The Right to Bear Arms

The Second Amendment has always been a bit of an enigma for me.  While I've never been outright against it, I've always struggled with its meaning and wondered if it really wasn't a bit of an anachronism.  So, as a refresher, here is the Second Amendment (from Wikipedia).

As passed by the Congress:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As ratified by the States:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Yes, the capitalization and punctuation differ.  As to which version is "official?"  I don't know.

There are many judicial debates surrounding the specific meanings of "well regulated militia."  Also, the meaning of "people," versus "People."  The two may well be intertwined.  Some may read People as being the United States as an entity, where the People refer to the government.  In other words, the right of the government to maintain a standing army, which would be described as a well-regulated militia.  Others would interpret "people" as being individual citizens of the United States in small collective groups that stockpile weapons, such as the "militias" often referred to in some of the more rural parts of Idaho or Montana for example.  Others just seem to dispense of the whole militia part and go straight to the right of an individual citizen to bear arms.

Many see the Second Amendment and defending the right of the citizens to rise up against their government in armed conflict.  Back in the day, when the average citizen could possess a weapon that was every bit as good as the military's weapons, this could easily be seen as a deterrent for the government to not to overstep its bounds.  But today, I think there would little argument that no matter how well armed the citizenry is, modern U.S. military weapons would have little trouble against an armed uprising.

Despite all of those various interpretations, I'm actually looking at the meaning of "Arms" (or arms).  What are "arms?"  They are not the things hanging from your shoulders, at least not in this context.  Arms, or armaments, are weapons.  These are not specific to projectile weapons.  Swords, knives, throwing stars (for you ninjas out there), staffs, etc.  But there are other arms as well, such as hand grenades, flame throwers, tanks with depleted uranium shells, Joint Strike Fighters with air to air missiles, and yes, even a nuclear bomb.  Was it the intention of our founding fathers to allow for an individual citizen of the United States to posses a weapon of mass destruction? 

As many of you know, I am an ardent defender of the First Amendment.  Despite my loathing of religion, whether organized or not, I am a strong believer in freedom of religion and I have often commented on freedom of speech as well.  While I may disagree with some of the abhorrent things people say (Westboro Baptist Church), I will defend their right to say it.  Just because someone is easily offended doesn't mean that the speech has to be restricted.  Having said all that, the courts have consistently ruled that there are time and place exceptions to free speech.  One classic example if yelling fire in a crowded theater.  That is not protected free speech.  A more recent example is the Westboro attempts to protest the funerals of soldiers who have died overseas or even the funerals of the victims of the recent Tucson shootings.  Just recently, the Supreme Court gave a victory to Westboro Baptist Church when the father a slain soldier sued them in an attempt to ban protests of military funerals.  The Court decided correctly, that Westboro has the right to protest a military funeral.  The father's case was over reaching.  Instead, Arizona (specifically Kyrsten Sinema D-15), proposed legislation that put time and place restrictions on the protests.  Not within x hundred yards of the property and not x minutes before and after.  These types of restrictions are often viewed favorably by the court because they don't infringe upon the right of the protesters, yet allow reasonable protections for the mourners.

So, what is the point of all that rambling.  Simple, at least in my mind.  I'm not familiar with what laws are in place today, but I am fairly certain that it is illegal to posses things like nuclear bombs, surface to air missiles, fully functional tanks with ammunition, etc.  And, I don't think many people are going to go to their congressperson and make a strong case that those restrictions are unconstitutional.  On the other hand, I think it is perfectly reasonable to allow the sale of handguns, hunting rifles, etc.  Both for personal protection and/or hunting, and just plain target shooting.  The real debate is the area in between.  Automatic weapons, extended clips, etc.  Yes, there is a percentage of the population that enjoys being able to fire those weapons for target practice.   Is it unreasonable to license and regulate shooting ranges and gun rentals for those people?  For some, it is.

