Ian Bernard of Free Talk Live posted this on the FreeKeene.com blog with this video:

Keene’s government people are hereby put on notice:

Everything you know is about to change. As each month goes by, more liberty loving activists will be moving into the Keene area. Please understand that voluntary interaction in a free market is the most humane method of interaction for mankind. These ideas of liberty are powerful and infectious. As our concentration and influence build, our ideas will become popular. Your government corporation will lose its most precious element of legitimacy as more and more people choose to ignore your dictates and live as free men and women.

Enjoy your coercive reign of the people in Keene while it lasts. I expect you’ll find your power over others diminishing over time, hopefully sooner rather than later, but I want to assure you that it is going to happen. Therefore, you should start thinking about products or services that you can offer into the marketplace on a voluntary basis, just like the rest of us peaceful people.

As a little taste of what is coming, here’s an what just one Keene-bound activist is doing down in his current home of Texas. Sam from the Obscured Truth Network will be arriving here sometime before the end of this year:

A little confrontational but assuming the velocity at which activists move to NH stays the same or increases he’s likely correct. At least the “is about to change” part. Not so sure about “everything.”

http://www.wusa9.com/…

District residents can start registering their guns today. But at least one very high profile application was already rejected.

Dick Heller is the man who brought the lawsuit against the District’s 32-year-old ban on handguns. He was among the first in line Thursday morning to apply for a handgun permit.

But when he tried to register his semi-automatic weapon, he says he was rejected. He says his gun has seven bullet clip. Heller says the City Council legislation allows weapons with fewer than eleven bullets in the clip. A spokesman for the DC Police says the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns.

Besides obtaining paperwork to buy new handguns, residents also can register firearms they’ve had illegally under a 180-day amnesty period.

Though residents will be allowed to begin applying for handgun permits, city officials have said the entire process could take weeks or months.

How very ridiculous. I wonder what the SCOTUS Heller v DC majority’s position on this law? Is this the kind of “reasonable” restrictions they expected?

This is another example of the hugely negative fallout of the Heller case in that they claimed rights can have “reasonable” restrictions. It’s all or nothing. Otherwise it’s a privilege. Even a positivist should be against this interpretation given the reading of the Constitution. Assuming a positivist would be a rule of law type. I suppose you could believe only local government has legitimate rule over an individual but I’m not aware of any ideology which specifically advocates that.

New York Sun:

Emboldened by Mayor Bloomberg’s testimony in Albany this week that the city’s taxpayers pay the state $11 billion a year more than they get back, a City Council member is offering legislation that would begin the process of having New York City secede from New York State.

Peter Vallone Jr., a Democrat who represents Queens, is pushing the idea, and the Council plans to hold a hearing on the possibility of making New York City the 51st state.

“I think secession’s time has definitely come again,” Mr. Vallone, who spearheaded a similar push in 2003, told The New York Sun yesterday. “If not secession, somebody please tell me what other options we have if the state is going to continue to take billions from us and give us back pennies. Should we raise taxes some more? Should we cut services some more? Or should we consider seriously going out on our own?”

This is pretty unlikely. Not only would New York state be a bit crazy to let them go but Article 4 Section 3 Clause 1 doesn’t allow it without Congress’ approval:

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned, as well as of the Congress.

However, I fully support their plan. I’m a Free State Project member and some of us feel that if things continue getting worse nationally we will start supporting a New Hampshire secession from the union. That is also unlikely but given NH has the right to revolution in its constitution at least it has some legal legitimacy.

It does seem a bit funny to me that NYC is generally known to be fairly liberal place. A whole lot of socialists here. So you’d think that their wealth being redistributed to the rest of the state wouldn’t be a problem.

http://www.usatoday.com/…

Lawmakers in two California cities are casting votes this month on unprecedented legislation that would widen a growing voluntary movement by landlords and resident associations to ban smoking inside apartments and condos.

Today in Calabasas, the City Council plans to vote on expanding its anti-smoking law to bar renters from lighting up inside existing apartments. It would exempt current resident smokers until they moved but would require all new buildings with at least 15 units, including condos, to be smoke-free.

Next Tuesday, the City Council of Belmont is scheduled to cast a final vote on a similar measure that won initial approval last week. The ordinance, which applies to apartments and condos, would allow fines and evictions if neighbors complained and smokers didn’t heed warnings.

The legislative push, which has triggered death threats against council members, is a controversial part of a mostly voluntary effort to prod landlords and condo associations to adopt smoke-free policies.

Seems I forgot to post this one the other day. As expected this passed/will pass. It’s really sad how little property rights matter today. If second hand smoke was such a dangerous pollutant the true enforcement of private property and a public demand to find the effects would regulate it.