Supreme Court Seems Sympathetic to NRA’s Claims Against New York Debanking Pressure Case
The oral hearings suggest an overall degree of favorability towards the NRA’s allegations of First Amendment violations.

The case, NRA v. Vullo, brought by the National Rifle Association (NRA) against a New York official and alleging freedom of speech violations, has reached the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) and, overall, the justices appeared overall sympathetic toward NRA’s claims.

The respondent to the NRA’s petition to allow the lawsuit to proceed, former New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) Superintendent Maria Vullo, is accused of influencing banks and insurance firms to drop the NRA.

The case concerns two actions taken by Vullo – first seven years ago when DFS started investigating insurance programs in cases of gun injuries tied to NRA. The following year, this resulted in three insurers stopping programs covering such claims in New York, and paying $7 million in fines.

And then, after the Parkland, Florida school shooting in 2018, the official decided it was a good idea to publish a “guidance” letter to banks and insurers (thousands of them), warning how their “reputation” might suffer if they worked with a pro-gun organization. Vullo found success here as well, as a number of insurance companies and banks heeded the warning.

But the NRA’s federal lawsuit that followed accused Vullo of violating NRA’s First Amendment rights. A court first allowed the lawsuit to proceed, but then the court of appeals overturned this ruling. And it is now up to SCOTUS to decide.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is representing the NRA, explaining its involvement as necessary to prevent the government from going after other groups in a similar way – even though the ACLU’s own ideological slant and that of the NRA are clearly on the opposite ends of the spectrum in the US.

The ACLU’s David Cole told the justices on Monday that SCOTUS should adhere to the Bantam Books v. Sullivan decision in this case, adding that “informal, indirect government efforts to suppress or penalize speech by threatening private intermediaries violate the First Amendment.”

In Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963), the Supreme Court ruled that the Rhode Island Commission to Encourage Morality in Youth’s practice of notifying distributors about certain books deemed objectionable for minors under 18 amounted to unconstitutional state censorship. This informal censorship violated the First Amendment as it lacked procedural safeguards, leading to the suppression of book distribution without formal legal action. The Court emphasized that while states have the authority to regulate obscene material, they must ensure that such regulation does not infringe on constitutionally protected speech, thus requiring a balance between protecting minors and upholding free speech rights​.

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Already unconstitutional per SCOTUS in Heller and controlling on state laws per McDonald.

D.C. v Heller (IV para5)
We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.

Bill would require Rhode Island gun owners to lock firearms when not in use

The Rhode Island Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would require all firearms, when not being used by the owner or another authorized user, to be stored in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant mechanical lock.

Under the bill, the unsafe storage of a firearm would be considered a civil offense that could be punished by a fine of up to $250 for a first offense and $1,000 for a second. Any subsequent violation would be punishable by up to six months in prison and a fine of up to $500.

The measure passed by a 28-7 vote.

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Sen. Pamela Lauria, said responsible gun owners already take precautions, but those steps should be a requirement, not an option.

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Law Enforcement Trainers File Scotus Amicus Brief against Maryland Rifle Ban: Citizens should be able to choose the same high-quality defensive arms that peace officers choose.

Last week the International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Association filed an amicus brief in a U.S. Supreme Court case challenging Maryland’s ban on many common semiautomatic rifles. The case is Bianchi v. Brown, and it has an unusual procedural posture; it is a petition for certiorari before judgement. Yet the case is one on which the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled.

This post will first summarize the amicus brief, and then provide the procedural background, which is detailed in the Bianchi plaintiffs’ cert. petition.

The facts about the banned rifles

As detailed in the amicus brief, the semiautomatic rifles banned by the Maryland General Assembly fire only one shot each time the trigger is pressed. This is the same rate of fire as the most common semiautomatic handguns, such as those made by Glock, Smith & Wesson, or Ruger.

