There’s a little more good news regarding the ATF’s unlawful and unconstitutional pistol brace rule. Another federal judge has issued an injunction against enforcement of the rule in Britto v. ATF, No. 2:23-cv-19, in the Northern District of Texas.
The good news:
Under the APA, courts must “hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be … arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” or “in excess of statutory jurisdictions, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right.”
Arbitrary and capricious? Most definitely, as The Zelman Partisans told the ATF during NPRM commenting period.
This proposed rule is a coherently expressed description of an arbitrary, capricious, and incoherent process of classifying firearms.
They should have listened.
But back to the injunction. Kacsmaryk cites the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Mock v. Garland, which found the rule to violate the Administrative Procedures Act, resulting in an injunction against enforcement of the rule, but only for the plaintiffs in that case
Given the Fifth Circuit’s holding, this Court recognizes that the Rule “was not a logical outgrowth of the Proposed Rule” and “must be set aside as unlawful.
That was the good news. The Rule is unlawful because the ATF violated the Administrative Procedures Act (which is something of a habit for them). Better news: the injunction is nationwide and not limited to the plaintiffs in this case.
The bad news…
That holding alone establishes that Plaintiffs “have demonstrated, a fortiori, an actual success on the merits of their APA challenge to the … Rule.”
It goes without saying that constitutional questions should be avoided if there are independent ‘ground[s] upon which the case may be disposed of.”
No, it should not go without saying. Why does statutory law — the APA, in this case — take precedence over the Constitution and Second Amendment, the question of which the plaintiffs definitely raised?
Laziness, and fear of dealing with constitutionality until absolutely forced to do so. Which conveniently leaves the ATF free to try yet another unconstitutional rule, until some judge finally decides to take note of said Constitution.
And as Judge Tipton noted in a similar case, “it would be improper for this Court to now evaluate constitutional issues” given that “the Fifth Circuit has already decided that the Final Rule violates the APA.”
Grow some balls, Kacsmaryk. Give us a constitutionality precedent, one way or the other.
Because a three judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals just upheld, 2-1, Illinois’ “assault weapon” ban in Bevis v. Naperville (which is actually six separate challenges to “assault weapon” bans in Illinois, consolidated), and mangled BRUEN in the process. To do this, the lying bastards started with the BS “weapons of war” argument. And went downhill from there.
Honestly, this decision reads like something you might expect from the Ninth Circuit.
We find substantial support for the proposition that the Arms protected by the Second Amendment do not include weapons that may be reserved for military use.
Because obviously AR-15s are just like “a nuclear weapon such as the now-retired M388 Davy Crockett system, with its 51-pound W54 warhead.” Seriously; they equated semi-auto rifles to nuclear warheads.
And to support that position, Easterbrook and Wood lied about Supreme Court rulings, starting with MILLER, 1939 which said exactly the opposite. This Court resorts to citing the dissent to magically turn military use into common, lawful civilian use, and pretends HELLER said that.
But after Heller, we know Miller does not address a weapon’s military use. Because the National Firearms Act of 1934 targeted the firearms most commonly used by criminals and gangs, Miller’s “lawful use” language relates to criminal use, not military use.
The term “lawful use” doesn’t even appear in MILLER. It had no “lawful use” test. It only used a militia use test:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.
HELLER addressed civilian use of weapons not specifically acknowledged as militarily useful, and asked if possession of those by civilians could be banned. The court concluded that civilian weapons in common, lawful use could not be banned; that there is an individual right to them. And that the right to those not necessarily military-style weapons was subject to reasonable limits.
HELLER didn’t overturn MILLER; it built on it, and added to it. Those judges damned well know what MILLER and HELLER really said. The fact that they twist the words, and outright lie, about them proves their intent was not innocent.
Now that Easterbrook and Wood have pretended that “weapons of war” aren’t 2A-protected, they have to “establish” that AR-15s are military weapons.
Coming directly to the question whether the weapons and feeding devices covered by the challenged legislation enjoy Second Amendment protection, at the first step of the Bruen analysis, we conclude that the answer is no. We come to this conclusion because these assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are much more like machineguns and military-grade weaponry than they are like the many different types of firearms that are used for individual self-defense (or so the legislature was entitled to conclude).8 Indeed, the AR-15 is almost the same gun as the M16 machinegun.
