Now that the active incident is over, some reporting is stabilizing. The goodless bad news is that the initial reports of 20, and then 22, dead and 50 injured have been scaled back to 18 dead and 13 wounded. Perhaps the initial “injured” claims included folks hurt as they scrambled for cover, but not shot.
The weapon used has shifted from “AR-15” to .308 “battle rifle” or “sniper rifle.” In fact, it now appears to have been a recently purchased Ruger SFAR, which is an AR-pattern rifle chambered in 7.62 NATO/.308 Win. It is semiautomatic only, so it certainly isn’t a select-firebattle rifle. But some reasonably knowlegeable people do apply the “battle rifle” label to military semi-autos in full-power rifle chamberings, so I may let that one slide.
The “recently purchased” aspect brings us to a fuzzy point of confusion. Was the shooter a prohibited person or not? And if he was, how was he able to lawfully purchased the weapon?
Early reports mentioned that he had threatened to “shoot up” the military base at Saco, Maine, and that he had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks. Since then, Maine law enforcement have stated that the shooter had been taken in for a mental health evaluation that did not rise to the level of involuntary commitment. So it might appear that he was not a prohibited person (though it’s fair to wonder why the authorities failed to invoke Maine’s yellow flag law).
But was that Saco-area threat what got him the the two week “committal”? Other reports said his military commander had him committed, and that appears to have happened near West Point in New York, during a training exercise.
Are Maine authorities talking about the Maine or New York incident as the “non-committal” hold? Or were there two separate incidents of the shooter-to-be being involuntarily held?
It matters, because what the Maine police seem to be describing would not make him a prohibited person, while a two week committal in New York, by order of command, certainly would.
Updated, October 30, 12:20PM:This seems pretty clear.
Card, who killed 18 people and wounded an additional 13 at a bar and a bowling alley on Oct. 25, attempted to buy a silencer on Aug. 5, but was unable to complete the purchase after admitting on a federal form that he had previously been committed to a mental institution, according to ABC. The Army committed Card to a psychiatric care facility for several weeks in July after he reported hearing voices, behaved “erratically” and threatened the base where he was stationed at the time. (RELATED: Maine Mass Shooting Suspect Robert Card Found Dead, Police Confirm)
“He came in and filled out the form, he checked off a box that incriminated himself saying that he was in an institution,” Rick LaChapelle, who owns the Coastal Defense Firearms store where Card tried to purchase the silencer, told ABC News. “Our staff was fantastic, let him finish filling out the form, and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Card, we cannot give you this… at this point in time, we cannot release this silencer to you because of the answers that you’ve given us.’”
Federal Judge Strikes Down California’s Decades-Old ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban: ‘No Historical Pedigree’
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, struck down the 1989 ban, enacted by the California legislature in response to the Stockton school shooting, which prohibits the transfer, manufacturing and possession of certain semiautomatic weapons. Benitez wrote that American tradition “is rich and deep in protecting a citizen’s enduring right to keep and bear common arms like rifles, shotguns, and pistols” and does not include firearm restrictions based on “looks or attributes.”
That’s our guy Benitez again. At least on 2A issues, he’s a constitutionalist, and he read and grasped BRUEN (something most of the Ninth Circuit Appeals haven’t managed).
The problem is that, as always, this case is going to keep bouncing back and forth to the Ninth for years, with endless stays of Benitez’s ruling. Unless and until SCOTUS starts issuing contempt of Supreme Court bench warrants for those who are willfully defying the Second Amendment and BRUEN.
But given that Chief Justice Roberts sided with the gun grabbers on the frame/receiver rule, don’t get too excited about warrants either.
