#Charles Wrenn

[oakendesk]

Horror Stories Mar 1935

Charles Wrenn

Doctor Death Mar 1935

Rudolph Zirm

[nocnitsa]

Charles L. Wrenn

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

What Lies Beneath the Surface: "Lucky Star"

Frank Borzage’s “Lucky Star” takes place during WWI, and two of the film’s three main characters enlist in the army. But “Lucky Star” isn’t a war film, nor is it a historical drama. The main focus by far and away is the romantic relationship between Mary and Tim, and the interference of Wrenn. Why then, does Borzage set this film during this period? Sure, the fact that Tim is disabled is a large plot point, but he could just have easily lost the use of his legs from some other kind of accident. The secret behind this is the same as it is in much of Borzage’s melodramas, that there’s more to them than meets the eye. 

Breaking down the war messaging helps us understand a quote from John Belton, “Borzage’s lovers create an idealized, idyllic space for themselves that exists within but apart from a more impersonal, alienating, and even hostile space.” Tim and Wrenn served together, and then were both sent home, whether for being injured or being kicked out. Both are vying for something to fill the void that serving once did, and so each sets their sights on Mary. Tim, at first, because he wants to “fix” her, and Wrenn, at first, because he wants to put one over on Tim. It’s this disquieting feeling that leaving the war too early gave each of them that causes them to make these decisions. And so, they distract themselves with Mary.

This deeper meaning also applies to what Linda Williams has written about the melodrama, that “what has often been most maligned in melodrama-its excessive emotional pathos, its simplistic polarities of good/evil, light/dark, salvation/damnation-is really the root of a vitality that has dominated bourgeois art.” Tim is seen as the stereotypical good guy, and Wrenn the bad guy. But why? Both treated Mary badly when they first met her. But this division begins with their behavior in the war. When given orders, Tim follows them, and is subsequently injured. Wrenn on the other hand, actively stands in Tim’s way of following his orders, and is then both the cause of his injury and is later kicked out of the army. This division of good/evil all begins with their behavior on the battlefield.

At the end of the day, “Lucky Star” is a romance film. As such, we can reevaluate Joe McElhaney’s quote through the lens of this movie, “what is of interest [in some of Borzage’s films] is not simply the incest theme as such but how it relates to a larger conception of sexual desire that runs throughout Borzage’s work. What does it mean to love someone else? And what are the boundaries of love itself?” The later part of the film focuses on Mary’s love for Tim, and the conflict between that and her mother’s desire for her to marry Wrenn. This isn’t your typical love triangle, though. This conflict hinges on the fact that Tim is disabled, Mary is poor, and Wrenn has (supposed) status and wealth. The romance theme is less important than these, because they’re the roadblock that stands in the way of Tim and Mary’s love. So, through this melodramatic lens, Borzage is able to examine these themes of status, class, and discrimination.

-Haley Ruccio

Belton, John. “Review: Frank Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic, by Herve Dumont.” Film Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2008): 78–79. 

McElhaney, Joe, and Jeremy Carr. “Senses of Cinema.” Senses of Cinema, February 12, 2023. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/borzage/. 

Williams, Linda. “Review: Cinema and Sentiment by Charles Affron.” Film Quarterly 36, no. 4 (1983): 28–30.

[books0977]

The Forest of Swords, A Story of Paris and the Marne. Joseph A. Altsheler. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1915. First edition. Original dust jacket by Charles Wrenn. 

John Scott and Philip Lannes walked together down a great boulevard of Paris. The young American's heart was filled with grief and anger. The Frenchman felt the same grief, but mingled with it was a fierce, burning passion, so deep and bitter that it took a much stronger word than anger to describe it. Both had heard that morning the mutter of cannon on the horizon, and they knew the German conquerors were advancing. They were always advancing.

[pulpsandcomics2]

“Horror Stories”  March 1935      cover by Charles Wrenn

Mate for a Monster by Hugh B. Cave

The Idol of Satan by H. M. Appel

Where the Dead Dance Always! by Arthur J. Burks

The Dead Hunt the Living by Ernest M. Poate

Honeymoon Curse by Norvell Page

Nursery of Horror by Francis James

A Soul for Sacrifice by Wyatt Blassingame

[straightedgesavior434]

Wrenn and Charles: Origins

I want to see a Wrenn and One origin story

I’m pretty sure the first one wasn’t called One. The number system started when she started emotionally distancing herself from her treefolk.

[tuseriesdetv]

Noticias de series de la semana: 'Shameless' se queda sin Emmy

Cancelaciones

La cuarta temporada de Mr. Robot (USA Network) será la última

Noticias cortas

Emmy Rossum (Fiona) abandonará Shameless tras su novena temporada.

Lyric Ross (Deja) será regular en la tercera temporada de This Is Us.

Justin Sundquist, el doble de acción de MacGyver, ha sido despertado del coma, ha salido de cuidados intensivos, responde y se comunica con sus amigos y familiares.

Netflix ha fichado a Harlan Coben para que adapte catorce de sus novelas pasadas y futuras.

Parece que Designated Survivor ha sido rescatada por otra cadena para una tercera temporada.

Incorporaciones y fichajes

Jane Krakowski (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 30 Rock) será la madre de Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) en Dickinson.

Adam Brody (The O.C., StartUp) se une a Curfew. Será Max Larssen, un misterioso millonario megalómano.

Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill, Agent Carter) será recurrente en la tercera temporada de Star como Xander McPherson, un oportunista inversor de bienes inmuebles envuelto en una tóxica relación con Cassie (Brandy Norwood).

Blake Jenner (Glee, Everybody Wants Some) protagonizará What/If junto a Renée Zellweger y Jane Levy.

