Category: Editorial O’ The Day

Montanans Once Again Reject Gun Control Cheerleader at the Ballot Box

By Larry Keane

OPINION: It’s the same story all over again. Montana voters, who overwhelmingly revere their Second Amendment rights and rich hunting traditions, again rejected one of the more outspoken proponents for gun control as he tried again to win their approval and elected office.

Ryan Busse, the former firearm industry executive who’s now a staunch gun control activist working for GIFFORDS Courage to Fight Gun Violence, tried to sell his “I support the Second Amendment, but …” position to Montana voters to secure the Democratic nomination for the open Congressional seat following U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke’s (R-Mont.) announcement that he will not seek reelection in November.

Montana voters said, “No thanks — we’re just not that into you.”

In the Democratic primary for the First District Congressional seat, Montana voters kicked Busse to the curb and instead chose Sam Forstag as their nominee.

Rejection on Repeat

For Busse, this wasn’t the first time Montana voters turned him down. He thought he could win over Montana voters in his run for the governor’s mansion. But he lost his gubernatorial bid to Gov. Greg Gianforte by nearly 20 percent. Montana voters roundly rejected his platform that included implementing strict gun control laws like banning Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) — highly popular in the Big Sky State among both men and women.

It doesn’t take a political genius to recognize that’s a really tough position to sell to voters in the state with the highest percentage of gun owners per capita in the entire country.

For his part, the outgoing Rep. Zinke has been a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and firearm industry that makes the exercise of those Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms possible for tens of millions of Americans. Rep. Zinke earned an A+ in the 2024 NSSF Congressional Report Card. In that regard, Rep. Zinke and Busse were already as far apart on Second Amendment issues as Montana is wide.

Busse, on the other hand, spent 25 years working for a firearm manufacturer, during which span they produced more than 2.3 million rifles, pistols and revolvers. After that, he did a 180 and went and took a hefty paycheck from the national gun control group GIFFORDS. THe national gun control group still has the press release up announcing Busse was joining as a “senior advisor,” and he parlayed that role into multiple television appearances and media opportunities to push an antigun agenda more in line with Fudds than true Montana ranchers and outdoorsmen and women. He hawked his self flagellating book that was just Busse marketing Busse about his supposed “Saul-to-Paul” conversion to gun control.

It wasn’t surprising then that many Montana voters rejected him once again. It’s time he put his political ambitions out to pasture.

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Eric S. Raymond

Ken Paxton’s victory in Texas has, I think, interesting implications for the national political scene.

Coming on top of a string of similar events, this is very bad news for anybody who wants to think MAGA is declining in influence or Trump is a spent force.

I’m not MAGA – I’m too libertarian and insufficiently populist to fit – so I can analyze this without my wishes interfering with my vision.

There have been a lot of very determined attempts to fragment the MAGA base and attempt to drive a wedge between them and the Trumpster. I see this on X and other social media – lots of indignant blithering about Israel and the Iran war that seems very light on substance and very heavy on attempting to fracture the Republican coalition.

I don’t think it’s working. Tonight is evidence that Trump’s endorsement matters, and the base is not kindly disposed towards any Republican pol who’s perceived as not being on his team.

Perform your strategic calculations accordingly.

Matt Van Swol

Everything about the Left is fake.

Once you understand it, everything make sense.

>Eat the rich… from your mansion

>Save the planet… from your private jet

>Everyone is racist… while you fund the racism.

>Billionaires are evil… unless you fund our candidates.

>Words are violence… but my violence is actually speech

>Wrong pronouns are assault… but burning a courthouse in a protest is mostly peaceful

>We love immigrants… unless you send them to Martha’s Vineyard then we call ICE too

>Democracy is sacred… unless we lose, then it was stolen by Russia, misinformation, or Elon

>Diversity is our strength… unless you’re a Black conservative, then you’re a race traitor who needs to be destroyed

>Tax the wealthy… while your foundation, your trust, and your three LLCs are structured specifically to avoid paying a dime of it

>Capitalism is oppression… posted from an iPhone, on a platform worth a trillion dollars, while wearing merch sold through the your merch store linked in your bio

It’s all fake, it’s all performative and should be endlessly mocked into oblivion.

Give them zero comfort.

The doctrine is always designed so the cost lands on someone else.