How do they know?
The only meaningful distinction, as we already have noted, is that the AR-15 has only semiautomatic capability (unless the user takes advantage of some simple modifications that essentially make it fully automatic), while the M16 operates both ways.
Sure, an illegally modified AR-15 is is the same thing as an M16, just illegally mounting a 120mm cannon on a Trabant makes it an Abrams M1A1 Main Battle Tank.
Speaking — currently — illegal modifications, these jokers used a timely example.
The similarity between the AR-15 and the M16 only increases when we take into account how easy it is to modify the AR-15 by adding a “bump stock” (as the shooter in the 2017 Las Vegas event had done) or auto-sear to it, thereby making it, in essence, a fully automatic weapon.
Personally, I would have skipped that one, since the same day they issued this ruling, SCOTUS — facing a multi-Circuit split on the bump-stock ban — granted cert to Garland v. Cargill, challenging the ban.
So… they’ve lied their way into declaring that the 2A doesn’t protect “weapons of war,” and that AR-15s are in that class. Now they also had to deal with BRUEN‘s general, historical legal tradition test, which they handled with still more verbal manipulation and selective editing.
The analysis then moves to second step, which calls on the “government [to] justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. The Court predicted that this second step would be relatively easy in some instances, when historical analogues are easy to find. But in other instances, it recognized that the task would be challenging. It singled out “cases implicating unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes,” which “may require a more nuanced approach.”
These two would have you believe that if something is new enough, then general, historical legal traditions don’t apply. But what they left out from BRUEN is this part.
Of course, the regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the same as those that preoccupied the Founders in 1791 or the Reconstruction generation in 1868. But the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated, even though its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it.
Yes, the Constitution and the Second Amendment still apply to “new” things like the five decades-old design of the AR-15. Some restrictions on how they are used might be constitutional, but a ban isn’t.
As for “dramatic technological changes” that those early folks could never imagine…
James Madison, known for his role in drafting the Bill of Rights (including that pesky 2A) lived through the rise of repeating firearms, breechloaders, paper cartridges, percussion caps, metallic cartridges, pinfire cartridges, centerfire cartridges, revolvers, and mass production of firearms.
Heck, an early machinegun was pitched to the US War Office in 1812, and patented in 1813 — during Madison’s presidency (and was a refinement of a 16th century machinegun).
Yet never once did Madison stop and say, “Whoa, guys! We didn’t have any of this new shit in mind. The Second Amendment is just for muskets.”
Speaking of “patented”, not only could the Founders envision dramatic technological changes, they counted on it and deliberately promoted it.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Yes, liars, the BRUEN test applies to AR-15s. And I challenge you to provide a citation of the nation’s general, historical legal tradition of banning civilian possession of “weapons of war.” Bear in mind you’ll have to explain away another pesky provision of the Constitution.
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
In case the judges are unfamiliar with Letters of Marque pay attention, too):
Letter of marque, the name given to the commission issued by a belligerent state to a private shipowner authorizing him to employ his vessel as a ship of war. A ship so used is termed a privateer.
Not only was civilian ownership of real weapons of war not banned, they — again — counted on it. Muskets, rifles, cannon, warships; all of them. Moreso, in the case of muskets or rifles, they required private possession of those “weapons of war.”
Granted, these robed morons did cite some legal “traditions” that they would have you believe support a ban on an entire arbitrary class of firearms. But what they came up with were a series of local ordinances barring discharge of muskets and cannon in town, some isolated bans on Bowie knives, or openly carrying certain types of firearms.
They couldn’t find anything in relevant history of a general nature; and remember that BRUEN specifies that isolated local laws don’t count:
The bare existence of these localized restrictions cannot overcome the overwhelming evidence of an otherwise enduring American tradition permitting public carry.
There’s nothing of a general law citation until the National Firearms Act of 1934, 143 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment. So my challenge stands.
The third member of the panel, Judge Brennan sanely dissented with his crazed colleagues. While he also addressed procedural issues with the passage of the state ban, he hit on the issues I’ve covered; albeit more formally and politely. Like me, he took issue with Easterbrook and Wood’s mangling and misinterpretations of HELLER and BRUEN. He also objected their “It’s military, so it isn’t protected” position: arms are arms, they’re all protected; some can be regulated but not banned.