Tyler Hoechlin (Teen Wolf, Supergirl), Justin Chatwin (Shameless, Orphan Black), Samuel Anderson (Trollied, Doctor Who), Elizabeth Faith Ludlow (The Walking Dead, Satisfaction) y Blu Hunt (The Originals, The New Mutants) protagonizarán Another Life junto a Katee Sackhoff. Serán Ian Yerxa, antiguo comandante de la nave; Erik Wallace, parte del comando interestelar encargado de encontrar vida inteligente y marido de Niko (Sackhoff); William, interfaz holográfica con el conocimiento de toda la humanidad; Cas Isakovic, segunda de a bordo de Niko; y August, ingeniera jefe.

Jennifer Esposito (Mistresses, The Affair) será la agente de la CIA Susan Raynor en cinco episodios de The Boys.

Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake, Harry Potter), Geraldine James (Utopia, Anne with an E), Simon Jones (The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), David Haig (Killing Eve, Penny Dreadful), Tuppence Middleton (Sense8, War & Peace), Kate Phillips (Peaky Blinders, The Crown) y Stephen Campbell Moore (The Last Post, The Wrong Mans) se unen a la película de Downton Abbey.

Ashley Greene (Twilight, Rogue) será Nine Sanders, una representante de artistas que vuelve a Atlanta para supervisar los detalles del tour de Sage (Ne-Yo), en la segunda temporada de Step Up: High Water.

Walton Goggins (Six, Vice Principals) será el nuevo protagonista de Deep State, sustituyendo a Mark Strong, en su segunda temporada. Le acompañarán Victoria Hamilton (The Crown, Doctor Foster), Lily Banda y Shelley Conn (Liar, The Lottery).

Alan Tudyk (Suburgatory, The Tick) será el villano Eric Morden/Mr. Nobody en Doom Patrol.

Daniella Alonso (Revolution, Animal Kingdom) será recurrente en la segunda temporada de The Resident como Zoey Barlow, madre soltera con dos hijos adoptivos con enfermedades crónicas.

Sophie Cookson (Kingsman, Gypsy) protagonizará The Trial of Christine Keeler, sobre el caso Profumo.

Samantha Mathis (The Strain, Under the Dome) será Sara Hammon, nueva COO de Taylor Mason Capital, en la cuarta temporada de Billions.

Damon Herriman (Justified, Flesh and Bone) será Charles Manson en la segunda temporada de Mindhunter. Como curiosidad, también interpretará a Manson en Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, la próxima película de Quentin Tarantino.

Efrat Dor (The Zoekeeper's Wife, Greenhouse Academy) será recurrente en la tercera temporada de Sneaky Pete como Lizzie, una estafadora amoral y nihilista.

Shantel VanSanten (Shooter, One Tree Hill), Wrenn Schmidt (The Looming Tower, Person of Interest), Rebecca Wisocky (Devious Maids, Heathers), Eric Ladin (Six, Shooter) y Arturo del Puerto (The Bridge, Fear The Walking Dead) se unen a la serie de Ronald D. Moore para Apple. Serán Karen, la esposa de Edward Baldwin (Kinnaman); Margo Madison, ingeniera de la NASA; Marge Slayton, esposa del director del programa espacial; Gene Kranz, uno de los directores de control; y Octavio Rosales, un inmigrante que busca una vida mejor para su familia.

Bianca Kajlich (Rules of Engagement, Undateable) y Jacqueline Obradors (NYPD Blue, Mayans M.C.) serán recurrentes en la quinta temporada de Bosch como la investigadora Christina Henry y la detective Christina Vega.

Jing Lusi (Crazy Rich Asians, Lucky Man) se une al reparto de The Feed.

Malik Yoba (Empire, New York Undercover) será recurrente en God Friended Me como Terrence, tío de Miles (Brandon Micheal Hall).

Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy, Bates Motel) será Beta, segundo líder de los Whisperers, en la novena temporada de The Walking Dead.

Hunter Clowdus (American Vandal) será recurrente en All American como J.J., miembro del nuevo equipo de Spencer (Daniel Ezra).

Aleks Paunovic (Van Helsing, iZombie) será recurrente en Snowpiercer como Bojan Boscovic, encargado de liberar de hielo el camino del tren.

Jessica Miesel (The Resident) se une como recurrente a The Purge.

Chivonne Michelle se une como recurrente a Jett.

Robert Wisdom (The Alienist, Nashville) y KJ Smith (Dynasty) serán recurrentes en The Fix como Buck Neal, investigador que trabaja junto a Ezra Wolf (Scott Cohen); y Charlie, asistente ejecutiva de Ezra.

Théodore Pellerin (Boy Erased, Juste la fin du monde) se une a On Becoming a God in Central Florida.

Eric Lange (Victorious, Narcos) será recurrente en la tercera temporada de The Man in the High Castle como General Whitcroft, segundo de John Smith (Rufus Sewell).

Paulina Singer (Dead of Summer) será Laney, una joven rebelde e ingenua, en Tell Me a Story.

Natalee Linez será recurrente en la segunda temporada de Siren como Nicole, una misteriosa mujer con sus propios objetivos.

Aisling Bea (Hard Sun, The Fall) protagonizará Living With Yourself junto a Paul Rudd. Se desconocen detalles.

Anna Silk (Lost Girl) será recurrente en Blood & Treasure como Roarke, rastreadora y luchadora internacional.

Tom Stevens (Beyond, Wayward Pines) será Chester 'Fuckface' Wilson, residente del hogar en el que vivió Marcus (Benjamin Wadsworth), en Deadly Class.

Karen Pittman (Luke Cage, The Americans) será Angela Brewster, la madre de Willa, en NOS4A2.