On Shabbat in Israel as Jews celebrated Shabbat and Simchat Torah (celebration of finishing the annual reading cycle of the Torah) She was invaded by hamass. So how could this happen? How could Israel with it’s amazing IDF and Mossad have been caught so flat footed? Like the Yom Kippur war of 1973, this was a surprise attack that didn’t surprise those not blinded by normalcy bias. The Egyptians openly trained and conditioned the Israelis to write off the training as “just maneuvers”. In an interview with Tamar Yonah, Jonathan Pollard told of seeing a hamass video in which they were parading with all their rockets, in formation in military garb. He talked to people about it, people that should have listened and could have done something. Which they did, they told him it was “just propaganda”. He told them it wasn’t, to look at the end of the video, when they say “Soon”. Well, “soon” came about 2 weeks later. It might also be helpful to remember that the left is in control of the military and intelligence services in Israel and well as America. Remember as many Israelis were protesting judicial reform the left urged soldiers not to show up, they urged pilots and doctors not to show up for work. Do I know if that played a role? No, but it was on my mind as I just did a column on July 28th of this year. The left is willing to destroy anything, as long as they’re in control of what’s left, to paraphrase Moshe Feiglin.
So, how did we get here?
It also might be worth remembering Israel completely surrendered the Gaza strip to the arabs in 2005 as part of the disaster known as the 1993 Oslo accords. The IDF came and pulled Israelis living in the Gaza strip out of their homes and farms, all that was turned over to the “peaceful falestinians” just yearning for a land of their own. They got it, in 2005, Gaza, the two state solution. Israel traded land for peace. It has failed abysmally. And, they should have known. Talk about ignoring the writing on the wall. This article is from September 12, 2023 and is quite good. But it’s not that different from this one written on September 15, 2002. But this one gives some data.
During the first seven years following the accords, more than 300 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists–far more than the number killed during the seven years before Oslo. Since October 2000, when the Palestinian Authority launched its all-out war against Israel, another 600 Israelis have been murdered–a total of nearly 1,000 fatalities since the Oslo agreement. From the standpoint of personal security, Israelis are far worse off today than before Oslo.
….
Oslo even put guns in the terrorists’ hands. As part of the agreement, Israel supplied the PA security forces with thousands of rifles that weresupposed to be used to fight against terrorists. Instead, they have been used to murder Israelis.
What, oh what I ask, could go wrong? Well, the denizens of Gaza voted by 70% to be ruled by hamass rather than the corrupt dishonest Falestinian Authority. That being said, Israel gets some of it’s intelligence from the arabs living in Gaza. But for the most part, they voted for this misery the live under with hamass.
So in my reasonably humble opinion, there shouldn’t be any arabs in Gaza to use it as a base from which to launch rockets into Israel. I think they should have used Moshe Feiglin’s plan. Give the arabs a sum of money to leave Israel and a one way ticket to wherever. Jordan, Syria, there’s lots of countries that are muslim and speak Arabic. Same with Judea and Shomron, pay them off and set the free from being “oppressed” by Israel. Except that they don’t want to go.
So what’s happened?
Apparently hamass knocked out part of Israel’s monitoring system in the area with bomb drones.
I’ve also heard the fence was weakened by all the protests earlier. Apparently those parts of the fence, if I’m understanding this correctly, were where the bulldozers just knocked it down, and in some areas set fire.
This is a map of Israel
The hamass terrorists came in and it sounds like the town of Sderot has been almost wiped out. There were arab terrorist journalists giving updates from Israeli cities as the terrorists roamed freely through the town slaughtering people as they found them. People were calling for help asking where the Army was, the terrorists were at the door, then the line would go dead. The terrorists went to the bomb shelters, knocked on the door pretending to be people in need of shelter and when the door was opened to them, they killed everyone inside.
Which brings me to my next point, while Israel is filtering the news, and I’ve heard most of the world media didn’t report much initially, hamass is very proud of what they’ve done and have shot lots of video and posted it to their social media accounts which it seems aren’t censored.
These are hard to watch, so take that as a warning. The hamass terrorists are not humans, they have lost all trace of humanity. There are 1,000 dead Israelis, I believe most of them are civilians as that seems to be what hamass are targeting. They aren’t going to military bases for the most part, but instead Kibbutzim and small towns. There have been soldiers captured, and hamass is beheading them. There were 260 teenagers killed at a music festival. Because nothing says we’re big brave soldiers like killing a bunch of dancing teenagers, or old men driving a car. Military targets? Seriously?
