Category: Crap For Brains

This is the easily discredited (as all Marxist ideas)”Labor Theory of Value”
Robert Heinlein illuminated this in Starship Troopers:

“Of course, the Marxian definition of value is ridiculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart; it remains a mud pie,    value zero.

By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess,    value zero.

Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare an ordinary sweet.

These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value — the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives — and to illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use.

 ASU professor calls traditional grading racist, suggests ‘labor-based grading’ instead

Arizona State University professor Asao Inoue recently ranted about “White language supremacy in writing classrooms,” during which he called for abolishing traditional grading in favor of “labor-based grading.”

The latter method scores assignments based on the amount of effort students put towards in the work, devaluing quality and accuracy in the grading.

During Nov. 5 lecture at the University of Tennessee titled “The Possibilities of Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies”, Inoue claimed that “White language supremacy in writing classrooms is due to the uneven and diverse linguistic legacies that everyone inherits, and the racialized white discourses that are used as standards, which give privilege to those students who embody those habits of white language already”.

In order to rid the classroom of the “Habits of White Language”, Inoue advocated for grading to be based on the time spent on assignments, a move he claims “structurally changes everyone’s relationship to dominant standards of English that come from elite, masculine, heteronormative, ableist, white racial groups of speakers,” The College Fix reported.

Inoue paused several times throughout the speech, according to The College Fix, to allow the audience to practice being “anti-racist” by observing themselves “participating in racism, engaging in white fragility, in white rage, or in white language supremacy”.

Inoue has spent a considerable amount of time promoting his grading philosophy. As Campus Reform reported in March, he wrote a 358 page book titled Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom.

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MSU Denver Writing Center calls ‘Standard American English’ a tool of white supremacy.

Metropolitan State University of Denver flags “Standard American English” as a concern for “anti-racist” initiatives on a web page dedicated to “Linguistic White Supremacy.”

The page appears on the school’s Writing Center section and prompts professors to counter white supremacy in the classroom through initiatives such as “Grading with Equity,” “Restorative Justice Approaches to Plagiarism,” and an “Anti-Racist Book Club.”

“Consider how you can design assignments, pedagogy, response/grading practices that acknowledge that racism exists in our assignments, pedagogy, response/grading practices,” the center says.

The university also warns against “Standard American English,” which is “a social construct that privileges white communities and maintains social and racial hierarchies.”

“The MSU Denver Writing Center rejects the notion that Standard American English (SAE) exists for many reasons,” the website says. “We fully support students in using their English (whatever that may be) in communicating their thoughts and ideas.”

“Standard American English (SAE) is a version of English that is often expected in professional and educational settings,” the page continues. “Employers and instructors may believe there is a common set of rules that govern SAE, but that is not in fact true. What is true is that different people have different assumptions about what SAE is.”

The website also recommends that professors ask about assignments: “Is this antiracist?,” “How does this prompt fight white supremacy?,” and “Does this prompt exploit the students in any way?”

The Writing Center names an example of an assignment that may exploit students: “Write About the Biggest Obstacle You’ve Overcome in Life.”

“This prompt is alienating because the biggest struggle some of your students may have faced is losing a pet, while others may be refugees from war-torn countries,” the page says. “Provide prompts that will not force a student to relive trauma.”

The page further advises that professors should “[a]void assumptions of American cultural knowledge.”

College English departments often promote “anti-racist” ways of teaching and grading.

In 2022, the University of Maryland at Baltimore sought writing consultants with “[p]revious anti-racist coursework or activism.”

“For students committed to anti-racist action in your own professional practices and communities, the rigorous preparation will be a major benefit of this campus job,” the job description said.

Professors at a 2021 “Antiracist Pedagogy Symposium” at Towson University in Maryland argued that grading students for grammar reinforces “white supremacy.”

“The repeated references to ‘correct grammar’ and ‘standard language’ reinforce master narratives of English only as White and monolingualism and a deficit view of multilingualism,” one professor said.

The Twisted World of Gun Control

Gun control advocates and Democrats inhabit a different space. Perhaps it’s another dimension or some kind of odd singularity. Whatever it is, it’s a fantasy, complete with all the trappings, in which facts are not only irrelevant, they’re squashed by whatever claims are made by the faithful.

We’re accustomed to unsupported (and unsupportable) claims, cynical appeals to emotion, and carefully crafted, mass-market propaganda. However, it appears some gun-grabbers, even influential ones, have succumbed to their addiction and actually believe what they say. They have embraced the elves-and-fairies lifestyle.

After Thurston County Superior Court Judge Christine Schaller upheld Washington’s assault weapons ban* last month, Renée Hopkins, CEO of Alliance for Gun Responsibility, released a statement:

“This is another strong affirmation that our state’s gun violence prevention laws are both constitutional and effective. Assault weapons have no place in our communities, and Washington has been clear about that.”

