Don't forget the 2.5m crimes avoided through firearm self defense each year.

Yes, that's John Lott's number, which has been proven to be pulled straight out of his ass.

Note also that an average of one such accident per year

One? Are you joking? According to CDC’s WISQARS, there are about 14,000-19,000 nonfatal injuries stemming from accidental shootings per year in the U.S. That's in addition to ~500-600 unintentional deaths per year. Gun "enthusiasts" like to cite statistics on gun deaths since the rise of conceal/carry (which truly have a lot more to do with better trauma medicine), but they never want to talk about the number of shootings. If you really want to understand the extent of the damage of America's gun fetish, count the number of people who get hit by bullets.
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/...

Of these about 20% are under the age of 25 and 10% under the age of 12.

Where do you get "an average of one such accident per year" unless you are focused strictly on injuries to your penis? Although I guess there is some evidence that gun owners have issues in that regard.

But yours is a common mistake people make when talking about guns, because they just don't know (or care) about the actual numbers. Much of the misdirected focus comes from the faulty research of the only "gun expert" that ever seems to appear in the media, the dishonest gun industry lobbyist and "researcher", John Lott whose book, "More Guns Less Crime" has been completely debunked.

[Full disclosure: I have been a gun owner for more than 4 decades. I've qualified 3 times as an expert marksman and twice as a sharpshooter, which is the second highest marksmanship designation (not counting the pro-marksman, etc. I support legal gun ownership and very strict gun control laws.]

I had an idea that might not be so dangerous and pulled out my fone. âoeComputer,â I said, âoewhat's the best way to knock that bitch out?â
        The fone said âoeParse error, there are no female dogs on board and âknockâ(TM) is not in context. Please rephrase.â
        Who programs these God damned stupid things, anyway? Back when computers were new, science fiction movies had computers that could think. These stupid computers sure can't. God damn it, I was going to have to talk like I went to college... only I ain't went to college, damn it.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm grateful if only because it led me to Larry Tribe's very interesting article about Scalia's tantrum in this case.

That's what's interesting about the Supreme Court. They all are smart, write persuasively. But there's always someone smarter, more persuasive. And in the case of Scalia, where he's writing from an activist agenda, you always have to get a second opinion.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2013...

Well if we are going to play the whole Star Trek canon, you should remember that Vulcan all have emotions they just learn to control them and think more logically. To have an absence of emotions, or even a substantially reduced set of emotions and no empathy does not mean you will think logically, it just means you will think psychopathically due to very poor social emotional development, basically becoming a parasite upon society rather than contributing to it (all thought you will be very good at claiming the credit of other people's efforts and of course blaming them for your mistakes).

So what atheists need to really question is what is God because there are a whole range of definitions and beliefs around what are the Gods keeping in mind many beliefs accept more than one. Hard to say you don't believe in something when the rest of the people can't even agree on what that something is, logically speaking. So God? agree what it or they are and I might be able to decide whether or not I believe or not. Until then it tends to be a no, no, no, no, etc maybe thing depending upon which god or gods you are talking about ;).

Again this would lead to corruption with patent pre-screening and favoured people getting patentable stuff and unfavoured people getting junk and working for free.

I'll bet core of this problem is yet again right wing performance based measures ie number of patents reviewed and approved. Everyone time right wing idiots do performance based measures it fucks things up. Performance based law enforcement, people get arrested for nothing, law enforcement is in a rush, slow them down and get tasered or shot, so minimum number of arrests per day leads directly to maximum number of million dollar lawsuits great bloody saving, huh. Performance based schooling means, directly leads to stacking classes for select charters schools and teachers with better performing students and sticking the poor performing students in poor schools with cheap teachers, yep, that is going to produce results.

Stop filling government departments with political appointees, especially management positions, that is the single greatest cause of failure and of course directly leads to even idiots can monitor performance based guidelines, yep, manage them right into the ground.

Obviously, implicit in that "potentially" is that it would require a case to come before the Court.

That was my only point.

including the Supreme Court's ability to overrule laws and executive actions that are Constitutional violations.

And they can only do that insofar as a case comes before them. They can't just pick up the newspaper and seeing that Congress passed some law say, "Hey, that's unconstitutional, let's declare it unconstitutional".

The Supreme Court is a reactive body. Unless someone brings suit, they have no power to do anything. As you say, there are some cases working their way up to SCOTUS, but until they get there, all Sotomayor can do is talk. So far, she's saying all the right things. In the cases she's adjudicated, she seems to be a pretty firm supporter of a right to privacy.

While true in a strict sense, in a broader sense the Supreme Court has the ability to shape jurisprudence around bigger issues.

But only as far as the cases that come before it, whether or not they accept them.

That's true both in the strict sense, and the broader sense. The Supreme Court can not initiate any action.

She's worried that common, private citizens can get camera drones and fly them above your property as if that ability wasn't available before now in multiple forms?

To be fair, "private" means corporations, too. Until I see a vote on a lower court decision, I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt. She's been only one of maybe three Supreme Court justices who seem to believe in privacy. And one of the others seems to think privacy only applies to men and corporations.

Maybe because she's one of only NINE people in the United States who potentially have the direct power to constrain a surveillance state

Until a case is before her, Sotomayor can do absolutely jack shit. Where does the notion come from, that so many people here seem to have, that a Supreme Court justice has any "direct" power to initiate some kind of policy change? This is why they should never have stopped teaching civics in school.

if only she were in some sort of position to do more than talk to oklahoma students about the topic.. ah well.

Do you understand how the Supreme Court works? They can only adjudicate cases brought before them. They can't make policy outside of those cases, so in fact, she is not in a "position to do more than talk" until a case comes before her challenging surveillance. And even then, she's one vote out of nine.

A Supreme Court justice can do three things in their official capacity: talk, write and vote, and the talking they do is mostly asking questions. They can't initiate any action at all.

If you want something "done", you've got to talk to your congressbum.

Was she asleep for, oh, the past quarter century?

She's been a Supreme Court justice for five years.

She's probably just fine with the *state* peeping into your (not her) business.

No, Sotomayor sees limits to government surveillance, unlike many of her colleagues.

I'm guessing that this argument will be used to put limits on individually owned drones, not on government owned drones.

Or on corporate drones. Many of the surveillance drones used by the government are actually owned and operated by contractors. The big corporations won't have any problem owning drones.