The Smallest Minority |
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. - MaxedOutMama I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. Kim du Toit
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. . . and so are you  Wahabism Delenda Est      Hey, FEC!  BITE ME! I'm a Member of the McCain-Feingold INSURRECTION!    "Jeez, Kevin... calling you an asshole would be a huge understatement, wouldn't it?" -Jack Cluth, The People's Republic of Seabrook (Coming from you, Jack, it's an honor.)  email: gunrightsAT comcastDOTnet INVITATION: If you have never shot a firearm, regardless of your position on the right to arms, and if you live near or visit the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, I invite you to go shooting for a day. I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction. All you have to do is show up. 6 Takers To Date DO YOU LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE and want to try shooting? Click HERE  Proud Gun-blogging member of the Pajamahadeen since May, 2003!
Debates: "The Commentary" A OLD discussion on gun control between me and an Irishman living in London Start here. UPDATED! Now with archive! Post #1 by Alex, a Guest A multi-post discussion hosted here at TSM My short exchange with Professor Saul Cornell of the Second Amendment Research Center Best Posts: The "Rights" Discussion: What is a "Right?" What is a "Right"? Revisited, Part I Part II Rights, Morality, Idealism & Pragmatism, Part I Part II Part III Part IV The United Federation of Planets Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Part I & Part II 1975 in Washington, D.C. vs. 2004 in Canton, Ohio Go Ahead, Rely on the Government for Your Protection The Other Side Liberal vs. Conservative: Both are Necessary The Mystery of Government The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie Updated and restated as: Of Laws and Sausages Militias A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once The George Orwell Daycare Center This is NOT What I Wanted to Read TRUST The Lying "News" Media, Pt. II Say WHAT? Bias? What Bias? Agenda? What Agenda? The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation Let's See if I Can "Germinate an Intelligent Thought" Here The ACLU Hasn't Changed its Tune They Never EVER Stop It is Not the Business of Government Five Reasons Why It ISN'T They Keep Making Better Fools Five Month Investigation, 10 Tracer Rounds, Two Felony Convictions That Sumbitch Ain't been BORN! On Guillotines and Gibbets England Slides Further Towards Bondage Pressing the "RESET" Button Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose A Terrible Resolve The Courts Will Not Save Us Trilogy: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions "Game Over, Man. Game Over." An Important Question And the denouement: Hudson Was Wrong The Dangerous Victims Trilogy: "(I)t's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can" Violence and the Social Contract Governments, Criminals, and Dangerous Victims In the same vein: Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them The True Believers Trilogy: True Believers March of the Lemmings Reasonable People Also in the same vein: Tough History Coming The Culture Trilogy Culture Hubris Weltanschauung And its follow-on: In Re: Culture Technical Dissertations Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (And Won't) Work Spin, Spin, Spin Speaking of Teddy Kennedy... This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME Questions from the Audience?
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PROTESTWARRIOR Some people who are taking the fight to the Left. And some GREAT T-shirts, too. DAILY READS I need a longer day! Day by Day InstaPundit Lileks' The Bleat Mostly Cajun View from the Porch Of Arms and the Law TFS Magnum Ravenwood's Universe Irons in the Fire Say Uncle The Adventures of Roberta X TRUE EXCELLENCE American Digest The Belmont Club Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper The Volokh Conspiracy Michael Yon Varifrank Eject!Eject!Eject! Eternity Road Oleg Volk ON INDEFINITE HIATUS USS Clueless The Safety Valve Ipse Dixit The Lopsided Poopdeck Acidman (RIP) Skywritings Publicola D.C. Thorton Kim du Toit Personal Effects Smoke on the Water OTHER GUN/RIGHTS BLOGS Airborne Combat Engineer AlphaPatriot Alphecca American Dinosaur A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver The Anarchangel Mrs. Anarchangel The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Argghhh! The Bitch Girls Boots and Sabers The Breda Fallacy Gun Nuts Media Carnaby Fudge Clayton Cramer Cogito Ergo Geek Countertop Chronicles Cowboy Blob Critical Mastiff Cryptic Subterranean Found: One Troll FreedomSight From the Heartland Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! The Geek with a .45 Gunwatch Heartless Libertarian Hecate's Crossroad Hell in a Handbasket Individ Justin Buist's Blog The LawDog Files Lead and Gold Les Jones Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast Mad Ogre The Michael Bane Blog Moral Flexibility Mr. Completely Murdoc Online The Munchkin Wrangler Ninth Stage No Looking Backwards No Quarters Oscar Poppa Outrageous Malfunction Pass the ammo Posse Incitatus Random Nuclear Strikes Reasonablenut Resistance is Futile! Sandcastles and Cubicles SlagleRock's Slaughterhouse Snowflakes in Hell Surly Curmudgeon Texican Tattler The Ten Ring South Park Pundit Triggerfinger The View From North Central Idaho Vox The War on Guns Weck Up To Thees! Wince and Nod Xavier Thoughts .45 Caliber Justice BLOGGERS I'VE MET A Keyboard and a .45  
