Category: Law & Order

Sometimes reasonable people must do unreasonable things.

The title is a paraphrase of something Marv Heemeyer said. If you’re unfamiliar with that name, it’s the guy who built and used the “Killdozer” to go after people who kept screwing him over in Granby, Colorado. The Lore Lodge on YouTube did a great video on some of what’s been missing from the popular narrative you should check out.

In the heart of things, though, you’ve got a guy who wanted to be part of the community; to contribute and be treated fairly as any person has a right to expect. The problem was, he wasn’t. The “good old boy” system there took issue with him because he bought property that someone else, someone connected, wanted and things went downhill from there until Heemeyer engaged in his rampage.

Which hurt no one, by the way. The only fatality was himself.

But the truth is that you can only push people so far before they start pushing back, and if you push them long enough, their pushback won’t be for just one thing, but a long history of abuses. I’ve touched on how the attacks on Christians could go, but it doesn’t stop there.

See, I came across this bit from Hot Air today, and I found something interesting, but not surprising. See, an auto repair shop called Popular Mechanix has a problem. An arsonist who has been arrested numerous times but keeps coming back to cause problems with the shop. And, frankly, enough is enough.

It’s not that the city is doing nothing. They do arrest and charge Perez Perez every few months, it’s just that the city isn’t stopping him or even discouraging him. He’s committing many more crimes than he’s being punished for and the city can’t deal with it. So dealing with Perez Perez has fallen on shop manager DJ Meisner:

“It feels like the Wild West,” said Meisner about the city. “I try not to give into the doom spiral narrative. But they are doing nothing to dissuade me of that notion.”…

In 2022, Meisner said he was putting out blazes weekly and even installed a ladder he bought from a hunting website to get a better vantage point from the fence line. He placed extinguisher devices on the fence, but they have proven useless and have been swallowed up in the fires.

In October, an early morning fire broke out in Popular Mechanix’s backyard, growing into a large blaze that destroyed two of the shop’s cars and scarred surrounding trees. One of the cars exploded because it was full of gasoline.

In January the police recommended charges against Perez Perez for the November arson (the one caught on video). Supposedly the DA reached out to the company this week, but does anyone think it will matter? Perez Perez might go to prison for another six months. Then he’ll be back on the street and Popular Mechanix will be left to do its best to protect itself from him. And of course, he’s not the only agent of chaos in the city.

The shop’s owner, Andrew Gescheidt, says it feels like he’s being pushed toward becoming a vigilante. “I feel like I don’t want to become a vigilante, but the universe is saying you have to do it yourself,” he said. He vowed he wouldn’t go out and hit Perez Perez with a wrench but added, “Bureaucracy is not helping us.”

Again, the police show up, arrest him, he goes to court, gets a sentence, then comes out and does it all over again. There’s a restraining order against him, but that’s just a piece of paper when all else is considered.

What Gescheidt is articulating here is that he, a reasonable man, is starting to feel like he needs to do unreasonable things.

Let’s understand that you cannot use lethal force in a situation that isn’t reasonably perceived as a life-or-death situation. Bottles of urine and rocks should qualify—both can kill people, after all—but California’s prosecutors would likely disagree. That means Gescheidt attacking Perez Perez in any way, even when you and I might believe there was a threat of grievous bodily harm or even death, he’s likely to be the one to go to prison.

But unless something is done, you’re going to see some kind of vigilantism in San Francisco. Writer John Sexton teases that you have to become Batman to live in San Fran, and he’s not entirely wrong to do so.

The thing is, though, anyone can be pushed far enough. There’s a point where anyone stops being docile and law-abiding. Sure, you can push them pretty far if you’re gentle about it to start with, but even then, sooner or later, you risk crossing the Rubicon and that person unleashing hell.

In a civilized nation, we expect criminals to be punished. We expect at least some response that looks like justice. Since the system is run by people, we can accept that mistakes are made so long as they’re rectified as quickly as possible, but we still expect meaningful action.

Someone revolving through the jails to return and continue to unleash havoc isn’t justice. It’s not remotely like justice, and if it keeps up, someone will decide justice has to come from somewhere else.