But it’s not just hamass from Gaza, hamass is asking Hebollocks in the north to join in the fun. And they are starting to show they might.
I’ve heard the number of Israeli casualties from Saturday’s attack is now equal to the number of casualties they had during the June 1967 six days war.
What about the Iron Dome? Apparently they shot so many rockets into Israel in a short period of time, it overwhelmed the Iron Dome defense system.
Hamass claims to have captured over 150-200 Israeli citizens, most of which seem to be women, children, the elderly and are holding them hostage. One was a German citizen there for the music festival. She was a tattoo artist and had a very distinctive tattoo on her leg. It’s what the family used to identify her in hamass video and speak out to the press contradicting hamass. She was not an IDF soldier, just a girl at a music festival. It seems like most of the hostages are being taken back to Gaza and abused and paraded through the streets of Gaza.
Although some they took video of in their homes like this scared elderly lady they were mocking.
Apparently hamass is extremely proud of shooting terrified children as they ran, they posted that to social media as well.
hamass also considered the Synagogue and Barzilei hospital in Ashkelon to be valid targets. Apparently the arabs think everyone hides munitions and soldiers in hospitals and their religious buildings. Nope, just them. They also use schools and apartment buildings, nothing is to low for hamass.
Apparently including cannibalism. Remember a few years ago when the Kurds were fighting for freedom in Syria? There was video of the Syrian soldiers eating the heart of a dead enemy soldier? Well, not to be out done, as I understand it, there is video of hamass eating pieces of their victims. I don’t have it, and wouldn’t post it if I did. But understand well what hamass is. Sub-human, sub-animal.
The IDF has captured some of the hamass terrorists, “We prepared for more than a year. The demonstrations in Israel encouraged us. It was 5 hours before we were shot at. We were prepared with 1000 fighters, we made 15 breaches in the fence. We were shocked that the IDF was not waiting for us. We walked with the abductees for two hours.”..
I’m guessing he’s talking about the leftists run judicial reform protests.
Yepper, we paid for them, U.S. we paid. I understand weapons we’ve sent to Ukraine have also shown up. Golly gosh, it’s kind of like when obama was suppose to be dropping weapons to the Kurds and somehow the people tasked with the job kept dropping them to the muslims they were fighting. And just to mention that aid money that we’re sending Israel? Yeah, that has to be spent with U.S., buying weapons. Sort of like another reallocation scheme. But it’s always been that way when we sent Israel aid, it had to be spent with U.S. Does anyone know if Lloyd Austin is still on the board of Raytheon?
But, there is some good news coming out of Israel, consider this my PSA, it’s from Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s security minister. This went into effect on Monday.
1. Every citizen who passes the exams will have a telephone interview instead of a physical interview, and will receive permission to carry firearms within a week.
[Self-defense tests: Residence in an eligible settlement, veterans of Rifle 07 (soon it will be given to every soldier a rifle), officers in the rank of lieutenant or higher and combatants in the rank of major or higher in the IDF and the security forces, service in special units, firefighters, policemen, and worker and volunteers in the rescue forces.]
2. Any citizen who received a conditional permit to purchase a firearm and did not purchase a firearm during the year 2023 and the conditional license has expired, will be able to purchase a firearm now without the need to submit another application. The exemption will apply to about 4000 citizens.
3. Any citizen who deposited his weapon in the last six months due to failure to perform refresher training or renewal training, will be able to receive his weapon back. The exemption will apply to about 1800 citizens.
4. In addition, starting next Tuesday, conditional permits to carry firearms will be issued with a permit allowing the purchase of up to 100 bullets instead of 50 today.
Minister of National Security MK Itamar Ben Gvir: “I thank the personnel of the Firearms Licensing Division, the Civil Response Department of the Israel Police and the employees of the Ministry of Health for the very important commitment that will allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves and protect themselves and their environment when necessary.”
