Category: Crap For Brains

Thomas Jefferson had some things to say about goobermint gone tyrant:

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

and last, but not in anyway least:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,

Rep. Jamie Rankin Beclowned Himself in Opening Remarks at Gun Hearing

Rep. Jamie Rankin isn’t going to be on the Christmas card list of any gun rights group you care to name. He’s a vehement anti-gunner and that’s where his bread is buttered. That’s not going to change.

Which is fine, I suppose. He’s in the minority right now, so all he can do is bloviate and then sit there and be impotent in his gun rights animosity.

But bloviate he shall, and he did.

In opening remarks in a subcommittee meeting on Tuesday, Rankin decided to display his burning stupid for the entire world to see, then sent out a press release with his remarks.

Awfully swell of him, really.

The problem is that my Republican colleagues have completely deformed the Second Amendment. They say it gives you the right to overthrow the government. Our former colleague, Matt Gaetz often claimed that the Second Amendment “is about maintaining within the citizenry the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government, if that becomes necessary.”

This purported right to overthrow the government means that the people must enjoy access to munitions equivalent to that of the government’s arsenal. As our colleague, Representative Chip Roy, argues, the Second Amendment was “designed purposefully to empower the people to resist the force of tyranny used against them.” And my friend Representative Lauren Boebert says that the Second Amendment has “nothing to do with hunting, unless you’re talking about hunting tyrants, maybe.”

Despite all of this pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric about how the Constitution provides a right of civil insurrection, the actual Constitution, in a half-dozen different places, treats “insurrection” and “rebellion” not as protected rights but as serious and dangerous offenses against our government and our people.

And yet, our Founding Fathers also made it very clear that when the government became tyrannical, it was the duty of the people to throw off the chains of oppression and fight back, not just with words but with weapons.

I mean, they’d just engaged in their own rebellion, their own insurrection, and thrown off those precise chains. They knew that no government could be created that couldn’t, in time, come to oppress the people. They wanted to prevent that, which includes the right to keep and bear arms.

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So it’s now obvious, SCOTUS woman judges, even supposedly ‘conservative ones’ are problematic when it comes to goobermint power.
Roberts is just his squishy self.

Supreme Court Rules Against Trump’s Bid to Stop $2 Billion in USAID Funding.

On Wednesday morning, in a 5-4 emergency decision, the Supreme Court upheld a decision from U.S. District Judge Amir Ali that essentially says that Donald Trump can’t withhold $2 billion in USAID money from existing contractors. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the three liberal members of the court. From the ruling:

On February 13, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered a temporary restraining order enjoining the Government from enforcing directives pausing disbursements of foreign development assistance funds. The present application does not challenge the Government’s obligation to follow that order.

On February 25, the District Court ordered the Government to issue payments for a portion of the paused disbursements—those owed for work already completed before the issuance of the District Court’s temporary restraining order—by 11:59 p.m. on February 26.

Several hours before that deadline, the Government filed this application to vacate the District Court’s February 25 order and requested an immediate administrative stay. THE CHIEF JUSTICE entered an administrative stay shortly before the 11:59 p.m. deadline and subsequently referred the application to the Court. The application is denied.

Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary injunction proceedings, the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines. The order heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE is vacated.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh voted in favor of Trump, with Justice Alito writing the lengthy dissent that begins with:

Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.

So, what exactly does this mean? Judge Ali, who was appointed by the Biden administration, ruled that the Trump administration must maintain USAID agreements that were in place before Trump officially took office on January 20. According to The Hill, Ali “found the Trump administration wasn’t complying with his order to resume the unpaid USAID contracts and grants. Last week, Ali demanded the funds be released by the end of the following day.”

Red State’s Susie Moore writes, “SCOTUS temporarily paused that order, but now, since the deadline is past (and moot), rather than vacate it altogether, they’re lifting the pause and sending things back to the district court to sort out further.”

According to NBC, “Specific projects affected by the payment freeze include the installation of new irrigation and water pumping stations in Ukraine; waterworks upgrades in Lagos, Nigeria; the supply of medical equipment in Vietnam and Nepal; and measures to combat malaria in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Ethiopia.”

