Where's That Confounded Bridge?
# Reuters via Yahoo! News - Shoot Thieves Dead, Mayor Tells Farmers - a little sanity in Argentina. Wish we could get that kind of common sense in Amerika. [claire]
# Blair Anthony Robertson at The Sacramento Bee - Davis is debating price of a good kid's bad mistake - Adam Liston, an 18-year-old honors student mistakenly left his unloaded shotgun in its box in his truck. He consented to a search (never a good idea), the gun was found, and he was expelled and charged with the felony of possessing a firearm within 1000 feet of a school. He's very popular in the city of Davis, so, even though they're not gun-lovers, people are supportive of him. High Road discussion, including contact info for the school, here. Unfortunately, not supportive enough to laugh the charges away or to convince the prosecutor that he'll decorate the nearest lamp post if he goes through with it. I'm too angry to write a letter. I wish the shotgun had been loaded and Mr. Liston had used it to defend himself from the inhuman beasts who arrested him. Law, schmaw. He had no intention to hurt anyone and no one was hurt. Therefore, no crime was committed, and any arrest qualifies as kidnapping. [geekwitha.45]
Though he is saddened by his expulsion and terrified by the felony charges, he seems most hurt that the same school officials who watched him grow and develop - and behave - all these years have turned their backs.
"I can understand their initial concern about the gun, but every single administrator knows me and knows I would never hurt anyone," Liston said. "Despite my perfect record and knowing me personally, they just threw me aside. They didn't look at my history. They didn't look at anything but the gun."
# Lysander Spooner at LewRockwell.com - No Treason The Constitution of No Authority - a classic anarchist essay. If you haven't read it yet, now would be a good time. [lew]
The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but "the people" then existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves.
# KeepAndBearArms.com - NRA President's Testimony During Congressional Debate of the National Firearms Act of 1934 - a little reminder that the NRA has a history of supporting gun control. I haven't read any more than Angel Shamaya's introduction. I'm linking to it mostly so I can find it in the future. Personally, I think the NRA is doing better now than it has in the past, but I'll change my opinion if they let the AWB be renewed. [geekwitha.45]
# Fran at Free West - Freedom Tips #1 - some simple advice for becoming more self-sufficient. The first in a series. Freedom Tips #2 Bartering and Home Storage is the second. [freewest]