For me, I recognize the right of an individual to bear arms.  But, as is the case with free speech, I believe there are reasonable "time and place" restrictions that need to be considered.  What those are, I don't know.  That is the battleground between gun control advocates and Second Amendment advocates such as the NRA.  By no means is this a black and white issue.

Dispelling a Global Warming Denial Myth

In what is likely to be several such posts...

This weekend, a friend said that volcanoes produce far more CO2 emissions than mankind ever has.  While I knew this statement to be wrong, I didn't have any facts to back it up, just general sciencey stuff that wasn't going to do much to alter the argument.

Basically, the type of pollutants put into the air by volcanoes tend to have a general cooling effect on the atmosphere, so the argument that volcanoes are a larger source of global warming is false.  Global warming continues regardless of recent volcanic activity.

This is not to say that volcanoes don't pump out CO2.  They do.  It is estimated that volcanoes will produce anywhere from 65-319 million metric tonnes of CO2 any given year.  Of course, large volcanic events can definitely jack up that number.  However, humans produce 29 billion tonnes of CO2 as a direct result of burning fossil fuels.  So, volcanoes are in the millions, humans are in the billions.  The argument doesn't hold up to facts.

It has been recognized by some climate scientists that a lack of volcanic activity in the early to middle part of the 20th Century may have contributed to warming back then, but the activity has picked up in the last 50 years or so.  Again, the reason being is that volcanoes pump out sulfur pollutants (which reflect sunlight back into space before getting to Earth) in far larger quantities than CO2.  The Pinatubo eruption back in the early 1990s did have a global cooling effect for several years.  Typical cooling effects tended to last a decade or more in ancient times, so the human effects of global warming quickly erased any cooling effects from Pinatubo.

March Madness Bracket

I've decided to name my March Madness bracket in my Parrothead Yahoo! league in honor of Kirk Cameron and his 3 pound lump of putty he calls a brain.  In defense of his Creationist beliefs, he cited the lack of any fossil evidence of  a Crocoduck as evidence against evolution.  Isn't it cute?

My New Favorite Bible Verse

Ezekiel 23:19-20 (New International Version, ©2011)

¹⁹ Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. ²⁰ There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

That's just nasty.  Who new the Bible had such great smut and porn?  You know, that is so nasty, maybe we should have the Bible banned from any place where children could be exposed to such things.  Like  Harry Potter and Huck Finn because, well, those are nasty stories as well.

Give It Up Jenny McCarthy!

Back in late 90s, some lawyers were interested in filing a class action lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company that produced the MMR vaccine for children.  They had no other reason than to try and make millions in attorney's fees.  The problem?  They had nothing to blame on the company.  In comes, Andrew Wakefield.  He agreed to study something that he could link the MMR vaccine to so the lawyers could file a lawsuit.  They funded his study.  That study is the now infamous study that linked the MMR vaccine to autism.  His sample size was 12 children.  As a result of this study, the following facts are known:

• Shortly after the study was published, many other studies were commissioned by various entities to attempt to duplicate the findings.  Millions of dollars spent chasing the notion of this link.  No one could.
• Vaccination rates dropped quickly in many parts of England and the United States.
• Childhood diseases such as Pertussis, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella, among others, began to increase in frequency.  Some children died.
• All secondary authors of the original study withdrew their names from it.  There were 11 of them.
• Further investigations into the study itself found that Wakefield and committed various unethical tests on children, including, at one point, paying kids at his own son's birthday party 5 pounds to draw their blood.
• Even further investigations by the British Medical Association resulted in Wakefield's license to practice medicine being revoked.
• The original publisher of the paper, The Lancet, withdrew the article altogther.
• Further investigations have found that Wakefield not only committed ethical violations but ruled that he committed outright fraud in the paper and its conclusions.
• Autism is a spectrum disease that has many contributing factors identified as potential causes, none of which can or would be affected by a vaccination.