While it’s not great news for Trump, as Moore says, “This isn’t the end of the story on this case — not by a long shot.”

BLUF
Cardinal Dolan may one day discover that he was unwittingly encouraging elements that no one, churchman or otherwise, should have encouraged. By then, however, it could be too late.

Cardinal Dolan Hails ‘Our Islamic Brothers and Sisters,’ Calls Ash Wednesday ‘Our Ramadan’

On Friday, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, posted on X: “Ramadan starts tomorrow! Ramadan is the season of penance for our Islamic brothers and sisters. Do they ever take it seriously! I tell you that because Ash Wednesday is coming up – that’s kind of like our Ramadan.”

These generous statements were entirely in keeping with the spirit of ecumenism that Pope Francis has advocated so assiduously, and so the cardinal’s words came as no surprise, but their graciousness was no guarantor of their accuracy. Unfortunately, virtually every part of Dolan’s statement was wrong, and some of it was dangerously misleading.

Ramadan is not, first off, exactly a “season of penance.” It does involve self-denial and cultivation of a sense of self-control, although the gorging all night somewhat mitigates the ascetic effect of the fasting all day, the focus is not primarily upon penance. Nobody “gives something up for Ramadan.” Ramadan superficially resembles Lent in that it is a season for Muslims to redouble their efforts to please Allah, but in Islam, this takes on a radically different form from efforts to please God in Christianity. (Note for those who need it: yes, “Allah” is the Arabic word for God — actually “the God,” and yes, Arabic-speaking Christians do use the word, although some, notably Copts, shy away from doing so because of its association with the God of the Qur’an. I am using it here to refer to that God.)

The highest form of service to Allah, according to Islam’s prophet Muhammad, is jihad, which principally involves warfare against unbelievers. A hadith has a Muslim asking Muhammad: “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 4.52.44)

So what better way to increase one’s devotion to Allah than by waging jihad? Every Ramadan, therefore, we see an increase in jihad attacks. This is hardly something that Cardinal Dolan should be celebrating, but of course, he is certain that Islam is a religion of peace, and that anybody who tells him otherwise is just an “Islamophobe.”

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Colorado Democrats Eyeing Ammo Restrictions in Addition to Semi-Auto Ban

While the constitutional abomination known as SB 3 has rightfully been getting a lot of attention as it makes its way through the Colorado legislature, it’s far from the only assault on our right to keep and bear arms under consideration in Denver this year.

On Thursday, a bill barring adults under the age of 21 from purchasing ammunition cleared a House committee, and could be up for a vote on the House floor as early as next week.

Though multiple courts around the country have shot down age-based restrictions that deny under-21s from keeping, bearing, and buying firearms since the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen back in 2022, anti-gunners in the Rocky Mountain State have been empowered and emboldened by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to block the state’s law banning firearm purchases to under-21s last November.

In their decision overturning a preliminary injunction against the age-based prohibition, the appellate court bizarrely concluded that age-related purchasing restrictions fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment, leaving the door open to Colorado imposing a ban (however unlikely) on adults of any age purchasing firearms. As the Duke Center for Firearms Law (which typically loves it when courts uphold gun control restrictions) elaborated at the time of the decision:

After determining that at least one plaintiff had standing to challenge the restriction, the panel outlined the Bruen framework and the threshold textual step of determining whether the regulated conduct is protected by the Second Amendment.  The panel found initially that the plaintiff with standing was part of the “people” with the right to keep and bear arms and that the plaintiff intended to purchase a protected “arm.”

 However, the panel then noted the Supreme Court’s assessment in Heller that certain types of regulations are “presumptively lawful”—and it placed this inquiry in Bruen “step one,” implying that at least some of these laws simply don’t touch on “keeping and bearing” and thus don’t implicate protected conduct.  

While noting that Heller’s “presumptively lawful” paragraph was dicta, the panel nevertheless found itself “bound by Supreme Court dicta almost as firmly as by the Court[’s] outright holdings.”

