It doesn't matter. The ruling came down. "We the people" won. This should put us a step closer back to the "right" way of things--the government afraid of it's people, instead of the other way around.
The argument that was being made by pro-gun-elimination advocates was that the Constitution supposedly meant that a militia had the right to bear arms, but "the people" didn't. The problem there is that militias are usually controlled by the local governments (or they're declared terrorists and infiltrated and destroyed), which are controlled by the etc etc. Being that this section was put in there specifically because we'd just shed the British from our soil--and needed a lot of guns to do it--their "people shouldn't have guns" viewpoint would make the 2nd Amendment less than useless.
The Supreme Court very rightly decided that the only sane interpretation of the 2nd Amendment was that it was there to make sure that individuals could bear arms in order to be able to fight back against their government, should circumstances make this necessary.
This is especially important stuff since we've got King George in the White House. I'm still not wholly convinced he's actually letting go in November. I certainly don't want to see anyone get shot, but a few hundred thousand people showing up in DC asking politely with guns for him to leave office would probably not be such a bad thing.
Gosh, guess which area has a strict "you can't have a gun" policy.
While we're on the subject of using force as a legitimate part of your job vs. using force because you like hurting people and now you've got a job that gives you a passable explanation for having done so, the final public report on the UCLA taser incident from last November is available.
The conclusions of this report are that the officer's actions were completely outside of UCLA policy and that the policy is also too liberal. This is obviously unwelcome news to variouscommentators who supported this incident as model police behavior. However, for their benefit it there is also a second "internal" report that you and I are not allowed to read which concludes that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what happened. This enables UCLA management to change their policies without admitting that anyone has done anything wrong.
Which report is correct? Such questions completely miss the point. Its not about right or wrong. If you want to really understand all of this please refer to my previous post on how everything everywhere actually works.
At the behest of acting UCLA Chancellor Norman Abrams, the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) conducted a seven- month, independent investigation of a November 14, 2006 incident at UCLA’s Powell Library in which the UCLA Police Department (UCLAPD ) arrested UCLA student Mostafa Tabatabainejad. This report sets forth our factual findings and conclusions.
This story has no heroes. The event triggering the repeated electrical shocking of Tabatabainejad was a declination by the UCLA student to produce a BruinCard identification in the Powell Library computer lab after hours. While the student should have simply obeyed the order to produce the card, and by not doing so brought trouble upon himself, the police response was substantially out of proportion to the provocation. There were many ways in which the UCLAPD officers involved could have handled this incident competently, professionally, and with minimal force. We find that one UCLAPD officer violated UCLA use of force policies in the incident. We further conclude that UCLAPD’s current policies are, in any event, unduly permissive, giving the police unnecessary latitude, and are inconsistent with the policies of other universities and leading police departments across the country, including other University of California campuses, the LAPD, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD). The UCLAPD policy stands alone in its legitimization of the Taser as a pain compliance device against passive resisters. The current UCLA policy is more permissive than the Sacramento Police Department policy on which it was based and the Taser policy recommended by its chosen outside expert on the question.
YouTube - Rev. Yearwood speaks re: Police Brutality against him.
Topic: Society
9:24 pm EDT, Sep 13, 2007
Rev.Lennox Yearwood regarding being attacked, arrested, and hospitalized by Capitol Police
This man was denied entrance to the hearing because he had clearly been identified as holding opinions counter to the party line.
Bush's people will do everything in their power to keep dissenting voices away from the media when they have their official digs going on, and make no mistake about it, this is censorship of the worst kind.
Can we file a class-action suit yet, or do we have to wait until Bush's third term so that it gets lost in the shuffle of the switch to despotism?
The defeat that made Britain great - International Herald Tribune
Topic: Society
2:41 am EDT, Jul 6, 2007
Today, of course, the United States finds itself in much the same position as Britain in 1781. Distracted and diminished by an irrelevant, costly and probably unwinnable war in Iraq, America could ultimately find itself challenged by countries like China and India.
by
Michael Rose, a retired British Army general, commanded the United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1995.
This is an interesting perspective on the American Revolutionary War that you don't hear often over here. Adam originally recommended it but he linked the second page, so I'm linking the first instead.
