Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) became the latest anti-gun control figure to embrace the notion that the best way to protect against future tragedies like Newtown, Connecticut, is to put more guns in public schools. In his monthly “Ask the Governor” segment on WTOP radio, McDonnell endorsed the idea of arming adults in schools.

Asked about allowing school officials to have guns, McDonnell said it is a “discussion that is probably timely.” He explained:

McDONNELL: I know there has been a knee-jerk reaction against that, I think there should at least be a discussion of that. If people were armed, not just a police officer, but other school officials who were trained and chose to have a weapon, certainly there would be an opportunity to stop aggressors trying to come into the school, so I think that’s a reasonable discussion that ought to be had.

Listen to the audio (h/t: ProgressVA):

While several pro-gun lawmakers have indicated that they will reconsider gun control in the wake of Friday’s tragedy, some are using the tragedy to push for even more guns. McDonnell joins Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) and Republican legislators in Oklahoma, Nevada, and South Dakota in embracing the idea of arming adults in schools.

Among a spate of eleventh-hour bills quietly pushed through the Michigan legislature during last week’s lame-duck session was one authorizing the state to contract with private prisons. If signed by Gov. Rick Snyder (R), the bill would clear the state to enter into a contract with a private prison operator that has been accused of enabling juvenile abuse, deaths, and riots at its facilities.

The corporation, Geo Group, owns the one now-vacant private prison in the state, which closed as a juvenile detention facility in 2005, and then temporarily housed California’s overflow prison population last year. Although the proposal was billed as a potential cost-saving measure, and will only allow a contract that saves the state at least five percent, the facility had initially stopped operating because it was actually costing the state more money. The State Senate’s bill analysis explains:

A 2005 report by the Michigan Office of the Auditor General concluded that “MYCF’s daily cost per prisoner was higher than 33 of 37 other State correctional facilities”, that the benefits to housing youth prisoners separately were unclear, and that it would be more cost effective to allocate the prisoners housed there among the other facilities.

However, it would be inaccurate to characterize this report as evidence that the North Lake Correctional Facility is necessarily an inefficient place to house prisoners. The reason the facility, then operating as MYCF, was not cost effective was primarily a shortage of maximum security prisoners.

Referring to the lack of prisoners in Michigan as a “shortage” is an unfortunate reflection of the mass incarceration culture that has led the United States to become the number one jailer. It also reflects the attitude of the private prison industry, which spends millions to lobby for policies that incarcerate more Americans. In fact, an earlier version of the Michigan bill was proposed by State Rep. Jon Bumstead (R) just nine days after he received a campaign contribution from a GEO Group executive who lives in Florida.

A federal judge found in April that the GEO Group “allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk” at a juvenile detention facility. And a high-level Geo Group executive recently lost a case against his former daughter-in-law for threatening to use his influence with ICE to challenge her immigration status. According to a video posted on YouTube, he testified that it would not be wrong to lie to a federal agency.

The prison population in Michigan has continued to decline since the juvenile detention facility closed, according to the bill analysis, and there is no reason to believe it will go up again. If it does go up, there are several now-vacant prison facilities that are “mothballed” – maintained in working condition in the event they should become necessary. It is unclear whether the fixed cost of maintaining these vacant state facilities would even be considered in calculating the cost savings of contracting with a private prison.

Other bills pushed through the Republican-controlled legislature included an anti-union “right-to-work” measure, an extreme abortion ban, and a rewrite of Michigan’s concealed handgun law that would, among other things, allow guns in classrooms (which Gov. Snyder said he would veto, according to reports).

One day before the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, the Michigan Legislature passed a bill to specifically allow guns into schools and other “gun-free zones.” This bill joined a so-called “right-to-work” law and an extreme abortion ban, the GOP-controlled legislature rammed through during its lame duck session.

Following the mass-shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, however, Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) promised to give the guns bill “extra consideration.” According to the Detroit News, Snyder has now decided to veto the legislation.