We’re still waiting on the Supreme Court to weigh in on ‘constitutional’ but ‘effective’? This is obviously some new definition of the word not found in any dictionary — ever.

A report from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs covered violent crime from 2019 to 2024. The report compared the number of offenses and rate per 100,000 population for Washington state to the national stats.

Washington’s violent crime rate rose 8%; aggravated assaults rose 27%; and the murder rate soared 43%.

Compare those figures to the national rates: The U.S. violent crime rate dropped 6%; the rate of` aggravated assaults rose just 2%; and the murder rate fell 4%.

Red flag laws weren’t ‘effective’, either. In the five years from 2019 to 2023, the CDC reported the percentage of Washington suicides committed with a gun rose 7%.

In fairness, if Ms. Hopkins’ concept of ‘effective’ is an increase in firearm-related fatalities, Washington’s statutes are doing an exemplary job.

There was another notable aberration in September of this year. Following a tragic mass shooting in Manhattan, New York Governor Kathy Hochul sought to place blame on Nevada’s lax gun laws.

Hochul bragged about New York state’s gun laws and demanded Congress pass similar laws on a national basis.

Neither Hochul nor the media figured out that all those strong gun laws failed spectacularly. They not only failed to prevent the incident, but there’s also no indication that they impacted the killer at all. Despite this, she wants all Americans to be subjected to those same laws.

All that’s missing is Rod Serling saying, “Presented for your consideration…”

Ensconced in their little pocket of ersatz reality, gun grabbers believe nothing can stand in the way of their desired goals. Even the impossible is disregarded.

Ihlan Omar, the controversial U.S. Representative from Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District, was captured on video as she spoke to a group:

“We have more guns in this country than we have humans. So one of the things that is going to be important is to create a registry so we know where the guns are. We know when they go into the wrong hands when they’re stolen. And we can actually start a buyback program. I know that some of the Minnesota legislators have had that legislation and that’s something that we should be thinking about on a federal level.”

Her first sentence is irrelevant: We also have more Crayola crayons than people. Left to themselves, they pose exactly the same threat to public safety as firearms — or steak knives, hand tools, or Ford F-150 trucks.
From the second sentence on, Rep. Omar falls back on a popular gun-grabber fantasy: Federal gun registration. There are two obstacles in our world, but it seems they aren’t considered an issue in whatever dimension is occupied by the gun-control crazies.

First, a national registry of firearms or firearm owners is prohibited by federal law and has been since May 19, 1986. 18 U.S. Code § 926 says: “No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established.”

The second challenge will be much more difficult to overcome: Americans are not going to register their guns. Only a fraction of the estimated 400 million+ firearms owned by more than 80 million citizens are located in states with long-standing gun registration laws. Attempts to impose new, state-level registration requirements on certain types of firearms delivered ‘disappointing’ results.

Actually believing in gun buybacks indicates a ban fan’s addiction has entered a critical phase, urgently requiring an intervention.

When it comes to restrictions on the legal ownership of guns, control addicts and Democrats cling to beliefs less credible than the Easter Bunny. These strongly indicate there’s no point in future discussions.

On the other hand, there is a pressing need for us to rein in some rogues in Congress and state legislatures who have fallen to the lure of the unicorn.

Students Push New Gun Control Bill to Prevent Gun Theft

A group of college and high school students in Minnesota is pushing for a gun control measure aimed at reducing the number of firearms stolen from vehicles.
This comes after the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minneapolis earlier this year. The group is working with state legislators on legislation that would ostensibly promote gun safety, according to The Minnesota Daily.

“ The University of Minnesota and high school students are working together with the state legislature to target legal loopholes to improve gun safety in Minnesota schools.

Jenny Wen, a student at Columbia University, is part of a student-led policy group working with state Rep. Julie Greene (DFL), to draft a new gun safety bill for the upcoming legislative session.