The cashier pays for your protest. The suburban parents pays for your sanctuary city. The trade school kid pays for your student loan forgiveness. The taxpayer pays for your foundation’s tax shelter. The working mom pays for your gas stove ban. The factory town pays for your Green New Deal. The girl on the swim team pays for your pronouns. The cop’s widow pays for your bail reform.

It’s a massive, evil, cost-transfer operation that pretends the evil they are pushing, is moral.

…and it’s just evil

Stephen L. Miller

This is one of the keys of his campaign. Nonprofits pay a lot of people to not solve the problem they claim to be solving. Remember when Mr. Beast went to Africa and built two clean water wells, and the NGO nonprofits over there criticized him for it, as some white savior complex or something. He instantly solved the problem they claimed they were advocating and working on.

If you tackle and dent or even solve rampant homelessness, a lot of people lose their jobs and a lot of the funding and donations cease and that’s why there’s a sudden flood of negative media going his way. They aren’t scared of him winning. But they are scared that once people realize problems can be solved, a whole lot of the slush funding dries up.

The Right They Keep Trying to Qualify

The Second Amendment is the most litigated right in the Constitution right now. That’s not because the doctrine is unclear. It’s because several states have decided the Supreme Court’s rulings are inconvenient and have organized their legislative calendars around working past them.

Three decisions settled the questions that mattered. Heller (2008) established an individual right to keep and bear arms. McDonald (2010) applied it to the states. Bruen (2022) replaced the interest-balancing framework lower courts had used to uphold almost every gun restriction with a historical-tradition test: regulations must be consistent with America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, and the government bears the burden of proving they are. Those are the holdings. California, New York, and Illinois have spent the years since treating them as starting points for the next workaround.

I’m a Marine Corps OCS graduate with 30 years in institutional investment management. My son graduated from West Point and flies Army aircraft. My brother retired from Army Special Forces as a Green Beret. I’m also a Life Member of the NRA. My family has carried firearms professionally in service to this country. That’s the credential here.

Before Bruen, lower courts evaluated gun restrictions through a two-step interest-balancing test. At step two, courts routinely deferred to the government’s stated public safety interest, and most restrictions survived. Bruen eliminated that deference. Justice Thomas’s 6-3 majority required governments to identify historical analogues to their modern restrictions, regulations from the founding era or Reconstruction period that are relevantly similar in purpose and burden.

The state response wasn’t compliance. California passed new restrictions on carry in expanded ‘sensitive places,’ effectively rebuilding a near-total carry prohibition through categories Bruen had acknowledged as legitimate but hadn’t quantified. New York passed the Concealed Carry Improvement Act days after Bruen was decided, adding dozens of sensitive places and a ‘good moral character’ requirement that functioned as the old discretionary system under a new name. Illinois added similar restrictions. Each law was designed to produce litigation, not to comply.

United States v. Rahimi (2024) gave the states some judicial support. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for an 8-1 majority that Bruen required only a “relevantly similar” historical regulation, not a historical twin. That’s a real qualification that gives regulators more room. It didn’t restore the pre-Bruen deference. The government still has to find historical analogues. Several of the state restrictions enacted after Bruen are still being litigated, and the outcomes aren’t certain.

One gap the Court’s decisions left is the patchwork problem, and it’s one Congress can close directly. A law-abiding gun owner with a valid concealed-carry permit from her home state may find that permit legally worthless the moment she crosses into a state that doesn’t recognize it. The constitutional right doesn’t change at the border. The state’s willingness to honor it does.

The National Constitutional Carry Act (H.R. 645) requires states to recognize valid carry permits issued by other states. The model is driver’s license reciprocity: every state recognizes every other state’s license to drive. No state demands re-licensure when a visitor crosses the border. No constitutional principle places the Second Amendment below the right to drive in the hierarchy of rights that interstate travelers can exercise. H.R. 645 applies the same common sense to a constitutional right that has been affirmed by the Supreme Court three times.

Polling on this question is consistent: support for carry reciprocity routinely exceeds 70% in surveys that cross party lines. The people most burdened by the current patchwork are law-abiding gun owners who travel, precisely the population least likely to be a public safety concern. The argument for H.R. 645 doesn’t require a particular view on gun policy. It requires only recognizing that a constitutional right the Court has repeatedly upheld deserves the same cross-state recognition we give to a driver’s license. We don’t make visitors from other states pass a new driving test. We shouldn’t make them surrender a constitutional right at the border either.