The claim by gun prohibition advocates that such guns fire 300 to 500 times per minute has no basis in fact, and is contrary to common sense. It would take a superhuman trigger finger pull a trigger at the rate of 5 to 8 times per second, let alone do so for a full minute.

Nor are the banned rifles, including those based on the AR-15 platform, more powerful than nonbanned rifles. To the contrary, their standard ammunition is .223 inch or 5.56mm bullets that are small compared to most other rifle ammunition. Accordingly, their kinetic energy is lower.

Because the banned rifles are more powerful than handguns, but less powerful than most other rifles, the relatively low wounding power of this ammunition has been confirmed by decades of study by the US Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory.

Moreover, as documented in police training manuals, the banned rifles are the safest for defensive use within buildings, because their ammunition is especially unlikely to penetrate a wall.

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Another ‘She said what!?’. The Justice that can’t tell you what a woman is, thinks that the goobermint should have the power to restrict the freedom of the press to protect the populace.

Just to refresh your memories. Here’s the preamble to the Bill of Rights with my emphasis of really important parts.

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

Noem is first governor to declare invasion before state legislature

(The Center Square) – When South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem declared an invasion before the state legislature, she became the first governor in modern history to do so.

Texas Gov. Sam Houston referred to an invasion being fought on two fronts before the Texas legislature in 1860, The Center Square first reported.

While Gov. Greg Abbott has invoked constitutional clauses, he has not declared an invasion or laid out the constitutional authority of Texas’ right to self-defense before the Texas legislature. As he’s issued executive orders and sent letters to President Joe Biden citing Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense, 55 Texas counties have passed invasion resolutions and 60 have issued disaster declarations, citing the border crisis.

Last month, Noem spoke before the South Dakota legislature to specifically address the southern border crisis. She said, “Nearly 10 million foreign nationals have broken federal law and they’ve infiltrated our country within the past three years bringing with them drugs, trafficking, crime, and violence,” creating a national security crisis. While American history is “proudly built on the stories of our ancestors who came to this country for opportunity and for a new beginning,” she said, “today, many of those who are entering our country under the current policies of the Biden administration are known terrorists. They’re criminals, they’re human traffickers, and they’re drug cartel members.”

Because of Biden’s policies, “people from over a hundred different countries have heard the story of our open border,” she said. “Countries such as Venezuela are known to be emptying out their prisons and their mental institutions, and they’re sending them to America.

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If so, we can only hope the Court takes these cases and crams their rulings in Heller, Caetano, McDonald and Bruen down the lower court’s and state’s throats

Groundswell of Second Amendment Cases Seems Destined for the Supreme Court
Federal courts in blue states seem to be upholding the majority of gun control laws, even after landmark Supreme Court decisions upholding the fundamental right to keep and bear arms

We recently posted about the New York Second Amendment case challenging New York’s concealed carry permit law that requires that a permit applicant prove to a local official that he or she is of “good moral character.” Not only is this an absurd requirement (how exactly are you supposed to prove that you have “good moral character”), but even after doing so, said local official then has complete discretion on whether to approve the applicant’s permit request . . . or not. The challengers in the case just asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case after the Second Circuit approved the “good moral character” requirement:

From our report: Second Circuit’s Partial Upholding of New York’s Gun Carry Law Appealed to SCOTUS:

The key part of the Petition [asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case] is its discussion of the New York law’s requirement that New Yorkers prove that they have “good moral character” before obtaining a concealed carry permit:

[T]his case would allow this Court the opportunity to clarify that government may not selectively disarm law-abiding members of “the people” whenever licensing officials feel they are of poor character, potentially dangerous, or otherwise unworthy of enjoying the natural right to self-defense with which they were endowed by their Creator….

In Bruen, this Court rejected New York’s requirement that, to be authorized to bear arms in public, citizens first must demonstrate “proper cause” — defined as “a special need for self-protection.” Here, the panel sanctioned New York’s stand-in requirement that citizens convince licensing officials of their “good moral character” prior to licensure. As the district court explained, New York simply “replaced” proper cause with good moral character, “while retaining (and even expanding) the open-ended discretion afforded to its licensing officers….”