“This isn’t about taking away anyone’s guns,” Wen said. “It’s about addressing the reality of gun theft, accidental access and impulsive violence.”
The bill would establish uniform requirements for securely storing firearms in vehicles parked on all school property.
It also extends those requirements to Minnesota State High School League-sanctioned events and removes a provision allowing principals to give individuals permission to carry firearms inside school facilities.
Fourth-year Matthew Smeaton said he remembers sitting on a school bus years ago when a tree branch scraped across the windows. A friend jumped, thinking it was gunfire.
“That always stuck out to me just because of how ridiculous it is that we have to live in a world where that’s a concern kids have,” Smeaton said.”
Wen explained that state law prohibits firearms at school events. However, people can carry firearms if they get permission from the principal. She argued that “there’s no legitimate reason someone needs to bring a gun to a school football game” and that “Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
She noted that the bill they are working on will punish people whose guns are stolen and then used in a violent crime.
Between 2019 and 2023, almost 1.1 million firearms were reported stolen. This breaks down to about 200,000 each year, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
The Council on Criminal Justice revealed that by 2022, about 40 percent of reported gun theft incidents involved thieves stealing the firearms from vehicles. Only about 14 percent involved burglaries.
However, only about 10 percent of stolen firearms are used to commit crimes. Among those using firearms for nefarious purposes, 43.2 percent bought their weapon from an underground dealer. Moreover, about 20 percent obtained the firearm for the specific purpose of committing a crime. It’s also worth pointing out that 85.9 percent of those who possessed a firearm when they committed a crime obtained it from someone other than a licensed dealer.
These kids likely mean well. They are probably too young and uneducated to understand the problems with this bill — and gun control in general.
Yes, we definitely want to prevent people from stealing firearms. But blaming a victim of gun theft for a shooting or homicide unfairly criminalizes people. Moreover, it’s not going to save lives because criminals don’t follow the law.
If an armed individual strolls onto a college campuses with intention to harm people, they already know they are breaking the law. Students and faculty on these facilities who obey the law will be sitting ducks. We have seen this happen over and over again with school shootings and other types of mass gun violence.
Nobody wants to see people gunned down at a football game. But a more effective way to prevent this would be to use other security measures such as cameras, metal detectors, armed security, and other methods. Simply passing a law mandating that people lock up their guns a certain way isn’t going to cut it.
It’s also worth noting that if a student or faculty member has to leave their firearms in their vehicle, they are granting a significant advantage to would-be mass shooters. This is not going to keep anyone safe. In fact, it’s yet another example of how gun control makes people more vulnerable to bad actors. If these students want to prevent gun crime, they should focus on how to stop criminals rather than making it harder for responsible people to defend themselves.

This is part of the anti-American legacy of President Auto-Pen

She actually said:
“replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything…”
Anything she ever says again should be ignored forever.

Yes, but this statement is even more dangerous:
“these issues should not be in presidential control”
She is placing the bureaucracy above the constitution.

DOJ Official Says Congress, Not Courts, Should Address NFA Taxes, Registration

Despite ongoing objections from Second Amendment groups and a letter from Rep. Andrew Clyde and more than two dozen other members of Congress urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to recognize congressional intent and stop defending the National Firearms Act’s taxes and registration requirements for National Firearms Act items, the DOJ’s latest brief in an NFA case offers a full-throated defense of those measures.

The  brief, filed in Silencer Shop, et al v. BATFE, not only argues that the Constitution empowers Congress to adopt the challenged NFA requirements and that the $200 tax and registry of who has paid it remain a valid exercise of Congress’s taxing power, but that the tax and registration mandates “comport with the Second Amendment” as well.

… the NFA’s regulation of short-barreled shotguns and rifles, suppressors, and AOWs is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” As the Supreme Court has consistently observed, American legislatures have long “prohibited the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” Laws dating back to theFounding Era targeted, through outright bans or lesser regulation, particularly dangerous weapons that were uniquely susceptible to criminal misuse. Similarly, many states have long regulated the size of firearms. The NFA fits within that historical tradition by targeting particularly dangerous weapons that “could be used readily and efficiently by criminals,” though its requirements are much more modest than the categorical bans of the past. That alone demonstrates that the NFA comports with the Second Amendment.

Gun Owners of America, among others, has objected to the DOJ’s continued defense of the NFA, which led to a rebuke of the 2A organization from a DOJ official.

McGavick’s argument is an odd one, given that the Supreme Court does have the power to declare laws unconstitutional. And in the case of the NFA’s taxation and registration schemes, it’s clear that the intent of Congress was to repeal those provisions. The $200 tax has been zeroed out as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but though the Senate also removed the accompanying requirement that those who pay the tax have to register that payment with the federal government, the Senate parliamentarian objected to that provision, so the registry remains.
The DOJ could have taken the position that, since the registration is actually a registry of all those who’ve paid the tax, and the tax has no been zeroed out, the registration requirement is moot. It could also, of course, have taken the position that the NFA does violate the Second Amendment, despite what the Court has said in cases like Miller and Heller.

Part of the DOJ’s problem is that it has previously admitted in the Peterson case that challenges the NFA’s restrictions on suppressors that those items are, in fact, protected by the Second Amendment. Still, the DOJ took the position that the $200 tax and registration requirements are only “modest burdens” on the right to keep and bear arms, at least as they apply to those items.

The Supreme Court has never suggested that there are various levels of protection for arms that fall under the Second Amendment’s umbrella, so the DOJ’s position arguably leaves the door open for similar requirements on all arms protected by the Second Amendment. If the DOJ is going to to defend the National Firearms Act, it might have been better for the agency to argue that NFA items aren’t protected at all instead of coming up with a convoluted theory about tiers of protection and what kind of restrictions might be allowed for some arms. That still wouldn’t satisfy groups like GOA, FPC, and NRA, but it also wouldn’t allow gun control groups and anti-gun polticians to adopt the DOJ’s language and apply it to handguns or semi-automatic long guns in the future.

