The Freedom Bulletin

On Tuesday Lakeisha Gadson, a mom from Roxbury, MA, was convicted of misleading police officers but acquitted of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment of a child, improper firearm storage, and illegal possession of a firearm.

According to the Suffolk County D.A.’s Office, Gadson’s teenage son, Jayquan McConnico, kept a firearm, loaded and unlocked, in a drawer in his bedroom. On June 24, 2007, her other son, 8-year-old Liquarry Jefferson, was playing with his 7-year-old cousin. The boys entered Jayquan’s room, opened his dresser drawer, took his gun, and started playing a game of some sort with it, during which the cousin somehow pointed the gun at Liquarry and fired. Tragically, Liquarry died of his injuries.

Acquitting Lakeisha, the boys’ mom, of these charges was the right verdict (she was only convicted of lying to the police about how her son died). To argue that Gadson is responsible for Liquarry’s death because she failed to ensure that Jayquan kept his gun out of the reach of children is excessive. Each person is responsible for their own actions – Gadson is not responsible for the fact that her teenage son had a gun without a license, which he kept loaded and unlocked.

But furthermore, Jayquan McConnico, who pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2008, should not be held responsible for Liquarry’s death, either. Storing a loaded gun in an unlocked drawer might not be the wisest thing to do, it is illegal, and if he hadn’t done it, Liquarry would be alive today…but that does not mean that he caused his death. McConnico is not responsible for the fact that two young boys decided to go into his room, open his drawer, and take his gun.

The cause of Liquarry’s death was his 7-year-old cousin’s decision to fool around with a gun and fire it at him. It may sound mean to pick on a 7-year-old, but seven is old enough to know what a gun is, what it looks like, and that you shouldn’t fire it at someone unless you have made sure it isn’t loaded. Everyone involved in this case has suffered tremendously, and I don’t think it is appropriate to punish anyone further for this horrible accident. But if anyone is responsible for Liquarry’s death, it is either the boy who chose to play with a loaded gun, or his mother (Liquarry’s aunt), who failed to teach her son that guns are dangerous and should be handled with caution.

Although Liquarry’s death was a tragedy, as anyone’s death is, neither Gadson nor McConnico caused it, and it only compounds the tragedy to hold innocent people responsible for things they did not do. The jury in Gadson’s case made the right decision.

A few days ago, the Daily Kos (of all sites) had a great post arguing that liberals should support all of our constitutional rights, including our Second Amendment rights.

“Liberals can quote legal precedent, news reports, and exhaustive studies. They can talk about the intentions of the Founders. They can argue at length against the tyranny of the government. And they will, almost without exception, conclude the necessity of respecting, and not restricting, civil liberties.

Except for one: the right to keep and bear arms.”

Read the rest here.

I wish more liberals thought like this! Liberalism used to mean a philosophy that is basically the same as present-day libertarianism. I’m glad that to the authors of that blog post, it still does!

The Supreme Court ruled today in McDonald v. Chicago that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments in addition to the federal government. The case centered around Chicago’s ban of basically all handguns, which will likely be repealed as a result of the ruling.

The decision is not perfect – it allows some state and local gun restrictions, just not those that ban handguns entirely. Paul Helmke, the head of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence, was “reassured that the Court has rejected, once again, the gun lobby argument that its ‘any gun, for anybody, anywhere’ agenda is protected by the Constitution.” But this is still a victory for liberty because the court has upheld one of our fundamental rights, the right to bear arms, and sent a message to state governments that they cannot trample all over people’s freedoms just because they aren’t the federal government.

Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute wrote as much:

“The Fourteenth Amendment, coming on the heels of the Civil War, says clearly that never again would the Constitution tolerate state oppressions and that all individuals possess certain fundamental rights. And it is equally clear that the right to keep and bear arms is one of those deeply rooted fundamental rights, not least because the Framers thought so highly of it as to enumerate it in the Second Amendment.”

Otis McDonald, the Chicago grandfather and community leader who brought the lawsuit against his city, brought up another positive aspect of the decision, in addition to preserving freedom:

“This will make criminals think twice. If you have the right to have a handgun in your house, even if you don’t have a gun, that will give criminals a second thought, a third thought about breaking in to your house.”

Full text of the decision (PDF)

Gun pictures thanks to Adams Guns

Three cool things I’ve come across recently:

• Man carries assault rifle to Obama protest – and it’s legal. I didn’t really get the outrage over the fact that people had guns near Obama’s town halls. The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms, so as long as you’re not shooting an innocent person with your gun, I don’t see what the problem is.
• Charles Krauthammer and Michael Graham explain why preventive medicine and early detection don’t save money.
• A better way of stopping uninsured people from being free-riders, by John McClaughry at the National Review and Michael Cannon from the Cato Institute.

Until the other day, I never knew much about the League of Women Voters. I just assumed they were a nonpartisan organization that supported the Nineteenth Amendment (giving women the right to vote) and now are kind of obsolete and support non-controversial things like making sure everyone gets the opportunity to vote. Well, was I ever wrong! I had no idea, until I visited their website, that the LWV of Massachusetts is the most left-wing organization I have ever heard of.

The first thing I saw was the following notice:

“Thank you to all who helped defeat Ballot Question 1!”

Okay, so they have no concept of private ownership of property. Great. But the horror got worse. They have no concept of the Constitution either. Under “Where We Stand,” they list all the things they support. For “Handgun control,” they write:

“Elimination of the private possession of handguns and assault weapons.”

Noooooooooooo!!!!! I have never heard of any organization that has ever publicly held such an anti-gun position. It horrifies me that an American organization would directly oppose the Second Amendment. But IT GETS WORSE. Under “Citizen rights,” the LWV writes:

“Protection of basic constitutional rights.”

WHAT ON EARTH???? I don’t think I even need to point out that these two statements directly contradict each other. Thomas Jefferson must be rolling in his grave. Apparently no members of the LWV are aware that the Second Amendment is a part of the Constitution. The LWV gives the rape advocate on BostonHerald.com from my earlier post a run for her money as the biggest hypocrite on Earth.

So, in short, to say that the LWV is left-wing is the biggest understatement ever. They make MoveOn.org look right-wing and make Obama look like a Republican. I am disgusted and horrified by their hypocritical, anti-freedom views.