Pósters

          Nuevas series

Luz verde directa en Epix a diez episodios de Our Lady, LTD, drama escrito por Steve Conrad (Patriot, The Pursuit of Happiness) y Bruce Terris (Patriot, The Assets) y dirigido por Conrad, sobre un joven (Jimmi Simpson; Westworld, House of Cards) que intenta estafar a un pastor (Ben Kingsley; Gandhi, House of Sand and Fog) que resulta ser mucho más peligroso de lo que él imagina.

Hulu desarrolla The Great, limited series sobre el ascenso al poder de Catherine the Great y su explosiva relación con su marido Peter, emperador de Rusia. Protagonizada por Elle Fanning (Maleficent, The Beguiled) y Nicholas Hoult (Skins, X-Men). Escrita por Tony McNamara (The Favourite).

Hulu ha encargado dieciséis episodios (dos temporadas) de Solar Opposites, comedia de animación de Justin Roiland (Rick & Morty), que además pondrá voz al protagonista, sobre una familia de alienígenas que abandona su planeta y se muda a un suburbio de Estados Unidos.

Lee Child quiere adaptar sus novelas de Jack Reacher en una serie con diez o doce episodios dedicados a cada una. Busca un actor más alto e intimidante y no necesariamente tan famoso como Tom Cruise. Espera poder anunciar un trato en otoño.

Fechas

Strangers se estrena en ITV el 10 de septiembre

Black Earth Rising se estrena en BBC Two el 10 de septiembre

La tercera temporada de No Offence se estrena en Channel 4 el 13 de septiembre

La segunda temporada de Big Mouth llega a Netflix el 5 de octubre

The Haunting of Hill House llega a Netflix el 12 de octubre

Titans se estrena en DC Universe el 12 de octubre

La tercera temporada de StartUp se estrena en Sony Crackle el 1 de noviembre

Otras imágenes

Tobias Menzies en The Crown

Titans

    Tráilers

True Detective - Temporada 3

Sorry For Your Loss

The First

Riverdale - Temporada 3

Big Mouth - Temporada 2

The Walking Dead - Temporada 9

My Brilliant Friend

The Good Doctor - Temporada 2

No Offence - Temporada 3

The Conners

[newstfionline]

Word of the Day

unbeknownst (adjective) un-bih-NOHNST 1 : happening or existing without the knowledge of someone specified--usually used with to 2 : not known or not well-known : unknown

Unbeknownst is an irregular variant of the older unbeknown, which derives from beknown, an obsolete synonym of known. But for a word with a straightforward history, unbeknownst and the now less common unbeknown have caused quite a stir among usage commentators. In spite of widespread use (including appearances in the writings of Charles Dickens, A. E. Housman, and E. B. White), the grammarian H. W. Fowler in 1926 categorized the two words as “out of use except in dialect or uneducated speech.” The following year, G. P. Krapp called them “humorous, colloquial, and dialectal.” Our evidence, however, shows that both words are standard even in formal prose.

Example: “… Travis was the one who paid the bills--and he often used credit cards to cover them, unbeknownst to Vonnie.”--Penny Wrenn, Forbes.com, 9 Oct. 2013

[rmdreier]

1918 With Pershing at the Front by Ross Kay Illustrated by Charles Wrenn. WWI. Number 7 in the Barse Big War Series. Crisp interiors, tight binding. Inscription to the ffep as shown. $15 plus shipping. #worldwar1 #wwi #generalpershing #americanexpeditionaryforce #military #seriesbooks #boysseries #pershing #worldwarone #vintagebooks #antiquebooks #vintage #retro #antique #1918 #oldbooks #booklover #bookstagram #bookaneer #bibliophile #bibliomane #charleswrenn (at Dodge Center, Minnesota)

[thehoustondesigncenter]

Creative Risottos For Children in Crisis Shine at The International Risotto Festival

Fans of fine food, wine, and design converged at The 12th International Risotto Festival which was held on Sunday, November 12 at The Houston Design Center. Chaired by Julie and Stephen Chen, Raine and Alan Falik, Leslie and Charles Simmons the event benefitted Casa de Esperanza de los Niños – the House of Hope for Children – is a safe place for children in crisis due to abuse, neglect or the effects of HIV. Janie and Todd Mason served as honorary chairs.

More than 800 guests strolled around The Houston Design Center enjoying delicious Italian foods prepared by some of Houston’s top chefs along with Italian wines, exotic cars and music.

Judges of the blind tasting competition included Carlo Bocchi & Federica Attalla, Italian Trade Commission, Kim Korth, Edible Houston, Justin Kouri, Recipe for Success, Greg LaFolette, Alquimista Cellars, Mellanie Perez, Modern Luxury Houston Magazine, Eric Sandler, CultureMap, and Cleverley Stone, Cooking with Cleverley: FOX 26 & Cleverley Show: CBS 650 AM.

Carmelo Mauro competing for Carmelo’s won the blind tasting competition for his Risotto Con Melanzane. Chef Alberto Gutierrez with Tasting Room City Centre was awarded 2nd place and Chef Michael Hoffman with Oxbow 7 was awarded 3rd place. Chefs Dillon & Denver Kao with Express Italia took home honorable mention for their unique risotto creation. Taking home the People’s Choice Award was Scotty Campbell with Bertazzoni.

Other top chefs competing in the Festival included Tiago Almeida of Quattro at The Four Seasons, Jon Buchanan of Third Coast, Maurizio Ferrarese Private Chef, Fadi of Fadi’s Mediterranean Grill, Greg Millo of The Art Institute of Houston, Johnny Mandola of Damian’s Cucina Italiano, Manuel Pucha of Maison Pucha Bistro, and Matt Tahaney of Sonoma Wine Bar & Restaurant.