Clearly, the police can’t do it.

But it’s not limited here, either.

Right now, the left is, once again, losing their freaking minds. They’re firebombing Tesla dealerships because they don’t like Elon Musk. They’re acting as if they’ve been pushed too far when no one has pushed them anywhere. They’re the ones doing the pushing.

At some point, someone is going to say enough is enough and take action.

Should that happen, it’s entirely possible it will inspire others to act. Reasonable men and women must do unreasonable things, and it’s usually unreasonable men and women who push them to do them.

Stop being unreasonable and things will settle. Fail to do that, and, well…consider yourself warned.

C-Reason Hana;
IMO … The FBI under the leadership of the Biden Administration was more interested in prosecuting parents at School Board Meetings, arresting people for praying outside of PP centers and classifying Catholics as terrorists … or making up stings to entrap Americans like the one they did with Gov. Whitmer & orchestrating performative raids of Trump supporters & Trump himself.

They wouldn’t arrest violent rioters, people on the most wanted list, nor pedos & traffickers.

We finally have people in office who put America & Americans first, while upholding the law … not making it up as they go.

“Oopsie, Too Late” El Salvador President Mocks Judge Boasberg After Flights Land With Several Hundred Venezuelan Gang Members Deported by President Trump

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele mocked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg after two flights from the U.S. carrying nearly between 250 and 300 Venezuelan and other gang members landed in El Salvador despite Boasberg’s emergency order issued Saturday evening in a case brought by the ACLU to turn the planes around and return the gang members to the U.S.

According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a few MS-13 gang members and most wanted fugitives were among the over 250 Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang members deported after President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

El Salvador receives members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua who were deported by President Trump, screen image via President Nayib Bukele, posted March 16, 2025
El Salvador receives members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua who were deported by President Trump, screen image via President Nayib Bukele, posted March 16, 2025

Bukele posted, “Oopsie…Too late ” over a New York Post headline that reads, “Fed judge orders deportation flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gangbangers to return to US after Trump invokes Alien Enemies Act”

 

Bukele also posted video of the nighttime arrival of the deportees, showing the gang members being removed from the planes in shackles and then being taken to El Salvador’s supermax security prison, CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, in a massive security operation.

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Second Measles Death Reported in American Southwest Measles Outbreak.

This time, the patient was an adult who did not seek medical care before death.

In late February, I reported that a child had died of measles in an outbreak reported in West Texas.

Now, there is a second measles death being reported. The second death in the ongoing measles outbreak, this time in New Mexico, involved an unvaccinated adult from Lea County.

The individual did not seek medical care before death, New Mexico health department officials said. The official cause of death is under investigation by New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator. However, the state health department scientific laboratory has confirmed the presence of the measles virus in the person, the state health department said.

The person was a resident of Lea County, where at least 30 cases of measles have been reported. Lea County is just over the border from Gaines County, Texas, where the outbreak is centered. At least seven of the individuals were unvaccinated.

…State officials declined to release the person’s age, sex and underlying medical conditions or disclose whether contact tracing is underway to identify others who may have been exposed to one of the world’s most contagious viruses. The virus is airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs.

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Pam Bondi Dismisses Biden-Era DEI Lawsuits Involving Merit-Based Hiring of Firefighters, Cops

As part of President Donald Trump’s plans to end racist DEI policies, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Civil Rights Division to dismiss several Biden-era lawsuits involving the hiring of police officers and firefighters on the basis of merit.

These lawsuits, launched by the Biden-Harris administration, “unjustly targeted” various fire and police departments across the country for using standard aptitude tests to screen candidates, according to a DOJ press release issued Wednesday.

Despite no evidence of intentional discrimination, per the Trump DOJ, only statistical disparities, Biden officials branded the aptitude tests as discriminatory. This effort sought to coerce cities into conducting DEI-based hiring and spending millions of dollars in taxpayer funds for payouts to previous applicants who had scored lower on the tests, regardless of qualifications.

