If you are at least moderately aware of the world around you I’m sure you know that last year the Supreme Court used the 2nd Amendment to invalidate a very restrictive gun law in the District of Columbia. Good times, right? Well it’s not that simple. See DC is not a state, so it’s rules are uniquely federal in nature. As such, the court only ruled that the federal government cannot take the right to keep and bear arms away from the people, but the various state and local governments can.

Totally bizarre right? Well it is the result of a long, tortuous line of cases that started before the Civil War when states rights were far stronger than they are today. Since that time the court has included many of the rights you are aware of through the fourteenth amendment to include all governments, but they have been handled individually. That brings us to McDonald v. City of Chicago, a case before the court during this term. The question at hand is simple: Does the 2nd amendment right explained last session in District of Columbia v. Heller apply to state and local governments?

Here’s some good legal analysis on the history and possible outcomes.

A couple of weeks ago I was trying to hang a big freaking ladder stand all by myself. I’d nearly punched a hole in my ribs trying to get it across the creek and I narrowly avoided crushing my skull more than once trying to get it upright and into the tree. While resting and rethinking my approach I hear a walnut or some other large nut fall out of tree right behind me. I go to investigate and find this:

Along the river under a canopy of Oaks, Sycamores, and other normal river trees were these scrubby little trees with what appeared to be green potatoes hanging off them. I dug deep into that pitifully shallow well of knowledge from senior year Field Biology class… and guessed that they might be pawpaw trees. I had some vague notion that they had a fantastic fruit that people loved to eat but was too soft to transport or market commercially. I was no where near confident enough in my identification to try eating one but I picked a few, dissected one, and thought I’d do some research when I got home. Here’s what they looked like:

They were greener on the tree but in the few hours it took me to get them home they had turned brownish. On the inside they were bright yellow and soft with fairly large lima bean shaped seeds:

My research included this little tidbit:

The earliest documentation of pawpaws is in the 1541 report of the de Soto expedition, who found Native Americans cultivating it east of the Mississippi River. The Lewis and Clark Expedition depended and sometimes subsisted on pawpaws during their travels. Chilled pawpaw fruit was a favorite dessert of George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson was certainly familiar with it as he planted it at Monticello.

And:

Growers hope that potential medical use will eventually lead to increased market demand from the pharmaceutical industry. The seeds also have insecticidal properties. Some Native American tribes dry and powder them and apply the powder to children’s heads to control lice; specialized shampoos now use compounds from pawpaw for the same purpose. Currently, pawpaw extract is being reviewed as an alternative cancer treatment alongside conventional and approved treatments.

From Wikipedia here.

If you are wondering (and I know you are), it tasted like a cross between a banana and a mango with the texture of a very ripe pear. It was very good. Kinda cool huh?

A Missouri man who was teaching his girlfriend about firearm safety on Friday pointed a gun at his head to prove a point and accidentally shot himself dead.

The Jefferson County Sheriff said that James Looney, 40, of Imperial, Mo., was teaching his girlfriend about the different safety mechanisms on guns by putting guns to his head and asking her if they would go off. The first two guns did not go off, but the third gun actually fired.

The rest is here.

A good breeding population plus a mild winter and good ground cover has created a great forecast for the 2009-2010 Kansas Upland season. Most of the state had good pheasant hatches, good quail hatches, and good left over populations. I’ll be out there chasing them this fall, and you should be too.

Read the official report here.

I keep getting Google hits on this topic because of this post. Unfortunately that link doesn’t really help you handle a dove with the feathers still attached. No worries, it’s an absolute no brainer to clean a dove once you’ve done a few.

1) Get some doves and a pair of game shears:

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marriedtothesea.com

Skinny Moose has done something with my hosting such that I cannot add pictures right now. They promise me they are working on it, which is good because I have 2 half finished pieces and new baby pictures to show everyone…

For now take a gander over at this article that ran in the KC Star today about Tobias H. Cohron.

Today you were supposed to get a couple of nice helpful posts, one answering a question I get asked by Google search a lot, the other about a really cool wild fruit I found in Kansas for the first time in my life. Unfortunately I spent too long working on a thoughtful and researched response to Albert over at The Rasch Chronicles on Michael Behenna and his conviction in military court.

The Old Man is a big fan of Bill O’reilly. Frankly, he makes my skin crawl. I hate the bluster, I hate the insulting, the yelling, I hate that he cannot have intelligent discourse with someone who disagrees with him, but mostly I hate the way he passes himself off as the Grand Judicial Overlord. He loves to take a smattering of well skewed facts and then pronounce a judgment for a case he hasn’t heard, saw, nor even fully researched. He’ll then declare those who disagree with him, including judges and juries (who saw the whole case, know all of the facts, and sometimes have, you know, law degrees) “pinheads”. It’s so fantastically arrogant I can’t even fathom how anyone would listen to him and it drives me into a rage generally reserved for Phil Kline.

Anyway, today Albert posted a referring link to a site promoting freedom for Mr. Behenna (who was convicted of murder while serving in Iraq) that had a spin Mr. O’reilly would have been proud of. My point is not that he should or should not have been convicted, it’s that he was convicted by those who know a whole lot more about the case than we do. 7 military officers were convicted. You can read my whole comment after the jump or you can move to the discussion over at Albert’s. I’m sure it’s only a matter of minutes before one of his regular commenters (who have a long history of hostility towards yours truly) class up the debate by calling me an animal rights activist or an, “asshat”. It might be fun to follow along.

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I’ve mentioned before that the owner and semi-regular author of Fountain Shots is a friend and fellow attorney. He covers midwestern sports with an emphasis on the Royals and K-State. Both suck a great deal or maybe he’d post more often? Anyway, he’s set up his first podcast here. It’s geared towards the Big 12 football race. He’s obviously put a great deal of time into the production value and it’s worth a listen.

Now here’s a different promotion. According to the letter I got in the mail yesterday from Cabela’s:

Before opening day, we will release 100 banded pheasants on public and private land within 50 miles of our store in Mitchell. Bag a special Cabela’s-banded bird and you could be eligible for a chance to win $1 million. Each band collected is worth a minimum of $200 in prizes, including firearms, gear, guided hunts and more. The contest takes place Oct. 17-18 for hunters who have pre-registered at Cabela’s in Mitchell.

Check their website for more info.