Bill of Rights celebration at the Wrigley Mansion

Kat and I attended Alan Korwin's Bill of Rights celebration, celebrating the 217th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, which was held this evening at the Wrigley Mansion. There were several hundred people in attendance, mostly civil libertarians of both liberal and libertarian varieties, including people from the Institute for Justice and the ACLU. We were asked in the invitation to think about which Amendment is our favorite--I would probably rank the 1st and 4th at the top of my list, of which the 1st is much healthier than the 4th. I'd also put the 8th and 5th high in importance, both of which have taken some recent hits but are showing signs of recovery. And of course the 6th, and the under-utilized 9th... ah, heck, they're all important. The crowd seemed dominated by 2nd Amendment fans, not surprising since Alan Korwin is the author and publisher of numerous books on U.S. gun laws.

The reading of the Bill of Rights and its preamble was excellent, but I was disappointed that the event included a Patrick Henry impersonator played by Lance Hurley of Founding Fathers Ministries. Hurley is a Christian who endorses David Barton's works of pseudohistory on his website (for which the antidote is Chris Rodda's Liars for Jesus), and at the event argued in character, with quotations from Henry, that the 2nd Amendment came from the teachings of Jesus Christ, that the American revolution was fought on Christian principles, and the Constitutional Convention succeeded because of Ben Franklin's prayer. He also stated, when there were discussions of the health of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, that freedom of religion is in serious danger, because no one can mention God in schools but the Koran can be discussed. This is simply untrue--God and the Bible can be discussed by students, but such discussions cannot constitutionally be imposed by state agents such as teachers and administrators in a way that constitutes an establishment of religion. The Bible can be legally taught as the combination of myth, history, poetry, literature, and religious doctrine that it is, but Christianity cannot be endorsed as true by state agents. The same rules apply to the Koran. Hurley seems not to realize that Madison's version of the First Amendment won out, not Henry's. Some Christians--and it appears that Hurley may be one of them--have a view that their freedom of religion is infringed if they are prevented from legally imposing their religion on others through acts of state agents.

I'll find it amazing that Christians consider themselves to be a poor, persecuted minority prohibited from expressing their religious views when they are, in fact, regularly engaging in establishment clause violations, and Congressmen are signing on to bills like last year's House Resolution 847.

Hurley does public speaking as both Patrick Henry and George Washington--I wonder if his George Washington is historically accurate with respect to Washington's religious views. He's also an advocate of conspiracy theories (Illuminati, Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, etc.) and an advocate of the National Day of Prayer.

Further fringe elements were represented at the event by Ernie Hancock of the Ron Paul Revolution, who distributed multiple pieces of literature promoting his Freedom's Phoenix website, billed as "uncovering the secrets & exposing the lies." That site also promotes conspiracy theory, including "9/11 truth" conspiracy claims.

In the discussions, several people brought up Phoenix's recently installed freeway traffic speed cameras as evidence of the sickliness of the Bill of Rights, though no one really offered an explanation of how the Bill of Rights is violated by them. And the objection seemed to only be to the cameras, not to speed limit laws. I'm not a fan of speed cameras, and I agree that they are more of a revenue generation method than a safety measure, but I don't see an obvious case that they violate the Bill of Rights.

That's not to say that the event was entirely dominated by the lunatic fringe--one woman in the audience commented that she was particularly concerned about the 4th Amendment, because she is now regularly stopped at a "border checkpoint" while driving between destinations well inside the U.S. border, because of the 100-mile "Constitution-free zone" that the courts have created around the perimeter of the U.S. And Jennifer Perkins of the Institute for Justice pointed out that even though the U.S. Supreme Court blew a gigantic hole in the 5th Amendment with the Kelo case, nearly all of the states have passed legislation adding further protections against eminent domain abuse (and Arizona's are the strongest).

There was one critical mention of the USA PATRIOT Act (by the Patrick Henry impersonator, to well-deserved applause), but no mention of Guantanamo Bay, the Military Commissions Act, or torture that I noticed. I think concern over traffic cameras is at least a bit lower on the priority list than any of these items. A point in favor of the Patrick Henry arguments is that he correctly identified the risk of expanding executive power and judicial decisions that disregarded basic rights (the fact that the Bill of Rights, as well as the Constitution itself, has many passages that have effectively been written out of it, is testament to the accuracy of that prediction).

The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, at least, is alive and relatively well.

UPDATE (December 16, 2008): Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars points out that Ron Paul introduced the American Freedom Agenda Act which would:

Repeal the "Military Commissions Act of 2006" and thereby restore the ancient right of habeas corpus and end legally sanctioned torture by U.S. government agents

Restore the "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" (FISA) and thereby outlaw warrantless spying on American citizens by the President of the United States

Give Congress standing in court to challenge the President's use of "signing statements" as a means to avoid executing the nation's laws

Make it illegal for government agents to kidnap people and send them abroad to be tortured by foreign governments

Provide legal protection to journalists who expose wrong-doing by the Federal government

Prohibit the use of secret evidence to label groups or individuals as terrorists for the purpose of criminal or civil sanctions

Ed suggests, and I agree, that writing or calling your elected representatives and asking them to support this bill is a good way to do something to preserve and protect the Bill of Rights.

