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.’”
The person of interest behind the deadly mass shooting in Maine is reportedly a trained firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve, according to law enforcement sources in the state.
Robert Card, 40, was stationed out of Saco, Maine and reported “hearing voices” and threatened to shoot up the National Guard Base where he was stationed, the sources said.
Ignorant loudmouth Shannon Watts of Mom’s Demand Bloodshed naturally blames Maine’s allegedly lax gun laws; specifically a lack of a 72 hour waiting period to purchase a firearm, and a lack of a “red flag” law.
I blame something else. Card himself, of course; but…
According to law enforcement, CARD recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME. CARD was also reported to have been committed to mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released.
So… they have a crazy guy threatening to kill people. He gets committed to a psych ward…
And then let loose. Maybe that last part was a mistake.
Card was reportedly a firearms instructor; my guess is that he probably already had firearms, and a 72 hour waiting period would not have prevented this. Keeping the dangerous guy locked up would.
So what if Maine lacks a n-due process “red flag” law? Anyone who had been threatened by Card — that is, anyone and everyone assigned to that base — could have requested a perfectly normal protective order and requested any firearm be removed .
And why would they be removed, aside from the death threats? “[H]ave been committed to mental health facility.
If he did have to buy his firearm for this slaughter, that wouldshould have prevented him from buying one from licensed dealer. (And likely from people who knew him and knew he’d gone nuts.)
Someone was supposed to report Card’s committal to NICS. If the military committed him, well, we know the military has a major reporting problem.
It’s a little early to be blaming a lack of gun laws for this.
Something else that I hope to hear more about is Card’s auditory hallucinations. That’s common in schizophrenia. But as a retired nurse mentioned, 40 years old is an odd time for schizophrenia to pop up. It usually shows up much earlier in life.
Other things can cause hallucinations: Lewy Body Dementia, brain tumors. But something I ran across recently came to mind.
One of the adverse effects of the ChinCOVID pseudo-vaccine that’s been showing up ishallucinations. Doctor’s have noted it, and it shows up in studies. As a reservist apparently on active status (assigned to the base), there’s a good chance that Card received the ChinCOVID inoculations.
But that’s just speculation. Card is not yet in custody. But once caught (or his body found), maybe we’ll learn more about what caused his break.
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.
As information comes out about the pogrom/atrocities/murders/slaughters I am filled with rage, alternating with anger, alternating with sorrow, alternating with exhaustion. So hopefully you will forgive what’s probably going to be a more disjointed that usual column. But I have to. I just do.
Part of the anger comes from watching the response of the world. The same countries that in the UN condemn Israel for nothing, now have their buildings lit up with blue and white. Yay you. Let’s see how long it lasts. Before long, the media will begin their inevitable spin. I’ve heard some already, there were no decapitated babies and children. Yeah? About 40 of them, Kfar Aza. It is unusual for the IDF to allow journalists access to such a site, and in one report I saw there was still active fighting going in parts of Kfar Aza. I did an image search on Freespoke, and it looks like many of the captions were in French. Which may account for when the muslims in France rioted in the last couple days the French police put it down hard and quick. Maybe the French are catching on to what happens, I dunno. But journalists that were there DO have photographic proof, the MSM is refusing to air it. The MSM just blathers on about “unconfirmed” “no proof”. Yeah, yeah, there is you deceptive sewer scum. That was the point of the IDF letting them in. As in WWII, when Omar Bradley said:
“It is the desire of the Theater Commander that both still and moving pictures be utilized to the fullest extent practicable as exhibits in reports of investigations of war crimes committed by the Nazis with particular reference to Allied prisoners of war both in and out of camps and to concentration camps for the purpose of recording for civilization the history of horror written by over five years of German atrocities.”
“I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that `the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda.’ Some members of the visiting party were unable to through the ordeal. I not only did so but as soon as I returned to Patton’s headquarters that evening I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt.”
The nazis tried to hide their crimes, hamass livestreams theirs. They’re proud of what they’re doing. They expect the world to rejoice with them.
The state of Israel is our hope of preventing another holocaust. We need to do more than hope.
For now, this wiki article on the Kfar Aza seems to be fairly accurate. One report I heard said many of the dead that were killed initially were the more right wing that had guns and were trying to protect the more naive who didn’t own guns. Kibbutz Be’eri is a kibbutz located in the Gaza periphery since 1946. Its members are generally on the secular left, and it includes many peace activists. There were 250 people living there before, not sure how many are left, many are dead, some have been taken hostage.
See, it’s hard to know the actual numbers of the dead. You aren’t “dead” until your body is given a number. And some of the bodies are hard to get to, even though they can be seen. Some of the rooms in the Kibbutzim have been booby trapped. As have the bodies, where grenades have been placed inside the bodies. So in some of these places you have to have sappers come clear things before you can get the body, and then you can give it a number. This is part of why the death toll is rising slowly.