The Founders wrote the Second Amendment for citizens. My brother was a weapons Sergeant in Army Special Forces. My son carries one now as an Army aviator. Both of them took an oath to defend a Constitution that includes the rights they exercised as their profession. The civilian version of that right doesn’t need a cultural argument. Three Supreme Court decisions have supplied the constitutional one.

It’s worth stating clearly: the population most affected by the current patchwork isn’t the population any legislator is actually worried about. Permit holders went through background checks, paid fees, completed whatever training their state required, and carry legally because they’ve done everything asked of them. That population doesn’t become dangerous at a state line, and it wasn’t dangerous before it crossed one. The argument for H.R. 645 doesn’t require defending anyone’s right to break the law. It requires only that Congress treats a constitutionally protected right with the same cross-state respect we give to a driver’s license.

The question is whether the states that disagree with those decisions will eventually accept the answer, or whether they’ll spend the next decade generating litigation designed to look like compliance while achieving the same practical result as defiance.

New Jersey may have slipped up while defending its ammo ban

Attorneys for the state of New Jersey may have made a significant error while trying to fend off a Second Amendment challenge to the state’s ban on civilian possession of hollow-point ammunition in most circumstances.

The state prohibited civilians from carrying the rounds, which are almost universally used by law enforcement, in public as part of a 1978 overhaul of its criminal code, the only state to maintain such a restriction. In a lawsuit filed in February 2025 by Gun Owners of America (GOA) and other pro-Second Amendment organizations on behalf of Heidi Bergmann-Schoch in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, the groups sought to have that prohibition thrown out as a violation of the Second Amendment.

“New Jersey must show a broad and enduring historical tradition, circa 1791, denying Americans’ right to carry a firearm, loaded with ammunition used by all other Americans in other states, outside the home for self-defense,” the initial complaint said. “Because New Jersey cannot make such a showing, the challenged restrictions violate the Second Amendment.”

“By invoking the international law of war and the practices of the U.S. military, Defendants hoist themselves with their own petard,” a reply brief filed Thursday adds. “Defendants’ sources prove that HPBs do not cause ‘unnecessary suffering,’ nor are they restricted for use in warfare. Rather, HPBs were originally developed for hunting, and are widely used by military and police units, and tens of millions of American citizens – nationwide.”

Hollow-point ammunition has been widely used by law enforcement and civilians for personal protection and other lawful purposes for decades. In a 1994 video interview, Massad Ayoob, a police officer who was an expert witness in the use of lethal force in self-defense, explained why hollow-point rounds were preferred for personal protection.

“I think the history both of military battle and police gunfight shows us that hard ball round that is, jacketed round nose, for jacketed round nose round, the nine-millimeter is justly infamous as an impotent man stopper and the .45 [ACP] is justly famous as, eh, being a pretty good man stopper,” Ayoob said in the interview, going on to note that both rounds tended to “perforate” – that is to exit the body of the target and potentially harm bystanders.

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Zeek Arkham 

The Democrats have been screaming that Jim Crow is back! Just to test it out, I went outside to see if I now have less rights as a black man. I started humming a negro spiritual and set out on my way.

Got on a bus. Sat in front. No one said anything to me. Took it one stop and then did the walk of shame back to my truck.

Went to a restaurant. Sat at the counter. The nice man behind it asked me if I wanted a menu. I informed him this was just a test and he passed. The look of confusion on his face let me know the Democrats hadn’t informed him I can’t sit at restaurant counters.

Looked for separate bathrooms and water fountains. Couldn’t find a single one. Got immediate side eye from an older black woman when I asked her if she’d noticed any separate water fountains or bathrooms. Her answer wasn’t Christian.

Tried looking for a freedom march so I could join it and see if I’d get hosed or dogs turned on me. No marches. I did see someone with a Pomeranian dog, though, but it didn’t attack me.

So… based on my evidence, Jim Crow is still dead. The Democrats lied.

“The Duty of Self‑Defence”, preached in Philadelphia in 1747 by Rev. Jonathan Dickinson:

He that suffers his life to be taken from him by one that hath no authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defence, incurs the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek the continuance of his life, and Nature itself teaches every creature to defend itself.