It’s an utterly absurd decision, given that the right to keep and bear arms is rendered meaningless without the the ability to acquire one. The same goes for ammunition.

Without ammo, a firearm is a paperweight, or maybe a club. Either way, it’s absolutely useless for its intended purpose. But the Tenth Circuit has taken the position that  “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms are lawful extends equally to laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial purchase of arms.” The court went on to say that even under the Bruen test Colorado’s law is likely to withstand constitutional muster because setting the age to purchase a gun at 21 is “consistent with both scientific evidence on brain development and historical regulatory practice.”

Other courts have held that laws prohibiting members of the political community from exercising their Second Amendment rights cannot stand, and though the age of majority might have been 21 in 1791 and 1868, today it’s 18, which makes these under-21 gun bans inconsistent with the national tradition of gun ownership.

If HB 1133 does become law I’m sure it will face a legal challenge, but unfortunately, the Tenth Circuit’s illogic holds sway in Colorado. As a result, anti-gun lawmakers can feel at least somewhat confident that the appellate court will green light their ammo restrictions just as it’s allowed the ban on under-21s buying guns to take effect.

Yale Law Prof Backs Vance’s Claim: DOGE-Blocking Judge Violated Constitution

A Yale law professor says Vice President J.D. Vance is right: the federal judge who blocked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from exposing wasteful spending by the Treasury Department violated the U.S. Constitution.

On Saturday, Judge Paul Engelmayer sided with 19 pro-waste state attorneys general who filed a lawsuit against the President Trump-created, Elon Musk-led DOGE seeking to prevent scrutiny of how Treasury is spending taxpayer dollars.

Judge Engelmayer issued a temporary injunction preventing DOGE and Treasury officials from examining Treasure expenditures – and declared that the Democrats have a strong case for a permanent ban.

However, as Vice President Vance wrote on X.com (formerly Twitter), judges don’t have the legal authority to dictate the actions of generals, prosecutors and the president:

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.

“If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

In his response, Yale Law Prof. Jeb Rubenfeld agreed with Vance and explained how Judge Engelmayer violated the Constitution with his ruling:

“JD is correct about this, and his examples are exactly right. Where the Executive has sole and plenary power under the Constitution–as in commanding military operations or exercising prosecutorial discretion–judges cannot constitutionally interfere.”

intranet image

Following the ruling on Saturday, Musk called for Judge Engelmayer to be impeached for being “a corrupt judge protecting corruption.”

​Vance and Yale Law Prof​​

The Final Two 9th Circuit Gun Decisions of 2024

Yesterday, Monday, December 30, 2024, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published its final two decisions in cases involving guns.

The first decision involved the Federal law that permanently disbars persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing firearms, and the second involved a dispute over what constitutes an arrest when police see a handgun on the floor of an automobile in a state where that is legal.

The first decision is well written and meticulous and leaves no question as to why the three-judge panel reached its decision, a decision they would rather have gone the other way were it not for binding prior precedents.

The second decision does not explain why it reached its conclusion, and more importantly, the decision does not explain how future three-judge panels and district court judges are to comply with what is now a binding circuit precedent. Moreso, given that the facts laid out in the decision do not justify the panel’s conclusion under already binding prior 9th circuit precedents.

First, the well-written decision by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Morgan B. Christen. She is certainly no friend of the Second Amendment, but if there were a candidate for the most intelligent Court of Appeals judge, she would be the one to bet on. The case is US v. Michal Blake DeFrance No. 23-2409.

The first three paragraphs of the opinion summary succinctly describe the case’s what and why, but I will take a stab at an even simpler explanation. In short, if one is convicted of a state law crime of domestic violence, and that state law crime is broader than the Federal definition, even if the state has never prosecuted someone under the broader definition, then the conviction does not qualify as a crime of domestic violence under Federal law. Not even if the crime one committed, such as beating one’s wife or girlfriend, does qualify as a crime of domestic violence under Federal law. You can view the oral argument below.

