Kentucky

A lot of folks will argue that there is no such thing as an ýA/Dý or ýaccidental discharge.ý There is only an ýN/Dý or ýnegligent discharge.ý Accident or negligence, a mishap at the Tinseltown theater complex in Louisville resulted in an injury to a woman at the theater and a wanton endangerment conviction for the man whose pocket pistol went off.

William Newland was waiting in a line at the Tinseltown USA movie theater June 30, 2000, when a handgun in his pocket went off. The bullet ricocheted off the floor and hit a woman in her upper thigh, where it remains lodged to this day. Newland was originally charged with a second-degree felony assault, but the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor count of endangerment.

I was actually on-scene when this happened, or nearly so; I arrived at the theater a half-hour afterwards and wondered what all the police cars were there for.

A Georgetown man faces federal gun charges almost 11 weeks after agents first raided his store. Ronnie Gayle Perkins, 58, of 120 Hiawatha Trail, was charged with dealing in firearms without a license, possessing semiautomatic assault weapons, furnishing false identification to a firearms dealer and possessing unregistered firearms. Perkins was indicted on the charges by a federal grand jury in Lexington on Feb. 9, Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and Karl Stankovic, resident agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Lexington division, said in a press release.

This should be a case to watch.

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

That 'material' is a short story about zombies overruning a generic high school. Yes, zombies. Fiction. The sheer idiocy of the police is astounding. What's worse is that the student was turned in by his own grandparents.

If you want to blog as a lawyer in Kentucky, and your posts are signed with your name, then you'll need to pay a filing fee of $50 per post (as "advertisements").  The story starts at the Legal Ethics Blog and has comments from the Volokh Conspiracy and many others.  I got it from Wizbang.

I don't see why lawyers should be subject to more restrictions on their speech, or their advertising, than anyone else.  Like the American Medical Association, bar associations seem to me to be simply a manner of enforcing extralegal restrictions in order to maintain a monopoly on services, whether legal or medical.  Some of those restrictions are good, insofar as membership in the association can be taken as a promise that the members adhere to certain rules and policies over and above their legal obligation; however, when membership is mandatory, those rules and policies are effectively granted force of law for those practicing the profession. 

Had I my druthers, I would strike down any such membership requirement as a restriction on freedom of association.  Since I don't, I contend that those associations in which membership is mandatory are subject to First-Amendment restrictions on their actions in the same manner that semi-public institutions such as state schools are.