When Rep. Clyde joined me on Bearing Arms Cam & Company to discuss the letter to Bondi, he indicated that if the DOJ didn’t fall in line behind Congress’s intent he might re-open the letter to gather more signatures before submitting its rebuke into the official congressional record. Clyde says he’s also working on an appropriations bill that would remove the registration requirements, which would be fantastic if it comes to pass, but that action in the legislative branch still doesn’t mean that the executive branch’s hands are tied when it comes to the NFA and its infringements on our right to keep and bear arms.

WSJ Launches Another Attack on ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws

In late October, the Wall Street. Journal ran a big piece claiming that “it’s easier than ever to kill someone in America and get away with it,” because of Stand Your Ground laws. The paper claimed that justifiable homicides by civilians increased by 59% from 2019 through 2024 in a “large sample of cities and counties” in 30 states with Stand Your Ground statutes, compared with a  smaller 16% in in total homicides in the same jurisdictions.

As we noted at the time, the WSJ’s piece had several flaws, including ignoring the fact that, besides the 30 states with Stand Your Ground statutes, there are another eight states where Stand Your Ground is found in common law. And importantly, the paper’s investigation didn’t really spend any time at all considering whether the law is allowing more people to legitimately act in self-defense.

Well, now the WSJ is out with a followup of sorts, this one allegedly focusing on “the self-defense cases that made Jacksonville No. 1 in legal homicides.” And yet again, the paper’s reporting alleges that Stand Your Ground laws are letting an untold number of people get away with murder.

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Mamdani and His Jewish Supporters
Jewish Naïveté in the Age of Mamdani

My apologies to my Jewish brethren. But, to those who voted for socialist Zohran Mamdani this is unfortunately an exercise in deep self-deception.

First of all, Jewish naïveté didn’t begin on New York’s election night. No. Jews have been in the forefront of many campaigns for social and revolutionary change, only later to shockingly face betrayal by the very movements they helped to foster.

As many readers know, I started my Substack column looking at history, particularly American New Left history. I once was an avowed Marxist and was a roommate with Chicago 7 defendant Rennie Davis.

As might be expected, I personally met and collaborated with many so-called “revolutionary” New Left leaders in the 1970’s from Abbie Hoffman to Jerry Rubin. I was an idealistic romantic about the many benefits of socialism. And I’m Jewish.

History is replete with Jews who were naïve about socialism and socialist ideas.

One of the biggest Jewish leaders who embraced the Leninist Soviet dictatorship is a long-forgotten Jew named Grigori Zinoviev. That’s how he was publicly known. But his original name was Hirsh Apfelbaum. He was a Jew.

Zinoviev became one of the biggest global salesmen for communism after Vladimir Lenin appointed him as the President of the Soviet COMINTERN, known as the Communist International. He traveled to Europe and the United States to propagandize about the wonders of socialism. He also served as one of the troika with Joseph Stalin in governing the Soviet Union.

Zinoviev foolishly thought he was advancing the socialist revolution for the Russian working class. But after decades of being a loyal and an enthusiastic communist, Stalin prosecuted Zinoviev. He sent the Jewish leader before one of his despicable “Show Trials.”

Then in 1936 he sent Zinoviev – or Apfelbaum – before a firing squad. Despite claiming his innocence, he was executed in August of that year.

As the moderate Jewish organization Aish noted about Zinoviev in a 2024 article titled, “For Jewish Anti-Semites, A Cautionary History Lesson: “Yet, for all of his devotion to the cause and his role in giving Stalin the leadership position, his idealism would reveal itself to be naive. At the end of the day, as far as the enemies of the Jews were concerned, a Jew is a Jew.”

Aish further observed that, “As far as his fellow Jews, Zinoviev did not use his influence to help them. He spent his life building the regime that would utterly destroy the Soviet Jewish community.”

Zinoviev, like many of today’s progressive Jews, turned his backs on Judaism. He really didn’t care about his religion or about the Jewish people living in the Soviet Union. Today, many of the Jewish-born pro-Mamdani supporters also elevate their progressive socialist ideas over their affinity toward Judaism. Many also reject Israel outright.

According to exit polls, one out of three New York Jews were ecstatic about Mamdani and voted for him. They did so even though Mamdani is openly anti-Israel, has embraced many antisemitic tropes, along with dogmatic Islamic edicts.

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Behold: The Dumbest Argument for an Assault Weapon Ban So Far

I can’t call anything the dumbest possible reason for trying to justify an assault weapon ban, but mostly because anti-Second Amendment folks seem bound and determined to take that as a challenge and roll out an even stupider one.