Gov. Rick Snyder plans to veto legislation allowing concealed weapons in public schools, according to bill sponsor Sen. Mike Green, R-Mayville.

The bill allowing highly trained gun owners to carry concealed weapons inside public schools was delivered to Snyder’s desk Tuesday.

“He’s not going to sign it,” Green told The Detroit News.

The Connecticut tragedy has already forced many strident gun supporters to re-examine their beliefs. Most notably, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who once cut an ad featuring himself literally shooting a piece of legislation, is now leading the push for gun control on Capitol Hill in Sandy Hook’s wake.

In a remarkable blow to freedom of information, a federal trial judge ruled this summer that a company could sue a product safety agency anonymously for posting an improper report about the company, sealed the opinion entirely for several months and then released it in heavily redacted form. According to consumer groups now challenging the decision, this is the first known example of a court both allowing a corporation to sue anonymously, and agreeing to seal a case, all so the company could protect its reputation.

The lawsuit was also the first-ever legal challenge to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database, launched in 2011 to provide access to consumer safety complaints before potentially hazardous products are recalled. The redacted opinion removes any facts about the case, leaving visible only the court’s conclusion that the commission improperly posted a report about the company that it held was inaccurate and would damage the company’s reputation.

Weighing the fundamental First Amendment interest in transparency of government decisions against the economic interest of the corporation, U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. found that the corporation’s interest prevailed, writing that “although the law favors access to judicial records, the facts of this case overcome this presumption.” The “facts” include that the court deemed the information “materially inaccurate” (a determination which no one but the court can assess, since all relevant information has been redacted), “injurious to Plaintiff’s reputation, and risks harm to Plaintiff’s economic interests.”

The court went on to use similar reasoning to allow the company to remain entirely anonymous in the litigation, even though decision after decision has denied anonymity to individual litigants who faced reputation damage. The brief by Public Citizen, Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union provides several examples:

[W]hen a doctor sued to enjoin state medical board disciplinary proceedings against him, the Tenth Circuit held that the risk to the doctor’s professional reputation did not justify the use of a pseudonym. The Fifth Circuit refused to allow a group of law students to litigate Title VII claims under pseudonyms despite their contention that revealing their identities would jeopardize their future employment prospects. Numerous district courts, including one in this circuit, have likewise rejected pleas for pseudonymity based on potential threats to professional reputation.

But Judge Williams declined to apply the same rigorous analysis to the corporation that is typically applied to individual people because several of the factors, aimed at protecting personal privacy, did not easily apply to corporations, and, “Like a square peg in a round hole, the … factors do not easily graft onto this case, and the Court refuses to force them to fit.” Incredibly, Williams added, “To do so would be to manufacture a miscarriage of justice.”

As the consumer groups point out in their filing, the court’s unredacted ruling, if made public, would in fact vindicate the corporation’s reputation, since the court entirely sides with the corporation and the inaccuracy of the report. What’s more, while the court ruled that the commission was enjoined from posting the report, its decision does not bar any other public discussion of the topic, and any attempt to censor public statements about a corporation’s product would be anathema to First Amendment free expression principles and encourage even more secret litigation:

The district court’s leap from enjoining publication of the report in the database to imposing a broad cloak of secrecy on the entire litigation seems to be rooted in a troubling assumption about the undesirability of public debate. The court envisioned that if the facts of the case were public, Company Doe would be powerless to protect itself against the report’s charge that its product caused harm: “although Plaintiff could publicly comment on the report’s inaccuracy, ordinary consumers would likely dismiss this measure as disingenuous damage control.”

The First Amendment rejects precisely this attitude of distrust toward the marketplace of ideas. As Justice Brandeis explained, the possibility of “falsehood and fallacies” in our discourse does not justify prior restraint; rather, our Constitution teaches that “the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

A sixth-grader in Kearns, Utah brought an unloaded handgun to his elementary school on Monday, reportedly at the urging of his parents.