Here is a man, who, single-handedly, out of greed, has destroyed the lives of thousands of families and put tens of thousands more at risk because moms all across the United States would watch Oprah and see Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey parade their autistic child around claiming that it was the MMR vaccination that caused his autism.  Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that no such link exists, she continues to defend the disgraced doctor.

Now, are you sitting done, because if you're not you should.  Oh, wait.  You are at your computer, so you probably are.  For the last 12 years, Jenny McCarthy and other anti-vaxxers have been crying from the rooftops that this study shows a link between autism and the MMR vaccine.  So, what does Jenny McCarthy say to continue to defend this position?  She points out that the study didn't actually say there was a link!

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's study of 12 children with autism actually looked at bowel disease, not vaccines. The study's conclusion stated, "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described [autism]."

WTF!  Let me repeat.  She spends 12 years screaming that this study shows a link between autism and the MMR vaccine, treats this doctor like a god, and defends him to the n-th degree, only to defend him further by saying this study did NOT link autism to the MMR vaccine.  Again, WTF!

She is as dumb as the silicon in her breasts.

Thoughts on the Giffords' Assassination Attempt

Whenever a significant newsworthy event occurs, I find myself flipping between MSNBC, CNN, and even Fox News.  It is always interesting to hear who is reporting what and from where.  This story had quite a bit of misinformation early on, as is expected from any chaotic event.  I am generally not looking for facts at this point because I think about half of what is being reported is wrong or purely speculative. One thing I did learn is that the anchoring capabilities of the mid-day news channel personalities leave a lot to be desired.  Most of them are well trained at reading from a tele-prompter, but when asked to, or feel the need to summarize information, they are severely lacking.  Generally, after 5 minutes, or less, I turn everything off.  The real facts will take several hours once all the news organizations stop quoting each other as sources.

Now that we know a lot of the facts, the impact of the events can be better analyzed.  First are the tragic deaths of 6 people including a well respected federal judge and a 9-year old with a strong curiosity in government.  There are still a handful of others in the hospital along with Representative Giffords herself, who appears to have survived a wound that should be fatal nearly all the time.  From this rise stories of heroism at the scene and what appears to be an incredible 38-minute time period from when the shooting occurred to the time when Giffords was in surgery.  In a bit of irony, our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased our knowledge of traumatic head wounds by leaps and bounds.  I believe the doctor that lead the surgery had served in Iraq or Afghanistan.  His training and expertise, I'm sure, were paramount in her survival.  To the credit of the UofA Trauma Center, credit has been given to every person who in someway was involved in the transport and triage of Giffords and the other victims.

One interesting comment from the initial news conference at the hospital on Saturday was something like, "Nobody died that shouldn't have died."  In other words, even though the 9-year old died at the hospital, it was basically a case of nothing could have been done.  Sadly.

As for the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, there is still very little information.  As a side note, why do assassins have to have three names?  I think in every assassination or attempt in the last 50 years in the U.S., the shooter was referred to by three names.  The only exception being Sirhan Sirhan, but he had the same name twice, so... go figure.  Anyway, little is still known about him other than he was very troubled.  One article referred to him as an "ardent atheist," but nothing much to back that up with.  It was described that he had a shrine in the backyard complete with candles and miniature skulls.  Atheists and shrines don't normally go together.  If he was indeed an atheist, he was definitely a little 'a' atheist.  There was some speculation that he was anti-Semitic since Giffords in Jewish and one of his favorite books was Mein Kampf.  Some say he was definitely a strong left-wing nutter, but he list a book by Ayn Rand.  That, along with Hitler, is hardly leftist writings.  There is little evidence thus far to suspect that he was a right-wing nutter as well.  Maybe more will be revealed as more of his personal data is analyzed.