Happily this was not the way it turned out in every Kibbutz though. From a message on my Zehut group,
As I type this, Hezbollah terrorists have begun entering Israeli air spacewith gliders from Lebanon. God help them. IDF has deployed over 10K troops to the north. Like I said to MPs, I’m afraid of full scale incursion from Lebanon will occur as soon as the IDF begins its ground invasion of Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has suspended it’s gun control policies indefinitely and began issuing permits to all applicants who are Israeli citizens and not Islamic.
On Saturday, female Israeli citizen Inbal Lieberman of Kibbutz Nir Am killed six Hamas terrorists with her AR-15 by herself, and organized her kibbutz residents to fight. They turned the kibbutz into a fortress as she issued weapons and in total killed a dozen Muslims. Because of this incident, Israel is going full 2A.
US Special Forces have now arrived in Israel, probably to coordinate rescue of US citizens kidnapped by Hamas. Pray.
If every citizen had an AR-15 with an adequate capacity magazine…
I mentioned in my previous column that Itamar Ben-Gvir has dropped mountains of gun control laws and is arming citizens. Had they done this years ago as Rabbi Kahane suggested (every Jew a .22) , as Moshe Feiglin suggested this might not have happened. But who knows? I don’t have a crystal ball.
Former PM says it was armed local groups of citizens who were the most successful in fighting off Hamas invaders on Saturday.
Yeah, I’m sure that’s true. But I doubt Francistan or Germany will pay attention. Till it’s too late anyway.
And about the US Special Forces arriving to rescue US citizens. Perhaps I should just point out, for Americans hoping their government will get them out…..
“While Poland, Hungary, Brazil, Romania, and other countries sent planes to bring their citizens home from the war zone, our government told us to fend for ourselves,” wrote Yitz Friedman.
And as long as I’m whinging about the US government, I understand Winkin (Lloyd Austin) Blinkin (Blinken) are already in Israel. The only one missing is Nod (Beijing Biden). My hunch and fear is they are not there to support Israel, they are there to rein Israel in. After a discrete period of time, of course. Say, oh, about 3 days? Maybe less. See the Xiden junta is allied with China, China gave Beijing Biden lots and lots of money. And Beijing is backing the terrorists.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) reaction to the deadly attack on Israel by the Hamas terrorists revealed that it’s on the side of Palestine, according to Gordan Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China” and “China Is Going to War.”
On Sunday, China’s foreign ministry issued its first statement, expressing its deep concerns about the “escalation of tensions and violence between Palestine and Israel.” Without naming Hamas, the ministry’s spokesperson urged “relevant parties” to “remain calm, exercise restraint, and immediately end the hostilities.”
How’s about “HELL NO”. How do you remain calm among decapitated babies and children? Dead mothers with their unborn children cut out of them and the bodies left laying the the umbilical cord hooking them together? With abducted children, women, elderly? One hamass terrorist that was caught very freely admitted when asked why they kidnapped women and children, they aren’t soldiers after all, it was to rape them.
I wrote about some of the atrocities committed by the arabs in Huwara not long ago, the arabs there kill Jews almost any chance they get. They aren’t really afraid of the IDF you see, the IDF, like the American military is mostly controlled at the top by a leftist mentality. Or the lack thereof. You know who the arabs in Huwara are afraid of? The Jews in nearby cities. Those aren’t leftist Jews living in Judea and Samaria on the whole. Of course the UN was outraged by the arab attacks against innocent Jews driving on the road in their car, or in the town. Oh, sorry, my mistake. UN lashes Israel for Huwara settler violence after terror shooting
Nope, the UN was dead silent about the murder of Jews. But the Israelis in nearby towns had flat had enough. Which is partly why I don’t expect the support from “the world” to last too long.
So what brings up Huwara again? In my previous column there was a video clip of an elderly woman that has been kidnapped by hamass making a “Victory” sign as an hamass dropping stood next to her. Well, her image showed up in an ad for pizza in Huwara as they celebrate the massacre of the Jews.
This poor lady… These creatures are sub-animal.
But this time, this time I have something delightful for you, really!!
The Honenu legal aid organization sent an urgent letter to the IDF asking the shop be shut down. The owner had been in legal trouble before,several years before he had seriously injured a boy from Yitzhar with a rock, but was released due to lack of evidence.
You won’t have time for popcorn, but this is delightful none the less. This is the IDF destroying the store. Not a room, not just the window. The store.
You know, if the IDF had been this hard line years ago…..but again, look at who top leadership are. For now, I’ll just savor.
In America, the left is showing their true colors. For those parents who have sacrificed to send their little darlings to a “good university” here’s what you sacrifice has gotten you.
An official statement from the Hamas terrorist organization and comments from a former Hamas leader—both calling for global mobilization against Israel this Friday, Oct. 13—are raising alarm at Jewish organizations and among those who monitor the Middle East.
