Be still, my heart . . . . .

The Springfield State Journal-Register is apparently finished with hinting that they might slightly favor right-to-carry in Illinois, instead coming right out and saying so in a lead editorial in the Sunday edition:

"Our Opinion: Reconsider Ban on Concealed Carry"

They did a good job of recapping the history of concealed carry measures in Illinois, and I only have one or two small quibbles. Great job overall--in fact, when I showed it to my wife, she asked in all seriousness whether it was my guest piece. (It's not, of course.)

The only real trouble they gave me was in their suggestion that anti-gun politicians shouldn't be afraid to revisit right-to-carry because the McDonald decision endorsed "reasonable" restrictions and some compromise might be possible--for instance, that some cities could simply "opt out" of the right-to-carry law.

No. Just no. First of all, as the NRA's Todd Vandermyde has pointed out, the only Justices who wrote about "reasonable" restrictions when they weren't quoting anti-gun amici were the dissenters. That's a polite way of saying that the side that won did NOT endorse "reasonable" restrictions, though they did allow that some restrictions will likely pass muster. What they did was find that the individual right named in the Heller decision is incorporated into the 14th Amendment, which means that it has to be enforced against the states and local governments. That means, in this case, "Illinois" and "Chicago."

So, what is this individual right that now shall not be infringed by Chicago? Well, the Heller decision called it the "right to own and carry weapons in case of confrontation," though of course they didn't actually decide to order Washington, D.C. to allow right-to-carry since that question wasn't before them. But how can anyone figure that Chicago has a legal leg to stand on if they ask to "opt out" of this right entirely? No, right-to-carry is coming in Illinois, and the legislature's choice may very well be between acting in the next session and negotiating with us, or waiting to act and "negotiating" with federal court orders. Good luck with that.

The bottom line is that if the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to carry weapons for personal defense, as the Supreme Court has said it does at least in dicta, then there's no legal way for Illinois to remain the one state in the union that won't allow any citizen to carry a loaded firearm for any reason (police officers and politicians excepted, of course.) And, once Illinois brings itself into compliance and provides equal protection before the law for its citizens, it's hard to see how Chicago could "opt out" and take that equal protection away from over half the citizens in the state. Last year, when many Illinois right-to-carry activists (including me) tried to make a push to get a right-to-carry law that would have allowed Chicago and other home-rule municipalities to "opt out," it would probably have been found legal for them to do it. But they weren't willing to talk about that deal, and the NRA torpedoed it behind the scenes in the Illinois General Assembly. A lot of people were angry about that, but let's face it now: the NRA turned out to be right on this one. We didn't want to wait for the McDonald decision, but that was impatience talking. As it turned out, we find ourselves today in a position where Illinois doesn't need to make that deal that Chicago and its puppets spurned back then. In fact, I'll just come out and say it clearly here: in the long run, I'm glad the other side was too foolish to take that deal, and I'm glad Vandermyde and the NRA killed it.

The importantance of punctuation illustrated in ninjas

On a gun forum, tattoos were the subject of discussion recently. One member said that he liked tattoos, but in his "current career path, they represent a security risk." Inevitably, someone asked him whether he was studying to become a mall ninja.

"No, I'm not a mall . . . ninja," was his reply. I found myself trying to figure out what the ellipses were meant to convey. This is why the best writers read their work aloud early in the process . . . . hearing it spoken will alert you to mistakes, even small mistakes of emphasis, that your brain would gloss over if you were reading silently. His pause was . . . interesting. I found myself wondering where the emphasis was supposed to be, because it makes a difference. Observe:

"No, I'm not a mall ninja," he said with the cool sternness of a rottweiler contemplating a squirrel. Where did these little punks pick up this ridiculous lingo?

or

"No, I'm not a mall ninja," he said with the cool sternness of a rottweiler contemplating a squirrel. It was beginning to seem likely that he'd have to kill another one. Hatsumi would be displeased.

See what I'm saying? Punctuation, kids. Emphasis. Learn it, love it, live it.

"Sniper no sniping, sniper no sniping!"

"Aw, maaaan!"
I think I've been home with the baby too long. He doesn't even bat an eye when I have slips like that . . . . .

OK, that's a new one.