New York’s “good moral character” standard is…a prohibited “suitability” determination and, as the district court noted, is merely a surrogate for the “proper cause” standard that was struck down in Bruen…Indeed, under the CCIA, New York officials decide whether a person “ha[s] the essential character, temperament and judgement necessary to be entrusted with a weapon….”

It is quite difficult to understand Bruen’s criticism of “suitability” not to include “good moral character.” And it is even more difficult to believe that this Court would approve the discretionary power to deny carry licenses to “all Americans” unless they first “convince a ‘licensing officer’” of their general morality.

In doing some research to see if other cases exist that are working their way through the courts, I was surprised to find out that there are — a lot of them.

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NSSF PRAISES INDIANA GOVERNOR SIGNING LAW TO END CITY OF GARY LAWSUIT

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praises Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s signing of House Bill 1235, legislation that “provides that only the state of Indiana may bring or maintain an action by or on behalf of a political subdivision against a firearm or ammunition manufacturer, trade association, seller, or dealer concerning certain matters.” The bill “prohibits a political subdivision from otherwise independently bringing or maintaining such an action.”

The industry members the City of Gary sued are expected to promptly file a motion to dismiss the case based on this new law that became effective immediately upon the Governor’s signature. Lawyers representing the city acknowledged in their testimony opposing the bill that if it were to be enacted it would mean the City of Gary’s lawsuit will be dismissed. The City of Gary’s nearly quarter-century old frivolous lawsuit against firearm manufacturers seeks to hold them responsible for the criminal actions of unrelated and remote third parties.

“This is a tremendous victory for common sense. The City of Gary never had a serious claim. Instead, it was committed to a losing strategy of lawfare to abuse the courts in order to force through gun control policy outside of legislative channels,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel. “NSSF is grateful for Indiana Rep. Chris Jeter for his leadership when he introduced this legislation, the Indiana legislature including Sen. Aaron Freeman for its commitment to the law and Governor Holcomb for his faithfulness to the principles of ensuring politically-motivated lawsuits don’t clog our courts and allow special-interests to circumvent the legislative authority reserved by the State of Indiana.”

The City of Gary, Ind., first filed their claims in 1999, as part of a coordinated effort by 40 big city mayors who conspired together through the U.S. Conference of Mayors with gun control activist from Brady United (formerly known as the Brady Center), lawyers and trial lawyers.

All these municipal lawsuits have either been dismissed by the courts, e.g., Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Fransico, Detroit and St. Louis, or simply dropped by several cities, e.g., Boston, Cincinnati and Camden. Many of these municipal lawsuits were dismissed based on state preemption laws enacted between the 1999 to 2001 time period upon which H.B. 1235 is modeled. Like H.B. 1235, these laws – that have been upheld by the courts – reserve to the state the exclusive authority to sue members of the industry except that they allow for breach of warranty and related claims for firearms a political subdivision purchased. 

Additionally, Congress passed in a broad bipartisan fashion, and President George W. Bush signed into law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) in 2005. The PLCAA blocks lawsuits that attempt to hold firearm and ammunition industry companies liable for the criminal actions of third parties who misuse the industry’s lawful non-defective products. More specifically, this common-sense law ensures that responsible and law-abiding federally licensed manufacturers and retailers of firearms and ammunition are not unjustly blamed in federal and state civil actions for “the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse” these products that function as designed and intended.

Illegal Alien from Lebanon Caught at Border Admits He is Hezbollah, Hoped to Make a Bomb.

An illegal alien from Lebanon was apprehended illegally crossing the southern border near El Paso, Texas by Border Patrol agents on March 9.

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was asked what he was doing in the United States. He said he was going to New York and hoped to make a bomb. “I’m going to make a bomb.” He admitted he is a member of Hezbollah.