“The real threat here is that there is no way of knowing who, if anyone, will take up the call or if there are pre-planned actions already staged elsewhere in the world just waiting for the greenlight,” according to James Carafano, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and senior counselor to its president.
Boy, I’m sure glad we don’t have any of those peaceful falestinians in America! And the ones we do have the obiden junta can keep an eye on them!
But the shop former shop in Huwara may not be the only place that is finally going to earn the results it deserves. For all those leftists such as BLM and antifa that have rampaged with no consequences, thought that they could do anything without consequences, perhaps something is changing.
But some of the future BLM/antifa jihadi students are beginning to re-think their signing of a petition blaming Israel for all the dead Jewish families. Not because they object to the atrocities you understand, oh no, not that. But because it could affect their future job opportunities…The suffering of others and compassion for them doesn’t exist on the left.
The backtracking is all about jobs. People want to know who these students are so that they won’t hire them.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is calling on Harvard to release the names of students in the groups that signed the pro-terror statement so that employers do not “inadvertently” hire them in the future. https://t.co/Xx5un4zbmY
— Alana Mastrangelo (@ARmastrangelo) October 12, 2023
Harvard students are legit worried that their open Hamas support will affect future job opportunities with Goldman. https://t.co/OBS2H9dZlW
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) October 11, 2023
Harvard students scramble to take back support for letter attacking Israel as some CEOs look to blacklist them https://t.co/yeBNAHiSdF pic.twitter.com/Qi1M3MXEaM
— New York Post (@nypost) October 11, 2023
And this “Harvard Law Student” obviously is deeply, deeply concerned about the people that were trapped in the “safe rooms” of their houses hearing their neighbors slaughtered and could do nothing, the families that were wiped out because they were Jewish. See, some of those black and brown people BLM is always yammering on about protecting and caring about? Well, some of those black and brown people in Israel were Jewish. Black and brown people killed by arabs. And BLM supports their killers. But back to my point about the Harvard law student, it seems some CEOs not being mush headed college students and looking at the letters the aforementioned mush headed college students signed blaming Israel for hamass attacking them. And decided “Nope, nopitty nope nope. Not hiring these immoral and amoral thugs”. So what distresses Harvard law student? Not the suffering of the victims, nope the “harassment” by CEOs wanting to know who signed the letter because they don’t want to hire them. Wow.
a flawed view of harassment I’d say
And what are the future terrorist falestinian children learning in school? Oh, same thing.
Simply, they put no value on human life, not for others and not for themselves. They are a death cult.
It’s reminiscent of Golda Meir.
The Jews are concerned about life, even the abandoned dogs in the south.
And the Orthodox Jews of Chabad showing up in war zones to cheer and encourage the Israeli soldiers. I’d say they succeeded. I adorethis clip! Adore it!!
But I want to basically end with looking further back in Israeli history that Golda, I want to look back to King David.
First Lenny Goldberg “The Jewish Way in War” About 16 minutes long.
Tamar Yonah, a Israeli talk show host did a 35 minute video.
Think like a true, proud, and HEALTHY Jew. Ask yourself, what would G-d’s beloved King David do if he were facing enemies committing these atrocities against Israel? We know what the answer correct answer is:’Eat them for lunch, before they eat YOU for dinner.”King David would never kick the can down the road regarding a terror entity and the slaughtering of his citizens. As a ‘just’ king, he would never tolerate decades of murderous attacks against his people. King David wouldn’t try to ‘contain’ the terror, or ‘manage it’ as our leadership has done for decades. No. We all know what King David would do.
As he wrote in Psalm 18:
*verse 38) I will pursue my enemies and overtake them, never turning back until they are consumed.*
*v39) I will crush them so that they cannot rise; yea, until they have fallen under my feet.*
*v40) For You have girded me with strength for the battle; You have subdued under me, those that rose up against me.*
*v41) And of my enemies, You have given me the back of their necks; those that hate me, that I may cut them off.*
As for many of us lately living in a state of fear,…folks, *switch your thinking, and make THEM, afraid of US!*
! And let’s do what King David would do – eliminate these monsters once and for all!
I’ve been asked by people how can they help. So I’ll give you some different choices.
This page has links to several different well known Israeli aid groups.
Chabad is always there helping in any way they can.
Veafilu Behastara—Even when he seems hidden, he is with us.
And Kol Haolam Kulo–The quote is from Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. “All the world is a narrow bridge and the most important thing is to not be afraid.”
The visitors from Chabad showed the power of song to inspire and encourage, I will attempt to do the same. The big mercy is I’m not the one singing it to you.
Be well, Shabbat Shalom a bit early.
