Vibrational Dynamics for 500  (01:15)

The Washington D.C. District Court has handed down its opinion in Heller v. D.C. [pdf]. Joshua Blackman has an analysis that renders any of mine redundant.

Following the Supreme Court decision in D.C. v. Heller, the District did its absolute best to comply with the Court's ruling as little as possible.  Though citizens were theoretically allowed to register handguns, the process involves jumping some pretty substantial hurdles.  Dick Heller brought suit on three points:

the District's registration scheme in general,
the ban on "assault weapons," and
restrictions on magazine capacity.

The District Court rejected strict scrutiny, finding that all three measures met with intermediate scrutiny.

Anyone who's worked in a gun store knows that guy. He's in his early 20's and usually comes in with a couple of friends. They want to see specific guns:  the Deagle, the M4, the SCAR, anything in "fifty cal." Most of all, they'd love a chance to fondle the ever-elusive ACR.

Soldiers on leave? Procurement agents for law enforcement? Well-heeled NRA High-Power competitors? No.

These are the Call of Duty generation.

Once handing them the gun used to kill the terrorists in Level 7, you'll spend a good ten minutes reminding them with increasing sternness not to sweep other patrons with the muzzle. They'll usually pull out a cell-phone and take pictures of their friends posing with it. They'll tell you it's the most "badass" gun in the whole game, and how they totally own the noobs with it.

Goofy as they might be, I've never dealt with one whom I considered to be the least bit dangerous. Though there's a certain fetishism at work, they don't seem to idolize the weapon for its destructive potential. They simply think it's a neat artifact in and of itself.

Thus arises the question of overlap between shooters and gamers.

So here we are.  H.R. 3962 has passed in the House.  It looks likely to pass in the Senate unless the Republicans can kill it with amendments.  Should they fail, it'll become law this week.

I'm glad today's my day off.  I have to endure enough ignorant political prattle at work as it is, and I can only imagine the coarse level of discourse today.  By now, somebody's come up with another silly parody of the President's name, and they're going to hue and cry about the results, even though most of those doing so did absolutely nothing to stop it from happening.

In her speech preceding the vote, Speaker Pelosi said,

"Another Speaker, Tip O'Neill, once said, "all politics is local."  And I say to you tonight that when it comes to health care for all Americans, "all politics is personal."

Perhaps if Americans had taken that advice to heart, none of this would have happened.  Instead, many self-proclaimed conservatives, deciding that they already smelled doom, decided simply not to vote in the last election. I watched it happen among people I knew.  The other side mobilized; we wasted time and energy squabbling amongst ourselves.

That's why we lost in 2006, and again in 2008.  That's why we lost last night.

This revolver was made when the TRS-80 was the pinnacle of computing technology.  Blade Runner was in theaters. Ingrid Bergman and John Belushi died, and Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.

Even if the J. Geils Band and Survivor aren't with us any more, Smith & Wesson still is.

The Model 10 has been around in one form or another for over a century.  Until this year, it has enjoyed an unbroken production run, the longest of any firearm in existence.  That's not hard to understand, as the .38 Hand Ejector is a reliable, accurate and powerful platform.  All modern double-action revolvers can trace their lineage to it.

Leonard Embody has received notice that this Tennessee Handgun Carry Permit is being revoked.  If you don't know this guy's background, I've written on it here.

This was his response to the media:

"I'm a private person," Embody said. "I didn't want to be in the spotlight. I didn't want my name in the news reports."

…which would be why he has gone to great lengths to bait law-enforcement with his antics, posting the results to every internet forum and blog he could find.  His last stunt was to walk down the streets of Belle Meade in an orange reflective vest, carrying an 1851 Navy in his right hand.

Apparently, this didn't go as well as he'd hoped.  In response to this incident, the Belle Meade police department made the recommendation to the Tennessee Department of Safety that Mr. Embody's permit be revoked.  The text of their letter reads, in part,

This request is not made lightly and based on the increasingly unsafe methods of displaying and/or carrying a firearm by Leonard Stanni Embody over the past 24 months.

Leonard Stanni Embody has show by his actions that he is repeatedly engaging in behavior while carrying or displaying a firearm that compromises the safety of the general public, responding law enforcement officers, and his own.

Leonard Stanni Embody did carry the weapon in an unsafe manner, in an unsafe location and in an unsafe condition.  Tennessee Code Annotated 39-17-1352 (a) (3) states that any actions by the permit holder that poses [sic] a material likelihood of risk or harm to the public will be grounds to suspend or revoke a handgun permit.