What this tragedy has done, is focused a lot of attention on the violent rhetoric used in the political discussions over the last several years.  Right or wrong as to whether that had a direct impact on these events is somewhat irrelevant at this point.  An important and long overdue dialog has been surfaced and several folks are now being called out for it.  The most famous example is the Sarah Palin "target" map of congressional districts marked with gun sights and the infamous tweet of "Don't retreat.  Reload."  In some bizarre twist, the Palin camp is now claiming those symbols are really "surveyor" symbols and apparently the map has been removed from the Palin website.  Also in the spotlight is Sharon Angle's "Second Amendment Solution" comment in the Nevada Senate race against Harry Reid.  A Democratic Representative of Pennsylvania is looking to introduce legislation that would make it illegal to say or use symbols that can be construed as inciting violence against a member of Congress.  This is fairly similar to some of the laws that make similar things illegal to be said (or used) with respect to the Office of the President.  This gives the Secret Service a good "probably cause" opportunity to pursue these matters to ensure there is no threat to POTUS.

It has also been noted that this may very well be the first assassination attempt of a female U.S. politician.

In two very bizarre and twisted angles to this whole thing, the Westboro Baptists and Fred Phelps are planning to protest at the funerals of the victims of this tragedy.  Phelps has essentially called the shooter a "gift from God."  These Westboro folks are sick fuckers.  The second weird twist is a fellow by the name of Mike Adams, the founder of NaturalNews.com, is finding a way to blame the pharmaceutical industry for the attacks.  Adams is all about the woo.  Among is crazy rants are claims that chemotherapy is what killed people like Tony Snow, Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, and more recently, Elizabeth Edwards.  Some people will stoop very low indeed for a little publicity and to further perpetuate their dangerous lies.

I'm sure I will have more thoughts on this as more facts are revealed.

Mike Vick "should be executed" according to Fox News' Tucker Carlson

Yes, really, he said that.

"I'm a Christian, I've made mistakes myself, I believe fervently in second chances," Carlson said on the show. "But Michael Vick killed dogs, and he did [it] in a heartless and cruel way. And I think, personally, he should've been executed for that. He wasn't, but the idea that the President of the United States would be getting behind someone who murdered dogs?"

I will never condone what Vick did, but he served his time, and by all appearances, he seems to have himself on a pretty good path in his life right now.  This is not to say he couldn't screw up again, but his comeback has been remarkable so far.

This was all said in response to a story that President Obama spoke with the Eagles' owner and praised him and his organization for giving a convicted felon who has rehabilitated himself a second chance to be a productive member of society.

So, a couple of points here.  First Carlson is way out of line for that comment.  By that definition, the line to the gas chambers would be a very long one indeed.  I've often said that Vick would have gotten a fairer shake by society if he had killed a person instead of a dog.  This would be a prime example of that.  But then, he is on Fox News, so fair and balanced is only a slogan.

Second, there is a lot of talk of why Obama would make that call.  Well, he didn't call to talk about Vick, he called to talk about the Eagles' plans to make Lincoln Financial Field self sustainable energy-wise with their new 'green' initiatives.  The conversation turned to Vick after that, so the assumption that this was a call to solely praise Vick is wrong.  But, so what?  Vick is being made an example of in so many ways, why not make him a good example of someone who has committed a despicable crime and has rehabilitated himself.  Let's not use the reverse-celebrity bias here to belittle his rehab just because he plays football.  Shouldn't anyone who has excellent skills at a particular profession get a second chance?  Assuming of course that profession is not directly linked to the crime.  Having a convicted child molester going back to work for a daycare is not appropriate.  I would not expect Vick to open a kennel or animal hospital anytime soon either.

Let's not forget that Vick also owes creditors millions of dollars.  Those creditors would not have had a chance of getting any of that money back if Vick was not allowed to play football but instead had to bag groceries.

If we, as a society, are going to send people to prison for all sorts of crimes in the name of rehabilitating some of those people for when they are released, then why is Vick not getting credit for demonstrating that, in his case, the system worked?