I liked this bit that Brennan included, about the whole scary “AR-15s are weapons of war” thing:
The AR-15 is a civilian, not military, weapon. No army in the world uses a service rifle that is only semiautomatic.
That’s a point I’ve been raising for years. None do; the last country I found using them switched to select-fire assault rifles three decades ago.
All in all, I look forward to this being appealed to SCOTUS. I’m sure Clarence Thomas will insist the Court take this up, just so he can judicially bitch-slap Easterbrook and Wood for shredding BRUEN and HELLER.
Just a few random and sundry thoughts about the continuing war against Israel, civilization and humanity.
The death toll continues to rise, around 1400 last I heard and the number of hostages is around 238 I believe. Hamass also takes the bodies of the dead, because Jews give the dead the due respect of a proper burial. When Jews were forcefully evacuated from Gaza in 2005 in the horribly misguided (and anti-Torah) attempt at land for peace called the two-state solution all of the cemeteries were emptied of their dead and they were reburied in other parts of Israel. Because they knew the Falestinians would dig up the bodies and desecrate them. They knew this, and yet they thought giving them a place next door to launch rockets from would bring peace. Astonishing. Demoncrats and the U.N. yammer on about two-state solutions and there has been one since 2005, it’s called Jew free Gaza. In 2006 the Falestinians elected Hamass to represent them, by over 70%. Part of Hamass’s charter is to kill every Jew. Explain to me about the poor peaceful innocent citizens of Gaza. Go ahead. And while we’re on that topic, if you haven’t seen the videos of the terrorists driving back into Gaza with the captives, allow me to share how the innocent citizens of Gaza reacted. If the Israeli, or Thai, or Ukrainian or Russian, or American were the target, they were beaten, tortured, raped and possibly killed. Not by Hamass, by the inhabitants. I think I need to quit using the word citizen because that implies something human. I think inhabitant is going to be my choice. Last I heard in Gaza there was an 80% approval rating for Hamass. Of course that could have been before the blockade. Since hamass steals the food, water, fuel and supplies and hides them in the tunnels for the terrorists, the inhabitants that voted for them might be feeling the pinch. Oh wait, nope, my bad. Turns out the whole world is clamoring for Israel to allow humanitarian aid in. Of course. But the blockade is the leverage to getting the hostages back. If things get bad enough the denizens of Gaza may begin to spill what they know about the hostages. The world can’t have that! The baby killers must be protected at all costs! Think of the rights of the rapist the college students in full throated ignorance bray!
But these pro-terrorist rallies are going on around the world.
Turns out George Soros and the Tides foundation are financing many. Color me shocked. I heard one host talking about the group having people all over that can be mobilized quickly for any kind of intersectional (think BLM, George Floyd, Antifa) type riot. Another attempt to destabilize Western culture. Hey hey, ho ho, western civ has got to go. The irony of the one in Egypt is that hamass is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yes, the ones that Egyptians threw out after obama and the CIA lead a revolution and put Morsi in. The Egyptians didn’t put up with it and El-Sisi took over. So now the Egyptians love the MB? Fine, ask El-Sisi to step aside and take them back. The Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed in Egypt. But there they are in Cairo…Of course you can get stupid college students to do it for free. In fact they’ll pay to do it. It’s called tuition. Where do they learn this stuff?? Oh, right. Cornell Professor “Exhilarated” by Hamas’s Attack Defends Remark. How could this happen? Oh, right. Cornell professor says faculty is ‘extremely anti-Israel,’ calls on board to pause DEI efforts on campus Seems targeting whites is perfectly fine, and the Jews are seen as whites. Of course as many people know, Jews come in every color, white, brown, black. You would think the left would be totally enamored with Jews as they truly represent physical diversity, and as well all know, all that matters is skin color. It’s not just the professors, it’s the school administration shows at the Cooper Union Library incident. Jewish students were trapped inside the library as the defenders of barbarism pounded on the doors and demanded to be let in. The librarians had locked the doors, the mob had cruised right by the school security guards who sprang into did nothing. Students called family and friends who called the police, who did show up and were told by the school not to intervene. That’s right, no arrests were made. The librarians helpfully suggested the Jewish students could hide in the attic. Of course I’m not making it up, I’m too angry. This is where we are in America. 1930 Germany. Cooper Union ‘protest’ proves lefty Jew-hate is institutional,
From the river to the sea, Falestine….anyone ever look at a map? They’re calling for the genocide and erasure of all Israelis. And people don’t realize that? I’d say are they that stupid? But apparently that’s been mistaken for a challenge. I can’t joke, about it, but the Babylon Bee did.