Recent incidents that have been well documented and published by Leonard Stanni Embody clearly show that his actions clearly are for his own benefit and do not represent the actions of a responsible citizen wishing to safely carry a handgun for legitimate purposes. [emphasis mine]

This whole situation begs a very sticky ethical question.  Is it right that, in the absence of any criminal wrongdoing, Mr. Embody's permit is being revoked?

New rule: if you're irresponsible enough to forget your weapon and leave it at the range, we're going to use it to stage goofy pictures.  I really wanted to do a parody of the final frame of Black Dynamite, but asking employees to curl up around my legs could constitute grounds for a lawsuit in some quarters.

If you haven't seen the movie, you should.  Heck, if Sandra Bullock can get an Oscar for whatever it is she did, Michael Jai White deserves one for pulling off lines like this with a straight …

I've had an on-again-off-again relationship with Starbucks for as long as I can remember.  Their prepared drinks are spendy, but as a guy who grinds his own, I've found their Cafe Verona to be very versatile, and the Ethiopian Sidamo balances nicely with steamed milk.

I'd never really considered their policy on guns.  Heck, it's a coffee shop.  It's frequented by pseudo-intellectuals whose offspring are white kids with dreadlocks.  Despite the lack of any signage stating so, I'd always assumed they wouldn't be too fond of guns.

Therefore, it came as something of a pleasant surprise to find out that they're not caving to pressure from the Brady Campaign to ban guns from their stores.

I may have to spend more money there.

Judge Frank Easterbrook took the stand today in the case against Hal Turner.

Turner really wanted to be Glenn Beck, but all he ever amounted to was a guy with a small cancelled radio show and a website he used to convey his views about white supremacy.  He was a Holocaust denier who acted for a time as an informant for the FBI against his own kind.

It turns out that Turner was just a bit miffed at Easterbrook's decision in NRA v. Chicago last June, and his reaction was quite intemperate:

Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions.

He then provided the home addresses of 7th Circuit Judges Frank Easterbrook, Richard Posner and William Bauer to his readers.

Does this constitute an actual threat or conspiracy? That's up to the jury, but it certainly wasn't wise in any case.  I, for one, am certainly sick of hearing the phrase "watering the tree of liberty" thrown around so casually.

Turner could face up to ten years in prison. Let's hope he has to watch reruns of Space 1999 the whole time.

Justice Breyer came up with this concept during oral arguments today, and it was too fruity to pass up.

Still, I take from what you are saying that — let's make up an imaginary importance of ordered liberty chart, and we give it to James Madison and the other framers.  And he would say insofar as that right to bear arms is important for the purpose of maintaining the militia, it's high on the ordered liberty chart.  Insofar as the right to bear arms is there to shoot burglars, it's low on the ordered liberty chart.

He's …

Long story short, with the exception of Breyer, there appears to be no significant opposition to incorporation through Due Process.  With the exception of Ginsburg, the Court showed no interest in revisiting the Privileges or Immunities clause.

So, it's a win, but only for the 2nd Amendment. Although Slaughterhouse and Cruikshank stand for the time being, incorporation here will whittle away at them, as it did in Gitlow and Benton.

The transcript [pdf] is up here. Josh Blackman was there, and has his commentary here.

I was saddened to see how quickly Scalia and Roberts dismissed the idea of overturning Slaughterhouse. I'd worried that Scalia would be opposed to revisiting Privileges or Immunities, and I was sadly proven right.

Regarding selective incorporation, a doctrine he's been wary of in the past, Scalia said, "As much as I think it's wrong, even I have acquiesced in it."

Breyer's "imaginary importance of ordered liberty chart" is truly a surreal idea. He tried to get a few digs in at the Heller majority but failed. He did his best to waste some of Gura's time with irrelevancies.

As usual, I never know what to expect from a new Autechre record.  The fact that the Designers Republic was back on board for artwork should have been something of a clue.

This is certainly the most consistent and approachable that they've been in years.  The record is restrained and focused, and there's a real emphasis on melody.  They've jettisoned the hyper-abstraction and claustrophobic mixing of Untilted, and the disjointed chaos of Quaristice has been reined in.  What's left is an album that doesn't convey the need to prove anything.

It's all the more satisfying for that.

This is a patient record with a unified character.  There's a sense of space and breathing room that's quite welcome.  The atmosphere is reminiscent of Envane's quieter moments and several tracks lack percussion entirely.

Before everyone starts screaming, "OMG ambient record!  They remade Amber FTW," bear in mind that this is a more mature animal.  It's learned a few things since then, and its teeth are a bit sharper than they were fifteen years ago.