However, I can still point out where the bar is at a given point in time, and ladies and gentlemen, we have officially hit a whole new low.

I get that not everyone favors modern sporting rifles even existing, much less being protected by the Second Amendment, but the truth is that they do, and they are.

Yet if you’re going to try to convince me that a ban is justified, you have to do better than this.

Imagine a person making the decision to die by suicide via jumping off a bridge. Successful attempt or not, who is responsible in this scenario? The person? They simply fall. The bridge? It is just doing its job. The factor that is truly bringing that person’s life to a end? Gravity.

That person, even if they lack any knowledge of what gravity is or how it works, has an inherent knowledge that jumping equals falling. And that knowledge is true because of gravity. Not jumping. Not the impact. Not the water. The individual’s decision is executed by an additional factor.

It almost sounds like I am in agreement with the “Guns don’t kill…” statement. But wait. According to my previous paragraph, it’s not the person or the gun. So who is it? That is a matter of deeper study (and a much longer writing piece).

What I can state is studies show that even the least bit of resistance (in the form of a barrier) causes a decrease in the likelihood of someone following through with the decision to jump from a bridge. This could be a fence and/or a net. Even a failed attempt can result in the decision not to not try again — also backed by research.

So the correlation; if guns weren’t so easily accessible, the decision to harm others could still be made, but without the additional factor present. Even if they chose a knife-bat-etc., these are far less lethal and much easier for the everyday citizen — children included — to defend themselves from.

So his “correlation” is really him comparing apples to oranges, and then expecting you to swallow that they’re both bananas.

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If it was never clear you, by now it should be that government, as a whole and no matter the fundamentals of how and why it was formed (cf. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights), has always been really hesitant to give free and unfettered access to the implements that make it so much easier for the unwashed masses to do away with a tyrant goobermint that sees them as mere peons.

Federal Judge Says Gun Law Unconstitutional, But Allows Feds to Largely Keep Enforcing It

Five years ago, Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Louisiana Shooting Association, and several individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging the federal ban on handgun sales to adults between the ages of 18 and 20. In late 2022, U.S. District Judge Robert R. Summerhays dismissed the complaint, ruling that young adults have no Second Amendment right to purchase the most common firearm for self-defense, but that decision was overturned by a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in January of this year.

Since then, the plaintiffs and the DOJ have been arguing over the scope of the relief that should be granted, given that the appellate court found the law in question is unconstitutional. That alone should have favored a judgment from Summerhays that covered as many 18-to-20-year-olds as possible. Instead, on Tuesday, Summerhays rendered a judgment that leaves the unconstitutional law in place for almost everyone.

In a press release, SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said the “practical effect of this order is almost laughable if it wasn’t so frustrating and didn’t impact the Second Amendment rights of thousands of individuals.”

“What the court has done here is say that this law is unconstitutional, but in order for an 18-year-old to avoid having their constitutional rights trounced by it today they must live in one of only three states in the nation and have been the member of SAF at age 13. And even then, they’re only covered if SAF discloses their membership to the government under duress. We’re currently examining our options in relation to the relief granted and will vigorously defend our members’ right to free association and privacy of such.”

The Firearms Policy Coalition is similarly incensed, stating in a release:

Rather than uphold the Constitution and binding Supreme Court precedent, the Court regurgitated the Trump Administration’s self-serving demand to wipe away the Fifth Circuit’s ruling against the government’s unconstitutional ban and continue denying millions of peaceable adults their right to keep and bear arms.

To be clear: FPC has never provided a list of its members to the government—and never will.

Our legal team is already taking action to urgently address this appalling order. We will commence appellate proceedings as necessary to protect our members and effectuate the Fifth Circuit’s decision in our favor. Further updates will be provided as the case proceeds.

The descriptions of Summerhays’ judgment aren’t hyperbolic. Here’s the text of the order so you can see for yourself.

The Court enters declaratory judgment, as described in paragraph 3 below, with respect to (a) Caleb Reese, Joseph Granich, Emily Naquin, and (b) individuals and federally licensed firearms importers, manufacturers, dealers or collectors who were members of Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., Second Amendment Foundation, or Louisiana Shooting Association at the time this action was filed on November 6, 2020.

The Court hereby declares that 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(b)(1) and (c)(1), and their attendant regulations, are unconstitutional and violate the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution to the extent those provisions prevent the sale or delivery of handguns and/or handgun ammunition by and to persons identified in paragraph 2 on account of the buyer being 18 to 20 years old.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, its Director, the Attorney General of the United States, and their officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert with them and who have actual notice of this Judgment are hereby enjoined, within the jurisdictional boundaries of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (i.e., Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas), from enforcing the provisions referenced in paragraph 3, to the extent those provisions prevent the sale or delivery of handguns and/or handgun ammunition by and to persons identified in paragraph 2 on account of the buyer being 18 to 20 years old.

