Thursday, March 27, 2014

Citizens can learn and use jury power to thwart unjust prosecutions

“Note how the courts turned the state's hurdle of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ -- as was intended to be decided by an informed and empowered jury -- into a rigged hurdle against the defendants to prove that they ‘would've been likely to win’ -- as ‘determined’ allegedly in good faith by one or more ‘justices’ or judges,” my friend observed. “Thus changing the presumption of innocence to more of a presumption of guilt. How do 'justices' know what a jury would've done had it been a fair trial? Some kind of crystal ball?" [More]
Today’s Gun Rights Examiner report notes a “secret” power that must stay hidden in order to be used, and doesn't that just tell us everything we need to know about how far things have been allowed to degrade?

SHALL Be Infringed?

And remember, with "progressives," every day is Opposite Day. [More]

This really ought to be actionable.

About Leland Yee

Again, "thanks" to my illness, this is one I just have not been able to come up with a timely response  for my GRE columns, but the unfolding developments will lend themselves nicely to a new GUNS "Rights Watch" column, due early next week.

So if you want to keep up with the utter and astounding hypocrisy of this one, allow me to point you to Mr. Workman's latest efforts:

The Drawbacks of Incapacitation

Being ill only compounds the reality that there's only one of me, and only so much I can take on. Add to that the introduction of complex issues that require not only research to understand, but also familiarity with the way laws and proposed changes to them impact each other, then factor in how many people my niche readership includes who will care about a given issue enough to grasp it and then actually do something productive about it, and the conclusion is some loads are best left to others to bear.

So what happens when they won't?

I just got "invited" into a Twitter spat of sorts centered on a bill in PA, House Bill 1243, "In firearms and other dangerous articles, further providing for persons not to possess, use, manufacture, control, sell or transfer firearms and for Pennsylvania State Police."

Evidently passage of this bill is a priority for CeaseFirePA.

And evidently NRA-ILA has been silent on it.

Curiously, it looks like there is no shortage  of sponsorship support for it by Republicans joining with Democrats.  So what now?

Per LegiScan status:
Status: Introduced on April 23 2013 - 25% progress
Action: 2014-03-19 - Removed from table
Ditto per American Gun Owner Alliance.

I'm not going to get into the Twitter recriminations and "FY" responses between the person who clued me into this, one who appears to have some skin in this game, and the prominent PA gun blogger who allowed a questioning of his personal loyalties to result in his refusing to discuss this altogether. Those who have the time and inclination can scroll through this to pull and follow threads on their own.

All I will say is that we shouldn't have to wonder or search for what NRA, which represents itself as the leader, has to say about any given gun issue. If and when this gets put back on the table, reasons and rationales ought to be fully laid out.