How Not to Win, Part II

After being detained for strolling around a suburban park with a Draco pistol, Leonard Embody tried suing the officers who detained him. If you're not familiar with his story, I've got background here. In short, and as usual, he lost.

He then appealed to the 6th Circuit, who were none too sympathetic [pdf].

For his troubles, Embody has done something rare: He has taken a position on the Second and Fourth Amendment that unites the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Second Amendment Foundation. Both organizations think that the park ranger permissibly disarmed and detained Leonard Embody that day, notwithstanding his rights to possess the gun. So do we.

Just savor the irony, folks.

In short, the Court found that Embody got exactly what he was seeking, just not the outcome for which he'd hoped.

Having worked hard to appear suspicious in an armed-and-loaded visit to the park, Embody cannot cry foul after park rangers, to say nothing of passers-by, took the bait.

Fortunately, they saw no need to comment much on the 2nd Amendment one way or another, finding only that,

No court has held that the Second Amendment encompasses a right to bear arms within state parks. (...) Such a right may or may not exist, but the critical point for our purposes [emphasis mine] is that it has not been established—clearly or otherwise at this point.

So, at least it's not hurting us. That's some consolation.

An Asteroid, Mr. President

President Obama opened himself up for questions on Reddit today. The few answers he gave were safe and uncontroversial human-interest fodder: the White House recipe for beer, who watches the dog, and his favorite Bulls player. The only real question of merit came regarding the space program.

He name-checked Neil Armstrong as "a reminder of the inspiration and wonder that our space program has provided in the past." What he failed to note was that one of Armstrong's rare public statements was a letter to the administration castigating the President for gutting the same space program.

With the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, the Constellation project was to be our next means of achieving low-earth orbit. That was cut from the budget, and if we want a ride into space at the moment, we've got to book it with the Russians.

That's right: we have to pay the Russians to get us into space. And for what? As Armstrong points out, a seat on the Soyuz runs $50 million, and we already had $10 billion in Constellation when it was canned. Let's also not forget the abrupt upswing in unemployment that followed on the Space Coast as a result.

If this is how he treats things that provide us with inspiration and wonder, I'd hate to see how he'll treat things that don't.