You can read the opinion (and concurrence) at this link.

The second case is US v. Larry Send In. The opinion is by Judge Gould and was joined by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Bumatay and District Court Judge Michael Seabright, the latter of whom is no friend to the Second Amendment.

A fun fact about the Fourth Amendment is that from 1833 to 1961, it did not apply to the states. That did not mean police could stop, search, and/or arrest anyone they wanted. Under American common law, which we inherited from English common law, one could use force, including deadly force, to resist an unlawful arrest. That was the rule in California until 1957 when the California legislature repealed that centuries-old common law right. The California Supreme Court upheld the repeal in 1970.

Incorporating the Fourth Amendment right against the states in 1961 means the courts have had far more opportunities in 64 years to poke holes in the right. The decision in this case is yet another hole punched in the right.

Another fun fact is that California once had a bright-line rule. If you were stopped by the police and not free to go, you were under arrest.

The Federal Courts invented the notion that one can be stopped and handcuffed without it being an arrest. It is a “detention,” in which cases often turn on whether or not the detention was lawful and, in this particular case, at what point an arrest occurs. The California Supreme Court has abandoned its bright-line rule for the murky waters of the Federal Courts.

Of course, police forces as we know them today did not exist in the United States until the early 20th century. Before World War II, most arrests were made by private citizens, and private citizens likewise made most criminal prosecutions.

It was not until the 1970s that the US Supreme Court gave prosecutors and judges “absolute immunity” from civil prosecution in the Federal Courts, but I digress.

Under modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, judges look to the totality of the facts in making their decisions. In this case, the district court judge suppressed the gun found in Mr. In’s car, but the panel reversed. Why? I don’t know. Professor Shaun Martin at the University of San Diego School of Law doesn’t seem to know either. He wrote about the case on his blog.

When you read the decision, keep in mind that lying to a police officer is not in and of itself a crime, and Mr. In’s lying to police about having a gun in his car was not probable cause for an arrest, according to the panel. Indeed, none of the facts of the case viewed in isolation or the totality of the circumstances constituted probable cause for an arrest, and if Mr. In had, in fact, been arrested instead of detained for officer safety, then the gun would have been suppressed.

Neither police officer safety nor public safety is a magic talisman. But despite this decision conflicting with prior circuit precedents, it is doubtful that an en banc petition will be granted in this case. There are just too many judges in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals who don’t care a fig about the Fourth Amendment, especially when the case involves guns.

You can view the oral argument below.

You can read the opinion at this link.

Op-Ed Reveals Just How Little Most Gun Control Advocates Understand Guns

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson rattled more than a few cages. There are reports of CEOs traveling with armed security, though I haven’t seen corroboration of those, and we’ve seen just how many people are OK with murdering someone simply because they don’t like them.

And in the media, it’s been a great time to push all the evils of so-called “ghost guns” since it turns out the alleged killer had one in his possession.

The problem is that a great many of those in the media who are beating the drum really don’t know what they’re talking about.

Just in time for Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and the winter solstice and New Year’s, Republicans and Democrats find themselves face-to-face with a problem they can actually solve together.

They can outlaw so-called “ghost guns” like the one used to kill a health care executive recently in New York City.

Imagine that. A genuine end-of-the-year opportunity to do something for the common good — something that transcends cultures and religions and politics.

Yes, dear reader, I know what you are thinking: Our nation’s political system is so broken that Republicans and Democrats barely speak to each other. So actually solving a problem — well, that may take a miracle.

But this is a season of hope, right?

Ghost guns are virtually untraceable. They can be made at home, from plastic-like materials on a 3D printer. They look like toys. And prospective shooters can even pick a favorite color, with choices ranging from tennis ball green to Barbie pink.

But these guns are definitely not toys. And we all know what ghost guns can do. We saw one in action on the morning of Dec. 4, when a hooded, masked man stepped from the predawn shadows on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan and killed a health care executive with a shot in the back.

First, let’s talk about gun tracing, since that seems to be the main condemnation of these homemade firearms.

