Citing Himself as Justification Bobby McDonnell Says Get Your Guns and Head to Virginia State Parks

Governor McDonnell has rescinded a ban on openly carrying guns in Virginia state parks. He also called for changes in Virginia law that would allow the open carrying of firearms in Virginia’s state forests. While guns are way up on my list of least favorite inventions, this move does not seem particularly bothersome. In fact, the woods seem like one of the more understandable places for one to walk around with a gun. The General Assembly building–where earlier this week hundreds of gun advocates visited with State Senators and Delegates (while packing)… not so reasonable.

The far more interesting aspect here is the justification McDonnell used in doing away with the ban; namely, himself. Back in 2008, while Attorney General McDonnell issued an advisory opinion stating that he thought the state parks had no authority to stop visitors from carrying legally obtained firearms. Yesterday, when making the announcement, this opinion was the reason given for the reversal.

Quick Recap: 1. Our state’s top attorney issues a legal opinion. 2. The last governor ignored the opinion and ordered the parks to keep the ban in place. 3. The top attorney becomes the governor and removes the ban, citing the legal opinion of that top attorney, which is also himself.

No discussion of propriety ever came to bear on the decision. No discussion in a public forum. Bob passed to himself here, which in sports is called cheating.

Again, though I don’t think this issue specifically is a controversial move. However, I think it’s worth noting what else could happen under this current set-up we have.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has been issuing controversial advisory opinions since day one, and there are a good many reasons to think he plans on being the next governor of Virginia. So remember when Ken issued his anti-gay opinion to Virginia state universities? Governor McDonnell ignored that and committed the state to upholding the protected status of our gay and lesbian community. But if Cooch should become Governor, what is to stop him from citing himself (from the past) as attorney general in order to enforce his opinion as governor? Not much.

There is a danger in the politicization of legal opinion, and this is an example of the consequences that follow. In blurring the lines between law and policy, partisan legal opinions are cited as precedent and justification for state actions that have never been given a hearing in the court of public opinion. Slowly but surely we are allowing logic and sound debate to be eroded and replaced by institutional mechanisms and partisan short sightedness. It is our obligation as citizens to be stewards of our democracy, and we ought to be more mindful of how our government is making its decisions. Bob McDonnell rescinded the ban by citing himself; a one man legislating machine. This issue was not given a fair hearing before a group truly representative of Virginia.

Interestingly enough, this gun ban rescission did have one more person involved. Guess who wrote the letter to Attorney General Bob McDonnell which prompted the drafting of the 2008 advisory opinion cited? That would be none other than State Senator (at the time) Ken Cuccinelli.

Mostly this is just awful

Police recruit John Kohn appears to have been killed by his instructor after receiving multiple blows to the head during self defense training. To be honest, I did not sleep much last night and so this story had me on the verge of tears. Not because of the awful particulars of this incident, but rather because of how we got here. How do you react to this? The Chief is reviewing the current training procedures in hopes of making changes that would avoid a future incident like this, but how do you really stop this from happening again?  I am sure there was no policy that said punch the recruits in the temple, but violence is a slippery slope and once introduced, has a tendency to move towards its own logical conclusion.

Violence and an utter disregard for other humans run so deep in us at this point that these types of atrocities are viewed as a cost of doing business. A spokesman for the Virginia Beach Police Department said the following in regards to the incident, “Broken bones or sprains during such training are common.”

I can only ask why? Why are broken bones ever common? Why is the training so violent that we expect major medical emergencies to be par for the course? Most importantly, why are we so shocked when instances of police brutality come to light when this is how are officers are trained to serve and protect?

Just the other day a friend sent me this video. This is what happens when we train people who are supposed to be a boon to the public good to treat socially deviant behavior like war. Be warned that this is a very violent clip.

Blair Shooting Video

In this scene, a man who was suspected of making drugs is shot in his home without so much as getting a word out of his mouth. They found a negligible amount of pot on him and an equally small amount of something that might be meth. This man was shot dead without trial because he was suspected of being a drug dealer.

What is wrong with us?

Ocean Breeze fun park gets new owners and a makeover

As a child, I snuck into Ocean Breeze during the winter and skateboarded down the water slides. It was incredibly fun and I would not have done otherwise for the world.  However, we were caught and I was banned from Ocean Breeze. Let’s all cross our fingers that the new management lifts the ban!

Anti-abortion measure gains steam

This bill would require Virginia abortion clinics to meet the same standards as large full service hospitals in Virginia which would effectively close many of these facilities. The clinics cannot afford to get into compliance with the litany of standards applicable to large hospitals and so would be forced to close.

Opponents of the bill say that these clinics have a good record and that there is no evidence that there are any reasons to increase the oversight and regulations. That is probably true, but it misses the larger point here… They (the anti-abortion lobby) want the clinics closed, not cleaner.

Supreme Court considers AT&T’s  case for personhood

Anytime we are considering expanding further legal protections to non-human, selfish by design, means of production we really ought to perk up a bit.