I write at Cato about the accomplishments of Ida Wells (1862-1931), who after being born into slavery in Mississippi became the leading voice documenting the horrors of lynch law in late nineteenth century America, as well as a free speech heroine (a mob in Memphis attacked and destroyed her printing press). Wells is also the subject of today’s Google Doodle. And as I learned from Nicholas Johnson’s post last year at Volokh, she was a notable figure in the history of the Second Amendment as well.
Posts Tagged ‘guns’
May 27 roundup
- All aboard! “Louisiana AG hires nine private law firms, 17 attorneys for federal antitrust pharmaceutical lawsuit” [Legal NewsLine]
- National Association of Insurance Commissioners has, and exploits, legally privileged status as collector of insurance data. Time for open access [Ray Lehmann]
- Europe’s antitrust charges against Google remind us of “the poverty of the standard antitrust doctrine” [Pierre Lemieux]
- Court blasts Morrison Foerster for ‘nonsensical’ legal theories and ‘carnival fun house’ arguments [ABA Journal]
- “Trolls aren’t the primary problem with the patent system. They’re just the problem Congress is willing to fix.” [Timothy Lee, Vox] What makes you think lawyers and rent-seekers aren’t going to turn “patent reform” to their own purposes? [Mark Mills]
- “It only goes that one direction, too.” Rachel Maddow recognizes the fairness problem with one-way fee shifting, this one time [Huffington Post on pro-defendant Colorado firearms law]
- CPSC still going after Zen Magnets, which isn’t backing down [Nancy Nord, earlier]
Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup
- Polls, not chancy politics of Justice-watching, represent surest hope for gay-marriage supporters [me in New York Daily News]
- “A reasonably good week for the Fourth Amendment” [Jonathan Blanks, Cato on Rodriguez v. U.S. on prolonged traffic stops, 6-3 SCOTUS, and from the D.C. Circuit, Janice Rogers Brown’s concurrence in Gross v. U.S., on rationale for D.C.’s gun sweeps]
- David Bernstein, who has done so much to enrich our understanding of Lochner v. New York, hears from Mr. Lochner’s great-granddaughter [Volokh Conspiracy]
- Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center: Supremacy Clause doesn’t provide implied private right of action [William Baude, SCOTUSBlog; James Beck (implication for product liability); from the losing side, Steve Vladeck/Prawfs]
- Please, SCOTUS, kill off for good the awful Calder v. Jones “effects” test for personal jurisdiction [David Post] “We’re Not in Kansas: No General Jurisdiction After Bauman” [Steven Boranian, Drug and Device Law]
- Noah Feldman, for one, isn’t buying Toobin’s latest sanctimonious swipe at Scalia [Bloomberg View]
- Usage of commas in famous first line of Pride and Prejudice can shed light on how to read Constitutional guarantee of right to keep and bear arms [Eugene Volokh]
April 14 roundup
- Please, someone: you can’t just donate money to the Tulsa police and get full deputy powers, can you? [Tulsa World via @RayDowns]
- Illinois bench-‘n’-bar buzz angrily at Gov. Rauner who broke rule re: not mentioning lawyers’ campaign cash to judges [Chicago Daily Law Bulletin]
- “New York’s Asbestos Court Mulls Changes After Sheldon Silver Scandal” [Daniel Fisher] “‘Judicial malpractice’ not to probe court tied to Silver: Judge” [New York Post]
- Let’s all panic about arsenic in wine, or maybe let’s all not [Nick Farr, Abnormal Use (“The highest arsenic levels cited in the lawsuit are less than half of the limits set by other countries such as Canada”), and more on class action lawsuit]
- “Tennessee Sacrifices Property Rights On The Altar Of ‘Gun Rights'” [Doug Mataconis, Outside the Beltway; earlier here, here, and here]
- Odd that while we make wedding cake bakers and florists common carriers, the old “cab-rank” (any paying client) rule for lawyers has come to seem almost unthinkable [Adam Liptak, NYT on big law firms’ avoidance of representing clients on the unpopular side of major gay rights cases] Similarly: Paul Karl Lukacs, L.A. Daily Journal. Related: “maelstrom of criticism” directed at Harvard lawprof Laurence Tribe over his Supreme Court representation of coal company against EPA [Orin Kerr]
- Just for fun: the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, in license plates [my post at Cato at Liberty]
Liability roundup
- “Judge dismisses Brady Center’s lawsuit. Ammo retailers not to blame for Aurora theater killer” [Denver Post via @davekopel]
- “Ever been in a crowded subway car when a gunfight broke out? I have.” And it relates to slip-fall cases [Eric Turkewitz]
- No more of Prosser’s tricks: Scalia warns modern Restatements “of questionable value, must be used with caution” [Orin Kerr]
- Impact of revelations in Garlock document trove continues to ripple: “Insurer Claims Asbestos Fraud Tainted Pittsburgh Corning Bankruptcy” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes, earlier]
- Trial lawyer allies want to make California’s insurer-shackling Prop 103 even (if possible) worse [Ian Adams, Insurance Journal, see also]
- “The settlement shakedown”: Scott Shackford on the Moonlight Fire case in California [Reason, earlier]
- This must be what they call a hellhole jurisdiction [comic book cover via Jim Dedman, Abnormal Use]
NYC’s gravity-knife law, cont’d
Carsten Vogel had been a vociferous defender of New York City police practices against critics. That all began to change one afternoon at the Nostrand Ave. station for the A train, “when he was approached by an NYPD officer, who asked what he had in his pocket.” [Jon Campbell, Village Voice; earlier here and here]
New Jersey gun laws: felony for possession of antique flintlock
Gordon VanGilder, a 72 year old retired schoolteacher, now faces felony charges for possessing a 225 year old flintlock pistol, which he says he told a sheriff’s deputy about during a routine traffic stop. [NRA YouTube] More: Charles Cooke, Scott Greenfield (current New Jersey law specifically prohibits possession of antique firearms, a provision one lawmaker there would like to fix). For more on the tender mercies of New Jersey gun control laws, see our coverage of the Brian Aitken case.