During a sworn interview, Ebbadi said he trained with Hezbollah for seven years. He said he was an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years.

Thanks, Joe Biden.

Ebbadi’s trained to be a jihadi to kill people “that was not Muslim,” according to ICE documents.

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Tell me about it. My insurance premium went up 10% and the Tahoee is a year older…..Of course I’m a year older too and ‘seasoned citizens’ supposedly are higher risks as they get older.

Why auto insurance costs are rising at the fastest rate in 47 years.

As car prices moderate from a pandemic-era surge, insurance has pushed the cost of car ownership to the brink for many Americans.

New data out this week showed auto insurance costs rose 20.6% from the prior year in February, matching January’s increase as the most since December 1976, when costs rose 22.4% over the prior year.

On an annual basis, motor vehicle insurance costs rose 17.4% in 2023, the most since a 28.7% increase in 1976, according to data from the BLS.

The sticker shock hitting many American drivers is being driven by a rise in accidents, the severity of accidents, and geographical factors combining to create a perfect storm and push costs higher.

The most alarming factor driving insurance costs higher is more severe claims.

“In general, the numbers of crashes, injuries, and fatalities are up, and inflation has made the cost of repairs more expensive,” AAA spokesperson Robert Sinclair told Yahoo Finance.

Sinclair said motorists developed “bad habits” on the road during pandemic lockdowns, contributing to current behavior. For example, as the New York Times reported earlier this year, researchers in Nevada discovered that during the pandemic, motorists were speeding more (and driving through intersections), seat belt use was down, and intoxicated driving arrests were up to near historic highs.

Sinclair also pointed to NHTSA data, which found that in 2021, at the height of the pandemic, road fatalities increased by 10.5% to their highest level since 2005, even while most Americans stayed at home. The NHTSA said it was the highest percentage increase it had ever seen. The agency found that fatalities in 2022 only decreased by 0.3% as compared to 2021.

Insurance tech firm Insurify found that auto insurance premium hikes were “largely due to the skyrocketing price of auto parts and the increasing number and severity of claims.” And while increases may moderate, analysts still believe further premium hikes are on the horizon.

“While the magnitude of rate increases is likely to ease somewhat, after several years of double-digit increases, some lingering claim cost inflation and adverse claim severity and frequency will likely lead to a ‘higher for longer’ auto rate environment,” CFRA analyst Cathy Seifert told Yahoo Finance.

Not surprisingly, severe accidents leave insurance companies with rising loss ratios, or a share of premiums collected that insurers paid out in claims.

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Man shot after forcing entry into Orange County home

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A man was shot Saturday night after allegedly forcing entry into a home near Baldwin Park, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies responded around 8:50 p.m. to the 700 block of Eldridge Street, a statement reads.

The man accused of forcing entry to the home suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound and was taken to a hospital in stable condition, deputies said, adding the two parties know each other.

The sheriff’s office is still investigating.

If there’s any question, he’s referring to a ‘gas pipe’ shotgun. And the price of the materials has increased significantly.

Armies of Chaos
by L. Neil Smith

Before anyone proposes more gun control, he or she should know about a simple, deadly weapon 4 times as powerful as Dirty Harry’s legendary .44 Magnum — and at least twice as concealable — that can’t be controlled.

This simple, deadly weapon can be made by anyone—even a child—with unpowered hand tools in an hour’s time using $5 worth of materials, most of which are available around the house anyway. In traditional form it’s reusable an unlimited number of times, and modern plastics have rendered its disposable version electronically undetectable. You can clear a room with such a weapon (more of a hand-held directional grenade than a gun—sort of a recyclable Claymore mine) and it’s just one of hundreds of similar time-proven designs.

Complete instructions for building this simple, deadly weapon could be given in half the space I’m using here and not require a single illustration. Or it could be done as a line-drawing and not require a word. Either way, the results would Xerox splendidly and reduce, for effortless distribution, to the size of a 3X5 card.