Guests included Shelley Star, Julie and Stephen Chen, Raine and Alan Falik, Leslie and Charles Simmons, Janie and Todd Mason, Misty and Jeff Lindenberger, Terry and Fred Baca, Missy Stewart, Jeremy & Shelly Edelstein, Jerry and Nan Brewer, Dillon and Marian McCarty, Catherine & Brandon Borders, Carey and Noelle Feldman, Sean and Dina Naslund, Tim Termeer, Mike and Julie Taetz, Dena and Barry Wrenn, Ashely and Derick Grubb, Kenny Baldwin and Carol Hunton.

Event Sponsors include Audi Central Houston, CultureMap Houston, Design House, Houston Pediatric Dental Specialists, Houston Radiology Associated, Janie & Todd Mason, Kitchen & Bath Concepts, LGI Oriental Rugs, MAI Memorial Antiques & Interiors, MLB Capital Partners, Modern Luxury Houston Magazine, Modern Luxury Interiors Texas, PoolSure, Prime Living, Prosperity Bank, Frank Rynd, San Pellegrino/Acqua Panna, Jan and Tom Simmons, Scene One Interiors, Teri Pugh Studio, The Art Institute of Houston, and Thorntree Slate & Marble,

The International Risotto Festival was founded in 2000 and has a rich history as a true culinary competition for a good cause. More than 75 of Houston’s finest chefs have competed to help raise more than a $750,000 dollars for local charities in the 11 productions of the festival since that date.

For more information visit www.risottofestival.com or call 713-864-2660.

The post Creative Risottos For Children in Crisis Shine at The International Risotto Festival appeared first on The Houston Design Center.

from The Houston Design Center http://thehoustondesigncenter.com/creative-risottos-children-crisis-shine-international-risotto-festival/

[benrleeusa]

[David Kopel] D.C. Circuit upholds right to bear arms for D.C. residents

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that the District government must grant handgun carry licenses to D.C. residents on the same basis that carry permits are issued in most states. In particular, D.C. may not limit carry permits only to persons who prove a “special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community as supported by evidence of specific threats or previous attacks that demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life.” Instead, D.C. must follow the standard American system: issuing permits to adults who pass a fingerprint-based background check and a safety training class.

The Circuit Court’s opinion comes in a pair of cases: Wrenn v. District of Columbia and Matthew Grace and Pink Pistols v. District of Columbia. (Pink Pistols is a LGBT advocacy group that has played an important role in Second Amendment cases.) The opinion was written by Judge Thomas B. Griffith and joined by Senior Judge Stephen F. Williams. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented. The cases have a long and complicated procedural history; when Wrenn was before the D.C. Circuit in an earlier round, I participated in an amicus brief examining Anglo-American legal history on the right to carry.

Background: The right to bear arms has gone through the following developments in D.C. in the past decade:

2007 (pre-Heller) — License is required to carry arms, even to carry a firearm from one room to another in one’s home.

2008 (Heller decision) — Supreme Court strikes down the D.C. handgun ban and the D.C. ban on having any functional firearm in the home. In the course of litigation, D.C. had promised that if the handgun ban were struck, then it would issue plaintiff Dick Heller a license to carry in his own home. Thus, the court stated, “We therefore assume that petitioners’ issuance of a license will satisfy respondent’s prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.”

2008 (post-Heller) — The D.C. Council repeals its handgun ban and enacts a new handgun registration ordinance. Once a handgun has been lawfully registered, no permission is needed to carry it inside the home. There is no provision for licensed carry outside the home.

2009-2016 — In response to public criticism (e.g., Emily Miller’s book “Emily Gets Her Gun”) and litigation, the D.C. gun registration statute and its application are improved, from being dysfunctional to instead being exceptionally strict, but mostly functional. Meanwhile, new litigation, led by Heller‘s victorious attorney Alan Gura, engages the right to carry outside the home. In 2014, the D.C. law making it impossible to obtain a permit to carry outside the home is held unconstitutional. (Similar to an Illinois statute that was held unconstitutional by the 7th Circuit in 2012.)

Rather than appealing the decision, D.C. adopts a very narrow licensing law: Carry permits for outside the home will be issued only if there is a “good reason,” defined to mean that the applicant has a “special need.” After much procedural delay, the issue is finally decided on the merits on July 25, 2017. The district courts in Wrenn and Pink Pistols had split on whether the D.C. “special need” ordinance was constitutional. The Court of Appeals rules that the ordinances violates the Second Amendment.

Majority opinion: To begin with, the court finds that “the right to keep and bear Arms” includes the right not only to keep arms in the home but also to bear arms outside the home. Heller said so. So did the 19th-century cases favorably cited by Heller. They recognized a right to carry, and also upheld non-prohibitory regulations on the manner of carry. For example, the legislature may choose to require that arms be carried openly, rather than concealed. The few 19th-century cases that upheld carrying bans were all based on the flawed premise that the right to arms is only about the militia; since Heller dispelled that theory, the militia-only precedents are of little value.

Legal history: D.C. had argued that England’s 1328 Statute of Northampton banned all arms-carrying, and this controls the meaning of the Second Amendment. (Several legal historians and I argued to the contrary, in the amicus brief cited above.) On the matter of English history, the D.C. Circuit found that “for every point there is an equal and opposite counterpoint.” However, “the state of the law in Chaucer’s England — or for that matter Shakespeare’s or Cromwell’s — is not decisive here.” Instead, “the history showcased in Heller I contradicts the main scholar” (Patrick Charles) who contends that there is no right to carry. For example, Heller said that by the time of the English Bill of Rights in 1689, the right to arms included the right to “carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Likewise, “James Wilson — early commentator, virtual coauthor of the Constitution, and member of the Supreme Court’s first cohort,” had explicated that “Founding-era Northampton laws banned only the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons, in such a manner, as will naturally diffuse a terrour among the people.’ ”

D.C. had offered a second major argument that there is no meaningful right to bear arms: Based on the writings of Saul Cornell, D.C. contended that several 19th-century state “surety of the peace” statutes prohibited carrying in most circumstances. As the court pointed out, this argument was based on misreading the statutes. Under these statutes (the first of which was enacted in Massachusetts), anyone could carry arms. If someone else brought a civil case alleging that carrier was threatening to breach the peace, the carrier could be forced to post bond for good behavior. After posting bond, the carrier could go on carrying.

