D.C.’S Handgun Ban and the Constitutional Right to Arms: One Hard Question?

Hat Tip: The Volokh Conspiracy

An interesting paper in light of the upcoming Supreme Court Case deciding the constitutionality of the District of Colombia’s ban on civilian handgun ownership. This paper engages in in depth textual analysis of the second amendment, and concludes:

Whatever a well regulated militia may
be, or even if no such thing exists, the right of the people to keep and
bear arms is not to be infringed. What’s more, whether or not such
a militia can actually contribute to the security of a free state, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms remains unaffected. Indeed,
even if it could be proved beyond all doubt that disarming the people
is necessary to the security of a free state, still the right of the people
to keep and bear arms would remain completely unchanged.

The paper also discusses some of the historical reasons why the perambulator clause, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” was included in the amendment in the first place. A great read – highly recommended.

D.C.’S Handgun Ban and the Constitutional Right to Arms: One Hard Question?

Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big

Written 7 years ago, this essay describes some of the challenges to Lisp and what the Lisp community should do in order to promote the use and acceptance of Lisp as a mainstream language. It is amazing how relevant the essay continues to be, what amounts to an eternity (in the tech world) later.

Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big

Evolving Christian attitudes towards personal and national self-defense

Hattip: The Volokh Conspiracy

The paper starts out in the 19th century and chronicles the Christian Church’s move to the right during the first half of the Twentieth Century, and then its move to the left in the second half. The paper makes the case that the elements of the Church which moved left in the post Korean War America strongly identified with the broader leftist movement in America including sympathy for Palestine, socialism, antipathy towards gun owners, and general pacifism; the paper further suggests that those elements are largely composed of the leadership of the church, and lack the backing of the more conservative laity – one of the reasons for the Evangelical revival.

While this paper has a relatively clear conservative bias, it is quite interesting none the less, both as a brief history of the Church’s political stance over the past century, as well as some of the political movements that are likely to happen in the next decade as a result of pressures internal to the Christian Church.

Evolving Christian attitudes towards personal and national self-defense[pdf]

Constitutions, Judicial Review, Moral Rights, and Democracy: Disentangling the Issues

This article doesn’t argue for a particular view. Instead, it seeks to clarify the difference between different choices – between written and unwritten constitutions, etc. This paper has certainly helped me to sharpen my thinking about democracies (representative or otherwise). Highly recommended.

Constitutions, Judicial Review, Moral Rights, and Democracy: Disentangling the Issues

Unlocking Public Entrepreneurship and Public Economies

Highly recommended. This paper is short, but punchy. The essential claim is that governments can be more effective by pushing authority and responsibility to more local levels, and by allowing said governments to contract out to businesses for a more wide variety of services. This in turn makes government more agile to evolving circumstances, more cost effective and more responsive to the (many times locally varying) will of the people. A great quote from this paper is:

The presumption that locals cannot take care of public sector problems has led to
legislation throughout the world that places responsibility for local public services on
units of government that are very large, frequently lacking the resources to carry out
their assignments, and overwhelmed with what they are assigned to do. One should
stress that this is not the way that Europe developed. Since the eleventh century,
thousands of independent Water Boards were established in the delta of the Rhine River
with their own rules and physical structures, drained the swampy land, and protected the
land from being inundated except during extreme storms (Toonen 1996; Andersen
2001). In Switzerland, alpine peasants devised a variety of private and common property
systems to gain profitable income from an extreme and diverse ecology
(Netting 1981). More than 1000 free cities with their own charters and legal traditions
flourished in Europe during the Middle Ages and were the foundation for modern
constitutional democracies (Berman 1983).

Unlocking Public Entrepreneurship and Public Economies

Coordinating in the Shadow of the Law: Two Contextualized Tests of the Focal Point Theory of Legal Compliance

This paper is not really worth reading – it is many pages, but the point (this is quite intuitive) can be summed like so:

When several people with competing interests, share common interests on certain points of interaction, the interaction to achieve those common interests can be made more efficient (less negotiating, more uniform and widespread standards) by the imposition of a law. It is important to note, that this paper talks purely about the standard setting aspect of the law, and not other, stronger mechanisms for compliance.

Coordinating in the Shadow of the Law: Two Contextualized Tests of the Focal Point Theory of Legal Compliance[pdf]

From Seriatim to Consensus and Back Again: A Theory of Dissent

An interesting paper which delves into both the reasons why the Supreme Court publishes or suppresses dissenting opinions, as well as the history behind the practice. The author advances essentially a realpolitik explanation for the practice of dissent or the lack thereof quite convincingly.

From Seriatim to Consensus and Back Again: A Theory of Dissent[pdf]

Past and Present Uses of Rocket Grade Hydrogen Peroxide

Past and Present Uses of Rocket Grade Hydrogen Peroxide[pdf]

A short history about hydrogen peroxide powered rockets. Very basic overview of the strategies used for H2O2 rocketry. The real diamond in the rough is the list of references – lots of good suggestions as to further research and reading.

Robotic Origami Folding

Robotic Origami Folding[pdf]

A Doctoral Thesis written about robotic Origami folding. The paper includes some novel techniques, and some interesting problems that are inherent in modeling the real world (folding paper stretches it, etc). Also, there is some interesting insight into how leaders in a field use tools to handle complexity – insights that are applicable to other areas of human endeavor.

The Cocaine Auction Protocol: On The Power Of Anonymous Broadcast

The Cocaine Auction Protocol: On The Power Of Anonymous Broadcast[pdf]

An amazing paper. Discusses a protocol based method for allowing anonymous auctions to occur without the benefit of an auctioneer. There are several ingenious solutions to tricky problems contained herein.