“American communities deserve firefighters and police officers to be chosen for their skill and dedication to public safety – not to meet DEI quotas,” Bondi said in a statement.

Under Bondi, the DOJ is now dedicated to ending racial discrimination in the name of DEI and restoring merit-based opportunities nationwide. This issue is particularly important for frontline workers who protect the American people, according to the Trump DOJ, and prioritizing DEI over merit when selecting our firefighters and cops thereby jeopardizes public safety.

On February 5, Bondi circulated an internal memo within the DOJ explaining that the department’s Civil Rights Division will “investigate, eliminate, and penalize illegal DEI and DEIA preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities in the private sector and in educational institutions that receive federal funds.”

Wednesday’s dismissal is an early step toward “eradicating” such DEI practices across the government and in the private sector, the Trump DOJ touted.

D.C. Federal Judges Join the Resistance
Overriding the President’s Control of the Department of Justice

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell (Nice when PID is provided)

Some judges have seized upon a new form of resistance to President Trump’s policies and agenda — Refusing to dismiss criminal cases with prejudice in accordance with the President’s instructions to the Attorney General. Three of the eight federal district judges in D.C. who are on senior status,1 joined by one of their colleagues, have tried to undercut Presidential authority in this manner.

This article will consider one such case before Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell. Judge Howell has frustrated the President’s clear intent by refusing to dismiss indictments against Nicholas DeCarlo and Nicholas Ochs with prejudice. She did this despite the fact that, as she admitted, “It has long been settled that the Judiciary generally lacks authority to second-guess those Executive determinations, much less to impose its own charging preferences.”

In her explanatory Memorandum and Order (“Memorandum”) Judge Howell not only refused to dismiss the indictments with prejudice but went out of her way to take gratuitous and irrelevant shots at the President and the pardons he granted pursuant to his Constitutional powers.

The Presidential Amnesty Proclamation

The date he was inaugurated, President Trump a signed a Proclamation that essentially granted amnesty for all “offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” The Proclamation addressed separately defendants who had been convicted and those who had been indicted but not convicted. Of those who had been convicted, they either had their sentences commuted “to time served as of January 20, 2025,” or were granted a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” for their offenses.

However, there were other defendants who were still subject to pending indictments for which there were not yet final convictions. For these, the President’s Proclamation directed the Attorney General “to pursue dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” (bolded emphasis added)

The “dismissal with prejudice to the government” clause was intended to ensure that the government would never again be able to prosecute this category of defendants who were not yet burdened with a final order of conviction. It was the functional equivalent of a pardon. Judge Howell has now done everything she can to thwart that Presidential intent.

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Missouri Republican Launches Second Attempt at Second Amendment Preservation Act

The first version of Missouri’s Second Amendment Preservation Act remains on hold thanks to a court challenge launched by Merrick Garland and the Biden administration, but a Show Me State Republican is hoping that a revised SAPA bill will soon take its place.

The original Second Amendment Preservation Act took effect in 2021, and in addition to prohibiting state and local law enforcement from cooperating with the feds on enforcing federal gun control statutes, essentially nullified those federal gun laws across Missouri.

After DOJ filed suit, a U.S. District Court judge struck down the statute, arguing that it was unconstitutional ‘interposit[ion]’ on the federal goverment by essentially trying to nullify federal law in Missouri. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes’s decision last August, holding that SAPA violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“Because the (Second Amendment Preservation) Act purports to invalidate federal law in violation of the Supremacy Clause, we affirm the (district court’s) judgment,” Chief Judge Steven Colloton, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the unanimous opinion.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed the lawsuit challenging the law arguing it has undermined federal drug and weapons investigations. Late last year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by Attorney General Andrew Bailey to allow Missouri to enforce the Second Amendment Preservation Act while its appeal is ongoing.

Bailey has since appealed the Eighth Circuit decision to the Supreme Court, and a response from Donald Trump’s DOJ is due in about a month. There’s a good chance that the DOJ won’t continue litigating against SAPA, but in the meantime state Sen. Rick Brattin has introduced a revised SAPA bill that he believes can withstand a court challenge.

