Linked List: March 27, 2018

Tuesday, 27 March 2018

John Paul Stevens: ‘Repeal the Second Amendment’ ★

Former Justice John Paul Stevens:

For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation. In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated militia.”

During the years when Warren Burger was our chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge, federal or state, as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment. When organizations like the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and began their campaign claiming that federal regulation of firearms curtailed Second Amendment rights, Chief Justice Burger publicly characterized the N.R.A. as perpetrating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

Serious gun control is coming. It’s like gay marriage — stalled with no progress for decades, and then, boom, it’s the law of the land in 50 states. I don’t know when it will happen, but when it does, it’ll happen fast.

Mac Rumors: ‘Everything Apple Announced at Today’s Educational Event in Under Three Minutes’ ★

Three minutes? I’ll bet they could’ve gotten this down to 30 seconds. I don’t mean that to be sarcastic — it was an interesting event, but there wasn’t a lot of news.

Foxconn Buys Belkin for $866 Million ★

Devin Coldewey, reporting for TechCrunch:

Foxconn, best known for manufacturing practically everything in the world, has just announced the purchase of Belkin, the PC peripherals company, for $866 million in cash. That certainly makes it one of the larger consumer electronics acquisitions in recent memory.

You probably know Belkin for its various lines of accessories, peripherals, and assorted consumer electronics; Linksys, surely the most recognizable router brand, is a subsidiary. Wemo and Phyn might also ring a bell.

I can’t put my finger on why, but this acquisition seems weird to me.