According to the local Fox affiliate, the 11 year-old told his fellow students he was encouraged by his parents to bring the gun to school “for protection” following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday. Police are currently determining what role the parents had in the student’s actions, but the school acted quickly to disarm the boy after learning he had the firearm on school grounds:

The boy reportedly pulled the gun, a .22-caliber pistol, out of his backpack during recess Monday morning.

“At recess, he pointed a gun to my head and said he was going to kill me,” said Isabel Rios, one of the boy’s fellow 6th grade students.

Granite School District officials say students didn’t notify teachers about the weapon until 3 p.m.

Far-right advocates of looser gun restrictions have been advocating since Friday for more guns in schools to prevent tragedies like the one that occurred in Newtown. Among the proposals being floated are allowing teachers to bring guns to class in Oklahoma and arming teachers with assault rifles. These suggestions come despite a renewed support from the public to put stricter gun control laws into place.

Yesterday, a sharply divided Montana Supreme Court turned aside a lawsuit by several same-sex couples “complaining that they are unable to obtain protections and benefits that are available to similarly situated different-sex couples who marry under State law.” Although this is a setback for gay rights, it is not clear that this setback will be permanent. Rather than challenge a particular provision of law, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit “seek a general declaration of their rights and seek orders enjoining the State to provide them a ‘legal status and statutory structure’ that protects their rights.” In essence, yesterday’s order tells the plaintiffs to be more specific in explaining just how their rights have been violated — and which specific statutes have violated them — and then come back an try again.

Three of the court’s seven justices dissented, in opinions indicating that they would extend equal benefits to gay couples right now, rather than wait for another round of litigation. One justice, Justice Jim Rice, wrote a separate concurring opinion indicating that he rejects extending equal rights to gay couples outright. So, with three votes on record in support of gay rights and only one opposed, the plaintiffs appear to be in a strong position if their case reaches these same justices again.

The most significant impact of yesterday’s order, however, is that it ensures that this issue will not reach the same panel of seven justices again. Justice James Nelson will retire from the bench this month. And his 119 page dissenting opinion leaves no doubt that he is the court’s staunchest supporter of equality:

There are many who believe that gays and lesbians are second-class citizens; that they are morally inferior; that they are objects worthy of societal scorn, derision, and hatred; that they may be reviled and demonized on the floor of the Legislature with impunity; that they may be discriminated against by local governments; that they may be bullied in their schools and workplaces; and that they are not entitled to the same rights accorded to heterosexuals. Such views parallel those held by many—even the United States Supreme Court—regarding racial minorities and women a century ago. . . . We legitimize those similar, pernicious views about gays and lesbians when, as the Court does today, we abrogate our solemn obligation to declare and uphold the constitutional rights of all Montanans—especially those among us who have been subjected to majoritarian and state-imposed hatred and discrimination.

My abiding belief is that no person—no human being—in our society should be reviled, demonized, and discriminated against for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, any more than they should be treated in that fashion for being Native American, Presbyterian, female, disabled, poor, or Irish. No person should be the object of state-sanctioned bigotry simply for being born homosexual or for choosing to love another person of the same sex. No person should be made to suffer the deprivation of their civil rights and liberties because of the religious beliefs and doctrines of others—doctrines that are now constitutionalized in the Marriage Amendment and enforced by Montana’s government. And no person should be stripped of her or his inviolable human dignity based on sexual orientation. Ever!

Although Nelson deeply regrets the court’s decision to put this question off until another day, he ends his opinion on a hopeful note: “the taboo will die because the scare tactics, propaganda, and misinformation of those who would hang on to the maledictions and stereotypes have proven to be so patently false, malicious, and absurd. Most decent people just hate being lied to. Indeed, a not-too-distant generation of Montanans will consign today’s decision, the Marriage Amendment, and the underlying intolerance to the dustbin of history and to the status of a meaningless, shameful, artifact.”