Stephens was joined by a number of her fellow students who all agreed that none of them would have allowed the evil Nazi ideology to spread in the years prior to World War II. “What the Nazis did was really awful,” said sophomore Allison Davis. “Singling out one ethnic group, blaming them for all the ills of the world, rounding them up, and systematically slaughtering them? How hideous! I could never be a part of that. That’s why today I’m standing with those who want to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth if it’s the last thing they ever do.”
We have people in the DHS supporting the murder of innocent civilians, including burning them alive, decapitation and piece by piece removing body parts. Often of children in front of their parents and visa versa. And they’re so proud they’re posting publicly about it. We’re paying for this piece of feces, we pay her salary. She handles asylum claims? Well, I feel safer already.
Nejwa Ali, a DHS officer who was reportedly hired to handle asylum claims, had made a series of inflammatory posts against Israel. One of her posts read, “F*** Israel, the government, and its military. Are you ready for your downfall?”
The Daily Wire shared that she was “repeatedly posting pictures of Hamas terrorists parachuting in with guns and writing, “f*** Israel and any Jew who supports Israel.”
Senator Josh Hawley grilled the sub-human Myorkas (honestly, I don’t care how I spell his name) about it. Has it been fired? Nope.
DHS Sec. Mayorkas defends a DHS employee who posted — on October 7th — “F–k Apartheid Israel and any Jew that supports [Israel]” and asked if Israel was “ready for [their] downfall”
Quick note on this apartheid business. There is apartheid in Israel. There are Arab towns in Judea and Samaria that are marked, no Jews allowed. To enter there would probably mean a slow painful death. What Mika and Joe didn’t mention that?
Some nations are catching on, they’ve got a problem, a jihadi problem and it’s probably too late to do much as jihadis when they want, tend to well, commit jihad.
In Italy they clashed with police who fought them valiantly in this clip, but look at the size of that mob. If they were really determined, those police would be toast. There’s not enough bullets to go around.
Clashes between pro-Hamas left-wing extremist students and the police at the Sapienza University in Rome. They want an Islamic revolt
So the Italian police aren’t having it. You know who else isn’t having it? Well, they’re trying, but there’s so many Muslims in Francistan that I think it’s a lost cause.
France has banned Pro Palestinian protests and Berlin police arrested people for saying “Free Palestine.”
French Government Stands with Israel, while the stand of its citizens differ!
Again, good luck with that England. Have you forgotten the terrorist attacks in your own country not that long ago? The incidents of throwing acid on women?
Thousands of pro-Palestine / anti-Israel protesters gather in London just one week after Hamas butchered innocent men, women and children.
Police are threatening to arrest anyone who shows support for Hamas.
It’s gotten SO bad that even some of the left wing are starting to wake up and realize they’ve been useful idiots. Including, believe it or not, to an extent the ADL’s Obama puppy Greenblatt. Kid you not.
Statistics are almost redundant as we are flooded with images and videos of Muslims and their useful cronies shouting “By any means necessary” and “Jewish genocide” in the streets of New York City, Dearborn, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and across other American cities and campuses. On the so-called “Day of Rage” after the massacre, Brooklyn College protesters, several blocks from my home, pledged allegiance to their “heroes in the resistance”.
This is sadly not as shocking to Orthodox Jews as it is to their secular liberal brothers. Those on the right have been sounding the warning bell for years, pointing to the dangerous alliance between leftist Jews and anti-Israel progressives and Muslims. However, it took a sadistic massacre that killed largely secular and left-leaning Israelis for woke American Jews to awaken to the fact that progressives are not all that interested in their brand of tikkun olam. Worse, many realize that they were complicit in amplifying the very threats they are now facing.