No, I’m not making this up.

Self-styled liberal academics and politicians generally suffer an ancient Greek prejudice against the manual trades and often fail to comprehend what it means, with respect to banning weapons, that we’re a nation of basement lathe-operators. Americans unknowingly tend to follow Mohammed’s precept that, whatever a person’s station in life, he or she should also do something manual, if only to stay grounded in reality. And if there’s any lingering doubt about the ease of basic weaponscraft, ask the Israelis who, early in their nation’s history, turned out submachineguns little more complicated than what I’m discussing here, in automotive garages lacking even a lathe.

Civilized restraint precludes my describing the weapon in any greater detail here. Many gun enthusiasts will know by now exactly what I refer to, anyway. It’s in everyday use in much of the Third World, especially where governments foolishly believe that they’ve outlawed weapons. But that, of course, is impossible—unless the same governments want to try repealing the last 1000 years of civil engineering.

Now suppose somebody went ahead and wrote out those easy-to-follow instructions, made that line drawing, or simply Xeroxed it from any of 100 sources already in print. Suppose the plans for a reusable, undetectable weapon 4 times as powerful as a .44 Magnum and twice as concealable began circulating on every junior high school campus in America. Or suppose they were simply sent to the media who can never resist giving viewers step-by-step directions for committing a crime—even as they bemoan the terribleness of it all.

So what, you say. So this: within hours, every self-styled liberal academic and politician extant would begin to weep, wail, and whimper (the only thing they’re really good at) and before the media-amplified screaming was over—but after the legislature had met—we’d find that the rights protected by the First Amendment (not created or granted, mind you, only recognized and guaranteed) are no more secure than those supposedly protected by the Second. Free expression would be trampled under without another thought or a moment’s hesitation by the same jackals, vultures, and hyenas currently leading the stampede to outlaw weapons—using exactly the same excuses.

When Xerox machines are outlawed, only outlaws will have Xerox machines.

Human rights are indivisible because there’s really only one—the right to remain unmolested by the government or by anybody else. Those who threaten one right threaten them all—and aren’t really “liberals” by any definition of the word. Suppressing the human right to own and carry weapons is a step toward suppressing the human right to read, write, and think. Ask Canadians, for whom censorship is a fact of daily life, and for whom certain “assault” books (many of them published by Paladin Press) are on the “hafta smuggle it in” list.

The same thing can and will happen here. Haven’t we had ample warning in the way self-styled liberals, assisted by the corrupt media, suppress their opposition on these and other issues? Or in their willingness to present lies as truth while the truth is called a lie? Or in the fact that elected officials who advocate gun control—which is a felony—are still at large instead of behind bars where they belong? The very existence of a gun control lobby gives the lie to any claim they make to liberalism. The word “liberal” itself is false advertising, and the question arises, why do we go on applying it when the word “fascist” is so much more appropriate?

A popular bumper sticker proclaims that “GUN CONTROL IS PEOPLE CONTROL”. More to the point, and far more sinister, gun control is MIND control. The relationship only begins with ludicrous attempts by self-styled liberals to convince a population protected by the Second Amendment that the Bill of Rights doesn’t mean what it says. Weapons consist of more than machined steel or wood, cast aluminum or plastic. As John M. Browning or Sam Colt would tell you, their second-most vital component is an idea. (The first, for better or worse, is the will to use them.) Without that idea behind it, all the steel, wood, aluminum, and plastic in the world doesn’t make a weapon.

Those who would outlaw weapons must first outlaw the knowledge of weapons. And those who would outlaw the knowledge of weapons must outlaw knowledge itself.

Similarly, civilization consists of more than just impressive public buildings and a battery of arbitrary rules. Its continued existence depends absolutely on the day-to-day good will of each and every individual. History (especially recent Soviet history) proves that this good will depends on how well individual rights are respected. Alienate the individual, lose his good will, and you lose civilization itself.

