D.C. Gun Case Draws Crowd of High Court 'Friends'
Recent Cases
[##_1L|1408982622.jpg|width="131" height="91" alt=""|_##]With the Supreme Court examining for the first time in 70 years the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment, a group of gay and transgender gun owners called the Pink Pistols could not miss out on a chance to tell the justices about its special needs. With the opaque and oddly punctuated 27 words of 18th-century prose at last under the microscope, linguistic professors wanted the court to know that "the Second Amendment's absolute construction functions as a sentence modifier."
With the intentions of the Framers in question and modern social policy at stake, justices considering whether the District of Columbia's ban on handguns violates the Constitution have received an avalanche of advice from professors, doctors, social scientists, district attorneys, historians, religious groups, members of Congress and, of course, Vice President Cheney. They may be nothing more than an ego boost for a client or provide the argument that wins the case, but such amicus curiae briefs have become an essential part of high-stakes Supreme Court cases.
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Texas Adopts Statewide Texting-While-Driving Ban
Effective September 1, 2017, Texas will become the 47th state to pass a statewide ban on texting while driving. Governor Abbott’s signing of House Bill 62 is an effort to unify Texas under a uniform ban and remedy the “patchwork quilt of regulations that dictate driving practices in Texas.”
The bill specifically prohibits drivers from reading, writing, or sending an electronic message on a device unless the vehicle is stopped. That includes texting and emailing. It does not, however, prohibit dialing a number to call someone, talking on the phone using a hands-free device, or using the phone’s GPS system.
Violations would be punishable by a fine ranging from $25 to $99, to be set by each municipality. Although penalties could rise to as much as $200 for repeat offenders.
Studies have found that a driver’s reaction time is half as much when a driver is distracted by sending or reading a text message. According to state officials, in 2015 more than 105,000 traffic accidents in Texas involved distracted driving, leading to at least 476 fatalities.