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Amazing how prophetic she was about both of our current POTUS candidates

The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.

Hillary Clinton, 60 Minutes interview, 1992

I have a dog & I was buying a large bag of Purina at Wal-Mart and was in line to check out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog. On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn’t because I’d ended up in the hospital last time, but that I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms. I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I’d ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned. I told her no; it was because I’d been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

I thought one guy was going to have a heart attack as he staggered out the door laughing loudly.

Okay during my more lucid moments this weekend I had the chance to read through all 157 pages of the Heller vs DC decision that was handed down by the US Supreme Court last week. A lot of my initial questions have been answered so at the very least it was worth the effort for that reason alone.

My initial reaction was shock at the fact that the decision was a 5-4 decision. Certainly reading through the oral arguments made it sounded much more one-sided argument than would be explained by 5-4. However, it appears as if both sides simply ceded the individual right argument and instead argue both the scope of the issue and what constitutes reasonable regulation.

My one major disagreement with the decision, and part of the focus of Breyer’s dissent, is that the majority doesn’t really indicate what degree of regulation states can use on the use of firearms. It would be nice to have some sort of guideline or I fear that we’ll be right back in this same spot in the future.

However, on the plus side the majority did state unequivocally that any law that impeded the ability for law-abiding responsible to use weapons, in common use at the time, for the use of self-defense of home and hearth, would be unconstitutional. That’s a fairly solid unassailable legal footprint from which to fight back the hordes imposing gun control on everyone.

I had originally thought that the dissenting opinions would be more interesting to read through than the majority but I was very very wrong. First they essentially ceded the individual rights point, and tried to making a stand on minor issues but tried to do so from within the construct of Steven’s majority opinion.

Breyer’s dissenting opinion essentially builds upon Stevens by making another dissenting point. While I think he had a point to make it was quickly lost in the complexities of his argument. Essentially he argued technicalities for about 50 pages in an effort to have it come together at the end with some sort of effect. FAIL.

Steven’s dissenting opinion was just plain painful. Most of Steven’s arguments require you to just accept his assumptions and definitions at face value, rather than providing any sort of legal support. Arguments concentrate mostly on the drafting history of the Second Amendment. Basing your argument on things there were left OUT of the final draft seems less than intelligent from my point of view.

Of course, I’m not a lawyer (to my credit) and I’m not overly experienced at reading legal opinions (to the credit of my social life) but I get the sense that Justice Stevens wasn’t a real good lawyer. I get the sense that the other Justices don’t think so either because in the majority decision, Justice Stevens is absolutely trounced throughout.

End result is that the Second Amendment appears quite safe for awhile for personal uses of firearms at home. However, it does leave the regulation door wide open and that is going to be a target of eternal vigilance for all Second Amendment activists. It also does nothing to address the civic aspects of firearms at all. So this isn’t the landmark decision that many had hoped for, but then again I don’t think anyone in even their most hopeful moment, thought it might be.

Probably something like this:

SCOTUS has released it’s decision on Heller vs DC, and has found an individual right to keep firearms, at least in one’s own home for both protection and hunting.

The opinion is here. I’ll try reading through it and giving up my thoughts.

But basically the facts from 30K feet….It was a 5-4 decision. Scalia wrote the court’s decision, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy. Apparently both Breyer and Stevens wrote dissenting opinions, joined by Ginsburg and Souter. To be honest, the dissenting opinion is probably going to be more interesting.

UPDATE : I’m still reading through the opinion so I don’t have anything to offer yet, plus I still want to double check the end result with some of my previous thoughts, and the reasoning for those thoughts at the time.

To be honest I’m still not feeling well at all, and today’s blood work indicates I probably won’t turn the corner until Monday.  Sitting up and reading for an hour requires a six hour nap to recover, you do the math considering the opinion is over 150 pages…..interesting though it may be.

Heller decision to be announced today at approximately 9 AM Central Time….if my health allows, I’ll have something up on it.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

- Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

- James Madison

In preparation for the Heller decision to be announced soon

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

- Thomas Jefferson

Which is something I’ve become somewhat of an expert on.  I’ve been down sick for a good week now, and my doctor has confirmed a trendy case of mono (I feel like I’m in high school).  So blogging will take place between bouts of sleeping and napping and cursing.

What I have learned so far is that….

• Daytime TV sucks….no seriously, it’s awful.  Much more of this and I’ll end up watching soaps out of desperation
• Most of the internet sucks…no seriously, it’s awful.  And it’s completely possible to exhaust the cool parts of it
• When I was in HS mono earned you coolness points….those points were well deserved, this sucks.
• Perpetually napping makes daytime TV even worse….since everything is a repeat of what was broadcast about two hours ago.
• Considering the number of channels my dish gets, this degree of suckitude doesn’t seem mathematically possible.

I’m tempted to liveblog my napping schedule for tomorrow but that sounds like too much work.

In preparation for the Heller decision, which although it was expected today, is likely to be handed down any day now.

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.

- George Washington

You’ve seen people jump cars, buildings, lakes, fires, etc.

But today EckerNet brings you the ultimate in entertainment….jumping babies

Please come back for the five o’clock show.