The Secret History of Guns, Drug Running Grandmas… and More

THE SECRET HISTORY OF GUNS

In September’s issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Adam Winkler has a fascinating article on the history of guns and gun policy in America.

Here’s the sub head, which will explain, very succinctly what the story is about:

The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight.

Read the rest.

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THE NY TIMES OPINES ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAPD

If for some reason you missed it, The NYT’s Adam Nagourney wrote a good and to the point story about how much the LAPD has changed in the past ten plus years that I meant to include in yesterday’s Must Reads. Here’s how it opens:

It had all the makings of another turbulent moment for the Los Angeles Police Department, an agency once notorious for an “L.A. Confidential” style of heavy-handed policing, hostile relations with minorities and corruption. Two months after triumphantly announcing the arrest of a suspect in a brutal beating at Dodger Stadium, the police admitted that they had arrested the wrong man, and charged two other people with the crime.

But unlike other potentially explosive episodes that have rocked this department over the decades, there were no indignant denials or attacks on critics. Instead, the police chief, Charlie Beck, wrote an op-ed article in The Los Angeles Times explaining what had gone wrong and expressing regret at some of his own public comments. “We can do much better,” Chief Beck wrote.

The moment reflected what has been a revolution for the police department that was once the model for Sgt. Joe Friday and “Dragnet.” Twenty years after the police beating of Rodney King was caught on videotape, and 10 years after the Justice Department imposed a consent decree to battle pervasive corruption in the Rampart Division, this has become a department transformed, offering itself up — in a way that not so many years ago would have been unthinkable — as a model police agency for the United States.

“It’s been an amazing transformation,” said John W. Mack, a former head of the Urban League who is the president of the Police Commission, the civilian board that oversees the force. “The L.A.P.D. of today is very, very different than 10, 12 years ago, when I was one of the people who was constantly battling them.”

And so on. Read it, I tell you!

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NOTE TO SELF: DON’T TAKE MOTOR OIL INTO CANADA WITHOUT ALSO BRINGING A DEFENSE LAWYER

Another fun story brought to you by the drug war. Here’s how the article for the Minn. Star Tribune about the wrongly-jailed non-drug smuggling Minnesotan grandma opens:

In April, Janet Goodin of Warroad, Minn., was crossing into Canada for an evening of bingo with her daughters when an officer with the Canadian Border Service conducted a routine search of her van. The officer found an old bottle of motor oil, did a field test and told her that it contained heroin.

“I can’t even describe the feeling of amazement,” Goodin, 66, said in an interview. “I said, ‘That’s not possible, it’s leftover oil.'”

The bottle was re-tested, and agents said it again revealed the presence of heroin. Goodin was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail, where she was strip-searched. The motor oil was sent to a Canadian federal laboratory, which eventually determined there was no heroin in it. After 12 days behind bars, Goodin was released.

Goodin’s case has been seized upon by critics who question the reliability of field drug-test kits, which are used widely by law enforcement….

Y’think?

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SEE HERE’S THE DEAL: IF YOU KILL PEOPLE WITH TYPEWRITERS YOU WRECK IT FOR THE REST OF US

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just upheld the Nevada Department of Corrections’ policy prohibiting inmates’ personal possession of typewriters. And if you read the ruling, you’ll see the 9th Circuit’s point. (Thanks to Howard Bashman at How Appealing for flagging this ruling.)

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LA TEACHERS TEST A BRAND NEW PILOT FOR TEACHER EVALUATION

Jason Song at the LA Times has the story about the pilot program and it sounds encouraging. Here’s how the story opens:

This is what one of Los Angeles Unified’s most ambitious reform efforts looks like: about 30 people gathered in a Gardena school auditorium, watching a video of a teacher trying to get her young students to understand a John Updike poem.

The viewers furiously type their observations into laptop computers and discuss their impressions of the lesson the next day. They ask open-ended questions — “What are some possible explanations for the lack of understanding of the vocabulary?” — all aimed at helping the teacher improve.

These training sessions are the school district’s first concrete steps toward replacing its age-old teacher evaluation system, which is widely regarded as a failure. The new version is based on more detailed observations, student and parent feedback, and students’ standardized test scores.

According to Song, LAUSD Supt. John Deasy hopes to have some kind of new evaluation in place by the 2012-13 school year. May it be so.

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AND BECAUSE IT’S CHARLES BUKOWSKI’S BIRTH DATE TODAY…