Tag Archives: freedom

A State Supreme Court

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…gets it right.

A Mississippi judge had held up the state’s recently passed firearm open carry law, insisting that it was unconstitutionally vague.  The law, in a burst of logic unusual for politicians [/snark], says in essence that “adults don’t need a permit to carry a gun that’s not concealed.”  The Mississippi Supreme Court overruled the state judge—by unanimous opinion—and allowed the law to take effect.  Justice Randy Pierce, writing for the Court, had this in part:

This court now finds that the circuit judge erred as a matter of law when he found House Bill 2 to be vague and, therefore, unconstitutional.  He also erred when he stated that a “reasonable person reading the bill could not discern what the law allows and what it prohibits[.]”

Indeed, that judge seems to have simply rubber-stamped the artificial and disingenuous argument that

it has caused confusion about where people may carry guns that aren’t concealed.  They also say it could put law enforcement officers in danger if people with no training are carrying guns.

This, of course, cynically conflates two separate arguments.  The first is deliberately obtuse.  There is no confusion: existing Mississippi laws clearly describe locations where guns are proscribed.  Not requiring a permit to carry a gun openly in no way permits carrying a gun where it’s banned.

The second argument is relevant to the open carry matter only to the extent that the cop who’s “in danger” knows it because the gun is in plain sight.  It’s the cop who’s dealing with a man with a concealed weapon who’s in danger—no matter the training of that man.

As an aside, the state circuit judge seems, himself, to have been willfully obtuse.  That’s dangerous to the rule of law, allowing a judge to overlay his whim on a law.  It’s good that wiser heads prevailed, this time.

Another Government Takeover of an Industry

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…and for what purpose?

The US government has used the merger-approval process to increase its influence over the telecom industry, bringing more companies under its oversight and gaining a say over activities as fundamental as equipment purchases.

The leverage has come from a series of increasingly restrictive security agreements between telecom companies and national-security agencies….

And

The security agreements…compel [telecom companies] to honor requests to access their systems.  What’s new is that consolidation in the industry and an influx of overseas investment have left much of the industry under the government’s sway.

Thus,

Three of the top four wireless carriers now operate under such agreements….

Three of the major equipment suppliers have come under these agreements in recent years as well.

What requests?

The deals routinely require the companies to give the government streamlined access to their networks.  At their most restrictive, they grant officials the right to require firms to remove certain gear and approve equipment purchases and directors.

And

when T-Mobile and MetroPCS sought approval for their merger this year…the US secured 30 days’ notice before the company uses a new vendor for network equipment, and T-Mobile agreed to resolve any security concerns the government raises relating to new equipment providers, according to a 2013 amendment to the 2001 security agreement.

All of this comes under the mirage of trading freedom for security.

Makes me wonder what the government isn’t telling us about why they blocked the AT&T-T-Mobile merger a couple years ago.

Rule By Law vs Rule Of Law

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The Justice Department said Thursday that it will sue Texas over its voter ID law and, separately, look for ways to intervene in a lawsuit over the state’s redistricting policies

It’s just one harassment of a State after another by a Federal government disgruntled that it can’t get its way just for the demanding.  Attorney General Eric Holder justified the attack, saying this is just part of DoJ’s

continuing effort to protect the voting rights of all eligible Americans.  We will not allow the Supreme Court’s recent decision [that Congress must update its Voting Rights Act pre-clearance criteria] to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights.

Emphasis on that “We will not allow.”  Holder will not allow the Supreme Court decision to have effect; the United States’ chief lawyer will simply ignore it.  Never mind that his actions are designed to attack the voting rights of all eligible Americans by preventing states from ensuring that only eligible Americans vote.  Indeed,

[f]ollowing the [Supreme Court] ruling, Holder called the court’s decision and its reasoning behind it “flawed,” and vowed to find other ways within the law to challenge the ruling.

This is rank rule by law—cynically using law (or creating it, which is not, strictly speaking, the case here) to achieve government ends, rather than living within law the We the People have made through our elected representatives in order to protect us…from government, among others.

As an aside, it’s interesting to note that the center of other criticisms of states’ voter ID laws is a claim like Colin Powell’s: “there is no voter fraud.”  Even if this were true, there’d be no harm in taking steps to keep it that way.  As the objectors know; hence their objection plainly centers on their need for the ineligible to be able to vote early and often.

Another Take

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…on the relationship between Progressives and their plantation hands of a certain group.  Here‘s Louisiana State Senator Elbert Lee Guillory (erstwhile Democrat, now Republican):

It’s no longer the American Dream, it’s the American nightmare of relying on a monthly government check.

And

Only capitalism can provide the upward mobility for the meekest among us to break the shackles of poverty and rise into the middle class. This is what we call “The American Dream.”

Guillory has more here.

The Free at Last PAC also looks like a group worth serious consideration.

He Doesn’t Get It

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Baptist Minister Bruce Prescott, with the aid of the ACLU, is suing Oklahoma (specifically, the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission) in a state court over the presence of a monument representing the Ten Commandments on the state’s Capitol grounds.

Prescott told Oklahoma City’s News9

It’s inappropriate, it’s not the right place.  Put it on the doorpost, that’s what the Bible says; it doesn’t say to put it at the State Capitol.

Here’s what he doesn’t get: the State Capital is the doorpost for all the citizens of Oklahoma.

Too, his ACLU representatives are ignoring the facts that this is a privately funded and erected monument and that the Supreme Court already has ruled that such monuments in the public square—or on government grounds—are entirely appropriate so long as displays representing other religions or atheism are not barred.  Of course, the ACLU is not alleging such a barring.