Think I exaggerate? Take another look at Beirut, Los Angeles, or the World Trade Center.

Every day we learn again how dependent we’ve been all along on individual self-restraint. Self-styled liberals label this lesson “terrorism” because it makes them feel better and helps them to forget until tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter what they call it. In sufficient numbers, disaffected individuals become armies of chaos, reducing whole civilizations to archaeological rubble. And, as with most violence in our culture, it is self-styled liberals who will make it happen here.

Sorting for Stupidity?
Thoughts on the state of the federal government.

Is the federal government sorting for stupidity?

I had this thought when I was out for beers with an old friend, who’s a former Senior Executive Service bureaucrat with the federal government.  He was remarking that in the old days of Washington, say up through the 1960s or maybe the 1970s, being a senior federal bureaucrat was a plum job, and often even paid more than working in the private sector.

That was also a time when Washington, D.C. was a comparatively sleepy town where a senior civil servant’s salary was plenty to allow a nice house in the suburbs and meals at the best restaurants (such as they were) that Washington had to offer.

Now, however, you can make much more money outside the government, trying to influence it, than you can make inside the government, trying to do your job.  The result is a steady movement of the smartest people out of government.  That of course tends to mean that the people who remain are, well, not the smartest. (There are plenty of exceptions on both sides of this, of course, but  the overall impact is as described.)

The reason why it’s so lucrative to influence the federal bureaucracy now is that the federal bureaucracy is sweeping and powerful.  You would be a fool – as Microsoft learned in the 1980s and 1990s when it bragged about not having a DC office – not to try to influence it, if only out of self-protection.  Back when the federal government was much smaller, say in the 1940s, 1950s, and even the 1960s, there was less call to influence it, and so the opportunities for people to earn big salaries by moving from administrating to lobbying were much less.  But that changed.

This happened in the early 1970s, during the Nixon Administration.  Despite (because of?) Nixon’s conservative reputation, his administration saw an explosion of federal regulatory power, to the point where those years are known among scholars of administrative law as the “regulatory explosion.”  New agencies like the EPA and OSHA were created, new statutes  like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, OSHA Act, etc., were passed, and existing agencies were given – or simply assumed – much farther-reaching powers.

As Jonathan Rauch notes in his classic book, Demosclerosis, in 1929 the federal government made up about three percent of the U.S. economy.  Now it’s closer to twenty-five percent.

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They’ve – sorta – made several movies about this.

The New World on Mars: What We Can Create On The Red Planet.

Robert Zubrin, world-renowned space authority and founding president of the Mars Society, taps today’s newest science and most dogged research to foretell in astounding detail the brave, new Martian civilization we will achieve when (not if!) humankind colonizes Mars

When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization. From the astronautical engineer venerated by NASA and today’s space entrepreneurs, here is what we will achieve on Mars and how.

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are building fleets of space vehicles to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Old-World passage to America. We will settle on Mars, and with our knowledge of the planet, analyzed in depth by Dr. Zubrin, we will utilize the resources and tackle the challenges that await us. What we will we build? Populous Martian city-states producing air, water, food, power, and more.

Zubrin’s Martian economy will pay for necessary imports and generate income from varied enterprises, such as real estate sales—homes that are airtight and protect against cosmic space radiation, with fish-farm aquariums positioned overhead, letting in sunlight and blocking cosmic rays while providing fascinating views. Zubrin even predicts the Red Planet customs, social relations, and government—of the people, by the people, for the people, with inalienable individual rights—that will overcome traditional forms of oppression to draw Earth immigrants. After all, Mars needs talent.

With all of this in place, Zubrin’s Red Planet will become a pressure cooker for invention, benefiting humans on Earth, Mars, and beyond. We can create this magnificent future, making life better, less fatalistic. The New World on Mars proves that there is no point killing each other over provinces and limited resources when, together, we can create planets.