Still Waiting...: Both sides in a closely watched legal battle over the
District of Columbia's strict gun-control law are urging the Supreme
Court to hear the case. If the justices agree - a step they may announce
as early as Tuesday - the Roberts court is likely to find itself back on
the front lines of the culture wars with an intensity unmatched even by
the cases on abortion and race that defined the court's last term...Even
though both sides are urging the court to hear the case, it is not a
given that the justices will accept the invitation. On the polarized
court, that might depend on whether justices who feel strongly on either
side can be confident of prevailing. It might also depend on the
justices' collective appetite for injecting themselves into a
controversy the court has avoided for so long...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/washington/13scotus.html?ref=us&pagewanted=all
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_5745817,00.html
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3852888&page=1
A View From The Netherlands: This misguided commentary appears to be an
attempt by an American to "enlighten" the Dutch about the Heller case.
http://mvdg.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/the-individual-right-to-bear-arms/
---
Crime Data Disprove Effectiveness of DC Gun Ban: Three decades ago, at
the dawn of municipal self-government in the District, the city's first
elected mayor and council enacted one of the country's toughest
gun-control measures, a ban on handgun ownership that opponents have
long said violates the Second Amendment....Although studies through the
decades have reached conflicting conclusions, this much is clear: The
ban, passed with strong public support in 1976, has not accomplished
everything that the mayor and council of that era wanted it to. Over the
years, gun violence has continued to plague the city, reaching
staggering levels at times.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/12/AR2007111201818.html
---
Supreme Court May Be Ultimate Issue In 2008 Election: ...Even so, those
truths are unremarkable next to the magnitude of what the Supreme Court,
diminished or not, can be asked to decide. In the coming months, for
example, the court might recast the future of the death penalty, the
fundamental rights of Guantanamo detainees, the definition of child
pornography, and the meaning of the much-disputed right to "keep and
bear arms" under the Second Amendment. Each hot-button issue arises in a
case directly affecting only one or a few people. But the impact on
voters, on all of us, could be enormous. "Does the Supreme Court still
matter?" Of course it does, and more than ever.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/11/high-court-matt.html
---
Press Builds Pressure For Gun-Show Restrictions In Virginia: Former
state police Superintendent W. Gerald Massengill said yesterday that he
is willing to personally support restrictions on sales of firearms at
gun shows. Stepping into a volatile political issue that he said will
take on a new urgency and tenor in the wake of the Virginia Tech
massacre, Massengill described himself as a strong supporter of Second
Amendment rights but as a man who has witnessed an intolerable rise in
gun violence and gun presence.
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-11-13-0144.html
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/homepage/x2054228287
---
Oregon Students Comment On Teacher CCW: Three students in Roseburg
express their concerns over teachers carrying concealed handguns on
campus. (If the firearm is concealed, how is an unbalanced students
going to know which teacher to disarm? And what if a football player is
physically stronger than an armed "school resource officer"?)
http://www.newsreview.info/article/20071112/NEWS/71112016
---
College Libertarians Raffle Gun Voucher: According to LSA sophomore Eric
Plourde, the right to own guns is "the most attacked civil liberty."
That's why his group, the University chapter of the College
Libertarians, is holding a raffle tonight for a $200 gift certificate
toward the purchase of a gun at the Mill Creek Sports Center in Dexter,
Mich. Gun control on college campuses became a national issue after the
April Virginia Tech shootings, which left 33 people dead...
http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2007/11/12/CampusLife/To.Push.Gun.Rights.Group.Offers.A.Gun.Voucher-3094354.shtml
---
Oops, Wrong House: A 63-year-old man took matters into his own hands
when two men tried to break in his South Knox County home late Sunday
night...Garland says he jumped out of bed, dove behind his bedroom wall
and was ready with his pistol when the men came inside. "I shot one of
them, and the other, he stayed around there and he hollered, 'Quit
shooting!' and I let him come in and get him," Garland says.
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=7345959&nav=0RYv
Burglars Impersonated Police: Horace Garland didn't have time to think
when two men claiming to be police officers tried to force their way
into his South Knoxville home. He didn't have time to consider why cops
would be screaming and yelling on his front porch about midnight Sunday.
He didn't have time to be scared. The 63-year-old man only had time to
react with the .38-caliber Police Special he kept at his bedside...
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/nov/12/kcso-south-knoxville-man-wards-burglars-shoots-one/
---
After All, A Firearm Is Just A Tool...: A man trying to loosen a
stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring
himself badly in both legs, Kitsap County sheriff's deputies said...From
about arm's length the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was
"peppered" in both legs with 00 buckshot and other debris, with some
injuries as high on his body as his chin, according to a sheriff's
office report. (Even at longer ranges, wheel rims can ricochet rounds
back to the shooter, one of the reasons I counsel against trying to
shoot out vehicle tires.)
http://www.komotv.com/news/local/11198151.HTML
---
How Many Feds Pack Guns?: Arguably, the Coast Guard and the US Marshal
Service may be the only Constitutionally mandated federal
law-enforcement agencies. An obviously biased source furnishes a
breakdown, by agency, of the 104,883 federal agents currently authorized
to carry firearms.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/fourmilog/archives/2007-11/000584.html
---
How Britain Lost The RKBA: In the wake of a series of high-profile
shootings, an observer might assume that guns are suddenly pouring into
the UK for the first time. But gun control is a relatively recent
phenomenon in Britain, where ownership of firearms was relatively common
a century ago...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7056245.stm
---
Tangentially Related: ...In the last few years, Caller ID spoofing has
become much easier. Millions of people have Internet telephone equipment
that can be set to make any number appear on a Caller ID system. And
several websites have sprung up to provide Caller ID spoofing services,
eliminating the need for any special hardware. (A list member forwarded
a report from California in which a businessman received a phone call,
ostensibly from his home number, telling him that his family was being
held hostage.)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-03-01-caller-id_x.htm
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