Within twenty-one (21) days of issuance of this Judgment, those Plaintiffs identified at paragraph 2(b) shall provide to Defendants a verified list of their members as of November 6, 2020.

Summerhays’ order basically parrots the judgment proposed by the DOJ, which is another problem. President Donald Trump’s executive action to protect the Second Amendment states, in part, that:

… the Attorney General shall examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens, and present a proposed plan of action to the President, through the Domestic Policy Advisor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.
     (b)  In developing such proposed plan of action, the Attorney General shall review, at a minimum:
…
(v)    The positions taken by the United States in any and all ongoing and potential litigation that affects or could affect the ability of Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights;

The judgment proposed by the DOJ (and accepted by Summerhays) is completely contrary to Trump’s order for the DOJ to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.

Donald Trump wasn’t in office when oral arguments in Reese v. ATF took place before the Fifth Circuit last fall, and had only been in office for ten days when the Fifth Circuit overturned Summerhays’s original decision and declared the ban on handgun sales unconstitutional.

Trump issued his executive order on protecting the Second Amendment in early February, and DOJ decided not long after that it would not appeal the Fifth Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court. That was in accordance with the president’s order, but at some point between February and July, when the DOJ submitted its proposed judgment to the court, the agency adopted a position that runs counter to Trump’s executive action.

What makes this even more frustrating is that the proposed judgment was written, at least in part, by attorneys within the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which has been taking historic actions to protect the right to keep and bear arms. In just the past couple of months the division has weighed in against “assault weapon” and “large capacity” magazine bans and sued the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department over delays in issuing concealed carry permits. It’s bizarre, then, to see the DOJ take the position that, even though this law is unconstitutional, it can continue to enforce it against virtually everyone except the named plaintiffs in Reese.

We’ll be talking more about this case with FPC”s Brandon Combs on today’s Bearing Arms Cam & Co, and I encourage you to tune in and check out what he has to say. Thankfully, this isn’t the only case dealing with young adults and their 2A rights in the legal pipeline, and the Supreme Court has the opportunity to grant cert to similar challenges coming out of the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits later this fall. There’s a clear split in the appellate courts on the issue, and hopefully SCOTUS will soon provide young adults the relief denied to them by Summerhays.

I love it when activist judge with a political agenda get slapped by SCOTUS and have to publicly reverse themselves.

Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Blaming Gun Company for Mass Shooting

A Brady-backed lawsuit against Century Arms blaming a Romanian gun company and a U.S. firearms distributor for the 2019 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California has finally been dismissed by a federal judge, almost a year after he ruled the case could move forward.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions refused to dismiss the suit in late 2024, arguing that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act didn’t shield Romarm S.A. and Century Arms because the plaintiffs had “plausibly pled an aiding and abetting theory that satisfied the predicate exception to PLCAA’s liability bar.”

The predicate exception, according to the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Smith & Wesson v. Mexcio, requires that defendants “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of firearms, and the violation “was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.”

The plaintiffs in the case stemming from the Garlic Festival shooting had argued that Romarm and Century Arms had aided and abetted the shooter’s illegal gun possession in California by selling the WASR-10 that was used in the attack in states where the arm is perfectly legal to own.

Sessions originally accepted that claim under the dubious reasoning that the defendants “knew that California-based criminals were buying guns in Nevada with the illegal intent of transporting them into California,” yet “flooded the Nevada market with guns and employed marketing and pricing strategies with the intent of encouraging or facilitating such transport, not merely with indifference that such transport occurs,” which in turn “aided the commission of illegal gun possession in California.”

But in Smith & Wesson v. Mexico, the Supreme Court stated that any aiding-and-abetting claims that aren’t based on a specific violation of state or federal law “must be backed by plausible allegations of pervasive, systemic, and culpable assistance.” After that decision was handed down Romarm and Century Arms asked Sessions to reconsider his decision, and now the judge has reversed himself and dismissed the case.

The issue for reconsideration, in light of Smith and Wesson, is that none of those findings are particular to the specific incident in this case. The shooter was a Nevada resident at the time of purchase, so his purchase was presumptively legal. Plaintiffs have not alleged with any specificity that Defendants advertised or marketed their products in any way that encouraged the shooter to take his legally purchased firearm across the border to California where it would be illegally possessed.

The oversupply argument similarly fails, as applied to the shooter, because he was a Nevada resident. No matter how many surplus guns were distributed in Nevada beyond what the Nevada market could bear, the fact that the Plaintiff was a part of the Nevada market who was not engaged in some sort of broader trafficking scheme is a flaw in that reasoning.

