Done told you it is a legal fiction & some other points

Point 1 -

Lawyers get mad when I say stare decisis is a legal fiction.

Stare D., for those who do not know, is Latin. Translated into English with complete meaning, it means: The law is settled. The matter is decided. It is over, done and finished. This is the way it is. Now go away with your idle prattle about changing it or I shall taunt you again.

It's also high-grade fertilizer.

A lie, in other words.

Since its creation, the Supreme Court has reversed itself more than 200 times. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/29/politics/supreme-court-cases-overturned-history-constitution-trnd/index.html

The latest was this week. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/732852170/supreme-court-affirms-police-can-draw-blood-from-unconscious-drivers

This is empirical evidence. Proof. Fact as solid as a collapsed star.

Stare decisis is a lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

This painful truth has abortion rights activists panicking. We gun advocates are over here like-



Point 2 -

This case revolved around a DUI. Unlike some other crimes - yes, DUI is a crime in my view - evidence for this one literally disappears. Over time, a human body processes alcohol and it leaves the system.

DUI is a crime because it impairs a person's ability to drive. It's all fine & dandy to say a drunk driver committed no crime if he made it to his destination safely. Folks who believe that will not say the same thing when they are crippled by a drunk driver. They won't say it when one of their children is killed by a drunk driver.

Got no problem with someone getting drunk and staying where they are, walking or getting a ride with someone.

Point 3 - 

The driver had a state-issued driver's license. By getting this official recognition from the state and maintaining that permit, he literally signed a contract with the state. This contract held him to certain standards and put accountability requirements on him and on the state.

On this, Neil Gorsuch and I agree, I think. "We took this case to decide whether Wisconsin drivers impliedly consent to blood alcohol tests thanks to a state statute," Gorsuch wrote. "That law says that anyone driving in Wisconsin agrees — by the very act of driving — to testing under certain circumstances. But the Court today declines to answer the question presented. Instead, it upholds Wisconsin's law on an entirely different ground—citing the exigent circumstances doctrine."  Mebbe we disagree and he rejects the idea of the contract. Eh. The whole decision is in the NPR report.

Ya don't agree with the terms of the contract, ya don't sign the contract. Simple enough.

Point 4 -

The dude's BAC was .222%. He was unconscious when he got to the ER. A blood draw, under the circumstances, is usual, needed, expected and standard. Docs needed to know what they were dealing with. Was he just drunk? Was he OD'ing on some other drugs?

This one is for the gun nuts amongst us

Just got through reading an extended thread on using the .45-70 Government for the Big 5 in Africa.

Opinions, as you will expect, are hot, sharp and divided into the two usual categories:

Shot placement

Knockdown & stopping power

Get this. Stopping power, knockdown power are relative terms. Afore you jump my case about my use of said terms, make sure we are talking the same thing. You'll get my definition as you read through this.

SO WRONG

The shot placement crowd is wrong, so wrong. In the case of the Big 5 and other dangerous game, possibly dead wrong. As in the critter they try to kill turns and kills them.

Shot placement is important, yes indeedy! But shot placement is not even in the same league as knockdown or stopping power depending on how you wanna phrase it.

The "shot placement" crowd will eventually admit as much if you back 'em into a corner. Immediately upon admitting this and realizing what they said, they will start making excuses.

Har.

In case you didn't get the idea, I am firmly, absolutely and without question on the side of knockdown and stopping power.

As the late Col. Jeff Cooper said, "Use enough gun."

STOPPING MATTERS

Stopping and knockdown power matter. How hard you hit something matters. How much force you bring down with that hit matters.
Disagree?

Drive a rail spike through a trestle with 12-ounce hammer and get back to me.

You can hit that spike dead square on the sweet spot repeatedly. How far is the spike going into the wood?

Take that same spike, same trestle and get an off-center hit with a 10-pound sledge, Now tell me how far that spike penetrates.

"Baker, yer being ridiculous now."

No, I'm being realistic.

SIZE MATTERS

Elephants and other big game are poached in Africa with the 7.62x39. Successfully poached, as in the critters die. From videos I've seen of elephant culls using the AK platform, the elephants can die pretty quickly too. The "however" in this one is, the shooter, more accurately shooters, dump a banana mag into the elephant. Two shooters, two mags.

This is the rough equivalent of using a framing hammer to drive a rail spike. It's doable, but you need a LOT of hits.

I have personally dropped a 1,500 pound animal dead in its tracks with a .22 rimfire. Yup. Got witnesses.