 

The surprising reason why buying guns helps endangered species
And why wildlife agencies are building so many shooting ranges.

Here’s a weird fact: Every time someone buys an assault weapon in the US, such as an AR-15, they’re funding wildlife conservation. The same is true if they purchase a handgun, a shotgun, or any other kind of gun or ammunition.

That’s thanks to a law most people have never heard of: the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, commonly known as the Pittman-Robertson Act. Passed by Congress in 1937, the law channels revenue from a tax on firearms, ammo, and archery equipment to state wildlife agencies — government organizations that restore wildlife habitat, monitor threatened species, and oversee hunting and fishing. Levied on firearm manufacturers and importers, the tax is 11 percent for long guns and ammunition and 10 percent for handguns, and it sits on top of other common taxes.

Over the last decade, the law has channeled close to $1 billion a year into state wildlife agencies across the country, amounting to a substantial share of their budgets. One recent analysis found that Pittman-Robertson made up about 18 percent of state agency budgets, on average, in 2019. (License fees for fishing and hunting, along with a hodgepodge of other revenue streams, including a similar tax on fishing gear, make up the rest.) And revenue from Pittman-Robertson has been increasing, roughly doubling in the past two decades — in no small part because gun sales have surged.

Key takeaways

  • An obscure law from the 1930s channels money from an excise tax on firearms and ammo into state wildlife agencies.
  • Revenue from this tax makes up almost a fifth of these agencies’ budgets on average.
  • Some scholars and environmental advocates worry that funding conservation with guns is morally problematic and creates perverse incentives for state agencies to promote firearm use.
  • Yet, these agencies already face severe funding shortfalls, and losing revenue from this gun tax would likely be disastrous for wildlife.
  • Even with this tax in place, state wildlife agencies need more money to conserve the increasingly long list of endangered wildlife within their borders.

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Opinion: OK, ‘gun control’ had its chance — here are the results

Using the alleged Trump assassination attempt as a case study, Thomas L. Knapp argues strict gun-control laws failed at every step and show why he sees them as immoral, impractical and ineffective.

In the wake of Cole Tomas Allen’s alleged attempt to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump and/or other political officials, journalists and general-purpose celebrities come the usual calls for “gun control” because that’s just how things work.

My preferred argument against such nonsense leans hard on morality (it’s evil to infringe on the unalienable human right to self-defense) with a chaser of overall practicality (more than 100 million Americans own several hundred million guns and won’t be giving them up without a fight you do NOT want to witness).

However, it occasionally it seems worthwhile to change lanes and instead examine just how well “gun control” actually works in practice. This is one of those times.

On April 21, Allen boarded an Amtrak train in Los Angeles.

California generally, and Los Angeles specifically, have some of the strictest “gun control” laws on the books, and Amtrak only allows firearms to be carried in locked, checked baggage, with prior written notice/declaration, none of which conditions Allen complied with.

After switching trains in Chicago,, he arrived in Washington, D.C., on April 24 and checked into the Washington Hilton. Like California, Illinois and the District of Columbia have strict “gun control” laws on the books, none of which Allen complied with. The Hilton forbids firearms on its premises other than those carried by “law enforcement personnel.” Allen ignored that rule.

The following day, carrying the 12-gauge shotgun and .38-caliber pistol he’d brought with him over a trip spanning more than 2,000 miles in, from and through various “gun control” zones, he attempted to charge a security checkpoint and reach the hotel’s International Ballroom, intending violence.

“Gun control” had chance after chance after chance to prove it could thwart Allen’s plans.

And. It. Didn’t.

Whoa … violent criminals don’t obey “gun control” laws and private-venue gun rules any more than they obey other kinds of laws and rules? Whodathunkit?

It’s not that the laws and rules aren’t adequately enforced. The only way to reliably prevent Allen from traveling from LA to D.C. with guns would have been to force him to travel on foot and buck naked … after which he’d have almost certainly been able to buy a gun on the street if he wanted one.

“Gun control” laws aren’t just evil and impractical, they’re stump-stupid. As a solution to the violence of criminals, they make about as much sense as a gaudy new White House ballroom.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism

 

John Ʌ Konrad 

Just as I predicted yesterday…. MSM will falsely claim the Secretary of the Navy was fired because of Battleships.

