Arlington Is Hellbent on Keeping Armed Libertarians -- and Little Leaguers -- Off Its Streets
Over the summer, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor sided with Open Carry Tarrant County's Kory Watkins and struck down as unconstitutional an Arlington city ordinance banning people from distributing literature -- in his case copies of the Constitution -- to passing motorists. According to a brief prepared by the city attorney's office, the fallout was swift and disastrous.
"Within two weeks of Judge O'Connor's ruling on July 14, 2014, the City of Arlington received a request from a little league baseball team seeking permission to solicit donations on Cooper Street in the City of Arlington," the brief says. "The little league team sought to raise money for a little league trip by handing out bottled water on Cooper Street as a method for soliciting donations."
Next thing you know, the Girl Scouts will be wanting to hawk their absurdly delicious cookies from the Interstate 30 shoulder. A chilling prospect on its face, but in case the thinness of the line between gun-toting libertarians passing out Constitutions and Girl Scouts distributing cholesterol-laden desserts didn't sufficiently alarm the Arlington City Council, the city's lawyers provided some gruesome traffic statistics. Over the past four-and-a-half years, 625 pedestrians have been run over in Arlington. Thirty-three of them died.
It's not clear that any of the deaths involved people handing out literature. The 7-month-old baby killed along Cooper Street in May doesn't appear to have been doing so. But the sheer volume of pedestrian accidents convinced city officials that an ordinance barring pamphleteers from wandering out into the street was desperately needed.
Read more: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/10/arlington_still_hellbent_on_keeping_gun-toting_libertarians_and_little_leaguers_off_its_streets.php
= new reply since forum marked as read
Handing out copies of the Constitution is unconstitutional.
