Johnston v. North Carolina

1 post

Friday Quickies

Joe McCarthy?  No, worse!

You too can be Irony King (or other monarch) of the week by going here and giving your address.  They send you one of these bumper stickers free.  The site says it’ll take 4-6 weeks to ship, but that’s still plenty of time before the primaries.

In other news, there’s a promising verdict from the North Carolina Superior Court (opinion linked at Volokh) upholding a felon’s right to keep and bear arms.

Before you flinch at that, bear in mind that one can be punished as a felon for crimes that do little or no real harm to anyone.  Rehabilitation or decades of clean living don’t matter:  a felony conviction of any sort is a lifetime ban from owning firearms.  However, if the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental liberty (as the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald), can felons be denied its exercise forever?  After all, they still have rights to freedom of speech and legal counsel, right?