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Monday, June 27, 2005 A Thousand Times, NO!. More Supreme Courtage, lost in the news of today's Ten Comandment and Grokster decisions. Thanks to Mike of Feces Flinging Monkey for the heads-up. Today the Court decided Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales just as I said it would back in November: The government is NOT responsible for your protection. The background info, from the earlier piece: (O)ne Jessica Gonzales has sued the town of Castle Rock for failing to enforce a protective order against her estranged husband, who abducted their three children, murdered them, and then committed suicide by cop. Ms. Gonzales sued because, she says, her husband violated the restraining order by abducting the children, and the City of Castle Rock police department made no effort to recover her children after she repeatedly asked them to enforce the restraining order. She sued under a due-process argument, claiming that the failure of the police to act violated her rights. Essentially, she argued that by obtaining the restraining order she had a "special relationship" that meant that either: A) the police were obligated to enforce the order; or B) the police were obligated to tell her that they would not.I've written several posts on the failure of restraining orders to restrain anybody not willing to be restrained. Zendo Deb of TFS Magnum has made restraining order failures one of her specialties. The court ruled, 7-2, in a decision written by Scalia that Mrs. Gonzales's novel 14th Amendment Due Process argument failed because: Respondent did not, for Due Process Clause purposes, have a property interest in police enforcement of the restraining order against her husband.Scalia goes on some 20 pages to make the purely legal point, concluding: Although the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13 (the original source of §1983), did not create a system by which police departments are generally held financially accountable for crimes that better policing might have prevented, the people of Colorado are free to craft such a system under state law.Ah, once again SCOTUS secures State's Rights. Justice Stevens' dissent is an interesting echo of a much earlier case I've referred to before. Here's part of what Stevens (joined by Ginsberg) had to say: Respondent certainly could have entered into a contract with a private security firm, obligating the firm to provide protection to respondent’s family; respondent’s interest in such a contract would unquestionably constitute “property” within the meaning of the Due Process Clause. If a Colorado statute enacted for her benefit, or a valid order entered by a Colorado judge, created the functional equivalent of such a private contract by granting respondent an entitlement to mandatory individual protection by the local police force, that state-created right would also qualify as “property” entitled to constitutional protection.Compare that with the NY Court of Appeals dissent in Riss v. New York from 1968: Linda Riss, an attractive young woman, was for more than six months terrorized by a rejected suitor well known to the courts of this State, one Burton Pugach. This miscreant, masquerading as a respectable attorney, repeatedly threatened to have Linda killed or maimed if she did not yield to him: "If I can't have you, no one else will have you, and when I get through with you, no one else will want you". In fear for her life, she went to those charged by law with the duty of preserving and safeguarding the lives of the citizens and residents of this State. Linda's repeated and almost pathetic pleas for aid were received with little more than indifference. Whatever help she was given was not commensurate with the identifiable danger. On June 14, 1959 Linda became engaged to another man. At a party held to celebrate the event, she received a phone call warning her that it was her "last chance". Completely distraught, she called the police, begging for help, but was refused. The next day Pugach carried out his dire threats in the very manner he had foretold by having a hired thug throw lye in Linda's face. Linda was blinded in one eye, lost a good portion of her vision in the other, and her face was permanently scarred. After the assault the authorities concluded that there was some basis for Linda's fears, and for the next three and one-half years, she was given around-the-clock protection.Pretty much the same language, 37 years later - with the same result. The State cannot, (or at least will not) be made financially accountable for failure to protect, because if it were liable, it would be bankrupted by lawsuits in short order. The goverment is not responsible for your protection because it's not possible for it to protect everyone, all the time. Something which Mrs. Gonzales found out in a brutal and shocking fashion, and has now had her face rubbed in it. Once again, it's time for that cartoon:
If you have the time. Blake at Nashville Files has something to say, too. UPDATE: The WaPo reports: Groups Back Restraining Orders Amid RulingMight that be because, in some cases, protection orders aren't worth the paper they're printed on? Because, as Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson put it plainly, "An injunction is fine for someone who is willing to accept the rules... When someone is bound and determined they are going to do a criminal act, it is hard to stop it." Trish Thibodo, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said police still have a responsibility to enforce restraining orders and to take them seriously.But the Court (and every other court so asked) has said they don't have that responsibility. "Nothing's changed," she said.Precisely. City governments feared that a ruling in Gonzales' favor could open them to a flood of lawsuits. Judges in Colorado issued more than 14,000 restraining orders in fiscal 2004.That's exactly it. It's a question of fiscal liability. A private business can be held responsible, but the State CANNOT. Gonzales' attorney, Brian Reichel, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.Because your estranged husband was a wacko. Gonzales sued the Castle Rock police department, claiming officers ignored her pleas to find her husband after he took the three girls, ages 10, 9 and 7, from the front yard of her home in June 1999 in violation of a restraining order. Hours later, Simon Gonzales died in a gunfight with officers outside a police station. The bodies of the girls were in his truck.They never will, because if they do then shortly after they will become liable for not protecting victims of non-domestic criminal violence, and then non-violent crime. Castle Rock officials contend they tried to help Gonzales. Police twice went to the estranged husband's apartment, kept an eye out for his truck and called his cellular phone and home phone.The Washington, D.C. police department was unresponsive in the Warren case, and the NYPD was completely unresponsive in the Riss case, and they were cleared of any liability. This is absolutely no different. "The deaths of these girls, while tragic, I think the learning experience we gained from this will help us deal better with these situations in the future," he said.Or not. From a legal standpoint, it doesn't matter a damn. (H/t to Mike, again.) | | |