There’s no evidence that gun tracing has ever been used to solve a crime. People have specifically looked, and while there might be an exception they missed, it’s clearly not an essential tool for law enforcement, especially since there’s no way it would be enough to secure a conviction in and of itself.

Second, let’s get into the “they look like toys” argument, which is a new one for me. I guess I should be thankful for that because a new argument means that I get to take a different, novel approach in response. I generally like that.

However, this one is too idiotic to actually enjoy rebutting.

They look like toys? Where the hell is he looking at homemade guns? Yeah, they’re plastic–polymer, actually, but who am I to quibble?–but the gun that the alleged killer had on hand was one that basically looked like a Glock, the most popular handgun model in the country. Toys generally are made to look like real guns anyway, so that’s a nonsense argument even if it were true.

The reason there’s no outrage over “ghost guns” is that the people who are outraged over the murder are the people who support gun rights, as a general thing. That’s it. That’s why there’s “no outrage” over Thompson’s murder. The people who want to be outraged over guns are too busy celebrating a murder, which just goes to show it’s not about the guns, it’s about people like you and me having them.

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Non-Violent Felon Gun Ban

The government can permanently disarm somebody convicted of non-violent felonies if their broader criminal history contains violent conduct, a federal appeals court has ruled.

On Monday, a three-judge panel for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected a Kentucky defendant’s as-applied challenge to his recent conviction for possessing a firearm as a felon. The panel ruled that even if a person is convicted of non-violent felonies, the totality of their criminal record can indicate “dangerousness” that permits disarmament under the Second Amendment.

“Morton’s criminal record demonstrates dangerousness, specifically that he has committed ‘violent’ crimes ‘against the person,’” Judge Rachel Bloomekatz wrote in US v. Morton. “So, his conviction is consistent with the Second Amendment as interpreted in Williams. Accordingly, § 922(g)(1) is constitutional as applied to him.”

The ruling stands out as the first time the Sixth Circuit has applied its unique standard for adjudicating challenges to the federal felony gun ban—by far the most common Second Amendment claim arising in the courts since the Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen decision. Other circuits have either issued blanket rulings upholding the federal ban as constitutional or struck it down in narrow applications without setting a generalized standard for evaluating other cases. But the Sixth Circuit crafted a standard that only convicted felons who are shown to be “dangerous” can be disarmed in an August ruling upholding the ban.

Monday’s panel was tasked with applying that new “dangerousness” test to Jaylin Morton.

Morton was arrested in 2022 on several outstanding warrants and was found to be in possession of multiple handguns. At the time of his arrest, he already had “at least six prior felony convictions.” Those included multiple convictions for possessing a firearm as a felon, evading the police, one for burglary, and one for intimidating a participant in a legal process. He also had multiple non-felony assault convictions, including one for a domestic-violence incident in which he “punched his then-girlfriend in the head.”

He was subsequently indicted for possessing a firearm as a felon, which he moved to challenge on the grounds that the Second Amendment does not permit disarming him because his prior felony convictions were for non-violent crimes.

Drawing on the Sixth Circuit’s earlier ruling from August, US v. Williams, Judge Bloomekatz said that the court’s controlling precedent recognizes constitutional applications of the lifetime felony gun ban for offenses that “strongly suggest dangerousness,” particularly “crimes against the person,” like murder and assault. Bloomekatz said Morton’s criminal conduct “undoubtedly” demonstrates he is violent.

“Among other offenses, Morton was previously convicted for wanton endangerment and possessing a firearm as a felon after he shot at his ex-girlfriend and her family, and then showed up at her house a few weeks later and verbally harassed her with a gun on his person,” she wrote. “On another occasion, Morton was convicted of assault resulting from a domestic-violence incident after he punched his then-girlfriend in the head during an argument.”

And though the domestic violence incident was not a felony that currently underlies his lifetime firearms ban, she said the court “may look at Morton’s whole criminal history in assessing dangerousness.”