Good, hand those guns out like candy! Raise the Altelena and get the guns that the leftist David Ben Gurion sank. As Tamar pointed out in her show, it’s no wonder the obiden junta are pushing Bibi Netanyahu to form a “unity government” with Lapid and Gantz. They would refuse to sit with someone like Itamar Ben-Gvir, so perhaps he would be pushed out. So you would end up with a leftist government which is not what the citizens of Israel wanted or voted for. But voting, bah! That’s not the demoncratic way now is it?
But this flotsam and jetsam from the human gene pool are suppose to be Israel’s “peace partners.” And they certainly have their supporters, in Philadelphia, Ft. Lauderdale and London arabs have been dancing in the streets and marching in support of the murderers. And much of the world, at least the leftist world doesn’t understand they don’t want a land of their own, they want dead Jews. And I’ve no longer any patience at all for moral relativism. The foreign minister of Australia called for both sides to show restraint! This seriously unhinged individual called for both sides to show “restraint”. How about oh heck no. When Israel is going to bomb a building, they drop leaflets in arabic warning the arabs to get out, they send text messages, they give them every chance. That needs to stop. These people voted for and support hamass. Apparently several breeches in the fence hamass came through were created by residents of Gaza. Again, they voted for hamass……
Right now government buildings in many countries around the world are lit up in blue and white. Yay, how cool. And how will they vote the next time the U.N. is trying to condemn Israel for some nonsense. And the obiden junta, saying they support Israel. Really? Cause you just gave billions of dollars to Iran, who told you from the beginning they would spend it however they wanted. But, you did it. And the obiden crime junta has no plans to re-freeze the 6 billion they gave Iran. And for about 20 seconds the world stood with Israel, and 20 seconds later, EU in massive U-turn as it declares it WILL continue to fund Palestine. Well, that didn’t take long.
In an effort to be just and moral, kind to the poor peaceful falestinians, Israel has been cruel to their own citizens. Much like the obiden junta. In an effort to be kind to the rest of the world, they are now exposing their citizens to the same acts of violence.
This is from Michael Yon down in the Darian Gap, this is what is heading towards U.S.
Remember the arabic saying? “First we kill the Saturday people, then we kill the Sunday people”. Meaning first we kill the Jews, then we kill the Christians.
It’s time to look back, back to King David, as Tamar Yonah pointed out in another broadcast, “How would King David handle this?” I think that’s worth exploring. We can all learn from history. It’s time to stop “kicking the can down the road”. Don’t “manage” the terror, eliminate it.
No doubt you’ve heard that federal Judge Benitez once again ruled in Duncan v. Bonta that California’s ban on “high capacity” magazines is unconstitutional; particularly in light of SCOTUS’ BRUEN decision. He stayed his injunction until October 2, to allow the state time to file yet another appeal.
And once again the state did appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Which took the unusual action of taking the state’s “emergency” request for an administrative stay past October 2 en banc. Normally such requests for administrative stays is done by a three judge panel.
However, a couple of the Circuit judges wrote dissenting opinions, objecting to the Court gaming the system to delay or deny Second Amendment rights.
I found the dissents to be rather interesting.
Bumatay, J., dissenting:
For over a decade, our court has improperly interest-balanced our way around the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has had enough of it. See N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. __, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022). In Bruen, the Supreme Court made clear that the Second Amendment must no longer be deemed a disfavored right.
With this clear direction from the Supreme Court, you might think that our court would return to regular order and handle this Second Amendment case like all others before our court. And in the normal course, emergency motions would be handled by a three-judge panel. But not here. Because this is a Second Amendment case, we now take the unprecedented step of taking an emergency motion as an en banc panel in the first instance. While our rules may leave room for such an unusual step, discretion and wisdom counsel against it. Indeed, to my knowledge, no en banc panel of this court has ever handled an emergency administrative stay motion as an initial matter. And the majority cites no precedent otherwise. So I’m left wondering why we rush to do something so unorthodox.