Pigpen51 left a comment on an earlier column regarding the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals complicity in California’s brazen violations of the Constitution. He thinks the Supreme Court needs to make some rulings with absolutely no wiggle room to allow California — and like-minded oathbreakers — to continue enforcing bad laws.
I hope that they do so with, shall we say gusto, or extreme prejudice, or with a heavy gavel? Because if they leave even the smallest crack in the rebuke, no doubt the anti Constitution liberals will find a way to yet again hold things up
Crack? Taking advantage of a “crack” is what they did with the original Gun-Free School Zones” law. SCOTUS tossed it, so they passed a new bill virtually identical to the original, with “moved in interstate commerce” tacked on.
Mostly they don’t worry about cracks anymore. If a law gets tossed, they simply pass it again with the punctuation slightly altered, and declare that it’s new and SCOTUS hasn’t ruled on this one. That forces the pro-freedom types to waste time and money to fight what is essentially the exact same law. Blue state legislators and AGs don’t mind because it isn’t their money they’re wasting; it’s yours.
SCOTUS should have put a stop to that decades ago. Now, emboldened by SCOTUS’ failure to slap them down, they’re escalating. California just passed a couple more bills that clearly violate BRUEN. And they know it. Newsom said so, saying that they will not be bound by the “general, historical legal tradition” demanded by BRUEN.
“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.”
And it wasn’t just Newscum saying it. It’s actually in the bill passed and signed. (It helps to read the “Whereas” rationalization preface to bills, and not just the hard action portions.)
No longer will they need to “keep kicking that can down the road.” If SCOTUS doesn’t start arresting these scumbags, they don’t need to “change the makeup of the court” that they’ll ignore anyway.
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.
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.
There’s a trial in Virginia over a shooting. Let me describe the reported circumstances, and let you decide what you’d have done.
You’re minding your own business, when a 6′ 5″ “goon” (his own monicker, by the way) walks up on you. He sticks his hand in your face and calls you a “dips**t”. You repeatedly tell him to stop, but he refuses. You keep backing away, but he keeps closing on you, still calling you a “dips**t.” You try to knock his hand out your face, but he continues.
Would you be frightened, concerned for your physical safety?
Would you shoot the hulking threat?
Alan Colie did shoot the goon; a single shot to the abdomen. And was arrested for it.
Cook, who is 6-foot-5, could be seen holding a cell phone about 6 inches from Colie’s face. The cellphone broadcasted the phrase “Hey dips—-, quit thinking about my twinkle” through a Google Translate app several times.
Colie could be heard saying “stop” on three separate occasions and tried to back away from Cook, who continued to advance towards him.
Colie attempted to knock the phone away from his face before he allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Cook in the lower left chest.
The “rest of the story” is that the goon is a YouTube “prankster,” who has had multiple run-ins with law enforcement over his disgusting, frightening, and threatening “pranks” pulled on unsuspecting strangers. A sane person of normal intelligence might learn from those encounters that such “pranks” are dangerous.
Not Cook.
YouTube prankster Tanner Cook said in court on Tuesday that he had no idea he had scared or angered Alan Colie, 31, who ended up allegedly shooting him during a prank.
And why would he even consider the possibility that his victim might be scared? After all, it’s not like any of his other targets were…
Cook said during the hearing that he tries to confuse targets of his pranks for the amusement of his online audience and doesn’t try to elicit fear or anger, but said his targets often react that way.
Oh. So he already knew that his subjects often perceive him as a threat — just as Colie did — but still thought thought the risk of instilling that fear would be fun.
Would I have shot the goon? Quite possibly, given the scenario described in court. I would certainly have drawn my sidearm and issued one last warning. Then, whether I fired or not would depend on Cook passing the impromptu IQ test.
The prosecution in this case maintains that the shooting was unjustified because the goon was “unarmed.”
“It was stupid. It was silly. And you may even think it was offensive. But that’s all it was — a cellphone in the ear that got Tanner shot.”
No, it was disparity of force. Colie was threatened by a person much larger and stronger; a person who refused to cease his threatening actions. Cook didn’t need a weapon to be a danger, he was a weapon. And while Cook might not have intended to be a threat, Colie didn’t know that; he only knew what he was experiencing, and that was the actions of Cook, who admitted that he knew his victims “often” saw his acts as threatening.
Juries are weird, so I don’t know how this will turn; but I know how it should: acquittal.
As for goon Cook, he clearly is still failing life’s ongoing intelligence test. I suspect he’ll finally encounter someone less restrained than Colie — who only fired a single shot to stop the advancing threat — who will empty his magazine center mass, ending those “pranks” for good.
Update, 9/29/2023: The verdict is in. Colie was acquitted of the two felony malicious wounding and malicious shooting in an occupied structure charges. Weirdly, though, he was convicted of misdemeanor use of a firearm during a felony the same jury said he didn’t committed. Colie’s attorney is addressing that.
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.
Probably not.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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