A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Under Maryland law, a resident must show a “good and substantial reason” to obtain a permit to carry a handgun.
But the state has it exactly backward. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants a citizen the right to own and carry guns, and the government shall not infringe on that right. The amendment restricts the government, not the people. And wouldn’t you know it? A court agrees with me.
States can channel the way their residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but because Maryland’s goal was to minimize the number of firearms carried outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate “good reason,” it had turned into a rationing system, infringing upon residents’ rights, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote.
“A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” he wrote. “The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”
Plaintiff Raymond Woollard obtained a handgun permit after fighting with an intruder in his Hampstead home in 2002, but was denied a renewal in 2009 because he could not show he had been subject to “threats occurring beyond his residence.” Woollard appealed, but was rejected by the review board, which found he hadn’t demonstrated a “good and substantial reason” to carry a handgun as a reasonable precaution. The suit filed in 2010 claimed that Maryland didn’t have a reason to deny the renewal and wrongly put the burden on Woollard to show why he still needed to carry a gun.
Marriage, a universal institution of divine origin, is the foundation on which to order society, build families, and raise children. The majority of juvenile delinquents and men in prison were raised in female-headed households. Children living in single-parent households are more likely to be poor, abuse alcohol and drugs, and have babies outside marriage.
Generally, married men and women are safer, healthier, happier, and financially better off than their single, separated, or divorced counterparts. Fathers married to the mother of their children are more emotionally and financially invested in their offspring.
Children living with their married, biological parents have greater academic achievement and fewer behavioral problems, and report higher levels of psychological well-being. Notwithstanding efforts to undermine, redefine, and mock marriage, children greatly benefit when their parents are committed to each other and to them.
Some believe marriage is only a “piece of paper,” and that living together without the piece of paper is less harmful to children than divorce. According to “Why Marriage Matters: Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences,” a new study cosponsored by the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage Project (NMP) at the University of Virginia, they’re wrong. Divorce no longer is the greatest threat to family stability and child well-being. Cohabitation (also known as shacking up) is “the largest unrecognized threat to the quality and stability of children’s family lives.”
May the Lord richly bless you! Now everybody’s talking about this New decade Like you say the magic numbers Then just say goodbye to The stupid mistakes you made Oh my memory serves me far too well Hope you’re having a safe night. Rest easy, everybody!
Marriage is a human universal and a core cultural institution that orders society and greatly benefits children. No matter how feminists and other liberals try to spin it, children are better off living with their own married parents. For example, not only is a resident father more emotionally and financially invested in his children than [...]
That is, writing a novel. I’m excited one minute, and despondent the next. The only thing I know for sure is I can’t not write. I may not be blogging or writing articles, but I’m writing…something. This thing that keeps growing and shifting and changing colors before my eyes. Will it be worth it? It [...]
Note: As a Facebook friend said, the Constitution extends to us the right to bear arms. The Supreme Court clarified the issue. ——————————————————————- In 1976, the Council of the District of Columbia passed gun control laws in a hugely unsuccessful attempt to curb the violent crime rate in the city. Residents who owned handguns before [...]
A couple weeks ago while browsing in the public library, I wandered into the section about World War II. I’ve read dozens and own several books about that war. The whole country rallied for the cause, offering up sons, brothers, husbands, uncles, cousins, and friends to stop Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. (Unfortunately, [...]
Update: Arizona starts a legal defense fund to help pay for lawsuits against its common sense law. —————————————– I knew it was too good to be true. The National Guard troops President Barack Obama plans to send to the Texas-Mexico border won’t be there to enforce U.S. immigration law. Anybody with the guts to try [...]
Yeah, you’re cute and all, but it’s time for you people peeps to be going. Too much chirping (especially when you eat), and too much poop! It’s been real…interesting…watching the care-taking habits of mother and father House Finches up close. Children, this is how it works. The babies started out like this:
For toddlers among the readership who’re enjoying this bird-made-nest-on-front-door-wreath series, this is for you. I think I interrupted their feeding. Sorry, birdies!
(What’s this all about? See Bird Brain I) Mama bird doesn’t appreciate when I snap photos of her babies. She gives me the stink eye, then flutters to a nearby branch. (She made her nest on the front door wreath.) There’s the red-headed papa bird. He brings mama and babies wiggly goodies. He really doesn’t [...]
In 1965, Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then assistant secretary of Labor, sounded an alarm about the rising rates of illegitimacy in the black community (about 24 percent at the time) in a report titled, The Negro Family: The Case For National Action (dubbed the Moynihan Report). The collapse of the black family, he contended, would [...]