Does that mean I'm going to hunt half-ton animals with a bullet that has the approximate knockdown power of a framing hammer in the hands of an experienced carpenter? Rhetorical question.

Professional hunters and professional DG guides pack big rifles with big bullets. These are the experts. They are in the field, not armchair quarterbacking. Listen to them.

KNOCKIN' EM DOWN

Lemme put this another way.

You can hunt prairie dogs with a .50 BMG. You can also hunt 'em with a .17 HMR. By far the most popular doggin' rounds are in the .22 centerfire group, .223, .222, .22-250, .222 Swift, etc. A body shot ANYWHERE on a p-dog with one of these rounds at under 500 yards and you get the Red Mist. Shot placement is simply not the vital part of this equation.

Nor is shot placement the most important part of any hunting equation.

Knockdown power or stopping power is the most important part. See Col. Cooper quote above.

You need to use enough bullet to cleanly and humanely dispatch the critter you hunt.

ENOUGH GUN

Yanno WHY law enforcement does not pack .22s as their primary firearm? A .22 is just as lethal as a 9mm, .40, .45 acp. Yes, it is, if you believe shot placement is the most important part of the equation.

Law enforcement believes stopping power is critical because in the heat of a shootout, taking time to drop a pill into the dead center of a perp's forehead is not going to happen. LE is taught to shoot center mass, the largest part of the target. LE knows it needs ENOUGH bullet, ENOUGH knockdown power, ENOUGH stopping power to get the perp off his feet as fast as possible.

A .22 in the torso is lethal, given time. A .45 in the torso is lethal a whole lot faster.

Stopping power. Knockdown power.

ONE MORE TIME

Aaight, let's put this another way One. More. Time.

Two elephants were killed with a .22 rimfire (look it up). So the venerable .22 is certainly capable of taking down Jumbo. If you get the shot EXACTLY right.

Take that same elephant. Shoot it with a 20mm Lahti. Shot placement is suddenly not nearly as critical. A lower leg shot will cripple the critter, probably not deliver an instant kill. Any body shot, death in minutes.

Go a step further. Shoot said pachyderm with a Sidewinder missile. Now you have elephant parts scattered across the landscape no matter the impact site.

That is knockdown power. That is stopping power.

It matters more than shot placement.

If shot placement is the most critical part of the equation, we'd hunt everything with a .22.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/10150193181531156/

Making the money matter

The SF novel, I forget which, was a utopian setting. (Aside - I realize "utopia" should have the "an" declarative instead of "a" but it reads better to me the way I have it. If you object, then do so and get yer own blog.)

In this mythical place, people earned credits for doing work. Credits were then swapped for stuff. Think cash, but you never got to hold any of it.

One of the things that made this a utopia was the pay scale. Pay was based on need. How important was the job? The more important job, the more it paid. In this fictional reality, being a garbageman was a pretty high-payin' job. Tending the roses paid next to nothing.

Think about that.

Now apply some mental molars to this idea –

Any and every job should pay what you are willing to accept for doing the job.

Hrm. Confusing. Lemme try again.

What is the minimum amount you'd take to do the job? That is the pay.

Mo betta.

The "you" part of that is critical. You. As in the singular person. As in the individual. NOT the government handing down an edict. NOT a forced decision. NOT a kinder, gentler machine gun in hand to make sure you do it.

You decide.

Shades of Ayn Rand someone will say. Could be, could be.

Shades of Karl Marx someone else will say,  Could be, could be.

Certainly, there are smatterings of many economic systems there.

YOU PICK YOU PAY

So what would you accept as the minimum salary for a job?

Under my idea, you pay whatever you'd take to do the same work. I cannot think of anything more fair than that. That's my utopian idea anyway.

Let's continue to run this You Pick You Pay thought experiment. Whether or not you can do the jobs below is irrelevant. I wanna know what you require as the pay to do 'em. Saying "There ain't enough money in the world" is an acceptable answer.

How much pay do you need to be a:

Garbage man?

A waiter/waitress?

Truck driver?

Farmer?

Police officer?

Member of Congress?

Convenience store clerk?

Butcher?

Mechanic?

That's a good place to start. I'm sure you can come up hundreds of other jobs. The question remains, what is the minimum you'd take to do the jobs?