Put another way, the firearm at the center of this case was not part of an excess supply allegedly flooded into Nevada with the goal of attracting California residents for the simple reason that the shooter was a Nevada resident. So, while Defendants’ act in manufacturing the firearm and marketing it in Nevada may have aided the commission of some illegal gun possession in California, it does not follow, on the facts pled, that they aided the shooter’s illegal gun possession in California “beyond providing the good on the open market.”

It seems to me that Sessions could and should have dismissed the case even before SCOTUS handed down its unanimous decision throwing out Mexico’s lawsuit against Smith & Wesson and other U.S. gunmakers, but the fact that he allowed the case to move forward under such specious claims just demonstrates the importance of the Supreme Court’s decision that helped lay out the scope of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act’s protections.

Sessions, a Clinton appointee who’s served on the bench since 1995, still argued in dismissing the case that “it may well be true” that “Defendants’ acts aided the commission of illegal gun possession in California” in other instances, but the plaintiffs haven’t plausibly proved that to be the case here. That statement was completely superfluous and unnecessary, and appears to telegraph Session’s willingness to punish companies in the firearms industry for the third-party actions of criminals whenever possible. 

In this case, thankfully, Sessions couldn’t get around the plain language of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Smith & Wesson v. Mexico. If it weren’t for that unanimous decision penned by Justice Elena Kagan, though, Brady’s junk lawsuit would still be an ongoing threat to the lawful commerce in arms.

Chris Murphy: School Shootings Aren’t Common Enough for Armed Guards

Whenever there’s a high-profile shooting, such as what happened at Annunciation Catholic Schools, we start hearing about how common these have become, with manufactured numbers that drive the total up, all designed to scare people into supporting gun control.

The answer from our side is armed school staff or, at a minimum, armed guards in schools.

Now, there’s no question about which side of this debate Sen. Chris Murphy falls. He’s a noted gun grabber and he’s always looking for a gun control angle. We all know it.

But it seems that even he knows that he’s been running a line of BS for years.

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) stated that he opposed armed guards in schools because he thinks it creates “irrational” fear in children and “you are still more likely in this country to be killed by a falling object than you are in a mass shooting.” But there is an “underlying story about the easy access of guns. And if we just were more careful about who has access to powerful weapons in this country, we would have less need to board up a lot of our public settings.”

Wait, so these are super rare events that we shouldn’t stress to the point of putting armed guards in schools because it’ll instill fear in children–spoiler: school resource officers are common enough that we’d know if it did, and it doesn’t–but we should totally trample our right to keep and bear arms because of something rarer than being killed by a sack of potatos falling out of the sky and killing someone?

Am I tracking this right?

But the doublespeak continued, with Murphy saying, “As much as this has now become an epidemic, you are still more likely in this country to be killed by a falling object than you are in a mass shooting. There [are] far too many mass shootings.”

It’s not an epidemic if it’s rare. The two things contradict one another, at least as the public sees it.

So either it’s an epidemic and we simply have to do something, or you’re more likely to have something fall on you and kill you than to be shot and die in a mass shooting. It’s one or the other.

Let’s not forget that Murphy argues an armed guard in an elementary school is akin to a boarded-up encampment. Yes, he actually said that, too. People in the United States grow up with armed guards and armed police in a lot of places. There’s a cop at the local movie theater every weekend night, for example. No one blinks. No one feels unsafe. Most of the time, he’s telling loud teenagers to shut up or get out, so that’s what people accept is his purpose, even if they know he’s the guy who will respond if bullets start flying.

Murphy is so terrified of guns that even carefully vetted individuals in a position of security can’t be trusted with them. He talks about being a little more careful about who can get “powerful weapons” in this country, but the truth is that his version of careful would be to prohibit literally everyone.

He can’t even see safety in off-duty cops, after all.

But let’s remember that no matter what Murphy says going forward, he knows these are rare. He knows these make scary headlines, but are the exception rather than the rule.

He’s just trying not to let a good crisis go to waste, all so he can destroy your right to keep and bear arms.

Wonder how that affects being able to enlist at 17?

DC Appeals Court: Adults Under 21 Are Covered by Second Amendment, But Can’t Have Guns

Do adults under the age of 21 have the right to keep and bear arms?

Since they’re adults, they should. After all, it’s one thing to say children can’t buy firearms, but people who are responsible for themselves in pretty much every other aspect of their lives are a different matter.

Yet many places restrict those under 21 from actually enjoying the full benefits of their Second Amendment rights.

In the District of Columbia, which is a microcosm of how little gun control actually does to stop crime, they have a total gun ban for those under 21. That ban has been challenged and was recently ruled constitutional. The local DC appeals court–not the federal appeals court in DC, just for clarification–just upheld the ruling with an…interesting argument.

So, by operating under the assumption that adults under 21 are, in fact, part of “the people” covered by the Second Amendment, they still find a gun ban constitutional?

How does that make sense?

As the FPC put it later:

Right?