I've seen a lot of . . . . interesting ways of writing out calibers from the "mainstream media." Reporters have no idea how firearm nomenclature works, and honestly, it really is a very complex topic if you don't grow up with it. Not only that, but most of these people don't even realize that there is a right way to write these things, so it doesn't occur to them that there is a wrong way, much less that they're doing things the wrong way.

But this one is new even to me. Maybe you've seen it before?

a fully-loaded 9 .mm semiautomatic handgun

I really don't think I have.

Thank Whatever Gods There Be . . . .

. . . that Examiner does not expose me. Specifically, I'm grateful that it doesn't show how many times I've gone back to fix typos. Geez.

Goddamn Robots

I had to send an email to the Illinois State Board of Education yesterday, because I think they've overlooked a college course I took (They say I'm "deficient coursework in the psychological assessment of students with disabilities within the LBSI scope." Since I got an A in MSE528, "Psycho-Educational Testing," I can't tell whether they missed that course, whether I need more than one course, or whether I need more than 3 semester hours in that area . . . . and their letter doesn't specify, of course.

I attempted to resolve the matter by phone, but the number given for the certification department gave a busy signal no matter how many times I called over two days, of course.

Beginning to sense a pattern, I went to the ISBE website and clicked the "Contact" link. A web form presented itself for duty with reassuring alacrity, and I proceeded to fill it out and hit "Submit." A small red line of text appeared, thanking me for sending in my comments and/or questions and assuring me that my query would be answered as promptly as possible.
Success!

I should have had the sense to leave it at that, but instead I foolishly proceeded to open my email. Thunderbird cheerfully served up two messages from the ISBE Killer Robot Division (Dept. of Eating Old People's Medicine Dept.)* which had both apparently been delivered at 11:35 a.m. and which said--I am not making this up--this:

Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

       certification@isbe.net
And yet also this:
Confirmation From : Certification
hi,
Thank you for contacting the Illinois State Board of Education. 
We will make every effort to respond as quickly as possible.

Very Best Regards,

Public Information Center
Illinois State Board of Education

Notice that State Board of Education Robots don't capitalize very consistently?  So did I.  "ISBE ro-bot 4-4-7-3 does not und-er-stand your hu-man e-mo-tion of 'frus-tra-tion.'  But ISBE ro-bot 4-4-7-3 finds this 'frus-tra-tion' fas-cin-a-ting.  ISBE ro-bot 4-4-7-3 must cre-ate more frus-tra-tion in or-der to stu-dy your strange hu-man feelings. . ."

Excuses

I was going to write all kinds of brilliant things here. I've got posts in my head about:

• Oral arguments yesterday in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (working title: "Who On the 9th Circuit stole Judge Posner's Girlfriend?") in the McDonald v. Chicago case.
• Alan Gura's thoughts on Sotomayor and how her confirmation affects McDonald v. Chicago.
• Appleseed (remember when that was a Huge Internet Dramaball?)
• Other things.

However, my wife insists that she must now do work for her job, so she's kicking me off the computer. So for now, go read Crystal's posts about why and how Brad Paisley is being mean to her family. (Yes, that Brad Paisley.)

(Corrected to satisfy the Grammar Police, who also insist on calling people by their real names for some reason. More mission creep.)

Don't Do That, Dummy.

Ahem.

The Rules:

1. Boys don't hit girls. If she's trying to kill you and you can't get away, I might bend this one for you. Otherwise, boys don't hit girls.

2. If you're so dumb you want to fight with a girl, try not to be so dumb that you do it in public.

3. When the Big Angry Man tells you to let go of the girl, there is no need to ask "Why?"
You let go of her because there's a Big Angry Man with a phone telling you to do it. If you don't, he's most likely facing a choice between calling the cops and pounding you, depending on how red his neck is and how friendly his relationship with your local police department is.
Even if he looks pretty fat and old, chances are that he feels pretty confident that he can stomp a mudhole in your skinny young ass and walk it dry; otherwise he would probably have called the cops from inside his car.

4. Reactions which will be considered unacceptable when the Big Angry Man demands an explanation:

• Smirking
• Grinning
• "What's the matter?"
• "Whattya mean?"
• "It's just a fuckin' hug!"

