- Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns blurs lines between 501c(4), New York City government sponsorship [Politico]
- “Ordinary purposes” of derringer include carrying it around routinely with safety not engaged, argue lawyers in product liability case [Abnormal Use]
- Connecticut’s confiscatory law: “State took guns of man for mischief night egg fight” [Greenwich Time]
- “This kind of insurance doesn’t even exist.” Concern over D.C. councilor Mary Cheh’s proposal for mandatory $250K coverage for gun owners [Washington Times]
- $60K New York City fine for tourist shop that sold gun-shaped lighters [Reason]
- And more annals of gun hysteria: “Suspension over gun-shaped toaster pastry is now permanent mark on kid’s record” [Eric Owens, Daily Caller] Episode of Lego-sized toy gun ends more happily [LtB] “‘Playing with Toy Guns Desensitizes Children to Using Real Guns…’ Uh, Sez Who?” [Free-Range Kids]
- “Defense of mass surveillance = defense of more gun control: To get bad guys, treat EVERYONE like a criminal.” [@ABartonHinkle]
Posts Tagged ‘Washington D.C.’
D.C. government vs. food trucks, cont’d
Nick Sibilla of the Institute for Justice says the re-regulation plan has some devilish details:
Portions of the current proposal could cripple entrepreneurship. For starters, food trucks that park at an expired meter could face $2,000 fines for a first-time offense. From there on, fines would escalate quickly, reaching $4,000 for the second infraction, $8,000 for the third, and $16,000 onwards. In D.C., this would be a Class 1 infraction, the same legal category as possessing explosives without a license.
Earlier here; more background, NBC Washington.
Don’t you just love regulation?
EPA-mandated diesel-engine governor shuts down ambulance carrying patient in cardiac arrest to emergency room. [WTTG; Washington, D.C.] The D.C. fire union says emissions-control engine governors, the result of an EPA mandate, have shut down rescue vehicles during missions at least three times since August. Following strenuous protests from rescue squads around the country, EPA last May waived the application of the rules for fire trucks and ambulances, but D.C. is apparently stuck with vehicles acquired before the waiver.
Guns roundup
- Andrew Cuomo threatened county sheriffs with retaliation unless they stopped publicly criticizing his gun plan [Albany Times-Union; his brutally coercive style in an earlier gun controversy]
- Quick Obama signing predicted: “USA shows strong support for new global Arms Trade Treaty” [Amnesty International] Senate less enthusiastic about it [The Hill] A dissent: non-lefty Prof. Ku doesn’t think treaty poses big gun control danger [Opinio Juris]
- “A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made” [NBC Washington] Time was when you could get the counselors on your case if you *didn’t* bring a Swiss Army knife on a nature trip [Free-Range Kids] “High School Student Expelled for Unloaded Gun Forgotten In Trunk” [same]
- “Studios fret that New York’s gun laws could hamper film production” [NYTimes]
- “Why maximal enforcement of federal gun laws is not always a good idea” [Kopel] “The Worst Gun Control Idea Has Bipartisan Support” (new mandatory minimums for firearm possession; Daniel Denvir, The New Republic)
- D.C. council holds hearing on proposal for mandatory liability insurance for gun ownership; Mayor Vincent Gray doesn’t like idea [WaPo, Eric Newcomer/Examiner, Insurance Journal, CBS Washington; earlier here, etc.]
- “Yes, They Are Coming For People’s Guns in California” [Brian Doherty]
Food and farm roundup
- New D.C. regs threaten to strangle capital’s vibrant food truck culture [Michael Hamilton/Greater Greater Washington, Jessica Sidman, Washington City Paper]
- Food Safety Modernization Act would impose only modest costs on farmers, or so we kept being assured when it passed in 2010. Someone tell the orchard guys [WaPo, earlier] Town of Brooksville becomes ninth in Maine to pass symbolic “food sovereignty” resolution [Jordan Bloom, The American Conservative; Food Renegade (Dan Brown of Blue Hill)]
- “Kosher: Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food” by lawprof Timothy Lytton [Prawfs]
- “Why Is Your Child’s Safety The Responsibility Of Some Stranger Who Sold You Instant Soup?” [Amy Alkon]
- Two views of so-called “Monsanto Protection Act” [Ramesh Ponnuru, pro; Baylen Linnekin, con]
- Aaron Powell ties Bloomberg’s soda ban in with John Stuart Mill and the dreadful-sounding new book Against Autonomy [Libertarianism.org] Too bad editors of the New York Daily News, which lives by newsstand choice, can’t identify with food choice [Charles Cooke]
- “California Chef Who Gives Away Free Foie Gras Gets Sued. Again.” [Katherine Mangu-Ward]
- “Food desert” myth, widely credited in policy circles a very short time ago, now sinks beneath sands of contrary evidence [Jacob Geller; earlier here, here, here, here, here, etc.]