Brattin told the Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee at Monday’s hearing on the bill that the new version is a “reshuffling” of the bill to put it in accordance with the parameters of the Eighth Court’s ruling. The new version presents updated language in the bill’s statement of purpose and removes explicit references to federal agencies, centering the bill instead on state and local offices.

“This isn’t coming and reinventing the wheel,” Brattin said. “This is just clarifying and making it in line with what the Eighth Courts have done.”
Aaron Dorr, a member of the Missouri Firearms Coalition and staunch advocate of the original law, emphasized that the bill was still necessary under the Trump administration regardless of its pro-gun platform.

Dorr also emphasized that the new version had been updated to reflect the concerns of police.
Lewis County Sheriff David Parrish rebutted Dorr’s claim: “This type of legislation will create major obstacles for our officers and deputies throughout the state.”

Columbia resident Kristin Bowen testified in opposition backed by the Missouri chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
She cited Missouri’s ranking as one of the states with the highest rate of firearm-related deaths. She also referenced the growing rate of suicide via firearm and gun-related homicides in the state.

“It’s a priority for me,” said Sen. Travis Fitzwater, a Republican from Holts Summit and chairman of The Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety. “This committee will probably take action on (the bill) quickly.”

If Brattin’s bill attempts to nullify federal law, then it’s going to run into the same constitutional issues as the original Second Amendment Preservation Act. If, on the other hand, the bill merely prohibits local and state law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal gun laws it’s going to be on firmer constitutional grounds.

Even if that is the case, expect a lot of resistance to SAPA from law enforcement and officials in Missouri’s largest cities, who argue that the law would hinder interagency task forces and exacerbate violent crime.

So long as the bill passes constitutional muster I don’t have an issue with it, though I do think there are bigger priorities for Missouri lawmakers when it comes to our Second Amendment rights, like repealing the state’s ban on lawful carry on public transportation. That, to me anyway, would have a more immediate and positive impact on gun owners than a revised SAPA statute.

Pushback: The left discovers it doesn’t have the right to break the law

In the past few months, since Trump won re-election in November, the string of legal and political victories by the thousands of individuals blacklisted by the left and the Democratic Party in the past decade has been so overwhelming that for me to report each story as it happened would have required me to change the focus of this website entirely, something I did not wish to do.

Instead, I have collected a short list of these victories, hardly complete, and am now posting them here in one essay. This will not only put these victories on the record, it will show unequivocally how many leftists since 2020 somehow came to believe they were not required to follow the law in imposing their leftist agenda on others. The belief however was a delusion. It has just taken a few years to make the rule of law regain its primacy.

Read now and celebrate. Note also that Trump’s election win was completely irrelevant to most of these stories. While his return to the presidency clearly accelerated the trend, the trend had been established long before his election. And that trend has only just begun.

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Appeals court makes ruling on St. Louis County prosecuting attorney appointment

An appeals court sided with Missouri Gov. Mike Parson over St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page on who can appoint the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, ending a month-long legal battle.

In a ruling Thursday, the circuit court’s judgment was affirmed.

Parson’s pick for prosecuting attorney, Melissa Price Smith, a St. Louis County assistant prosecuting attorney and supervisor for the office’s Sexual Assault and Child Abuse team, will replace outgoing prosecutor and Congressman-elect Wesley Bell.

Price Smith will be sworn in as St. Louis County prosecuting attorney and Bell will be sworn into Congress on Jan. 3.

On Dec. 20, a St. Louis County judge ruled that Parson had the power to replace the prosecuting attorney. The court order barred Page from “taking any further steps to fill the anticipated vacancy.”

Page had filed an appeal on Dec. 27 against the ruling.

Homicide charges in fatal shooting of Bolivar student dismissed on basis of self-defense

The Polk County Prosecutor’s Office is dismissing a homicide case on the basis of self-defense, according to a press release.

Corey Keith Nielsen, 34, was charged with second-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old Bolivar High School student on July 27. All charges have been dismissed.