Thus, the District’s historical arguments that there is no right to carry, or no right to carry in cities, were incorrect. To the contrary, “carrying beyond the home, even in populated areas, even without special need, falls within the Amendment’s coverage, indeed within its core” (citing, among other authorities, Eugene Volokh’s oft-cited “Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda,” 56 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 1443 (2009)).

Standard of review: In general, judicial review of a law that affects constitutional rights depends on what the law does. Laws that merely regulate the time, place or manner (e.g., no using loudspeakers in the park after 10 p.m.) received “intermediate scrutiny.” Laws that regulate the content of speech (e.g., people can have parades for holidays, but not for political purposes) receive “strict scrutiny.” Laws that destroy a right, or laws that discriminate based on the viewpoint of speech, are categorically unconstitutional (e.g., radio stations may praise the conduct of the war but may not criticize it).

The Heller case involved a handgun ban. Rather than applying strict or intermediate scrutiny, the Supreme Court held the ban to be categorically unconstitutional. Suppose that instead of banning handguns, D.C. had allowed handgun possession only by a “small minority with a special need to possess.” The D.C. Circuit was doubtful that the Supreme Court would have upheld such a near-total ban. Indeed, the D.C. handgun ban had what the Supreme Court called “minor exceptions,” but the Heller opinion said that the exceptions were not “relevant here.” Instead, the Heller opinion recognized a general right to arms, not a right only for persons with a special need. Heller vindicates the rights of “those who possess common levels of need.”

For almost all D.C. residents, the “special need” requirement amounts to a “total ban” on their right to bear arms. Hence, it is categorically unconstitutional, for the same reason that the total ban on handguns was held unconstitutional in Heller.

Dissent: Judge Henderson dissented, as she has in every previous case that has upheld a scintilla of Second Amendment rights. In the D.C. Circuit, the case that later became D.C. v. Heller in the Supreme Court was Parker v. D.C. While the majority held D.C.’s handgun ban unconstitutional, Judge Henderson invented the novel theory that because the Second Amendment says “the security of a free State,” the Second Amendment does not apply in the District of Columbia. (This was refuted in Volokh, “Necessary to the Security of a Free State,” 83 Notre Dame L.Rev. 1 (2007), which is cited in Heller; “free State” in this context means a free polity.)

Similarly, in Heller III, the D.C. Circuit majority upheld some D.C. registration requirements, while rejecting others, such as the requirement that registered guns must be re-registered every three years. The alleged purpose was to inform the police about lost or stolen guns, but D.C. already had a separate law requiring the reporting of lost or stolen guns. Judge Henderson would have upheld all of the D.C. registration ordinance.

In accord with opinions from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Circuits, she argued that the right to arms outside the home is far from the core of the Second Amendment. Accordingly, no more than intermediate scrutiny should apply. Especially when considering the unique needs of the densely populated District, with it many security concerns, courts should defer to the D.C. Council’s judgment that a near-total ban on carrying would promote public safety.

Conclusion: Lower federal court judges have varied widely in how rigorously they apply the Supreme Court’s Heller decision. Some, like Judge Henderson, have opted for a very weak form of intermediate scrutiny (or even less) that will uphold just about every gun control other than a handgun ban. Others have applied a more vigorous review, and have found some (but certainly not all) gun controls to be unconstitutional. (For a survey of the decisions, see Kopel & Greenlee, “The Federal Circuits’ Second Amendment Doctrines,” 61 St. Louis U.L.J.  193 (2017).)

In my view, the Wrenn majority correctly followed Heller, which teaches that total bans (or 99 percent bans) applied to law-abiding citizens are categorically unconstitutional. Notably, the Wrenn decision acknowledges Heller‘s dictum that carrying may be prohibited “in sensitive places, such as schools and government buildings.” Given the multitude of government buildings in the District, there are still many places where carrying may be prohibited. However, when a woman is walking at night from her apartment to an automobile parking lot, the District may not prohibit her from being able to defend herself.

As explained elsewhere in The Post, “The ruling from a three-judge panel gives city officials 30 days to decide whether to appeal for review by a full complement of D.C. Circuit judges. If the court does not agree to revisit the case sitting as an en banc panel, the order would take effect seven days later.” After losing in Parker and Heller III, the D.C. attorney general petitioned for en banc review, which requires an affirmative vote by the majority of non-senior Judges. Neither petition was granted.

[nancyedimick]

D.C. Circuit upholds right to bear arms for D.C. residents

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that the District government must grant handgun carry licenses to D.C. residents on the same basis that carry permits are issued in most states. In particular, D.C. may not limit carry permits only to persons who prove a “special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community as supported by evidence of specific threats or previous attacks that demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life.” Instead, D.C. must follow the standard American system: issuing permits to adults who pass a fingerprint-based background check and a safety training class.

The Circuit Court’s opinion comes in a pair of cases: Wrenn v. District of Columbia and Matthew Grace and Pink Pistols v. District of Columbia. (Pink Pistols is a LGBT advocacy group that has played an important role in Second Amendment cases.) The opinion was written by Judge Thomas B. Griffith and joined by Senior Judge Stephen F. Williams. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented. The cases have a long and complicated procedural history; when Wrenn was before the D.C. Circuit in an earlier round, I participated in an amicus brief examining Anglo-American legal history on the right to carry.