Shootings at South Mountain Community College

Kat saw multiple police cars on her way home and now we hear a bunch of helicopter action nearby, and it appears there has been a shooting incident at South Mountain Community College, with three victims and a suspect in custody.

UPDATE (5:08 p.m.): The shooting apparently took place at the campus Technology Center around 4 p.m., and the campus was quickly locked down, but the suspect had already left. The suspect was arrested at around 23rd Ave. and Grove, near his home. The news is reporting four victims admitted to the Maricopa Medical Center, two men aged 17 and 19, one 20-year-old woman, and one possible additional victim not confirmed. At least one male victim was aware and speaking as he was admitted, and the woman spoke with her father, Otis Williams, by cell phone after she was shot.

One news report claims the suspect was known on campus, and that was apparently why he was quickly apprehended.

Students are now being permitted to leave campus. Classes for the rest of today and tomorrow are cancelled.

UPDATE (5:22 p.m.): Apparently the suspect, a black male driving a white truck, drove home where his father persuaded himself to give himself up to police, which he did. Police and fire department officials were on site at the campus within about five minutes after the first reports of a shooting (both police and fire stations are quite close by).

UPDATE (6:04 p.m.): The ages of victims have been changed--the woman, a pharmacy student, from 22 to 20, and the 25-year-old male to 19. The 17-year-old has been identified as Christopher Taylor, by his brother Jay. A student reports that the shooter was one of two men who had been fighting in the computer center. The 19-year-old victim is reported in critical condition, while the other two victims are in stable condition. (Yet CNN reports that the woman was shot in the abdomen while the other two victims were shot in the leg. It describes the males as aged 17 and 25.)

The alleged fourth victim apparently didn't exist, and was incorrectly reported by one of the news reporters on the basis of watching people being brought in to the hospital. Or perhaps there was a 25-year-old shot in the leg and a 19-year-old who received more serious injuries?

UPDATE (8:24 p.m.): CBS News 5 reports that there was a long-running dispute between the shooter and one of the victims, and police say that the shooting was gang-related.

UPDATE (July 25, 2008): The shooter has been identified as 22-year-old Rodney Smith, a former SCC student and known as a regular at the computer lab, who came to campus to pick a fight with 19-year-old Isaac Deshay Smith, who was shot in the leg and was still in critical condition last night. The other two victims caught in the crossfire were 20-year-old Charee Williams, who was shot in the hip, and 17-year-old Christopher Lee Taylor, who was also shot in the leg. Five family members and friends of Rodney Smith were also taken into custody last night for interfering with the investigation and disobeying police officers. The most recent report does not mention gangs, but only a long-standing feud between the two Smiths.

UPDATE (July 26, 2008): Rodney Smith has apologized to his "innocent victims" in court, and it has been reported that Isaac Deshay Smith and two others were involved in a fight last year in which Rodney Smith was punched and kicked while lying on the ground and his jaw broken in two places.

The Battle for Athens, Tennessee, 1946

I was telling a coworker about the book A Planet for Texans, in which citizens sometimes have the right to assassinate politicians, and he told me about a little-known piece of U.S. history.

In 1936, political power in McMinn County, Tennessee was obtained by Paul Cantrell of Etowah, who ran as the Democratic candidate for county sheriff and successfully seized power from what had been a Republican-dominated county since the Civil War. Cantrell ended up putting in place a thoroughly corrupt political machine that retained power for a decade--a crony of his, George Woods, was sent to the state legislature, and the county was redistricted to reduce the number of voting precincts and justices of the peace, and Cantrell's power was solidified. There were unresolved reports of county election fraud in 1940, 1942, and 1944. The McMinn County Court, still dominated by Republicans, attempted to purchase voting machines to eliminate the fraud, but Woods, with the support of Democrats in the state legislature, responded by abolishing the county court. It all came to an end when Cantrell's machine attempted to steal the 1946 election and was stopped with armed force in a battle involving more than 500 armed men with guns and dynamite who weren't afraid to use them--yet remarkably, no one was killed.

What happened in 1946 was that a bunch of GIs returned home from the war. A group of them decided that they didn't just fight for liberty in WWII to come back home to be governed by corrupt leadership, so they put together a slate to run for five county offices, including sheriff, under their own independent party. The GIs put an ad in the newspaper and drove around the county with a loudspeaker repeating their slogan, "your vote will be counted as cast." Veterans from neighboring Blount County volunteered to help the McMinn County GIs in monitoring the election.