….
Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, which has been at the forefront of progressive activism – from fighting “systemic racism”, abortion rights, gender rights, immigrant rights – is now pushing back against former cohorts. Shortly after October 7th, Greenblatt admonished MSNBC for failing to portray what actually happened on that fateful day. “I am angry with the world that allowed the dehumanization of Israelis and sanitized the view of Hamas,” he said. “I love this show and network, but who’s writing the scripts?”
Greenblatt is now calling on CNN and other media outlets to get their story straight too. “The carelessness with which they treat Jewish victims is crazy…Demonizing and dehumanizing Israelis and Zionists is how you get this kind of barbarism and these atrocities.”
You have to give this guy credit. It must not be easy for a former Obama employee, who in 2015 trashed opponents of the Iran Deal.
Yeah, I think we’re at too little too late.
There is an additional threat that comes with the illegal invaders. Captigon. Haven’t heard of it? I hadn’t either.
What is the drug found in Hamas terrorists?
A powerful drug was found in the pockets of Hamas terrorists who participated in the attack against Israel.
The drug, also called “Jihad drug” was also used by the terrorists of the ISIS organization.
Captagon is a powerful stimulant reportedly found in the pockets of dead or captured Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7. Captagon is an amphetamine (a stimulant drug that acts on the neurotransmitters) originally created in the 1960s in Germany to combat ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and narcolepsy (sleeping disorder). while stimulating the central nervous system. Most countries stopped using captagon in 1986 due to its addictive properties and negative effects. But its popularity remains strong in the Middle East despite the drug being banned by Middle Eastern governments.
“It has become very popular for the leaders of various terrorist organizations to give them to people, first of all, to break them mentally and indoctrinate them, and in particular before operations because it makes them more hyperactive, more cruel and merciless.”
Irina Zuckerman, a geopolitical analyst says that the terrorist organizations use the drug to control the fighters. They become more obedient, more open to suggestions, and more addicted.
“The main function of the drug is to increase the willingness to fight. And you can even see it from watching some of these terrorists, from their videos that they took with their body cameras, they seemed much more alert, and much more hyperactive.”
Although the use of the drug is prohibited in the Middle East, terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah produce it cheaply and easily. They smuggle it through different ports. Experts believe most production takes place in Syria, where captagon exports are estimated to be worth $3.5 billion in 2020.
Syria huh? Glad all the Syrians are still in Syria! Boy howdy.
I don’t know that I’d go that far, but his point is that basically our culture and civilization is at stake here.
Civilizations are real. The culture and civilization of Asia are very, very different from the culture of Africa. And the way things work in Afghanistan is very, very different from the way they work in Australia.
And our civilization is the Judeo-Christian Civilization.
Between universities, demoncrats, the well-meaning but very uninformed and gullible fretting over the innocent Falestinians, the Soros funded mobs and the actual jihadis we’re in real trouble. Add in the Russians and Chinese men of military age that have come across the border, the jihad is going to hit U.S.
Gorka ends his column with a conversation from the veterinarian’s office.
I was at the veterinarian clinic with my Belgian shepherd, Killian. As I waited, an elderly gentleman with his 14-year-old German shepherd recognized me from my Newsmax show. We chatted at length about what happened on October 7th and what needs to happen to the savages of Hamas. He was born in Israel to Jewish parents who escaped Hungary before the war and moved to the reborn nation of Israel in 1948.
At the end of our chat, he tapped his side and said: “I’m ready for them. If they try and kill me, I’ll take a few of those bastards with me.”
I tapped my pocket in response and told my friend, Shlomo, “I’m ready too.”
Which brings me to close with comments about guns and the left.
From Israel Today,
Since the start of the Hamas war, over 120,000 Israelis have applied for a new gun license.
Once all are approved, the number of licensed owners of personal firearms in Israel will nearly double.
People think of Israel just bristling with guns, that all the citizens walk around armed. Well, no. A lot of those pictures you see of “civilians” carrying a rifle and ordering a coffee are active duty soldiers, just not on duty. In certain parts of Israel you could get a license to have a gun. And in many of the Kibbutzim there were guns. They were locked up in the armory. That’s how Nir in my last column was able to get an AR and arm some of her fellow neighbors in the Kibbutz. She was able to make it to the armory and get it unlocked. Remember this next time you hear about mandatory safe storage. It’s not. Well, not for you anyway.