According to the initial report, the 17-year-old was driving a pickup truck with nine people on the road near the Morrisville property where Nielsen, his wife and four children were staying. Someone in the bed of the truck ignited an “aerial type firework” and threw it into Nielsen’s yard. Nielsen fired multiple rounds from a semi-automatic rifle at the pickup, striking the truck multiple times. Later investigations showed that the 17-year-old was struck once in his torso.

A review of the finalized investigation and a deliberation by a panel of local community members culminated in the decision that Nielsen acted in defense of others under Missouri law. The prosecutor’s office also consulted with other county prosecutors.

The panel indicated that Nielsen was likely justified in his actions under Missouri’s self-defense laws: “The fireworks were large enough to have presented a significant risk to the lives and safety of the family, and under Missouri law, such a threat may warrant a defensive response. It does not matter what the intent of the group was; even if they did not intend to cause physical harm, Mr. Nielsen would be judged on what dangers he reasonably perceived in the situation.”

After reviewing the case, the panel was provided the same jury instructions a trial jury would receive, and the “vast majority” of the panel said they would rule that Nielsen acted in self-defense.

“The Polk County Prosecutor’s Office has therefore dismissed the charges against Mr. Corey Nielsen, as this office feels there to be no likelihood that a jury unanimously find Mr. Nielsen guilty of a crime,” the Polk County Prosecutor’s Office said in the press release.

Missouri Sheriffs  – as all Sheriffs do –  still retain the power to deputize whoever they want, and in the past quite often commisioned ‘Special Deputies’ with no law enforcement status or required duties, primarily as a way to legally sidestep the ban on concealed carry, that is, up until when wanna-be gun grabber John Danforth was Attorney General in the mid 70s, and ruled that reserve deputies had to serve on duty at least 24 hours per month. We then elected him to the Senate where as a mere one of a hundred politicians he was actually less able to bother the citizenry.

NYTimes Frets Over Long Island Executive’s ‘Special Deputies’

If you’re a regular reader here at Bearing Arms, you know that I’ve got my own concerns about Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s “special deputy sheriffs“, but mine are substantially different than the anxieties of Long Island Democrats shared by the New York Times.

 In a piece headlined, “A Trump Ally Is Training 75 Armed Citizens. Is That a Militia?” reporter Corey Kilgannon plays up the fearmongering by Democrats over Blakeman’s plans for a reserve deputy force that would be deployed during emergencies.

The leader of a New York City suburb is recruiting 75 armed citizens, many of them former police officers, for a force of “special deputies” to be activated whenever he chooses.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who has allied himself with former President Donald J. Trump and thrust himself into the culture wars, posted a call in March for residents with gun permits and an interest in becoming “provisional emergency special deputy sheriffs.”

The posting called the initiative a strategy to assist in the “protection of human life and property during an emergency” such as a hurricane or blackout — and perhaps, Mr. Blakeman later added, “a riot.”

The new force has drawn vocal opposition in this well-to-do Long Island county, which is one of the country’s safest, protected by one of the largest police departments. It has plunged Nassau into a national debate about authoritarianism in an election season that some see as a fork in the road for American democracy.

Whether Nassau County actually needs a reserve force of deputies is an open question, but these types of programs are hardly unusual. They can be found in New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.; just to name a few deep-blue cities that have similar reserve or auxiliary officer programs in place. And despite Kilgannon’s contention that the reserve force in Nassau County will be under the sole supervision of Blakeman, who could call them out at his whim, the reserve force is run by Sheriff Anthony LaRocco. According to the sheriff, the “Provisional Emergency Special Deputy Sheriffs will have no police powers unless an emergency is declared by the County Executive and they are activated.”

Despite those guardrails, Long Island lefties are losing their minds over what they see as Blakeman’s “private militia”.

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Former Judge has Crap for Brains

Quote of the Day

One problem with the court’s approach is that it is formalist, pedantic—soulless.
It wrongly suggests that the court should give the words in a statute a form-over- substance significance that focuses on dictionaries, and historic word usage while ignoring the basic right at stake or the basic evil a law aims at ending.

