Whipped Cream Difficulties

Late last week, Patrick over at Popehat posted an interesting entry about the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision in Britt v. State. The short version is that Britt was convicted of quaalude possession (a felony) in the 1970s, sued to maintain his right to own firearms, and won.

The Court, in a 5-2 decision, limited its holding to Britt’s specific facts, finding that the exercise of state police power to bar firearms to a non-violent felon, who had demonstrated good character for thirty years, was an unreasonable restriction of the state right to keep and bear arms.

I strongly recommend going over to Popehat and reading all of Patrick’s excellent post. But I want to use it as a jumping-off point to discuss a question I’ve been wondering about, without hijacking Popehat.

Where does the State (I’m using “the State” to refer to both state and Federal governments) get the authority to deny Constitutional rights to felons?

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By way of Say Uncle, we learn of a Miami New Times article on store clerks exercising their right to self-defense; “South Florida Store Clerks Go Vigilante“.

In spite of the inaccurate headline, the article itself strikes me as being fairly even handed and sympathetic to the clerks interviewed.

“This is our police!” he declares, pointing at his handgun. “This is our state attorney!”

On the other hand, there’s a developing story here in Austin. Briefly, two young idiots decided to try and steal a 12-pack from a convenience store; the clerk came out and cranked off a dozen rounds at them. The clerk apparently hit with at least one of them, as one of the crooks was found dead inside the abandoned car a few hours later.

The punchline? The clerk is being charged with first degree murder. I see no mention in the article of the getaway driver being charged with anything, even though he was apparently in the process of filing a false police report when the cops showed up at his door.

Police said they later interviewed Romero, who said he fired a pistol about 12 times at Vielma, picked up the shell casings and put them in his vehicle.

He also told police that he picked up the beer dropped by Vielma and threw it into a trash bin, and he deleted images of the incident from the store’s video surveillance system.

Ooooo. Bad move, space cadet. If you had a good reason for shooting, the evidence is only going to help you. Altering or destroying evidence only makes you look bad.