When the attacks started and word got out, people, regular citizens and soldiers were coming from all over to try to help. Many of them with just a pistol and maybe 50 or 60 rounds. Because up until recently that was the annual limit. Ben-Gvir increased that recently to 100. They need to be handing that stuff out like candy on Halloween. I’m sure there were no adequate capacity magazines. Every policy the left advocates on guns is going to get innocent law abiding citizens hurt. This was played out in technicolor on October 7th.
But what’s different in Israel than America is that Israel is uniting. Gone are the “Judicial Reform” protests. Everyone is doing what they can to support the soldiers, and the displaced Israelis. Tons of them from rocket bombarded areas. Rockets fired from the land given for peace to the Falestinians as a two state solution. Land rife with terror tunnels created by the cement and supplies sent to the “innocent hamass voting denizens of Gaza” to have schools where they will be indoctrinated by the U.N. to hate Jews, and hospitals. Tunnels and rocket launch sites are under both. Hamass knows the Israelis will have to take out those launch sites and then they will cry to the NYSlimes, the AP and Joe & Mika that Israel bombed their hospital. The press will run with the Hamass PR statement and it will be a great victory, a victory for everyone but the innocent.
Do you know how hamass got so much information about who would be where? The layouts of the Kibbutzim? How many were in a family, where the armories were? The Gazan workers. Yep, all those work permits that Bibi had been pressured by America’s demoncrats to issue to relieve the poverty and suffering of the poor Gazans. They came into Israel and gathered information they passed on to hamass. The people on the Kibbutz thought they were living in peace with them. Nope. Just like in Hevron in 1929. The Jews had lived in peace with their Arab neighbors…until one day they didn’t. Something for U.S. to keep in mind.
This is not a war for land. Hamass is a religion, a religion that demands the murder of every Jew everywhere on the planet. And you do know their saying, right? First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people. This fight? This fight is for civilization against a sub-human group of people for which no atrocity is to great. This is why we must be prepared to fight. I listen regularly to a subscription radio show. For the last few shows the non-Jewish show host has stated in every show, “Jews, get a gun. Get a gun now while you can and learn to shoot and carry it”.
And I thought this was going to be a short column…
I ran across a peculiar column last week, but I held off commenting on it.
Mass Shootings: If No One Else Will Offer a Solution, I Will
While everyone is screaming to ban “weapons of war” or whatever the ridiculous phrase du jour is, nobody is offering any kind of solution. We keep saying we need to “have real conversations about mental health,” but we never do. So if we’re not going to ban firearms or have a kumbaya drum circle for mental health, and if no one else is going to offer a solution, I will.
That’s right, yours truly has a policy idea that might move us in the right direction. Because I am going out on a limb here, I’ll go ahead and say that I welcome other ideas, influences, and perspectives. All I ask is that we keep the disagreements civil when we comment down below. Lastly, I use the word “firearm” to cover any weapon that relies on a firing pin, as well as ammunition with a percussion primer. With this definition, make, model, or capacity does not matter.
The reason I held back is this proposal confused the heck out me. It appears at PJ Media, which is a fairly conservative outlet with — usually — a firm grounding in the Constitution and reality. Ashley McCully appears to be a regular contributor.
By McCully’s proposal is anything but Constitution- and reality-based. Before I tore her a figurative new one, I considered the possibiltiy that this is satire. The law she proposes reads like a far-left Dimocrat wishlist; it’s a thoroughly impractical, immoral, and unconstitutional rape of rights.
On the other hand we have the column’s URL: a-modest-proposal-to-prevent-mass-shootings-and-preserve-gun-rights-n1738194
That certainly hearkens back to the very model of literary satire. But was she writing satire, or did an editor pick that URL to poke fun at her “serious” proposal?
I attempted to contact her, but heard nothing for days. So I’m going assume that she meant what she said.
Here goes.
Regardless of how the firearm is purchased, gifted, bequeathed, or obtained, the individual taking receipt of the firearm must present a written statement from a licensed mental health professional endorsing the requesting individual as mentally stable and competent enough to possess a firearm.
