SCOTUS says keep your paws off my pistol

In the past few years, I've seen quite a turnaround in my family. My parents, who are teetotalers, who haven't danced since the fiddler retired, and who did, in the Reagan years, support gun control legislation because "guns are dangerous", have come around. They now say that governments are more dangerous, especially when they try to take away our Constitutionally guaranteed rights.

I'd have never imagined, when I wore my hair long and in my face, that my hippie days would end, also. Well, they haven't, entirely. In fact, I think I've become more anti-establishment than ever. Still, I'm not one advocating tuning in, turning on and dropping out. Been there, done that, got the certification to prove that self-medication doesn't work when you're already nuts. I have no interest in socialism, or other aims of the Left. Their espoused good intentions have paved a major highway, haven't they? As a matter of fact, I have no use for Reds, in general or at specifics.

I am a reactionary of a different color (or three, to be precise. Figure it out for yourself).

So, last night, while I was packing up the kittehs to take them home from their weekend at Grammaw's, I heard the discussion between Hannity and his pal Bob Beckel about the SCOTUS decision, and Beckel tossed out the favorite defense of gun control legislation: children. As in, "Do you know how many children die each year from gun accidents?" Isn't it time somebody responded to that question with another simple question: "Do you know how many children die each year in water accidents? Let us ban all pools. Let us ban all boats, rivers, lakes, ponds. Let us ban bathtubs, sinks, bird baths. Let us ban puddles (that should work around the Midwest, this summer. Yeah, sure). " Come on, people, carry it through to its logical conclusion!

Banning a thing by law does not make anybody safer. In fact, as we have seen in city after city where legislation forbids law-abiding citizens the right to defend themselves, the violent crime rate has increased. In the cases of drowning, it is not that the pool is there, but that the child has not learned, yet, how to behave safely in and around water. The same can be said of firearms in the hands of children (and laws in the hands of politicians, too, except, I think that kids can learn. Most politicians are idiots with a singularly unimpressive learning curve). The trick is to teach people to keep and use these things responsibly. That's not something modern governments have much talent at.

So, I'm relieved that the Supreme Court decided that neither the city nor the state may override the US Constitution as it comes to gun ownership. It's a step in the right direction. We can only hope they will continue to protect the Constitution, and thereby protect us from the idiots we elect. I won't hold my breath, though.

Dogblog: dog justice

One of the items I purchased a few months ago at auction was (surprise!) a book. But this was no ordinary book -- it was, it now seems, a "my life in the law biz" collection of newspaper clippings for several months in AD 1914, predominantly from journals in the Indianapolis area.

What does this have to do with dogs? I hear you cry.

Not much, I reply. Unless you go to about page 8, under Review July 28"15. There lies a tale of a dog... or more accurately, a lawsuit about a dog:

Senator West's Tribute to the Dog

Note. –Professional service will publish a series of interesting and choice examples of forensic oratory. The following eulogy is really a classic.

Some years ago, in one of the towns of northern Missouri, a citizen brought a damage suit for $200 against a neighbor who had killed his dog. Senator G. Vest appeared in the case as counsel for the plaintiff. The defendant was represented by Senator Francis M. Cockrell.

Senator Vest made the closing argu-ment to the jury. He spoke but few words, and these in a low voice and with little gesture. He made no reference to the law, the evidence, or the merits of the case, but confined his remarks to an eloquent and most remarkable tribute to the dog.

THE EULOGY

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY: The best human friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps, when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-consid-ered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor [paper damage, one line illegible] may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. Te one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this world, the one that never deceives him, the one that never proves ungrateful and treacherous, is his dog.

A man's dog stands by him in prosper-ity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground where the wintry wind blows and the snow drifts fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as con-stant in his love as the sun in its journeys through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying, to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and when death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside may the noble dog he found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.


The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff.

It is said that, although the suit was for only $200, the verdict of the jury was for $500, and that some of the jurors wanted to hang the defendant.

–From Classics of the Bar, Vol II, Page 246

I can fully understand that response. After all, what sort of monster would want to bring harm to this lovely creature?

Don't forget to visit Modulator, for Friday Ark.

President Bush gets it right with Libby

Okay, I'm no expert, but it seems to me that, when the man has both sides' extremists and foamers mad at him, he's probably come up with a pretty good compromise.

I'd wondered how Dubya could clear out this mess over Plamegate without making it into a Marc Rich Redux, and it seems to me that commuting the sentence -- not pardoning, not erasing the record, but simply removing the threat of imprisonment from the list of punishments -- is a reasonable decision.

Libby broke the law. He was Martha Stewarted into a Grand Jury investigation -- charged with a crime over the investigation of a non-crime, he obstructed the investigation. If there had been a there, there (if Plame had genuinely been an undercover agent for the CIA at the time or within the time frame the law protects, and that cover had been blown by somebody in the White House), then the exposure could have jeopardized other lives, and both the leaker and the man who obstructed the investigation should have been punished. Unfortunately, the leaker was known at the beginning of the investigation and was never charged. It was that lack of there.

Nevertheless, the jury decided against Scooter. The recommendation for punishment was fairly limited, and the judge ignored it in favor of making a statement. The president had a right to make his statement in return.

Libby gets punished, a little more heavily than Sandy $50,000-fine-a-little-probation-and-I-promise-to-never-do-it-again Berger, for a much less overt crime (sin of omission as opposed to Berger's sin of commission). The foaming rightwingers are purportedly demanding full pardon (As. If.). Foaming leftwits whine that Paris Hilton had a tougher sentence for a lesser crime (yeah, hyperbole and inaccuracy abound, in the reality-based party). Hillary starts complaining about cronyism (has she even looked at her family album, recently?). All is right with the world.

Thank you, mister president. You may not have redeemed yourself, yet, over the Comprehensive Immigration stupidity, but it's a step in the right direction.