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Why, my nigger enjoys being a slave! Go on boy, tell em how you like working for me, there's a good nigger.

Wolverine...the character who ruined comics in the early 90s...

Nowhere did the Court say that there was an unlimited right to bear arms. They specifically said:

"From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

Perhaps one of the most likely to be overlooked lines comes at the end of page 57, where Scalia writes: "Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

Moreover, he then continues to write: "We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep an carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those 'in common use at the time.' We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons'."

Further, interestingly, at page 64, Scalia appears to leave open the possibility for attaching summary judgment offenses to the discharge and/or loading of firearms, so long as those penalties are minor.

In any case, the meat and bones of the judgment appears to be this, as stated at pages 58 and 60: The weapons protected by the Second Amendment are those that 'were in common use at the time'. However, this appears to extend to 'classes' of weapons, rather than specific designs (for example, semi-automatic and automatic firearms were not around until the middle of the 19th century, and would therefore certainly not have been 'in common use at the time' and would likely be prohibited), so essentially limits the second amendment to pistols and rifles; I am unsure how this would apply to things like submachine guns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles which likely did not even exist as 'classes' at the time; they don't really say, except to say that "It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service -M-16s and the like- may be banned..." which does imply in fact that assault rifles as a class do not survive the 'in common use' test.

Fairly interestingly is the Court's statement at page 59, that "The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of 'arms' that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose." This interestingly folds back into its prior decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana of earlier this week that 'what the public thinks' is becoming a relevant constitutional test. I'm not sure, and they don't elaborate, on how this would come into conflict with the 'in common use' test. For example, imagine the American public decided that automatic grenade launchers were the best method of hunting- would they then also be allowed? If that is not true, I'm not really sure what Scalia's purpose for pointing out that Americans like handguns happens to be. It seems like he's saying that weapons which are overwhelmingly used for a lawful purpose are to be given more legal defense than those which are not.

At page 61, the court overturns the requirement that 'firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times'; as this apparently invalidates their core lawful purpose, it is unconstitutional. However, the Court appears to say, that were a self-defense exception included it would be acceptable. How this would work is sort of confusing. The District's statute says, essentially, that every handgun should be kept unloaded and dissassembled or trigger locked unless the firearm is kept at a place of business or being used for lawful recreational purposes. It is unclear exactly what self-defense exemption the Court would prefer; i.e., whether such an exemption would require that firearms be able to be kept loaded and ready to fire when in the home to be used for self-defense or whether it would require that they be allowed to loaded and ready to fire while being used in self-defense.

Perhaps most interesting is one part of the Court's last paragraph: "...where well-trained police forces provide personal security...". Not sure whether this is just a one-off sentence with no value or whether, in fact, the Supreme Court actually believes it.

Profane Muthafucka
Would purchase a water car
And fuel it with sperm.

Sweet Jesus! Cmdr. Taco just shoved that slide rule up Cowboy Neal's ass! SIDEWAYS! AND HE LOVED IT!

Is the April Fool's joke today that all the news on Slashdot is real? That's awfully meta, Slashfolks.

djmoore writes "The Supreme Court has granted cert in District of Columbia v. Heller. This is the first case examining the Second Amendment to reach SCOTUS since the much-misunderstood Miller case in 1939. The SCOTUS asks the question,[PDF] "Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?" Some links to background information on this case and the Second Amendment can be found here. Oral arguments will likely be heard in March or April.

Roughly speaking, the question is, does an enumerated "right of the people" have as much weight as, say, the unenumerated right to an abortion? Or does the 2nd Amendment, uniquely in the Constitution, use the phrase "the people" to grant coercive power to the state?

Mandatory Geek Link: Eric S. Raymond's "Ethics From the Barrel of a Gun"."
http://dcguncase.com/blog/2007/11/20/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-second-amendment-challenge-to-dc-gun-ban/

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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Is collusion by the record companies a defense to an RIAA case? We're about to find out, because the RIAA has made a motion to strike the affirmative defense of Marie Lindor, who alleged that "the plaintiffs, who are competitors, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have" in UMG v. Lindor."

Many of you might remember the previous story about LiveJournal erroneously deleting hundreds of users as suspected paedophiles, spurred on by pressure from the group, Warriors for innocence. Since then, they've been taking action against users hosting material on their servers that they believe to be illegal. Today, LiveJournal management have demonstrated a serious lack of understanding in how the internet works, declaring that users are responsible for the content of the webpages that they link to in their blog entries. A user points out the obvious flaw: "I get ToS'd because the link's been redirected to a page full o' porn, even though context clearly shows that when I originally put up the link that it didn't actually land on a page of porn?" One wonders how such a long-established blogging company can be so ignorant about the nature of the world wide web.

notque writes "We are sitting in a time with so many political scandals, and some would say an illegal war. You would think that given these facts the United States would be a hotbed of political activity and protest. So far this hasn't occurred, although people continue to do difficult work. There are many websites that attempt to coordinate political activity, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to show for it. Can the internet actually enable direct action offline? What are some ways that this could be carried out? On another website, digg, there was an article concerning a general strike on 09/11/07 that received 4600 diggs, so it seems that people want to do something, but feel isolated and alone. Does the internet help foster this? Noam Chomsky once said, "By margins that are now so overwhelming that it's even front page news, people are strenuously opposed to everything that's going on and are frightened and angry and reacting like punch-drunk fighters. They're just too alone, both in their personal lives and associations and also intellectually, without anything to grasp. They don't know how to respond except in irrational ways. In some ways it has sort of the tone of a devastated peasant society after a plague swept it or an army went through and ruined everything. People have just dissolved into inability to respond." How can individuals help to change this, and is the internet a useful tool for that? Does the internet just stagnate individuals further? Thanks."

pudge writes "Fooooo!"

Long before the All-Star Voting thing or Jesux, I was in high school and played one of my best pranks ever.

It was my senior year, and the school's literary magazine was accepting submissions. I submitted a few under my own name. Ironically, the point of the ones they accepted was that imagery and symbolism are nonsense, which was a direct assault on most of the works in the magazine. But that wasn't a prank, I just liked those verses, which happened to be from a song I wrote called Images (live performances by my band available at that link).

I decided (in keeping with the aforementioned anti-imagery in Images) to write the worst poem that I could, and submit it. I don't remember exactly how I decided to write it, whether it was free-from or whether I came up with theme first, but the result was pure crap. I submitted it under a pseudonym, and ... it was chosen for the very last page of the literary magazine, which, as you may know, is normally reserved for the best, most poignant, piece.

When I saw it, I was in English class and I laughed out loud and told a friend what happened. One of the editors of the magazine overheard what I said. She probably still hates me to this day, but man, it was funny.

Without further ado, here's the crappy poem I wrote:

Roofers

closing in, allowed to fall
Night sweeps over the land like the
blanket I pull over my
quavering head.
Things I have done
Dreams
        (nightmares)
                I have acted out
haunt my soul
shout my sin like so many
roofers,
        stepping
                dropping things
                        (nightmares)
                                on the
roof
        (conscience)
sins I have forgotten reform as
debris, falling through the
air-conditioning vent
reminding me
not letting Me
forget
the
        (sin)
                debris.

--Randolph Hsilgne