“Moreover, we are not confined to the fact of conviction alone, but may consider how an offense was committed,” she wrote. “Accordingly, Morton’s convictions demonstrate his dangerousness, making § 922(g)(1) constitutional as applied to him.”

The decision adds to the growing divergence in how lower courts are handling the federal lifetime gun ban for felons. Even courts that have reached similar conclusions to one another have done so under a variety of approaches, which has resulted in a variety of enforcement standards for the most commonly charged federal gun statute.

In June, Department of Justice expressed concern over the growing divide and asked the Supreme Court to resolve the matter.

“The substantial costs of prolonging uncertainty about the statute’s constitutionality outweigh any benefits of further percolation,” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said at the time.

However, the Court opted to sidestep the matter. Instead, it remanded half a dozen requested cases back down to the appellate system to be reconsidered in light of its most recent case law.

Even as many of those cases have returned with unchanged outcomes, the Court has not yet taken up one that would resolve the question.

Psychiatrist Says America Must ‘Dismantle the Cult of the Gun’

I’m often bemused when academics write about gun owners as if we’re some exotic species to be investigated and examined to see what makes us tick, as opposed to their friends, family members, and co-workers.

Dr. Tamir Rahman, an associate professor of psychiatry at Washington University is the latest to channel his inner Jane Goodall and unleash it on American gun owners. In a new piece at Psychology Today, Rahman says it’s time to shift our relationship with firearms.

America’s relationship with firearms has mutated into a paradox. What began as a practical right tied to hunting and self-defense has metastasized into a near-religious reverence, transforming firearms into sacred objects. For many, guns are no longer tools—they are symbols of identity, power, and defiance. While this cultural fixation has fostered community among gun owners, it has also exacerbated the nation’s inability to address the epidemic of gun violence. Reimagining this relationship is not merely an ideal—it is a necessity.

In contemporary America, guns are more than objects. They are badges of liberty, resistance, and power. This shift has been fueled by political rhetoric, cultural narratives, and media representation. For many, owning a firearm is a declaration of values, a statement that screams: “I am free. I am powerful.”

Rahman claims that in order to “address its gun violence epidemic”, the U.S. “must dismantle the cult of the gun”; reframing firearms from symbols of power to tools of responsibility. Rahman offers several suggestions on how to make that happen.

1. Empowering Parents, Educators, and Schools

Parents, educators, and schools are at the forefront of shaping how future generations perceive firearms. Instead of shunning discussions about guns, schools can foster informed and responsible attitudes by integrating firearm education into the curriculum. This approach does not advocate normalization but instead focuses on demystification and accountability.

Why not advocate normalization? After all, as sociologist and gun owner David Yamane says, gun ownership is normal and normal people own guns. Demystifying guns is important, and there’s nothing objectionable about Rahman’s call to integrate firearm education into the curriculum, so long as its not aimed at making gun ownership and responsible gun use taboo.

2. Bridging the Polarization Through Shared Values

The polarizing debate over gun ownership often pits gun rights against gun control, creating an impasse. However, addressing the extreme overvalued beliefs surrounding firearms can provide common ground. Both sides can unite around shared values: responsibility, safety, and the prevention of violence.

Can we really, though? The gun control lobby’s foundational premise is that guns are bad, fewer guns are good, and criminalizing basic aspects of our Second Amendment rights is beneficial to society.

In theory Rahman is right that both sides should be able to come together on policies and practices that don’t involve putting new gun laws on the books, but so long as gun control groups view firearms themselves as a problem that needs to be solved I don’t think there’s much common ground to be found.

Rahman is guilty of that himself. Even when he discounts the push for gun bans, he does so in a way that’s not going to draw much support from gun owners and Second Amendment advocates.

While discussions about banning firearms often arise, such measures alone are not conducive to changing America’s deeply ingrained gun culture. Prohibition risks intensifying polarization and deepening the symbolic power of firearms as emblems of resistance. Instead, the focus should shift toward reshaping attitudes through education, accountability, and responsible ownership.

Fostering a culture that values the ethical use of firearms over their glorification addresses gun violence without alienating lawful owners. This collective action acknowledges complexity, cultivating respect and responsibility to transform perspectives sustainably.