On the day of the election, August 1, 1946, the county saw the largest voter turnout in its history. In the afternoon, the Cantrell machine posted its own armed guards at each precinct, in preparation for transporting the ballot boxes to the county jail in Athens for counting. The GIs began assembling in Otto Kennedy's Essankay Garage and Tire shop. At that meeting, it was reported that telegrams had been sent in late July to Gov. Jim McCord in Nashville and Tom Clark, the U.S. attorney general, asking for assistance to ensure a fair election, but neither had been answered. Those at the meeting agreed that those present who didn't have their weapons with them should go home and get them. Most were back and armed by 3 p.m.

At that time, an elderly black farmer, Tom Gillespie, was told by Windy Wise, a Cantrell armed guard, that he could not vote, and Wise ended up beating him with brass knuckles and shooting him in the back. The two GI poll watchers at the precinct were taken hostage by Wise and Karl Neill, another Cantrell guard, and an angry crowd began to gather outside the polling place, the Athens Water Works. The two GIs ended up breaking through a plate glass window to escape into the crowd, and someone in the crowd shouted, "Let's go get our guns!" When the Chief Deputy Boe Dunn and other Cantrell men showed up to get the ballot box to transport to the jail, they heard of this statement from Wise, and Dunn sent two deputies to the GI headquarters to make arrests. Those deputies were no match for the GIs, however, and were disarmed and taken hostage along with two others sent as reinforcements, and another three sent shortly thereafter. Those seven were beaten and then taken out to the woods and shackled to trees.

At another precinct, the polling place had been set up at the Dixie Cafe across an alley from the jail, where the GIs monitoring had seen a Cantrell man, Minus Wilburn, allowing minors to vote and giving cash to voters throughout the day. At about 3:45 p.m. when he attempted to allow a young woman to vote despite her name not appearing on the voter registration list and not having a poll tax receipt, one of the GIs protested and attempted to physically prevent Wilburn from depositing her ballot. Wilburn hit him in the head with a blackjack and kicked him in the face as he fell to the floor. Wilburn closed the polling place, put guards at both ends of the alley, and transported the ballot box to the jail and took the two GI poll-watchers prisoner.

It looked like Cantrell was about to successfully steal another election:

The Cantrell forces had calculated that if they could control the first, eleventh and twelfth precincts in Athens and the one in Etowah, the election was theirs. The ballot boxes from the Water Works (the eleventh) and the Dixie Cafe (the twelfth) were safely in the jail. The voting place for the first precinct, the courthouse, was barricaded by deputies who held four GIs hostage, and Paul Cantrell himself had Etowah under control.

For what happened next (and a better account of what I've just described), I recommend this account from American Heritage Magazine by Lones Selber, who watched the battle of Athens first-hand as a seven-year-old child.

Although the GIs were widely criticized for their actions, they seem quite justified to me--their actions strike me as exactly what the 2nd Amendment is supposed to allow citizens to do in response to a corrupt government, remove it from power. (And really, if you read the full account, it was the fair outcome of the election that removed the corrupt officials from power, the GIs really just prevented the election from being stolen.)

Chandler school suspends student for drawing picture of gun

Payne Junior High School in Chandler, Arizona has suspended the 13-year-old son of Ben and Paula Mosteller for three days (reduced from five) for drawing a picture of a gun, an action which they characterized as a threat which they compared to the Columbine High School massacre in a discussion with his parents.

The Arizona Republic reports that "The school did not contact police and did not provide counseling or an evaluate the boy to determine if he intended the drawing as a threat," which suggests to me that they did not really consider it to be a threat.

The boy's parents described the picture as a harmless doodle of a fake laser, which did not show blood, bullets, injuries, or target any human.

If the school really considered it a threat of an impending massacre, they should have treated it as one. Since they didn't, why is it even worth a suspension? Is there more to the context that we aren't being told, or are school administrators so irrational that they fear drawings of guns?

Are there any adult males who didn't draw guns along with cars, motorcycles, spaceships, monsters, aliens, and floor plans of secret hideouts when they were around 13?

Who's to blame for the Virginia Tech shootings

The Cynical-C Blog is keeping a running tab, and are up to a list of 72 items so far...

Individual armed resistance can bring school shootings to a halt

Classically Liberal reports on multiple school shooting incidents which have been successfully stopped by private individuals with handguns--though the media has mostly failed to report that the individuals apprehending the gunmen were armed, so these examples aren't widely known.

Patri Friedman at Catallarchy observes:

Anyway, I am not claiming that any one story (or in this case, four stories) prove anything about the overall tradeoffs. But these stories are in direct contrast to explicit statements some of you have made about how you think the world works. So please realize that you were wrong, and that guns are demonstrably capable of stopping massacres short. Doesn’t mean we should have them, but it is directly relevant to yesterday’s incident. We don’t know what the distribution of death reductions would have been if the massacre hadn’t been in a gun free zone, but it surely has a non-zero mean, and quite possibly a significant one. After all, this was an extremely bad massacre, which means more people involved and more time to get armed.

But of course, probabilistic lives saved by guns are vastly less visceral than actual lives ended by them, hence much more difficult for us to view as real.