The sad part is that I see the so-called logic being employed. If the right to own guns implies the right to purchase them, which many of us have argued more than once, as have the courts, then the inverse would seem to be true. If you don’t have a right to buy them, as was ruled previously, then the implication is that you don’t have a right to own them.

Hence, the DC restrictions being upheld.

But NRA v Bondi, which is the case cited, was an 11th Circuit decision, not a Supreme Court decision, so I’m not sure about the wisdom of basing everything on that, especially as the DC Circuit Court of Appeals covers the DC area. Of course, it’s not like that court would rule differently.

Personally, I think the 11th Circuit blew it.

While there is a legitimate case for the constitutionality of age limits, the argument that people who are old enough to enlist, sign contracts, and vote in our nation’s elections is bizarre to me. Especially as some want to lower the voting age still further, all while saying younger people are too reckless and irresponsible to exercise a fundamental, constitutionally protected right.

And then to extrapolate it out to justifying a ban on even the possession of firearms by people in that age group is absolutely horrifying to me. Especially as the age limits are often defended as saying these folks still have their Second Amendment rights, they just can’t buy a gun. This, however, makes it very clear where that argument can and will lead.

Here’s hoping someone steps in and lowers a much-needed smackdown on this absolute BS.

Tennessee of all places…

Skrmetti appealing gun law decision

(The Center Square) – Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is appealing a ruling by a Gibson County Chancery Court that said two Tennessee gun laws were unconstitutional.
The laws prohibited carrying firearms in state parks and carrying a gun or club with the “intent to go armed” and use it for violence or aggression.

Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation and three Tennessee residents sued the state, saying the laws violated their right to bear arms.
Skrmetti said his office was asking the chancery court for a stay pending appeal because the court’s ruling was broad and went too far.

“It entirely invalidates two gun laws, even though those laws are constitutional in some situations,” Skrmetti said. “For example, it’s obviously constitutional to prohibit a 10-year-old from bringing a semiautomatic rifle to a rec league basketball game or a drunk with a shotgun from staggering down Broadway or through Market Square or across Shelby Farms. But the Court’s ruling appears to legalize this in Tennessee.”

The ruling by the Chancery Court is causing confusion, Skrmetti said in the appeal.

“Plaintiffs’ counsel has already advised the public that ‘the entire law enforcement network in Tennessee [is] on notice’ and ‘attempts to enforce these two statutes’ by any official ‘should give rise to claims of federal civil rights violations,’” Skrmetti said. “Law enforcement is rightly loath to choose between tempting ruinous civil rights lawsuits and carrying out their duty to protect the public. And there is no doubt: because of its refusal to adhere to its own judicial limits, this Court’s order would leave large gaps in the General Assembly’s efforts to protect the public.”

Rep. Chris Todd, R-Madison County, said he wanted Skrmetti to appeal the decision but not because Todd opposes it. He called the opinion “one of the most thorough, well-reasoned, and well-written decisions we’ve seen.”

Sen. London Lamar, chairwoman of the Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus, said she supports the decision to appeal the decision.

“These long-standing gun safety laws are constitutional and they exist for a reason: to give law enforcement the tools they need to protect the public,” Lamar said. “If the lower court’s ruling is allowed to stand, it will tie the hands of police officers — even when they encounter someone with a loaded assault rifle parked outside a children’s park. Officers wouldn’t even be allowed to question that person’s intent until it’s too late. That’s not freedom. That’s a recipe for tragedy.”

I think it’s quite possible she got her set of talking points mixed up.

Why Has Fort Worth – One of America’s Most Conservative Cities – Hired an Anti-Gun Police Chief?

chief eddie garcia

In a move sparking backlash from Second Amendment supporters, the city of Fort Worth has hired Eddie Garcia — the former police chief of Dallas and San Jose — as its next Chief of Police. Gun rights advocates are sounding the alarm, citing Garcia’s long and well-documented record of opposing constitutional carry, supporting California-style gun control, and pushing for “enhanced limitations” to the Second Amendment.

For a city like Fort Worth — often considered the nation’s most conservative large city — the choice is baffling.

Opposed Constitutional Carry and Civilian Rifle Ownership

During his tenure in Dallas, Garcia vocally opposed permitless carry, placing himself squarely against the will of Texas voters and the state legislature. Despite overwhelming support from grassroots Texans, Garcia parroted talking points from the gun control lobby, claiming it would make Texas more dangerous.

But it didn’t stop there.

As San Jose Police Chief, Garcia called for further restrictions on civilian ownership of AR-15s and questioned whether the Founding Fathers would have written the Second Amendment the same way if they had known about modern firearms — a tired trope often used by anti-gun politicians to justify new bans.

He went as far as to say the Second Amendment should be treated as a “living document” — a red flag for anyone who takes constitutional rights seriously. In the same interview, he referred to Black Lives Matter as a “valid movement.”

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