Yes, prohibition intensifies polarization and helps to turn firearms into “emblems of resistance”. Rahman, however, fails to address why that is: banning guns is an abhorrent violation of a fundamental civil right that should be resisted.

Rahman seems very invested in the idea of changing the attitudes of gun owners, but he should be equally or more concerned about changing the mindset of anti-gun activists. I’m not convinced that there’s a “cult of the gun” in the United States, but I know there’s a cult of the gun prohibitionists, and any effort to shift the American relationship with firearms has to start with those trying to eradicate that relationship altogether.

“Imagine filing lawsuit against Glock, getting five paragraphs in, and admitting you fundamentally don’t understand how the gun even works.”

Imagine filing lawsuit against Glock, getting five paragraphs in, and admitting you fundamentally don’t understand how the gun even works.

Holding down the trigger bar will cause a dead trigger – not fire the gun repeatedly. Embarrassing.

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Fundamental misunderstanding continues. The G18 achieves auto fire differently than a G17 with a switch does. The trigger bar isn’t “held down” in either case, though.

If holding down the trigger bar is all that was required, you wouldn’t need a switch at all.Image

The G46 has the same dastardly trigger bar that works in the same dastardly way. Making a switch for a G46 wouldn’t be fundamentally different than making one for a G17. But don’t worry, New Jersey says the G46 is cool.Image
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This is so unbelievably dumb. Mind numbingly so.Image
Me whenever I don’t know how springs work. Me when I’m the master of Glock knowing. Me when I’m a lawyer getting paid to lawsuit and I just make stuff up.Image
If “remaining lowered” is all that it took, why don’t Glocks go full auto if you assemble them without the trigger bar at all? Permanently lowered if it isn’t installed. Shutting the slide should rip the whole mag, right?Image

Ketanji Brown Jackson Vs. Sonia Sotomayor: Who’s Dumber?

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a pivotal case addressing state restrictions on controversial medical interventions, including puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors with gender confusion. At the heart of the case is a Tennessee law banning these procedures for children, with the court’s decision likely to have far-reaching consequences. Will our country protect children from these barbaric and irreversible procedures or not?

As I previously reported, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson humiliated herself when she bizarrely tried to equate banning transgender procedures for minors with prohibiting interracial marriage. She began with a convoluted statement: “Being drawn by the statute that was sort of like the starting point, the question was whether it was discriminatory because it applied to both races and it wasn’t necessarily invidious or whatever.”

It got worse from there.

“But you know, as I read … the case here, the court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of 16 states which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications.” While it was clear that she intended to invoke historical racial discrimination, the connection to the case at hand was tenuous at best.

The real stretch came when she concluded, “And when you look at the structure of that law, it looks in terms of you can’t do something that is inconsistent with your own characteristics. It’s sort of the same thing.”

The suggestion that anyone could somehow liken laws protecting minors from irreversible and harmful gender procedures to bans on interracial marriage is downright absurd. Jackson’s argument hinged on a confusing assertion that both types of laws were based on “inconsistency” with one’s “characteristics,” a comparison that is frankly laughable and dumb.

But she wasn’t the only left-wing justice on the court to make a dumb argument.

While speaking before the court, Tennessee’s Solicitor General asked, “How many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits?”

And that’s when Justice Sonia Sotomayor promptly jumped in.

“I’m sorry, Counselor,” she said, interrupting him. “Every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin, there is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that’s going to suffer a harm.”

That’s right. Sotomayor, the so-called “wise Latina,” compared cutting off the healthy breasts and genitals of minors to taking aspirin.
Which justice made the dumber argument? Jackson bizarrely compared Tennessee’s ban on gender procedures for minors to bans on interracial marriage, claiming that both involve “inconsistency” with inherent characteristics. The analogy was a spectacular failure as protecting minors from irreversible harm has nothing to do with racial discrimination.