Guns roundup
- Report: White House at pains to hush anti-gun groups from voicing their more extreme ideas [Washington Times]
- If we were really serious about reducing gun violence… [Steve Chapman] Futility of gun buyback programs [Trevor Burrus podcast, Cato]
- Lawyer hit with $20,000 sanction after federal judge says he didn’t adequately vet client’s dubious gun-malfunction case [Legal Intelligencer/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
- No one’s talking about gun confiscation, right? Right? [Gateway Pundit, Christopher Fountain, more]
- D.C. councilmember sponsors bill requiring gun owners to buy $250K liability insurance [WaPo, earlier] Discussion of mandatory liability insurance for gun owners with Jacob Sullum, Don Taylor of Duke, and Michael Barry of the Insurance Information Institute [Reason/HuffPost]
- “Obama’s gun agenda is at least as much about provoking Republicans to say and do things to alienate women voters as it is about passing laws.” [@davidfrum]
- “The Second Amendment Protects Both Keeping and Bearing Arms” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
Suing for admission to Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority
The Howard University students’ feelings were hurt, it seems [Will Sommer, Washington City Paper via Huffington Post]:
Some of the “hazing” rules sound innocuous, if extensive, like being forbidden from wearing the sorority colors of pink and green or any colors that could be blended into pink and green. In one humorous moment, the lawsuit notes that the pledges, who were called the “sweets,” couldn’t even wear white pearls.
Other hazing allegations are more serious. At one point, the pledges were told not to talk to non-sorority members at Howard, according to the suit. “[Alpha Kappa Alpha members] on campus addressed the sweets by calling them weak bitches,” Compton’s mother wrote in a complaint to the sorority.
After Cofield’s mother, also an Alpha Kappa Alpha sister, complained, the two pledges found themselves ostracized in the sorority for being “snitch-friendly” or “snitch-sympathists.”…
The aspiring sisters say they’re being discriminated against because, as legacies, their mothers were also in the sorority. In other words, they’re being treated differently because of their “familial status”—a protected class under the D.C. Human Rights Act. In addition to monetary damages, the would-be Alpha Kappa Alphas want the court to grant an injunction putting the pledging process on hold.
P.S. In 2008 we covered the “Oprichniki” lawsuit involving Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut (follow-up). And there’s a current controversy over what one alumna calls the “pretty tame” hazing dished out on a voluntary basis during a Bryn Mawr tradition known as Hell Week [Julie Gerstein/The Frisky, Philly.com]
Police and prosecution roundup
- “Once your life is inside a federal investigation, there is no space outside of it.” [Quinn Norton, The Atlantic]
- “Cops Detain 6-year-old for Walking Around Neighborhood (And It Gets Worse)” [Free-Range Kids] “Stop Criminalizing Parents who Let Their Kids Wait in the Car” [same]
- Time to rethink the continued erosion of statutes of limitations [Joel Cohen, Law.com; our post the other day on Gabelli v. SEC]
- “Are big-bank prosecutions following in the troubled footsteps of FCPA enforcement?” [Isaac Gorodetski, PoL]
- The “‘professional’ press approach to the criminal justice system serves police and prosecutors very well. They favor reporters who hew to it.” [Ken at Popehat]
- Scott Greenfield dissents from some common prescriptions on overcriminalization [Simple Justice]
- Anti-catnip educational video might be a parody [YouTube via Radley Balko]
- “Too Many Restrictions on Sex Offenders, or Too Few?” [NYT “Room for Debate”]
- Kyle Graham on overcharging [Non Curat Lex] “The Policeman’s Legal Digest / A Walk Through the Penal Laws of New York (1934)” [Graham, ConcurOp]
- “D.C. Council Proposes Pretty Decent Asset Forfeiture Reform” [John Ross, Reason] And the Institute for Justice reports on forfeiture controversies in Minnesota and Georgia.
- Does prison privatization entrench a pro-incarceration lobby? [Sasha Volokh, more]
“ADA issue keeps new Metro card machines under wraps for all”
Snags for the D.C. subway system [Washington Post via @andrewmgrossman]
The first shipment of the new [SmarTrip card] machines did not have the audio and Braille features required under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But Metro thought it could roll out the machines and add the audio and Braille a couple of months later. When disability advocates raised concerns, Metro realized that going forward would violate the ADA, and the transit agency halted the rollout.
So nearly three weeks after every station was to have its own SmarTrip card dispenser, riders at nearly half of the stations in the Metrorail system are out of luck if they need to buy a card.
Riders who stay with paper Farecards are charged an extra dollar a trip.
September 17 roundup
- Montana considers “corporations aren’t people” ballot measure with all the expectable flaws plus some others; vainly presumes to instruct state’s delegation to Congress [Bainbridge, more]
- Dutch phone book publisher claims that “Cancel my Dutch phone book” website infringes its trademark [24 Oranges]
- The problem with Section 5 (preclearance) provision of the Voting Rights Act, cont’d [Ilya Shapiro; SCOTUSBlog symposium with Shapiro, Abigail Thernstrom and others]
- D.C. bans a bar’s jape at Marion Barry: “The Government Commission on Acceptable Satire” [Julian Sanchez, Cato]
- Inquiry cost seen at £100m over alleged UK troop brutality in Iraq; defense lawyers say charges trumped up [Telegraph]
- Banning outdoor tobacco use: “Obama administration to push for eliminating smoking on college campuses” [Caroline May, Daily Caller]
- “And so it has come to this: Cameras that monitor speed cameras.” [Mike Rosenwald, WaPo; Prince George’s County, Md.]