Bout dat "ain't enough money" comment. If you said that about any job, then in my utopia, you never get to have those services. Not enough money to a police officer? Then you never get to call law enforcement for help. Not enough money to be an elected official? Then you lose access, privileges and protections created by the law. Yes, you anarchist, you are also freed from being under the law. That sounds like a good idea to many until someone bigger, meaner, tougher and better armed comes up, takes everything you have and turns you a bone-broken heap. On yer own, you are.

THE CLUE-X-FOUR

So now lemme come upside yo haid with a Clue-X-Four.

Why ain't you paying these people what YOU require to do the job?

"I don't control how much they get paid."

Now there is the cop-out. There is the lie. There is the rejection of reality. Don't think so, Cleopatra? (Cause you is the Queen of De Nile.) Lemme prove it to you.

S'called tips. Who do you tip and how much?

Oooooooo.

"But I –"

Shup.

"But not tip –"

Shup.

"–"

Done said shup three times. Do it.

You can tip anyone. You CHOOSE not to. You CHOOSE to underpay those folks? You can tip and bring the pay up to the level you'd accept. You CHOOSE not to.

Why? Are those people less than you? Are you more important than them? Is your value to this world greater than theirs?

"But I can't –"

Don't make me get out the duct tape.

YES YOU CAN

Yes, Little Engine That Could, you can. You can tip. I am not aware of any law in any state that prevents you from tipping anyone.

You choose not to. Why?

I tip all kindsa folks, if I can get to 'em. It's not always cash either. I've delivered water to linemen. Beer to the guys on the garbage truck. If I can catch the cook in a restaurant, I slip some George Ws his way.

The difference it makes is AMAZING.

I tip folks when I believe their service to me is greater than what they are paid to do the job.

I do understand that some businesses have signs that say "No tipping allowed." I give those signs and policies all the attention they deserve. None. I have yet to be called out for tipping someone.

The contrarian in me does HOPE someone tries to tell me I cannot tip. That's gonna be interesting.

In the meantime, you do control how much people make. The question is, will you own up to it or not?

No, you don't have the right

This is not a discussion on abortion. Promise. It is a discussion about a flawed argument the abortion rights crowd uses.

Body autonomy.

The argument says, "It is my body. I can do what I want to with it." This argument is then backed up by several Supreme Court cases like Roe v. Wade.

It's also wrong.

Local, state and federal law and the United States Supreme Court say you do not have body autonomy. These laws and court cases say, explicitly and implicitly, that the government has the right to regulate your body.

"Nuh uh!"

Yes.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts. "The Court held that the law (mandatory vaccination) was a legitimate exercise of the state's police power to protect the public health and safety of its citizens. Local boards of health determined when mandatory vaccinations were needed, thus making the requirement neither unreasonable nor arbitrarily imposed."

"Um. But that decision was made in 1905."

So? It is still the "law of the land" as people like to tell me when citing SCOTUS cases to back up their (often incorrect) opinions.

The next argument is that the Jacobson decision needs to be revisited. In other words, the High Court needs to discuss this again. The unsaid words are "The Supreme Court needs to change that ruling."

At this point, I generally dissolve into hysterical giggles. Yes! Let the High Court revisit a decision I disagree with! But any decision I agree with has to be left alone. Stare decisis! 

Canya feel the sarcasm?

Want more?

Suicide. About half the gun deaths in the United States each year are suicides. The left loves to scream "BODY AUTONOMY!" and scream "GUN CONTROL!" at the same time. Pick one. Suicide is body autonomy. When we eliminate those deaths from firearms deaths, then the death rate is halved. When you eliminate gang murders, the death rate is halved again. Remove cops shooting people ... you get the idea.

Income tax.

"What does economics have to do with body autonomy?"

People are arrested and jailed regularly for not paying income taxes.

"But they broke the law."

Body autonomy.

"Grrrrrrrr."

Prostitution. This is the one that makes the right have splodey heads. We have no federal law on prostitution, but only some counties in Nevada make it legal.

Bigamy. Another right-wing splodey header. Personally, I think the punishment for bigamy is inherent in the action. 2 or more mothers-in-law. (shudder) "The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1878 that plurality of wives (polygamy), as originally permitted by the Mormon religion, violated criminal law and was not defensible as an exercise of religious liberty. "

Need more? Have at thee!

https://www.upcounsel.com/lectl-victimless-or-consensual-crime-criminal-classification

I'm not gonna get deep into taxes and economics, but as long as the government can lock you up for breaking a "law" because you want to keep what you earned using your body, then you ain't got body autonomy.

So, please stop using that as a reason for anything based on the law because it is legally false.