Teachers and principals may soon be packing heat in the classroom, if Oklahoma State Rep. Mark McCullough (R) has his way. According to a report by The Oklahoman, the lawmaker “pledged to introduce legislation in the upcoming session to allow principals and teachers who go through training to be able to carry firearms on school property.” McCullough made the now-familiar argument that people intent on mass shootings are unlikely to follow the law:

This sacrosanct notion that we cannot do anything but have gun-free zones is just a fallacy. What we’re dealing with here is people who don’t care. They’ve erased their moral compass. They don’t care about the law, and they are intent on horrific acts.

Oklahoma’s teachers appear to disagree. Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers, told The Oklahoman that “Schools can be emotional places at times. Kids can get emotional. Teachers can get emotional. Parents come in emotional. Throw weapons into that mix, and it can be dangerous.” Research backs Allen up: there is very little support for the idea that concealed carry decreases gun homicides, and significant evidence that increasing the spread of guns leads to more death.

Several other state legislatures are considering similar legislation, cheered on by a number of Republicans and pro-gun activists.

On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a federal law prohibiting the possession of firearms while being “illegally or unlawfully in the United States.” In doing so, they join three other circuits which also upheld the same ban. The unanimous panel included Judge Paul Niemeyer, who may be the most conservative judge on this court, and Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, who is one of the court’s most thoughtful liberals. So it appears unlikely that the growing consensus — that banning undocumented immigrants from carrying firearms does not violate the Second Amendment — will be disturbed even by the pro-gun Roberts Court.

The most significant part of the Fourth Circuit’s decision, however, isn’t its holding; it is the way that it reached that holding. Last year, the severely conservative Fifth Circuit issued an opinion suggesting that undocumented immigrants may not simply be outside the scope of the Second Amendment, but that they also cannot invoke the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Both the Second and the Fourth Amendment refer to “the right of the people” to bear arms or be free from overbearing police actions, and the Fifth Circuit reasoned that undocumented immigrants are not part of “the people.”

Friday’s decision, by contrast, largely relies on a different analysis that does not threaten immigrant’s right to be free from unlawful searches and seizures:

[W]e need not limit our analysis to the scope of the term “the people” and thereby become enmeshed in the question of whether “the people” includes illegal aliens or whether the term has the same scope in each of its constitutional uses. This is because Heller concludes, through a distinct analysis, that the core right historically protected by the Second Amendment is the right of self-defense by “‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’” . . .

Even though the Heller Court stressed that the core right of the Second Amendment protects law-abiding members of the political community, it did not face a law prohibiting firearms possession by a particular class of persons. Nonetheless, we can employ the historical analysis it prescribed to apply its observations to this case and thus to reach the conclusion that we do—that illegal aliens do not belong to the class of law-abiding members of the political community to whom the Second Amendment gives protection.

To be sure, there is a lot not to like about the court’s core conclusion that people who enter the country illegally carry with them a taint of lawlessness sufficient to change their legal rights. Nevertheless, the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning has far fewer implications than other court decisions which suggested that police have free rein to treat undocumented immigrants however they please.

Welcome to Justiceline, ThinkProgress Justice’s morning round-up of the latest legal news and developments. Remember to follow us on Twitter at @TPJustice

• The Senate lost its longest-serving member yesterday. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) was 88, and third in the line of presidential succession. He was the first Japanese-American senator and the second-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. 
• Three days after the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, the National Rifle Association has remained silent.
• The Associated Press documents how mass shootings around the world have spurred gun control in other countries.
• The ACLU is challenging a California law passed by ballot initiative that requires registered sex offenders to turn over all Internet identifiers, including their Facebook, Twitter and email account information. The law was temporarily blocked by a federal judge the day after it passed.
• Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich granted clemency to a death row inmate Monday who had argued he was too obese to be humanely executed.