† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: Gun rights advocates feared that the start of the Obama administration would be the end of their right to bear arms, and faster than a speeding bullet states began loosening regulations on guns to forestall any new restrictions, The New York Times reports:

In Virginia, the General Assembly approved a bill last week that allows people to carry concealed weapons in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, and the House of Delegates voted to repeal a 17-year-old ban on buying more than one handgun a month. …

Arizona and Wyoming lawmakers are considering nearly a half dozen pro-gun measures, including one that would allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. And lawmakers in Montana and Tennessee passed measures last year - the first of their kind - to exempt their states from federal regulation of firearms and ammunition that are made, sold and used in state. Similar bills have been proposed in at least three other states. …

Last month, the legislature passed bills that block private employers from forbidding workers to keep firearms in their vehicles on company property.

Gun rights supporters also showed their strength last year by blocking legislation to give District of Columbia residents a full vote in Congress by attaching an amendment to repeal Washington’s ban on handguns. …

Federal background checks for gun purchases rose to 14 million in 2009, up from 12.7 million in 2008 and 11.2 million in 2007. But from November 2009 to January 2010, the number of background checks fell 12 percent, compared with the same months a year earlier.

In addition, MT and TN are challenging the Commerce Clause with legislation that declares “firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress,” reports the paper, but have gotten push-back from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on this point.  

Editorial Note: The Washington Times reports that laws in CA, MD, NJ, and VA limiting law-abiding citizens to purchasing just one gun a month, have not lowered crime in these and neighboring states.

† “Daddy, What Causes Global Warming?”: Citing the resignation of Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the suicidal thoughts of Phil Jones, the discredited former director of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, as “Climategate” unfolded, Paul Chesser, special correspondent for the Heartland Institute, pleads, “[o]n behalf of climate realists everywhere, I beg: Spare us the beleaguered scientists story line.” He adds: 

The collapse of the hollow cause they advocated, which spurred a sector bubble probably larger than the 1990s Internet craze and the last decade's real estate speculation combined, was inevitable. Billions of dollars - much of it belonging to taxpayers - were poured into climate-related research and heavily subsidized "green" ventures because of the hype.

Meanwhile, three years after a British judge ruled that former Vice President Al Gore's global warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," is riddled with errors and secondary schools showing it must provide students with a study guide giving the other side of the government - the UK Independence Party (UKIP) is now pushing to ban the film from schools - the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has agreed to allow an independent review of raw data used to assess climate change, reports The Washington Times:

Britain's Met Office formally submitted a proposal that scientists around the world undertake the "grand challenge" of measuring land surface temperatures as often as several times a day, and it was approved in principle by about 150 officials at a WMO meeting in Antalya, Turkey.

"This effort will ensure that the datasets are completely robust and that all methods are transparent," the Met Office said, though it added that "any such analysis does not undermine the existing independent datasets that all reflect a warming trend." …

Scientists and other climate specialists said the WMO has wanted to enhance data collection for years, but it took a persistent campaign by opponents of the global warming science to take the issue more seriously.

Against this backdrop, Gore's presence at Apple's shareholder meeting was highly divisive, reports CNET News:

Gore was seated in the first row, along with his six fellow board members, in Apple's Town Hall auditorium as several stockholders took turns either bashing or praising his high-profile views on climate change.

At the first opportunity for audience participation just several minutes into the proceeding, a longtime and well-known Apple shareholder - some would say gadfly - who introduced himself as Sheldon, stood at the microphone and urged against Gore's re-election to the board. Gore "has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted," Sheldon said, referring to Gore's views on global warming. "If his advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn't need to be re-elected."

Another shareholder immediately got up to defend Gore and endorse his presence as an Apple director. And that wasn't the end of it.  …

Despite his apparently polarizing nature, Gore was re-elected with the rest of the slate in preliminary results.

Still, proposals from shareholders asking Apple to publicly commit to specific goals for reducing greenhouse gases and to establish a Board-level sustainability committee were voted down by the other shareholders.

† Never Mind Marxism. Will An Obama Administration Be Totalitarian?: A new a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll finds that 56 percent of Americans think “the federal government has become so large and powerful, it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.” Nearly 4 in 10 Democrats felt this way, as compared to 6 in 10 Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans.

† Can The Nutrition Police Lay Off Coffee, Already?: A 12-year epidemiologic study of 23,000 people found that the self-reported coffee drinkers amongst them had lower stroke risk, reports HealthDay News:

"This association was consistent in subgroup analyses stratified by sex, age, social class, educational level, smoking status, alcohol drinking, tea drinking, physical activity, plasma vitamin C and diabetes status," said [study leader Yangmei Li, an epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge in England].

And the reduced risk was "irrespective of the type of coffee consumed, caffeinated, decaffeinated, instant or ground," Li said.

