THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: PA’s Commonwealth Court ruled that state law pre-empts the Philadelphia's City Council from enacting its own gun laws, and voided city ordinances enacted last year that limited gun purchases to one a month and banned assault weapons, reports The Associated Press. The city plans to file an appeal.
† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, What Freedom Of Speech Means To Muslims): After Random House turned tail and canceled plans to publish “The Jewel of Medina,” a romance novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride Aisha, Beaufort Books stepped in to issue the book. In light of the London arrests of three Muslin men on who are suspected of firebombing the offices of the book’s British publisher, Beaufort has closed its offices as a “precautionary action,” reports The Associated Press. The company’s president, Eric Kampmann, is also exploring security arrangements with the FBI and the NYPD. As of now, both Barnes & Noble and Borders say they plan to stock the book in their stores.
† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ): Running for his fifth term in office, Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, 76, has raised more than $500,000 and has “a comfortable lead over his challenger,” reports The New York Times, which calls him “a cherished figure in the movement against illegal immigration” but wonders whether “one of America’s most colorful law enforcement officials, has overstepped his bounds”:
A federal lawsuit by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund accuses the sheriff’s department of racial profiling and detaining legal residents and American citizens for long periods while their status is checked. …
And the mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon, has asked the Justice Department to investigate the tactics employed by Sheriff Arpaio, who first gained national attention years ago for forcing inmates to wear pink underwear, housing them in tents and feeding them food of a green hue. …
The sheriff’s department says the crackdown has rid the county of hundreds of illegal immigrants, including many with felony offenses, and Sheriff Arpaio defends factoring in speech and dress as in line with the training of federal immigration agents; an ICE spokesman would say only that “we use a number of factors” to make such determinations.
Displaying what even critics call an uncanny knack for reading the popular mood, nearly two years ago Sheriff Arpaio shifted much of his attention to the region’s illegal immigrant population, arresting scores of them during routine and saturation patrols of selected areas and turning them over to federal officials for deportation. He has arrested smugglers as well as the people they were transporting, following state court rulings in his favor.
For his part, in a “laconic baritone this side of John Wayne” Arpaio tells The Times: “I took an oath of office to enforce that law. That’s the difference. What right does an official have to say, I will not defend the Constitution?”
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