January 29 roundup
- Bi-counsel-ar? “Lawyer Defending Congressman’s Wife in Bigamy Case Accuses Client of Having a Second Lawyer” [Slate]
- “Why tort liability for data breaches won’t improve cybersecurity” [Stewart Baker]
- Pennsylvania passes a new gun law, and suddenly liberal standing with attorney fee shifting stops being the progressive position [Harrisburg Patriot-News]
- “Letting a case die like a pet rat forgotten in the garage” [Ken at Popehat on Todd Kincannon challenge to South Carolina state bar discipline threats]
- Getting to it late: hour-long Cato podcast with Randy Barnett on his book Structure of Liberty including Aaron Ross Powell, Trevor Burrus;
- Once a fun party town, New Orleans now will ban vaping in private clubs and while waiting in line at drive-throughs [Christopher Fountain, Ronald Bailey on vaping bans and public health] More: Bailey on exaggeration of risks, Jacob Sullum on California proposal;
- Colorado legislature looks serious about tackling liability reform [Denver Business Journal]
“U.S. Spies on Millions of Cars”
Per documents released in response to a FOIA request, the federal government maintains a large program using automatic license-plate readers to track vehicles in real time (not just in later investigation) and nationwide (not just near borders). The program “collects data about vehicle movements, including time, direction and location, from high-tech cameras placed strategically on major highways.” The resulting photographs are “sometimes” clear enough to identify drivers or passengers. “One email written in 2010 said the primary purpose of the program was asset forfeiture.” Although the program is run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, its data is increasingly shared for investigations unrelated to drugs. [Wall Street Journal]
Forfeiture-driven law enforcement is at this point deeply embedded in our practice at both federal and local levels, and the small and ambiguous federal-level reforms announced by AG Holder earlier this month are unlikely to turn that around in themselves.
Conor Friedersdorf comments: “The DEA will obviously continue to lose the War on Drugs. We’ve traded our freedom to drive around without being tracked for next to nothing. … Unfortunately, leaders in the U.S. law enforcement community feel that they’re justified in secretly adopting sweeping new methods with huge civil liberties implications.” (cross-posted and expanded at Cato at Liberty). A different view: Jazz Shaw, Hot Air (could be useful in “managing crime,” and think of the children: unless we let government monitor our comings and goings, the throwers of little girls into vans will win). And more: They can watch your car, but as Waze flap confirms, don’t you dare watch theirs [Liz Sheld]
Update: new emails reveal plans of even wider scope, including a proposal (which DEA says was not acted on) to cooperate with BATF to track license plates of gun show attendees. The Guardian quotes me about the chilling effect systematic surveillance can have on the exercise of rights, and about the impetus for cooperation between Right and Left on reining in law enforcement use of data tracking. Note pp. 10, 27-28 of this NRA amicus brief in an ACLU mass-surveillance case. And earlier on license plate tracking here (Los Angeles FOIA), here and here (Maryland), and here (Radley Balko). And with the rapid development of onboard computer technology, our cars ourselves could soon be reporting our driving habits to the government. But that’d never happen, right? [Steven Greenhut] “Taxing Us To Spy On Us” [Chris Edwards]
Cop shoots off finger, sues gun store
Glasgow, Kentucky: “A former Glasgow police officer is suing a Barren County gun store after being handed a loaded gun from under the counter and accidentally shooting his finger off.” [WBKO]