While the study is consistent with others of its type, no one knows the protective mechanism involved – other than it has to involve a compound other than caffeine. Once scientists figure out what that compound is, clinical trials are needed to determine its efficacy, safety and therapeutic dose for stroke and diabetes protection. Only then will public health officials be able to recommend a minimum daily intake of coffee.

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Obama Administration’s Tactless Diplomatic Debut): Desirée Rogers - the serial screw-up of a White House Social Secretary who proves that being a Chicago crony of President Barack Hussein Obama doesn’t qualify you to work in the White House – will return to the private sector. An anonymous source tells The Washington Post that her skills were not well suited to the detail-oriented grind of social secretary.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Not Giving Credit Where Credit’s Due): Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, two high school classmates of would-be terrorist Najibullah Zazi were indicted on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to the al Qaeda terrorist network, reports The Associated Press:

The three men were planning an attack on city subway lines last September under the direction of leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network that would have been similar to the 2005 London subway bombings that killed more than 50 people, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Knox said.

Other "overseas" defendants probably will be named in the plot, Mr. Knox said. …

Zazi's uncle, father and a Queens imam face lesser charges in the case.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Sotomayor And The Supreme Court: It’s Not The End Of The World For Conservatives): In two Miranda warning cases this week, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor voted with the majority to loosen restrictions on law enforcement, reports The National Law Journal:

In decisions issued on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Court ruled that confessions should be admitted at trial even when police interviewed suspects in circumstances that lower courts viewed as Miranda violations.

The Court on Wednesday issued Maryland v. Shatzer (pdf), establishing new, more permissive rules for police who want to question a suspect for a second time after the suspect invokes Miranda's right to remain silent. …

[T]he ruling weakens the so-called Edwards v. Arizona rule, which states that, once a suspect invokes Miranda, any subsequent waiver of the right triggered by a police request is deemed involuntary - making further police questioning improper.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that "In a country that harbors a large number of repeat offenders, this consequence is disastrous."

In Florida v. Powell (pdf) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s majority opinion stated that police telling robbery suspect Kevin Powell he had "the right to talk to a lawyer" before questioning and could use "any of these rights at any time you want" had "reasonably conveyed Powell's right to have an attorney present at all times," and that explicitly stating the right to have a lawyer present is not necessary to meet Miranda's requirements.

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, Drug-Stealing Surgery Tech Exposes Thousands Of Patients To Hepatitis): Former surgery technician Kristen Diane Parker, 27, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on five counts of tampering with a consumer product and five counts of obtaining a controlled substance by deceit or subterfuge for infecting roughly three dozen patients with hepatitis C after she injected herself with painkiller-filled syringes and replaced them with ones filled with saline, reports The Associated Press:

Prosecutors had previously recommended that Parker get 20 years in prison but a judge rejected the plea agreement. Some of the victims said it was not enough time.

She was also ordered to pay $506,935 in restitution to the hospitals and $1,000 to the court-sponsored victims' fund.

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Is Obama’s Birth Certificate Fake?): The AZ House Government Committee voted 6 to 1 in favor of a measure requiring presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in the state to submit documents proving they meet the native-born citizen qualification to be president. The bill's author, Rep. Judy Burges (R-Skull Valley), notes that if people must prove their citizenship to apply for a job or get a passport, they should have to do so to run for president.

† Updates To Previous Posts  (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Deer Creek Middle School math teacher David Benke, who always told his students during emergency drills that he would try to protect them in the event of a Columbine-like emergency. The Los Angeles Times reports:  

[W]hen he spotted a rifleman shooting at students who were leaving school Tuesday, Benke didn't hesitate. "I made a promise," he said.

The 57-year-old teacher charged the gunman and knocked him to the ground. While [Assistant Principal Becky Brown] grabbed the rifle, Benke and another teacher kept the shooter pinned until police arrived. …

The shooting was a few miles from Columbine High School, the site of one of the worst school massacres in U.S. history, where in 1999 two teenage gunmen killed 12 students and one teacher. Authorities said Benke's heroism may have staved off a similar tragedy at Deer Creek.

Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink shook Benke's hand before television cameras Tuesday night and said, "You're a fine man." A new Facebook page titled "Dr. David Benke is a Hero!!!!" had more than 23,000 followers by Wednesday afternoon. …

A laconic, soft-spoken man, Benke on Wednesday brushed off accolades for his actions. "You're just doing what you can do to try to protect your kids," he said.

At a press conference, Benke told reporters:

I noticed he was working a bolt-action rifle. I realized I had time to get him before he could chamber another round. Unfortunately he got another round off before I could grab him. He figured out that he wasn't going to be able to get another round chambered before I got to him so he dropped the gun and then we were kind of struggling around trying to get him subdued.

Benke is indeed a fine man and a hero – but that might not have been enough and he could have sacrificed his life in vain had he not been able to tell a bolt action rifle from a lever action or pump action rifle.

Editorial Note: The item on global warming was updated to include the controversy over showing Gore's film in British schools.