Judge VanDyke doesn’t wonder:
I share Judge Bumatay’s concerns about the irregularities created by this en banc panel’s all-too-predictable haste to again rule against the Second Amendment. Apparently, even summary reversal by the Supreme Court has not tempered the majority’s zeal to grab this case as a comeback, stay the district court’s decision, and make sure they—not the original three-judge panel—get to decide the emergency motion (and ultimately, the eventual merits questions) in favor of the government. I think it is clear enough to everyone that a majority of this en banc panel will relinquish control of this case only when it is pried from its cold, dead fingers. And I think it is clear enough to everyone why.
Excellent turnabout of the “cold, dead fingers” cliche, Your Honor. I laughed, which rarely happens when reading court decisions and dissents.
And yes, the reason is clear enough. The Ninth is determined to allow California to continue violating the 2A, and is play games with stays and appeals, and bumping cases back to lower courts instead of doing their SCOTUS-mandated job.
if the Ninth had to take this request en banc, what they properly should have done was say Stay denied. We already sent the state’s appeal back to the district for a final ruling in light of BRUEN. The district court granted a permanent injunction against the ban in light of BRUEN. The lower court’s stay is lifted, and the permanent injunction against enforcement is upheld.
And I’d bet good money that when the state’s actual appeal is filed, the Ninth will find an excuse to bounce the case back to the district again, rather than make a final decision so that either 1) the state concedes, or 2) the state finally appeals to the Supreme Court.
This sort of judicial lawfare is just going to continue until the Supreme Court finally takes notice of lower courts and other officials blowing off its decisions, and starts finding offenders in contempt and issues bench warrants.
Did you watch the second placeround GOP debate? I didn’t, but it’s sure in the newsfeeds this morning. From what I’ve seen, the most notable performance wasn’t from the (vice) presidential candidates, but co-moderator Ilia Calderón.
“Mental health concerns are not unique to United States. But gun violence is.”
“Gun violence” is unique to the United States?!
Calderón is from Colombia, and seems to still be a Colombian national despite living in the US for years. In 2020, Colombia‘s gun homicide rate was a mere 16.67/100K. By compariion, uniquely violent America’s rate was a whopping… um, er… 5.9/100K.
My, my; Calderón’s home country has a gun homicide rate nearly three times that of the US. In fact, Colombia ranks 8th for firearm homicide rate, while the US is…
18th. And that’s despite the US having around twelve times as many firearms per capita. We have more guns, but those peaceful Colombians blow each other away with theirs more often.
Apparently Ms. Calderón relocated to the US in 2001, when her home country had a gun homicide rate of 57.11/100K. Perhaps she thought the US, with a rate of 3.98/100K at the time looked a little safer.
My personal contributions to The Zelman Partisans amount to over 50% of all of our columns. I fear this makes TZP a little one-sided. Please, we welcome views and columns from other people. If you are interested in writing about 2A issues, particularly from a Jewish perspective, contact me.
Governor Newsom signed a couple of more bills yesterday, as if Commifornia didn’t have enough laws.
SB 2 raises the age to purchase any firearm to 21 years, and increases areas where firearm possession is banned.
within any state or local public building or at any meeting required to be open to the public
Governor’s Mansion, or any other residence of the Governor, the residence of any other constitutional officer, or the residence of any Member of the Legislature. (The governor’s mansion? Perhaps Newscum realizes how unpopular he’s becoming.)
the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion or any other residence of the Governor, the residence of any other constitutional officer, or the residence of any Member of the Legislature.
any building, real property, or parking area under the control of an airport
a public transit facility
an area in, or on the grounds of, a public or private school providing instruction in kindergarten or grades 1 to 12, inclusive, or within a distance of 1,000 feet from the grounds of the public or private school.
They generously exempt “place of residence or place of business or on private property.” If you live in a school zone and want to take any firearm that could be concealed carried somewhere else, it must be unloaded and locked in a case and transported in a motor vehicle or locked in the trunk of the motor vehicle. That means if your sole means of transportation is foot or bike, you’re screwed. Same with public transit buses, unless the bus can pick you up directly on your private property, and drop you off on private property.