Background: The right to bear arms has gone through the following developments in D.C. in the past decade:

2007 (pre-Heller) — License is required to carry arms, even to carry a firearm from one room to another in one’s home.

2008 (Heller decision) — Supreme Court strikes down the D.C. handgun ban and the D.C. ban on having any functional firearm in the home. In the course of litigation, D.C. had promised that if the handgun ban were struck, then it would issue plaintiff Dick Heller a license to carry in his own home. Thus, the court stated, “We therefore assume that petitioners’ issuance of a license will satisfy respondent’s prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.”

2008 (post-Heller) — The D.C. Council repeals its handgun ban and enacts a new handgun registration ordinance. Once a handgun has been lawfully registered, no permission is needed to carry it inside the home. There is no provision for licensed carry outside the home.

2009-2016 — In response to public criticism (e.g., Emily Miller’s book “Emily Gets Her Gun”) and litigation, the D.C. gun registration statute and its application are improved, from being dysfunctional to instead being exceptionally strict, but mostly functional. Meanwhile, new litigation, led by Heller‘s victorious attorney Alan Gura, engages the right to carry outside the home. In 2014, the D.C. law making it impossible to obtain a permit to carry outside the home is held unconstitutional. (Similar to an Illinois statute that was held unconstitutional by the 7th Circuit in 2012.)

Rather than appealing the decision, D.C. adopts a very narrow licensing law: Carry permits for outside the home will be issued only if there is a “good reason,” defined to mean that the applicant has a “special need.” After much procedural delay, the issue is finally decided on the merits on July 25, 2017. The district courts in Wrenn and Pink Pistols had split on whether the D.C. “special need” ordinance was constitutional. The Court of Appeals rules that the ordinances violates the Second Amendment.

Majority opinion: To begin with, the court finds that “the right to keep and bear Arms” includes the right not only to keep arms in the home but also to bear arms outside the home. Heller said so. So did the 19th-century cases favorably cited by Heller. They recognized a right to carry, and also upheld non-prohibitory regulations on the manner of carry. For example, the legislature may choose to require that arms be carried openly, rather than concealed. The few 19th-century cases that upheld carrying bans were all based on the flawed premise that the right to arms is only about the militia; since Heller dispelled that theory, the militia-only precedents are of little value.

Legal history: D.C. had argued that England’s 1328 Statute of Northampton banned all arms-carrying, and this controls the meaning of the Second Amendment. (Several legal historians and I argued to the contrary, in the amicus brief cited above.) On the matter of English history, the D.C. Circuit found that “for every point there is an equal and opposite counterpoint.” However, “the state of the law in Chaucer’s England — or for that matter Shakespeare’s or Cromwell’s — is not decisive here.” Instead, “the history showcased in Heller I contradicts the main scholar” (Patrick Charles) who contends that there is no right to carry. For example, Heller said that by the time of the English Bill of Rights in 1689, the right to arms included the right to “carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Likewise, “James Wilson — early commentator, virtual coauthor of the Constitution, and member of the Supreme Court’s first cohort,” had explicated that “Founding-era Northampton laws banned only the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons, in such a manner, as will naturally diffuse a terrour among the people.’ ”

D.C. had offered a second major argument that there is no meaningful right to bear arms: Based on the writings of Saul Cornell, D.C. contended that several 19th-century state “surety of the peace” statutes prohibited carrying in most circumstances. As the court pointed out, this argument was based on misreading the statutes. Under these statutes (the first of which was enacted in Massachusetts), anyone could carry arms. If someone else brought a civil case alleging that carrier was threatening to breach the peace, the carrier could be forced to post bond for good behavior. After posting bond, the carrier could go on carrying.

Thus, the District’s historical arguments that there is no right to carry, or no right to carry in cities, were incorrect. To the contrary, “carrying beyond the home, even in populated areas, even without special need, falls within the Amendment’s coverage, indeed within its core” (citing, among other authorities, Eugene Volokh’s oft-cited “Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda,” 56 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 1443 (2009)).

Standard of review: In general, judicial review of a law that affects constitutional rights depends on what the law does. Laws that merely regulate the time, place or manner (e.g., no using loudspeakers in the park after 10 p.m.) received “intermediate scrutiny.” Laws that regulate the content of speech (e.g., people can have parades for holidays, but not for political purposes) receive “strict scrutiny.” Laws that destroy a right, or laws that discriminate based on the viewpoint of speech, are categorically unconstitutional (e.g., radio stations may praise the conduct of the war but may not criticize it).

The Heller case involved a handgun ban. Rather than applying strict or intermediate scrutiny, the Supreme Court held the ban to be categorically unconstitutional. Suppose that instead of banning handguns, D.C. had allowed handgun possession only by a “small minority with a special need to possess.” The D.C. Circuit was doubtful that the Supreme Court would have upheld such a near-total ban. Indeed, the D.C. handgun ban had what the Supreme Court called “minor exceptions,” but the Heller opinion said that the exceptions were not “relevant here.” Instead, the Heller opinion recognized a general right to arms, not a right only for persons with a special need. Heller vindicates the rights of “those who possess common levels of need.”

For almost all D.C. residents, the “special need” requirement amounts to a “total ban” on their right to bear arms. Hence, it is categorically unconstitutional, for the same reason that the total ban on handguns was held unconstitutional in Heller.

Dissent: Judge Henderson dissented, as she has in every previous case that has upheld a scintilla of Second Amendment rights. In the D.C. Circuit, the case that later became D.C. v. Heller in the Supreme Court was Parker v. D.C. While the majority held D.C.’s handgun ban unconstitutional, Judge Henderson invented the novel theory that because the Second Amendment says “the security of a free State,” the Second Amendment does not apply in the District of Columbia. (This was refuted in Volokh, “Necessary to the Security of a Free State,” 83 Notre Dame L.Rev. 1 (2007), which is cited in Heller; “free State” in this context means a free polity.)

