Clayton Cramer.
Conservative. Tennessee (now). Ex-Idaho. Software engineer. Historian. Trying to prevent Idiocracy from becoming a documentary.
Email complaints/requests about copyright infringement to clayton @ claytoncramer.com. Reminder: the last copyright troll that bothered me went bankrupt.
Friday, October 16, 2026
The Dumbest X Post Ever!
I Have Read Some Horrifying Incidents. Some Are So Horrible That They Cannot Be What They First Appear
Arcadia, Fla. (1967)
Before 11/01/1967: Police charged the parents of seven
children with poisoning them with parathion, an insecticide. The father was 32. The sheriff was preparing
to investigate the previous suspicious death of five other children of the
father. He had taken out life insurance
policies on the children. The father was sentenced to death. Subsequently,
evidence established that a babysitter admitted doing the poisoning and
evidence clearing him was suppressed at trial. He was released in 1989.
Category: family
Suicide: no
Cause: unknown
Weapon: poison[1]
[1]
"Poison In Food, Parents Facing Death Charges," [Fremont, O.] News-Messenger, Nov. 01, 1967,
1; “Delayed justice for an innocent man,” Florida
Times-Union, May 16, 2019, https://www.jacksonville.com/story/opinion/2019/05/15/tuesday-editorial-delayed-justice-for-innocent-man/5145739007.
.
The Next Time Some Gun Banner Says We Scrapped Public Safety for the Second Amendment...
The right to keep and bear arms has limits, and this is one: Those who pose a risk of physical violence from misusing guns can be disarmed before that risk becomes a reality. Not every convict poses such a risk—but James Bost does. He pleaded guilty to terroristic threats and other crimes. Years later, police caught him with a pistol not once, but twice. So he was charged with having a gun despite his convictions, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which makes it illegal for felons to have guns. He moved to dismiss the charge, arguing that this law is unconstitutional both facially and as applied to him. But Bost’s violent conviction is prima facie enough to disarm him. We hold that some predicate crimes (like Bost’s conviction for terroristic threats) demonstrate a prima facie risk of physical violence from misusing guns and that those convicted of such crimes may presumptively be disarmed based on those convictions alone. Because the Second Amendment does not protect Bost’s access to guns, we will AFFIRM. ...
Years after carjacking, Bost is caught with a gun In 2002, Bost carjacked someone, threatening to kill the driver unless she gave him money. To get that money, he drove to her mother’s home, where she escaped from the car, screaming for help. Bost was then arrested and pleaded guilty to terroristic threats and criminal conspiracy (as well as false imprisonment and simple assault). Those first two Pennsylvania crimes are first-degree misdemeanors punishable by up to five years in prison. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 2706, 905(a), 1104(1). One element of the terroristic-threats crime required “a threat to commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize another.” Id. § 2706(a)(1) (cleaned up). Bost was sentenced to four years’ probation. Later, while on bail for another arrest, Bost failed to appear in court. U.S. Marshals tracked him down. They found him in his girlfriend’s home, next to a couch with a stolen .38 caliber pistol on it. Bost was indicted federally for possessing a stolen gun and possessing a gun despite his convictions (based on the terroristic-threats and conspiracy convictions). 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (the so-called felon-in-possession law), (j) (possession of a stolen gun). He moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional as applied to him and that it is facially unconstitutional....
Individualized judgment was the norm. For centuries, disarmament was tied to a judge’s finding that someone posed a risk of physical violence from misusing guns. Sometimes, that meant punishing risky behavior. Going-armed laws punished and disarmed those who used their weapons to menace others. See Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 693, 697–98 (citing Sir John Knight’s Case, 87 Eng. Rep. 75, 76 (K.B. 1686) & 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries *149). Rooted in the old bans on affrays, they targeted conduct that spread fear and threatened the peace: going armed “to the Terror of the People.” Id. at 697 (internal quotation marks omitted). These laws were often enacted with bans on fighting, together targeting conduct likely to lead to violence. Id.
In 1791, this guy would likely have been unable to exercise his right to bear arms because his right to breathe would already have been ended.