In the abortion case, an anti-abortion court could have turned the decision on weighing a life or potential life protected by the Constitution against the liberty of a woman to control her own body—another right protected by the Constitution.
Rather than methodically marching to the foregone conclusion that women had no rights historically, the court could have overturned Roe simply by restriking the balance of rights in favor of a life or potential life that might be lost in abortion.

Rather than spending their time fixated on the interior life of a gun, the court in Cargill could have considered what the law was obviously aimed at limiting—guns that mindlessly spew multitudes of bullets and threaten public safety. Laws have values in them—life, liberty, public safety, etc., and when the court ignores them in favor of games with words, it undermines respect for the institution.

Thomas G. Moukawsher
Former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. June 25, 2024
Bump-Stock Ruling Reveals a Supreme Court Obsessed With Word Play | Opinion (msn.com)

I dropped my jaw in amazement reading this.
He thinks judges should weigh the pros and cons and examine how they feel about the topic to decide the case?
Really?
That is the job of the legislators when making the laws. If he were to have it his way we would end up with bump stocks being legal or illegal depending upon which judge was assigned to our case. Abortion doctors and the women who employed their services would be sent to jail or on their way, again, depending on what judge they were assigned or perhaps even the mood of the judge that day.

Word mean things and the law depends on the precise meaning of the words used to create those law. If not, then the result will be injustice and chaos. You just won’t know what is an ordinary everyday activity and what a multiple year felony.

This guy is a former judge! Well, maybe this is the reason he is a former judge. He has crap for brains.

New FBI rule gives gun dealers access to stolen firearm records; Springfield law enforcement and gun store owners weigh in

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – A new ruling by the FBI gives federal firearm licensees access to FBI records of stolen firearms.

Before this new ruling, firearm dealers had to use their best judgment when buying guns from strangers.

“People that bring in a used gun, I have no way of knowing if it’s stolen or not and if I do purchase it, and it is stolen, I lose the money I put into it and the gun,” 417 Guns owner Brent Ball said.

We asked how he verifies whether a gun is stolen or not without the database tool. Ball said he was in law enforcement for many years and tries to use his best judgement when buying firearms, but there’s not been a way to verify whether it’s stolen or not until now.

“If I’m not comfortable with the situation, I have them leave. I don’t need that business,” Ball said.

Major Tad Peters with the Springfield Police Department said this new ruling is a good thing, especially since the city has experienced issues with stolen firearms before.

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BLUF:
From what I can gather, the problem in cities is usually not that the police department itself is unwilling to assist, but that they are under orders from the mayor, afraid of upsetting far left constituents, to stand down.

Well, of course that’s what’s going on. Police usually do exactly what their city’s management tells them to do. Geez……

DAVID BERNSTEIN

Hans Bader on Selective Law Enforcement
Police in some major cities are refusing to enforce the law against protest “encampments”
I have been increasingly aware of, and disturbed by, instances of local police declining the requests of universities to help the universities–which generally do not have law enforcement officers capable of dealing with hundreds of people resisting arrest–arrest  protestors and remove their protest encampments. I was preparing to write a blog post about this, but Hans Bader beat me to it. So rather than reinvent the wheel, with permission, below is a shortened version of Hans’ post:

You have a right to free speech, but that doesn’t give you a First Amendment right to camp out on my lawn with protest signs. That’s trespassing. But government officials sometimes allow trespassing when they sympathize with the trespasser’s viewpoint. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC have refused to remove progressive anti-Israel protesters camping out at private universities — Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania, and George Washington University.

Law professor David Bernstein notes that “Baltimore police will not assist in removing illegal encampment at Johns Hopkins University. Worse, they actually praise the illegal encampment as a valid exercise of First Amendment rights, which is complete nonsense. It’s especially nonsensical because most of the protesters are trespassers with no connection to the university.”

“The City of Baltimore strongly stands with every person’s First Amendment rights. Barring any credible threat of violence or similarly high threshold to protect public safety, BPD currently has no plans to engage solely to shut down this valid protest or remove protesters,” said the Baltimore police department in a statement apparently dictated by the mayor’s office.