But just in case they might have missed an area, there’s 25850
A person is guilty of carrying a loaded firearm when the person carries a loaded firearm on the person or in a vehicle while in any public place or on any public street in an incorporated city, city and county, or in any public place or on any public street in a prohibited area of an unincorporated area of a county or city and county.
Streets, sidewalks, parks…
I’m sure all of California’s frustrated gangbangers are fretting over how this will impact their crime sprees.
But of you still want to buy a gun, and you’ve turned 21, prepare to shell out a lot more money. AB 28 adds a new 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition. I expect ammo sellers in Nevada are pleased.
I’ll bet you’re thinking that these restrictions might run afoul of the BRUEN test of “general, historical legal tradition.” Newscum thought of that.
Newsom framed the move as a response to the “rights reduction” caused by gun laws that function under a “1790s framework,” a recording of the signing showed.
Yep, this was intended to out-right violate the BRUEN decision. Judge Benitez will have fun with this.
This column puts my personal contributions to The Zelman Partisans over 50% of all of our columns. I fear this makes TZP a little one-sided. Please, we welcome columns from other people. If you are interested in writing about 2A issues, particularly from a Jewish perspective, contact me.
Tomorrow, President Biden will announce the establishment of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to reduce gun violence, which has ravaged communities across the country, and implement and expand upon key executive and legislative action which has been taken to save lives.
It’ll be headed by VP Kneepads Harris. Based on her performance as the border czar, and the ensuing flood of illegals and drugs, I suppose we can expect similar results.
Maybe I’ll finding some of those “guns on the street” that I keep hearing about.
The sad reality is that they may have finally found a job that Harris will actually do: push more victim-disarmament laws, regs, and rules.
Recall that she cited three cases of children killed with guns as her excuse for raping the US and state constitutions. Two cases definitely were committed by people in unlawful possession of firearms, which made it unlikely that the perps would obey Gov. Stalin’s order; she later admitted that criminals wouldn’t obey.
The suspects have been caught. The police say it was gang-related (duh), and a case of mistaken identity. The perps were after a man in a white truck, but shot the wrong white truck. One perp was already wanted on drug charges, so… prohibited person. The second perp was busted a week after the shooting when transporting 22 pounds of fentanyl. He had gang-type neck tats covered up with makeup; I’ll make a WAG that he was also already a prohibited person at the time of the shooting. Official charging docs should be available later today.
So every shooting that Gov. Stalin cited to rationalize her unconstitutional ban wouldn’t have been stopped by it. Because criminals don’t obey laws, much less tyrannical edicts.
The Biden administration is never going to charge Grisham for her 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights and 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law violations. But just maybe, if Trump or another Republican somehow gets elected next year, he can be pressured into making the DOJ do the right thing.
Hunter Biden has been indicted for possessing a firearm while being a user of illegal drugs, and lying about it on the 4473. If the law is for everyone, I think it’s… ahem high time.
Technically, he was indicted for the 4473 lie previously, but was going to be allowed to completely skate on the charge, with pre-trial diversion. Some of us wondered, if his name wasn’t “Biden,” whether he would have faced more serious penalties. But this being 21st century America, Dimwitocrats have turned that around now.
I found all those recent (post Hunter’s little possession adventure) cases in about two minutes with a single web search.
And, as states decriminalize majijuana use, that federal firearm prohibition is of concern to users, who seem to be a bit more aware of the issue than is Rep. Goldman.
However, given prosecutor Weiss’ eagerness to let Hunter Biden off, I wonder if he isn’t clued in a little better, legally speaking. Earlier this year, in US v. Harrison, a judge ruled this restriction on unlawful drug users’ possession of firearms to be unconstitutional, having applied the BRUEN precedent of general, historical legal tradition.
My guess is that Crackhunter will make that same argument, and Weiss will decline to challenge it. The possession charge, at least, goes away. Weiss declines to appeal. Hunter walks.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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