Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Feb. 18., 2014, Los Angeles Times.

Even if you accept the notion that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms — a proposition we wish the Supreme Court had rejected — states should be able to place reasonable restrictions on that right in the interests of public safety. One such restriction is California’s requirement that permits to carry a concealed weapon be issued only for “good cause.” Last week, a federal appeals court needlessly weakened that provision.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of judges of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of five residents of San Diego County who had challenged the county’s interpretation of the good cause requirement, which denies permits to applicants who can’t cite some specific threat to their safety.

In his dissent last week, 9th Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas rightly argued that his colleagues should have confined their inquiry to the questions of whether the Second Amendment protected the concealed carrying of handguns in public and whether San Diego’s rules infringed on that right. That approach would have yielded a different result.

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By Drew Grossman, Outside

Your supplement isn’t just worthless — it’s detrimental to performance. A recently published study by the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences shows that taking large doses of vitamins C and E may blunt the effects of endurance training by interfering with cellular adaptations to exercise.

The study tracked 54 athletic men and women participating in an endurance training program over an 11-week period. Subjects received either 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C, combined with 235 milligrams of vitamin E, or a placebo pill.

These dosages are consistent with amounts commonly found in such over-the-counter products as Emergen-C.

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TAMBA will be hosting a U.S. Forest Service-approved crew leader training course April 5-6 in the Tahoe area. The Forest Service has stringent training requirements for volunteer crew leaders, and this training may also be accepted by other land manager agencies.

The training will be taught by Kevin Joell, TAMBA’s trails director, and Jacob Quinn, trails engineer for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.

Topics will include volunteer management and supervision techniques, safety briefings and job hazard analysis, and emergency procedures and communications. Although trail building standards and best practices will be reviewed, it is expected that attendees will have participated in multiple sanctioned trail days previously. First Aid and CPR certification is also required of crew leaders. It is not included in this course, but will be offered separately.

The cost is $50 for non-TAMBA volunteers. Email trails@mountainbiketahoe.com for more information and to register.

Washoe County Sheriff’s Office’s Forensic Science Division is having an open house April 24 from 8:30am to 4pm.

Visitors will get to see how a real lab works. Lab staff will show people how latent prints are developed, test for the presence of blood, get a DNA profile, determine whether a white powder is cocaine, and other types of testing.

There will also be an opportunity to solve a crime via a mock crime scene.

The lab is at 911 Parr Blvd. in Reno.

RSVP to (775) 328.2800.

This image shows one of the 1800s-era U.S. gold coins unearthed in California. Photo/AP/Saddle Ridge Hoard discoverers via Kagin’s Inc.

By Ruben Vives, Los Angeles Times

A cache of 19th century gold coins uncovered by a California couple on their daily walk could end up selling for more than $10 million, making it the greatest buried treasure ever unearthed in the United States, experts said.

Donald Kagin, president of Kagin’s Inc., a numismatic firm that specializes in U.S. gold coins, announced the discovery Tuesday. The company is representing the couple, who wish to remain anonymous.

Identified by the firm only as “John and Mary”, the couple told Kagin they couldn’t believe they had made such a big discovery and were grateful for it. They unearthed the coins after noticing an old can sticking out of the dirt on a section of their property, the firm said.

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By Michele Richinick, MSNBC

Smart guns similar to James Bond’s pistol are marching closer to reality as manufacturers expect to continue testing prototypes throughout 2014 and a few politicians push for new technology to make firearms safer.

Manufacturers design “smart” guns, also referred to as “personalized” or “owner-authorized” firearms, to prevent intentional and unintentional shootings by children and other unauthorized users. The idea of incorporating technology into guns took hold during the early 1990s when the National Institute of Justice commissioned a study to find a solution to prevent law enforcement officials from being killed by their own weapons, both in the home and by assailants, said Donald Sebastian, senior vice president for research and development at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. A report published in 1995 recommended radio-frequency identification as the viable approach for placing an electronic system into a firearm.

The U.S. government became attentive to the issue in the late 1990s by providing federal funding to accelerate the development of a safe and more secure personalized handgun, Sebastian said. Manufacturing companies worked with biometrics – using features of an individual to identify the user of a gun – in an attempt to implement firearms technology. But there wasn’t a commercial outcome.

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Monopalooza is an annual gathering of monoskiers.

This year it is in South Lake Tahoe Feb. 27-March 2. Feb. 28 is dedicated in the memory of Tom Wendell who died last year.

Wendell was known as Doc Mono. There will be a short memorial for him Feb. 28 at 2pm at the bottom of Chair 6 at Kirkwood Mountain Resort.

By Laila Kearney, Reuters

NASA scientists plan to use images shot from space and within the Earth’s atmosphere to help California monitor one of the worst droughts in its recorded history, officials said on Tuesday.

Scientists said they would deploy imaging tools to measure snowpack and groundwater levels and use a host of other technologies to help better map and assess the water resources in a state that produces half the nation’s fruits and vegetables.

The California Department of Water Resources has contracted with NASA to use data that will be collected next month with airplane mapping tools to measure water stored in the California snowpack, according to Jeanine Jones, the department’s interstate water resources manager.

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• Squaw Valley is planning a Welcome Home Celebration for all of the region’s Olympians on March 21. More details will be coming.

• Slow Food Lake Tahoe and Mamasake are putting on an event March 5 at 6pm to raise consciousness about sustainable seafood. The $45 tickets are available online.

• The grand opening for the Aspens at South Lake Tahoe affordable housing project scheduled for Feb. 27 at 3pm has been postponed to an undetermined date because of the weather forecast.

• Mark Carlson is now the administrative services director for South Lake Tahoe.

• Caesars Entertainment, owner of Harveys and Harrah’s at Lake Tahoe, was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency for its Excellence in Greenhouse Gas Management-Goal Achievement.

Minden airport increases its firefighting capabilities. Photo/Provided

The Bureau of Land Management bought a 10,000-gallon tank for fire retardant to be permanently installed at the Minden-Tahoe Airport.

This will allow the airport to respond to a fire more timely.

In the past a semi-tanker full of fire retardant would be brought the airport to fight a fire. This was deemed to be inefficient and expensive.

The tank will be installed in a permanent containment area near the Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center at the north end of the airport.