Meanwhile, Sotomayor trivialized the issue by likening the risks of permanent, life-altering surgeries on minors to those of taking aspirin. This flippant dismissal of the severe, irreversible consequences of such procedures demonstrates a shocking lack of seriousness.

Both arguments are embarrassingly absurd, making it difficult to determine which is more moronic. One thing is for sure: both are an embarrassment to the court.

Pam Bondi is the one that picked him. Trump, out of loyalty to one who defended him at his first impeachment trial, went along without further thought to nominating a jerk who, like Bondi, clearly doesn’t have much respect for individual rights.

Trump’s continuing weak spot is his apparent blind trust is those he considers loyal to him, yet who have shown to have their own agendas at his expense. (And don’t think for a minute that even Musk doesn’t have a personal agenda)

One would have thought by now that he had finally gotten it through his thick skull, that while in commercial business, you can -usually- buy loyalty with a large enough paycheck, in politics, loyalty is based on: ‘and what have you done for me lately?’

Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister withdraws as Trump’s nominee to lead DEA

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister withdrew his name for consideration as President-elect Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“To have been nominated by President-Elect @realDonaldTrump to serve as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration is the honor of a lifetime,” Chronister wrote in a post on X.

“Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration. There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling,” Chronister continued.

He said he appreciated the nomination and support from the American people and that he’s looking forward to continuing his work as sheriff.

District 1 County Commissioner of Lake County Anthony Sabatini called Chronister stepping down a “huge win for liberty.”

“This sheriff ordered the arrest of a pastor for holding services during the COVID panic. He was tapped by Trump to head the DEA. Glad to see him withdraw from consideration. Next time politicians lose their ever-lovin minds, he can redeem himself by following the Constitution,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote in a post on X after the sheriff’s announcement.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., spoke to Fox News after Chronister’s withdrawal and defended the sheriff.

“What disqualifies somebody? We all make mistakes throughout life, right? I haven’t talked any details on that yet. But as far as someone making a mistake in their past, give us an example of anybody that hasn’t made a mistake in the past,” Mullin said.

Chronister faced backlash from multiple conservative figures for arresting a pastor for violating COVID rules.

The Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested in March 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Delusional #Resistance Heroines Literally Believe They’re Jason Bourne-Tier Operatives

These #Resistance Don Quixotes prove, yet again, that Ted Kaczynski, AKA “The Unabomber,” was correct in his analysis that the leftist mind is obsessed with bathing in victimhood, even when it’s entirely imagined — they live it, they breathe it, they savor it.

When they go to sleep at night, they dream of getting shipped off to government work camps by some fascist strongman, their self-identity wrapped up inextricably in invented persecutions.

Via Industrial Society and Its Future (emphasis added)

Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. are inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)…

Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may not be as strong and as capable as men…

Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

(As an aside, what a shameful waste of a great intellect to devote one’s life to a solitary existence in a shed in the woods, building and mailing bombs across the country woods when so much good might have come from pursuing a different path.)

They measure their virtue against each other’s, competing to maximize their relative victimhood and ascend, accordingly, further up in the Social Justice™ hierarchy.

White liberal women who occupy the upper crust of the middle class, bleeding into the upper class, in particular, are most eager to advertise their victimhood and commitment to the cause of the liberation of oppressed minorities
precisely because they know that they are, in reality, the opposite of oppressed; one would be hard-pressed to argue that modern Western civilization hasn’t been built around their whims.

The result is performances like these, in which this woman adopts the persona of a James Bond-caliber spy, giving instructions to her clandestine comrades (publicly on social media, ironically) regarding how to purchase burner phones for members of targeted groups — in towns that are not their own, with cash, she emphasizes, so as to avoid the MAGA Gestapo once the round-ups start.

She doesn’t specify what targeted groups she is referencing “at risk of having to flee” a Trump administration, but we can guess: transgenders and assorted alphabet people, legacy fronthole women who want abortions at eight months, non-whites, non-Christians, et al.

Will the fever break once Trump assumes office and these people are free to go about espousing their delusions on social media, definitively not incarcerated?

Only time will tell, but inertia is a hell of a thing.