5. Hugs are consensual events. If you have to sling her in a circle and throw her down on pavement before you can force her into a hug, it doesn't count. Remember: It's only a hug if the other person agrees that it's a hug.

6. When the Big Angry Man says that you must stop smirking and explain yourself or he will call the police, take him at his word. Middle-aged party poopers like him are just itching for a chance to call the The Man to oppress you and keep you down and stuff.

7. It is not, as a matter of fact, against the law for the Big Angry Man to take your picture as you stroll along in public. However, your legal acumen has been noted and the Big Angry Man has made a note to himself to be duly impressed at an undetermined time in the future.

(I was on my way to the car wash when I pulled into a Hardee's parking lot to get a soda and some change. There was a group of six kids in the parking lot; three younger ones and two teenagers. The teenaged boy was slinging the teenaged girl all over the place by her left arm. He threw her down and yanked her back up. She pounded her fists against him to get loose, but he yanked her around once more. I pulled the car up right in front of them and hopped out with my phone in my left hand. By that time, he'd pulled her in and was holding her in a bear hug while she struggled to get away. Description? I'd be hard put to describe her very well. Him? Ever read the Pratchett book "Maurice and His Amazing Educated Rodents?" The one with a character named only "Dumb-Looking Kid?" That was him.

I stayed a few feet away and asked what was going on. That was the wrong thing to say, but it was schoolteacher instinct. He told me nothing was going on. Also the wrong thing to say.

I ordered him to let her go in my schoolteacher "command voice." He asked why he should. This struck me as rather dense. It was my opinion that he should let her go because a man three times his size had just ordered him to do so in a loud voice, which meant that he might very well get his ass kicked if he didn't obey.


I ordered him to let her go again. He did, and she took off around a fence and down the main street in town. I told the boy to explain himself to me [again, this was a pointless waste of time. I should have just dialed the cops right then.] He smirked. I told him that a smirk wasn't an explanation. He opined that "It was just a fuckin' hug! That's all! Just a hug . . . ." This went on for half a minute or so before I cut him off and called the cops. He lit out.

I drove past a house where the younger kids had gone and were outside. I didn't see the girl anywhere. On the backside of the block, as I talked to the cops, I found the DL Kid walking down a quieter back street, chatting on his phone. I told the police dispatcher his description, told them about what had happened and where everyone had gone, and was thanked and asked for my number. Unfortunately, I'd lost the kid by that time. I met Officer Berns [Ever read any of the Pratchett books about Carrot? The mysterious Watch officer of Ankh-Morpork who was raised as a 6-foot-6-inch tall dwarf? So-called not because of his red hair but because he bulged a lot and tapered from feet up to shoulders? That's Berns in a nutshell.] Then, as I came back from the car wash, I met the DL Kid again, strolling down Rt. 4. This time I thought a little more and snapped a photo with my phone in case I needed to describe him again. At this he took umbrage and essayed to provide a lesson in civil liberties.
"Yew cain't just roll up and snap sumbuddy's picture! That's against the law!"

Right, Tinkerbell. Well, you've got a cell phone in your hand. Call the cops.

Later I got a call back from the dispatcher to to tell me that the officer had located both the DL Kid and the girl. I'm guessing all he got was a good lecture, but then, Berns can give a pretty good lecture when the occasion calls for it.)

Law & Order: Grammar Police

You know, I realize this will come as a shock to most of you, but this blog is not what conventional wisdom likes to call "influential" or "widely read." I tried, for a time, to carry myself with a certain dignity and refuse to pander to the lowest dregs of our society just to gain some temporary internet notoriety--but I gave that up when I realized that it wasn't increasing my hit count.

So now I'm pulling out all the stops and giving America what it wants--a series of lectures on grammar and usage!

This week, we'll start with a minor irriation that flared up for me just this past week as I was reading a popular webcomic, Ugly Hill.

Populous is not a noun, people.

"Populous" is an adjective. It modifies nouns. It is used to indicate the degree to which a place is filled with population. For instance, Chicago is a very populous city. Greater Metropolitan Virden is not a populous place.

"Populace" is a noun. The populace of a place is the population of that place, and it's usually only used to refer to a population of human beings. Both words sound like "POP-you-luss" when spoken aloud, but they're only homophones. Substitute at your peril.