging papers.

According to another Everett officer's account, Meade said something like: "Time to end this; enough is enough," and opened fire, the charging papers say.

The other officer also told investigators Meservey posed no immediate threat to anyone in the area.

I'm glad to see this officer of the law being investigated and now being charged. I've heard this car-as-lethal-threat justification a few times and it never worked for me. Why the pro gun types defend it so is the weird part. Even folks who generally distrust the police will go to great lengths to defend the alibi that the car really was going to run down the cop and there was no choice but to shoot at it with a handgun. As I've said many times, this is what Bruce Willis does in the movies. In real life it's not like that.

What likely happens in cases like this and this one in particular is, you've got a cop on a power trip who cannot accept not being obeyed. He probably has the lowest opinion of those who resist his authority and too often, like any gun owner, uses firepower to make his point.

What's your opinion? Isn't it ironic that pro gun folks who often make fun of gun control people for having been influenced by the Hollywood movies, are the ones who do that very thing in these cases? Even in the extremely rare case in which the driver of a vehicle is trying to run down the cop, does it make sense for the cop to take a stance and shoot little bullets at the vehicle? That's a bizarre fantasy and an even more bizarre justification for having killed someone driving the car.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Crooks and Liars on Mike Vanderboegh

Crooks and Liars puts the kibosh on Mike Vanderboegh. The video is breathtaking in its insane exaggeration, but what Susie Madrak comes up with on the C&L post is just wonderful.

Paul Krugman on the Republican Party

The New York Times opinion piece by Paul Krugman provided a wonderfully brief description of what the Republican Party has become in recent years.

What has been really striking has been the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P., coming not from some radical fringe but from the party’s leaders. John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health reform was “Armageddon.” The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee’s chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on “the firing line.” And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.

All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials.

No, to find anything like what we’re seeing now you have to go back to the last time a Democrat was president. Like President Obama, Bill Clinton faced a G.O.P. that denied his legitimacy — Dick Armey, the second-ranking House Republican (and now a Tea Party leader) referred to him as “your president.” Threats were common: President Clinton, declared Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, “better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard.” (Helms later expressed regrets over the remark — but only after a media firestorm.) And once they controlled Congress, Republicans tried to govern as if they held the White House, too, eventually shutting down the federal government in an attempt to bully Mr. Clinton into submission.

I suppose some will challenge the fact that Bush didn't get the same kind of treatment, but for there have been two glaring examples of the all-too-prevalent attitude towards Obama, and by extension, to all Democrats. One was when Joe Wilson yelled out "liar," and the other was the Bret Baier interview.

Krugman's point is that it's not a few voices from which it would be a mistake to judge the whole group. He says it's the Republican Party as a whole.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.