Contrary to what this statement claims, there is no “First Amendment” right to camp out on public property, much less private property like the campus of Johns Hopkins University, which can tell trespassers to leave regardless of whether they are engaged in First Amendment activity. Camping out on someone else’s property is not a “valid protest,” even if the protesters have not yet made any “threat of violence.” The Supreme Court ruled that protesters do not have a right to camp out even on public property devoted to public use, like national parks, in Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984).

Yet Neetu Arnold of the National Association of Scholars notes that Philadelphia is similarly refusing to clear out a protest camp at the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League university: “Philadelphia Police ignores Penn’s request to disband unauthorized encampment. The university has to provide proof that the encampment poses an imminent danger. Penn students have received multiple warnings to avoid the immediate area.” The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that the “Philadelphia Police Department declines to disband encampment after Penn requests immediate help.”

As a University of Pennsylvania alumnus notes, these illegal protests are only being allowed by progressive officials because of the viewpoint they are expressing. If the protesters were “white nationalists waving nazi flags and telling black people they should go back to Africa I’m sure [police] would be out there pretty quickly” to remove them.

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Yeah, this’ll be off the news by late tomorrow

Charlotte Shooter Identified as 39-Yr-Old Terry Clark Hughes, Jr. – 4 Law Enforcement Dead, 8 Shot – Two Females Arrested from House Including 17-yr-Old – Police Report Second Shooter

The Charlotte police released a statement last night.

Charlotte, N.C. – (Monday, April 29, 2024) – On Monday, April 29, 2024, an armed suspect opened fire on law enforcement officers in the 5000 block of Galway Drive in the North Tryon Division. Four Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers were shot, one of which succumbed to his injuries. Additionally, four officers from the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force were shot, three of which succumbed to their injuries.

On Monday, April 29, 2024, around 1:30 p.m., the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force, comprised of officers from multiple agencies, was conducting an investigation in the North Tryon Division at a home in the 5000 block of Galway Drive. The preliminary investigation indicates officers were attempting to serve active felony warrants on a male subject. As officers approached, the male subject discharged his firearm striking multiple officers. These officers requested immediate response from other officers. As officers responded, the gunfire continued, striking additional officers.

In total, eight officers were struck during the gunfire. The officers were rushed to area hospitals. Three task force officers were pronounced deceased at the hospital. One of the injured CMPD Officers, Joshua Eyer, a 6-year veteran, fought for his life for several hours before succumbing to his injuries.

The male suspect exited the residence on Galway Drive with a firearm. Law enforcement officers perceived an imminent deadly threat and fired their service weapons striking the suspect in the front yard of the residence.

The CMPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT) began negotiations with other occupants in the house. Two females exited the residence and were transported to the Law Enforcement Center (LEC) in Uptown (601 E. Trade St.) to be interviewed by detectives.

Upon securing the scene, the suspect was pronounced deceased at the residence. The deceased suspect has been identified as Terry Clark Hughes, Jr, 39. Mr. Hughes was wanted for Possession of a Firearm by Felon and Felony Flee to Elude (2 counts) out of Lincoln County, North Carolina.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, The U.S. Marshals Office, North Carolina Department of Adult Correction, CMPD’s Crime Scene Investigations, CMPD’s Operations Command, Victim Services, N.C. State Highway Patrol, Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Homicide Prosecution Team, MEDIC and the Charlotte Fire Department all responded to the scene.

The investigation is being conducted by CMPD’s Homicide Unit. This is an active and ongoing investigation. As is standard procedure with any officer involved shooting, the CMPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau will conduct a separate but parallel investigation.

As additional information develops, it will be released by the CMPD’s Public Affairs Office. For additional information in reference to this case, please refer to the report: 20240429-1333-00.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. (just sayin™)

 

G O V E R N O R  G R E G  A B B O T T

January 24, 2024

The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.

Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters–one of which I delivered to him by hand–President Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.

* President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.

* President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.

* By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border– bridges where nobody drowns–and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.

Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United
States.

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both Article IV, sec. 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, sec 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).

The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, sec. 4 has triggered Article I, sec. 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, sec. 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.

Greg Abbott
Governor of Texas