That’s an interesting take on the Second Amendment, apparently now reading A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people who have been medically approved to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Up yours, Ashley. And you might want to run your idea past Clarence Thomas, because that requirement is a massive fail on the BRUEN test of “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
She’d be hard pressed to find and such law in our national tradition, seeing as how the very field of “psychology” didn’t exist until 1854, and didn’t get rolling in the United States until around 1875. And medical licensing? That wasn’t really a thing until the 1870s. And the first actually restrictive medical licensing law was passed in 1881, and only upheld by the Supreme Court in 1889.
In the event an individual is deemed mentally unstable and/or incompetent to possess a firearm by a licensed health professional, then it will also be deemed reasonable to search any and all property of the individual by law enforcement for the sole purpose of identifying and seizing deadly weapons, to include firearms. The written diagnosis by a licensed mental health professional will be declared suitable for probable cause for a warrant to be issued.
There are a couple of problems here. Begging permission to obtain a firearm, and failing to get that permission, is probable cause to ransack a home for the firearm he didn’t get?!
And currently, it would be a HIPAA violation for that licensed mental health professional to voluntarily forward that personal health information, the diagnosis, to the cops. You’ll need to amend 45 CFR 164.512(f)(1)(i)), too, Ashely.
But that’s moot; because no sane mental health pro is going to issue certification.
If the requesting individual commits any crime with a firearm, the license of the endorsing mental health professional will be suspended throughout the criminal investigation. If the requesting individual is found guilty of any crime with a firearm, then the endorsing mental health professional may lose their license permanently and may be subject to criminal charges.
Note the lack of specification of time frame or what firearm is used. If someone gets a gun, lives peacefully for 30 years, then sudden decides to unlawfully pull a trigger — maybe of a gun that some other doc signed off on — the original doc loses his license and goes to jail. Both, in fact. What doctor is going to assume that perpetual liability? Since it would effectively be impossible to get approval, this effectively bans private ownership of firearms.
Speaking of liability…
Regardless of relationship, if a firearm is used to commit any crime by any person, the registered owner of that firearm will be held criminally liable.
If I jump through McCully’s hoops and get a gun, I would be criminally liable if a burglar broke into my house, shot me, tore my gun safe out of the floor, ripped it open with a plasma cutter, took one of my guns, and used it to rob someone else. Ashley’s liability language makes no exception.
Up yours with a prickly pear, Ashley.
Oh, and did you notice that “registered owner” bit? Yep, her wanna-be law presupposes registration. Language in other parts make it clear that the registry she so blithely assumes would include currently owned firearms, not just those bought under her new police state process.
I’m going to guess, like Hollywood writers who have cops checking gun registrations in southern states, McCully lives in a state that does have registration and stupidly assumes everyone else does, too.
Hint, Ashley: most of the country does not register firearms and owners. And in some states, Georgia and Florida for example, creating a registry is serious felony.
I’m skipping some other — mostly liability — points, and going straight to the finale. Which either solidly establishes this as satire, or Ashley as bug-f##k nuts.
Anyone connected to an individual who has been deemed mentally unstable and/or incompetent enough to possess a firearm and has had at least one firearm or deadly weapon seized by the State under Title II, including but not limited to family, friends, colleagues, roommates, associates, or acquaintances, must provide a secondary verbal and written affirmation that they will be held criminally liable for any crime committed by anyone involving the firearms for which they are registered owners.
You may need to read that a couple of time to parse it out.
If you know someone in passing — a neighbor down the street with whom you exchange greetings — that is a prohibited person for mental reasons…
…even if you don’t know it…
…you must swear verbally and in writing (redundant, that) that you will be held criminally liable if said acquaintance… well, see the earlier burglary/plasma cutter scenario.
Ashley’s proposal doesn’t include any mechanism for identifying and contacting the prohibited person’s family, friends, colleagues, roommates, associates, or acquaintances, or anyone “connected to” and sharing their personal legal and medical history. So I’ll be damned if I know how you’re supposed to know to make that “affirmation,” much less to whom.
I would really prefer that is satire, but the fact that McCully wouldn’t respond doesn’t look good.
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.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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