Similarly, in Heller III, the D.C. Circuit majority upheld some D.C. registration requirements, while rejecting others, such as the requirement that registered guns must be re-registered every three years. The alleged purpose was to inform the police about lost or stolen guns, but D.C. already had a separate law requiring the reporting of lost or stolen guns. Judge Henderson would have upheld all of the D.C. registration ordinance.

In accord with opinions from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Circuits, she argued that the right to arms outside the home is far from the core of the Second Amendment. Accordingly, no more than intermediate scrutiny should apply. Especially when considering the unique needs of the densely populated District, with it many security concerns, courts should defer to the D.C. Council’s judgment that a near-total ban on carrying would promote public safety.

Conclusion: Lower federal court judges have varied widely in how rigorously they apply the Supreme Court’s Heller decision. Some, like Judge Henderson, have opted for a very weak form of intermediate scrutiny (or even less) that will uphold just about every gun control other than a handgun ban. Others have applied a more vigorous review, and have found some (but certainly not all) gun controls to be unconstitutional. (For a survey of the decisions, see Kopel & Greenlee, “The Federal Circuits’ Second Amendment Doctrines,” 61 St. Louis U.L.J.  193 (2017).)

In my view, the Wrenn majority correctly followed Heller, which teaches that total bans (or 99 percent bans) applied to law-abiding citizens are categorically unconstitutional. Notably, the Wrenn decision acknowledges Heller‘s dictum that carrying may be prohibited “in sensitive places, such as schools and government buildings.” Given the multitude of government buildings in the District, there are still many places where carrying may be prohibited. However, when a woman is walking at night from her apartment to an automobile parking lot, the District may not prohibit her from being able to defend herself.

As explained elsewhere in The Post, “The ruling from a three-judge panel gives city officials 30 days to decide whether to appeal for review by a full complement of D.C. Circuit judges. If the court does not agree to revisit the case sitting as an en banc panel, the order would take effect seven days later.” After losing in Parker and Heller III, the D.C. attorney general petitioned for en banc review, which requires an affirmative vote by the majority of non-senior Judges. Neither petition was granted.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/25/d-c-circuit-upholds-right-to-bear-arms-for-d-c-residents/

[wolfandpravato]

D.C. Circuit upholds right to bear arms for D.C. residents

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that the District government must grant handgun carry licenses to D.C. residents on the same basis that carry permits are issued in most states. In particular, D.C. may not limit carry permits only to persons who prove a “special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community as supported by evidence of specific threats or previous attacks that demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life.” Instead, D.C. must follow the standard American system: issuing permits to adults who pass a fingerprint-based background check and a safety training class.

The Circuit Court’s opinion comes in a pair of cases: Wrenn v. District of Columbia and Matthew Grace and Pink Pistols v. District of Columbia. (Pink Pistols is a LGBT advocacy group that has played an important role in Second Amendment cases.) The opinion was written by Judge Thomas B. Griffith and joined by Senior Judge Stephen F. Williams. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented. The cases have a long and complicated procedural history; when Wrenn was before the D.C. Circuit in an earlier round, I participated in an amicus brief examining Anglo-American legal history on the right to carry.

Background: The right to bear arms has gone through the following developments in D.C. in the past decade:

2007 (pre-Heller) — License is required to carry arms, even to carry a firearm from one room to another in one’s home.

2008 (Heller decision) — Supreme Court strikes down the D.C. handgun ban and the D.C. ban on having any functional firearm in the home. In the course of litigation, D.C. had promised that if the handgun ban were struck, then it would issue plaintiff Dick Heller a license to carry in his own home. Thus, the court stated, “We therefore assume that petitioners’ issuance of a license will satisfy respondent’s prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.”

2008 (post-Heller) — The D.C. Council repeals its handgun ban and enacts a new handgun registration ordinance. Once a handgun has been lawfully registered, no permission is needed to carry it inside the home. There is no provision for licensed carry outside the home.

2009-2016 — In response to public criticism (e.g., Emily Miller’s book “Emily Gets Her Gun”) and litigation, the D.C. gun registration statute and its application are improved, from being dysfunctional to instead being exceptionally strict, but mostly functional. Meanwhile, new litigation, led by Heller‘s victorious attorney Alan Gura, engages the right to carry outside the home. In 2014, the D.C. law making it impossible to obtain a permit to carry outside the home is held unconstitutional. (Similar to an Illinois statute that was held unconstitutional by the 7th Circuit in 2012.)

Rather than appealing the decision, D.C. adopts a very narrow licensing law: Carry permits for outside the home will be issued only if there is a “good reason,” defined to mean that the applicant has a “special need.” After much procedural delay, the issue is finally decided on the merits on July 25, 2017. The district courts in Wrenn and Pink Pistols had split on whether the D.C. “special need” ordinance was constitutional. The Court of Appeals rules that the ordinances violates the Second Amendment.

Majority opinion: To begin with, the court finds that “the right to keep and bear Arms” includes the right not only to keep arms in the home but also to bear arms outside the home. Heller said so. So did the 19th-century cases favorably cited by Heller. They recognized a right to carry, and also upheld non-prohibitory regulations on the manner of carry. For example, the legislature may choose to require that arms be carried openly, rather than concealed. The few 19th-century cases that upheld carrying bans were all based on the flawed premise that the right to arms is only about the militia; since Heller dispelled that theory, the militia-only precedents are of little value.

