The Wandering Minstrel

Doesn’t this facility look like a prison? It’s all fortified with bars and massive structures that remind me of a penitentiary. All that’s missing is the watchtowers and razor wire.

Actually, it’s an institution of learning, Lennox Academy, a Charter High School with a focus on Math, Science and Technology. The facility is located in a high crime rate area about three miles east of LAX. The fortification seems to be designed to keep people out, like that dumpster diving dude with the overloaded shopping cart, or the local street gangbangers.

Clickable image.

How they shoot the roadside signs in (left to right) Southern Utah, Northern Arizona and Southern California.

Rifle and pistol rounds struck the first two, but the SoCal ‘dude’ uses a paintball gun. How ‘California’ of him.

People, there are places you can go and shoot your whatever, without endangering people, structures or wildlife and without defacing public property.

Clickable image.

NRO’s Mark Krikorian catches up on last week’s news:

Your Tired, Your Poor, et al

• America’s first case of “extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis” (XXDR TB) has surfaced — “a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English.” A TB doctor warns against crimethink: “It’s not a foreign problem, you can’t keep these TB patients out.” Actually, this guy could very easily have been kept out. And this: “His treatment cost Florida taxpayers an estimated $500,000.” And finally: “The last time doctors saw him, he was walking out of the sanitarium into south Florida’s soupy heat.” Think he went home once his visa expired? Me neither.
• An illegal alien in Florida murdered a co-worker for speaking English instead of Spanish. An argument for 287(g) if there ever was one: “Escalante provided four different names to detectives before he was identified through fingerprints at the jail.”
• A “university” in California was selling student visas to enable people to come to the U.S. The school’s founder has been arrested but, for some reason, the “students” aren’t being prosecuted, though ICE assures us they’ll be deported. Yeah, and I’ll respect you in the morning.
• Under a new one-year pilot program, temporary workers leaving from two points in Arizona will now have to register their departure to make sure they don’t overstay and become illegal aliens. Oh, you thought they had to do that already? Ha ha ha ha!

Earlier this week, Alan Gura and associates filed the Petitioners “On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Seventh Circuit.” I downloaded the Petitioners .pdf document yesterday and started looking through it for a little light reading.

The document contains a ‘Summary of Argument‘ which I have summarized even further here. Disclaimer: this summary in no way intends to profess anything other than a citizen’s interpretation of the contents of the summary.

Section 1 states that the Court has never directly addressed the question of the Fourteenth Amendment’s incorporation of the Second Amendment. It claims confusion is the result of inaction and the Court now has the opportunity to set straight the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment in the context of gun owners civil rights.

Section 2 speaks to the Fourteenth Amendment’s ‘Privileges or Immunities‘ clause which forbids the States from abridging civil rights including, unambiguously, the right to keep and bear arms.

Section 3 brings up The SlaughterHouse Cases of 1873. SlaughterHouse transformed the Framers’ broad protection of individual liberty, commonly understood, into a clause securing only the most obscure rights.

Section 4 speaks about The Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that no person be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Accordingly, most of the rights secured in the first eight amendments have been deemed incorporated as against the States.

The States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment during reconstruction. The amendment sought to restore civil rights that some of the states had stripped away from blacks and abolitionists after the Civil War, including the right to keep and bear arms.

Now is the time for SCOTUS to restore those civil rights to the citizens of Chicago and, indeed, to all Americans.

Also, here’s another chance to weigh in on Sonia Sotomayor:

Wayne La Pierre, the Executive Vice president of the NRA appeared today on the Glenn Beck Show. Beck and La Pierre discussed the recent Fort Hood Islamic terrorist attack. In that discussion, La Pierre concluded that “Instantaneous Responders are ALWAYS superior to First Responders” and made a statement that inspired the graphic seen here. Beck and La Pierre also talked about the insanity of not having armed soldiers present on all military bases in a time of war. At Fort Hood, it was a coincidence that there were police officers in the area for the graduation ceremonies being held nearby. Had they not been there to hear Hasan’s shots, it would have been much worse.

The Military needs to realize that their soldiers ARE the “Good Guys.” I like the concept of “Instantaneous Responders.”

The Army charged Major Nidal Malik Hasan with thirteen counts of premeditated murder today. There will also be additional charges against this “soldier of allah” as the numerous aggravated assault and other charges are investigated and applied. The investigation, according to the official who read the charges of murder, is on-going.

What I would like to know is when will Hasan be charged with treason? He acted on behalf of enemies of the United States when he opened fire on unarmed soldiers and civilians at Ft. Hood. To me, that constitutes treason.

In addition to the terrorist acts he commited, Hasan may also have been funneling money to Pakistan. He also is alleged to have attempted to contact al Qaeda.

Authorities at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. have described Hasan as being psychotic. He was often described as surly and difficult to talk to. One official was quoted as saying that anybody who knew Hasan would not want him in their foxhole.

No wonder Hasan has that shit-eating smirk - he knew he was going to be infamous someday.

Treason? You bet.

Firing squad? We can only hope they televise the execution. Pay-per-view - yeah! That’s the ticket . . .

Every once in a while, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon phenomenon rears it’s head. Today, I read about a former acquaintance and co-worker in the local news.

The former aerospace worker who killed a Los Angeles airport officer by dragging him along the side of his carjacked patrol car believed he was Jesus Christ on a mission to save Russia, jurors heard Monday on the first day of his trial.

William Sadowski was blinded to his actions by the voice in his head telling him to save a Russian woman he loved from hell, Sadowski’s attorney told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury in Judge Lance Ito’s courtroom.

Deputy Public Defender Irene Nunez said her client’s only intent was to kill himself to get to hell.

Sadowski, a 51-year-old divorced father of two with a long history of mental illness, did not have the intent to commit murder, nor did he deliberate or premeditate Officer Tommy Scott’s death in April 2005, Nunez said.

But Deputy District Attorney Linda Loftfield noted that Sadowski clearly said in a tape-recorded interview with a Los Angeles police detective that he knew Scott was hanging on to the car, and he drove fast and swerved to shake him off.

Note the presiding Judge, Lance Ito, is the same one who screwed up the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

This is weird shit, alright, but it pales in comparison to seeing another creepy co-worker acquaintance to turn up in the news back in 1977 - the Trash Bag Murderer.

Alan Gura updated the Chicago Gun Case site with the following “What to expect” following SCOTUS decision to hear the case . . .

Here is what we can look forward to in the coming months…

Our opening brief is due November 16.

The city’s brief is then due December 16.

Our reply brief is due January 15.

The case is expected to be argued in February, with a decision expected by the end of June, 2010.

View Gura’s Press release here.

UPDATE: Gura on Glenn Beck’s Show.