Archive for June 3rd, 2009
JESS BRAVIN
The Wall Street Journal
A federal appeals court in Chicago ruled today that the Second Amendment doesn’t bar state or local governments from regulating guns, adopting the same position that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, did when faced with the same question earlier this year.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court cited the Second Amendment to strike down a handgun ban adopted in 1976 by the Washington, D.C., City Council. The court, by a 5-4 vote, found that the amendment protected from federal infringement an individual right to “keep and bear arms.”
The decision applied only to the District of Columbia, a federal enclave that is not a state. It left open whether the amendment also limits the powers of state government.
A string of 19th century Supreme Court decisions limited application of the Bill of Rights to state governments. During the 20th century, the Supreme Court held that certain constitutional rights, but not the Second Amendment, could be enforced against the states.
Gun-rights groups challenged ordinances in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill., as unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last year. A federal district judge rejected their arguments, a decision affirmed Tuesday by the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Found on Infowars
Andrew Clevenger
WV Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Charleston woman agreed in Kanawha Circuit Court Monday to a judge’s suggestion that she have her fallopian tubes tied as part of her probation.
Jessica Michelle Butterworth, 21, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana on March 23. At her sentencing hearing, Judge L.D. Egnor suspended a one- to five-year prison sentence in favor of five years of probation.
Egnor, a retired Cabell County Circuit judge who has been hearing cases while Judge Paul Zakaib Jr. recovers from an illness, said he had made arrangements for Butterworth to have the sterilizing procedure free of charge.
“[Butterworth] recognizes the need to make changes in her life in order to provide for herself and her family,” Egnor’s order reads. “After inquiring of the defendant, the Court further recognizes [her] desire to have a tubal ligation and has located a provider who will do it free of costs, with arrangements to be made in the next 30 days.”
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