Legal history: D.C. had argued that England’s 1328 Statute of Northampton banned all arms-carrying, and this controls the meaning of the Second Amendment. (Several legal historians and I argued to the contrary, in the amicus brief cited above.) On the matter of English history, the D.C. Circuit found that “for every point there is an equal and opposite counterpoint.” However, “the state of the law in Chaucer’s England — or for that matter Shakespeare’s or Cromwell’s — is not decisive here.” Instead, “the history showcased in Heller I contradicts the main scholar” (Patrick Charles) who contends that there is no right to carry. For example, Heller said that by the time of the English Bill of Rights in 1689, the right to arms included the right to “carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Likewise, “James Wilson — early commentator, virtual coauthor of the Constitution, and member of the Supreme Court’s first cohort,” had explicated that “Founding-era Northampton laws banned only the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons, in such a manner, as will naturally diffuse a terrour among the people.’ ”

D.C. had offered a second major argument that there is no meaningful right to bear arms: Based on the writings of Saul Cornell, D.C. contended that several 19th-century state “surety of the peace” statutes prohibited carrying in most circumstances. As the court pointed out, this argument was based on misreading the statutes. Under these statutes (the first of which was enacted in Massachusetts), anyone could carry arms. If someone else brought a civil case alleging that carrier was threatening to breach the peace, the carrier could be forced to post bond for good behavior. After posting bond, the carrier could go on carrying.

Thus, the District’s historical arguments that there is no right to carry, or no right to carry in cities, were incorrect. To the contrary, “carrying beyond the home, even in populated areas, even without special need, falls within the Amendment’s coverage, indeed within its core” (citing, among other authorities, Eugene Volokh’s oft-cited “Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda,” 56 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 1443 (2009)).

Standard of review: In general, judicial review of a law that affects constitutional rights depends on what the law does. Laws that merely regulate the time, place or manner (e.g., no using loudspeakers in the park after 10 p.m.) received “intermediate scrutiny.” Laws that regulate the content of speech (e.g., people can have parades for holidays, but not for political purposes) receive “strict scrutiny.” Laws that destroy a right, or laws that discriminate based on the viewpoint of speech, are categorically unconstitutional (e.g., radio stations may praise the conduct of the war but may not criticize it).

The Heller case involved a handgun ban. Rather than applying strict or intermediate scrutiny, the Supreme Court held the ban to be categorically unconstitutional. Suppose that instead of banning handguns, D.C. had allowed handgun possession only by a “small minority with a special need to possess.” The D.C. Circuit was doubtful that the Supreme Court would have upheld such a near-total ban. Indeed, the D.C. handgun ban had what the Supreme Court called “minor exceptions,” but the Heller opinion said that the exceptions were not “relevant here.” Instead, the Heller opinion recognized a general right to arms, not a right only for persons with a special need. Heller vindicates the rights of “those who possess common levels of need.”

For almost all D.C. residents, the “special need” requirement amounts to a “total ban” on their right to bear arms. Hence, it is categorically unconstitutional, for the same reason that the total ban on handguns was held unconstitutional in Heller.

Dissent: Judge Henderson dissented, as she has in every previous case that has upheld a scintilla of Second Amendment rights. In the D.C. Circuit, the case that later became D.C. v. Heller in the Supreme Court was Parker v. D.C. While the majority held D.C.’s handgun ban unconstitutional, Judge Henderson invented the novel theory that because the Second Amendment says “the security of a free State,” the Second Amendment does not apply in the District of Columbia. (This was refuted in Volokh, “Necessary to the Security of a Free State,” 83 Notre Dame L.Rev. 1 (2007), which is cited in Heller; “free State” in this context means a free polity.)

Similarly, in Heller III, the D.C. Circuit majority upheld some D.C. registration requirements, while rejecting others, such as the requirement that registered guns must be re-registered every three years. The alleged purpose was to inform the police about lost or stolen guns, but D.C. already had a separate law requiring the reporting of lost or stolen guns. Judge Henderson would have upheld all of the D.C. registration ordinance.

In accord with opinions from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Circuits, she argued that the right to arms outside the home is far from the core of the Second Amendment. Accordingly, no more than intermediate scrutiny should apply. Especially when considering the unique needs of the densely populated District, with it many security concerns, courts should defer to the D.C. Council’s judgment that a near-total ban on carrying would promote public safety.

Conclusion: Lower federal court judges have varied widely in how rigorously they apply the Supreme Court’s Heller decision. Some, like Judge Henderson, have opted for a very weak form of intermediate scrutiny (or even less) that will uphold just about every gun control other than a handgun ban. Others have applied a more vigorous review, and have found some (but certainly not all) gun controls to be unconstitutional. (For a survey of the decisions, see Kopel & Greenlee, “The Federal Circuits’ Second Amendment Doctrines,” 61 St. Louis U.L.J.  193 (2017).)

In my view, the Wrenn majority correctly followed Heller, which teaches that total bans (or 99 percent bans) applied to law-abiding citizens are categorically unconstitutional. Notably, the Wrenn decision acknowledges Heller‘s dictum that carrying may be prohibited “in sensitive places, such as schools and government buildings.” Given the multitude of government buildings in the District, there are still many places where carrying may be prohibited. However, when a woman is walking at night from her apartment to an automobile parking lot, the District may not prohibit her from being able to defend herself.

As explained elsewhere in The Post, “The ruling from a three-judge panel gives city officials 30 days to decide whether to appeal for review by a full complement of D.C. Circuit judges. If the court does not agree to revisit the case sitting as an en banc panel, the order would take effect seven days later.” After losing in Parker and Heller III, the D.C. attorney general petitioned for en banc review, which requires an affirmative vote by the majority of non-senior Judges. Neither petition was granted.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/25/d-c-circuit-upholds-right-to-bear-arms-for-d-c-residents/

[cesc210379]

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