And the NYTimes is actually worse than I thought. Let me explain….

The mainstream media will make this about the ships because the defense “experts” never want more hulls. They want money flowing into consulting fees, AI “solutions,” and think tank white papers. Steel produces nothing for the Beltway class. A flight deck you can launch F-35s off of does not generate PowerPoints.

But the NYTimes is running an even more sinister play.

Throughout the Biden administration, and later during DOGE’s audit work, I translated every major spending bill into a unit every American can actually visualize: one nuclear aircraft carrier.

Nuclear supercarrier cost: $15 billion.

Biden’s BEAD rural broadband program, which connected zero homes to the internet: $42.5 billion, or roughly three carriers.

Pete Buttigieg’s infrastructure package: $1.1 trillion, or seventy three carriers.

Total DOGE savings to date: $215 billion, or fourteen carriers.

Known Somali-linked fraud in Minnesota, per federal prosecutors: $18 billion, or one carrier plus an Arleigh Burke destroyer.

Why do I keep doing this?

Because for the past two decades the NYTimes has run the same story on loop: the military is the reason for America’s skyrocketing national debt.

That is a psyop. It conditions Americans to believe that steel and sailors, not social programs and grift, are what is bankrupting the country.

Human beings are not wired to understand $15 billion. The mind goes blank at that scale. But every American, left or right, understands the sheer weight and menace of a nuclear aircraft carrier. It is the most visible, most photogenic instrument of state power on earth.

So the NYTimes runs the obvious play.

Paint the carrier as expensive. Pile on delays and cost overruns. Quote an anonymous Pentagon source worrying about bloat. Then anchor the defense budget to “discretionary spending,” a small slice of the real pie, and express it as a percentage of that smaller number.

The Pentagon instantly looks like the whale in the room.

But Medicare alone, roughly $1 trillion in 2025, already eclipses the entire defense budget. Add Medicaid and ACA subsidies and federal health spending hits $1.8 trillion, more than double defense. None of those programs are labeled “discretionary,” so by NYTimes accounting, they “don’t count.”

This is a magic act. The NYTimes holds a shiny capital ship up in one hand to keep your eyes off the social programs bankrupting the country in the other.

Once you see the trick, you cannot unsee it. Every time the NYTimes runs a carrier or battleship exposé, ask one question: what is on the page they did not write?

Nine times out of ten, the answer is sitting just outside the “discretionary” column, quietly metastasizing, while a Ford class carrier gets blamed for the deficit.

America is not going broke building warships. Warships are one time expenses that last decades and are a tiny fraction of the total annual budget.

America is going broke pretending the ledgers that matter do not exist, while a national newspaper gets paid to keep the audience looking the other way.

That’s why they hate battleships. That’s why they tell you they are ridiculous and antiquated warships that are a waste of money. To make you think THIS is the reason why the nation is $39T in debt.

And the best part? Their psyop works on both sides of the aisle… on liberals who hate the military and conservatives who hate federal spending.

Battleships are not a waste of money. All the many fraudulent programs that cost more annually than a single carrier are.

The Most Important Lesson of the Iran War Is to Buy Guns and Ammo

It’s remarkable how the real world always illustrates the Founders’ wisdom, graphically and undeniably. Take the current situation in Iran. It’s a country with a great history, full of intelligent people run by a bunch of backward, semi-human savages with a ridiculous apocalyptic theology that is so brutal it killed 30,000 or so of its own people a few months ago just to stay in power.

And now it’s still in power, at least over its own people, despite the United States and Israel righteously devastating its conventional military capabilities. You can sync its navy, shoot down its Air Force, and smash its missiles; the power on the ground requires contending power on the ground. Our glorious alliance with Israel – suck on that podcast dorks – cannot kill every goat molester with an AK-47 and a conviction that the more he murders, the more virgins he gets.

That job belongs to the people of Iran, and unfortunately, they don’t have the tools to do it. They are disarmed, and therefore, they are serfs, not citizens, much like the English and Australians. In Iran, the answer to the problem of securing freedom and justice is the same as it is here in America and everywhere else:

Guns.

Guns are freedom. Guns are liberty. Guns are the last bulwark – a real one, not one that enjoys watching the pool boy cavort with his wife – of freedom. Of course, it’s not actually guns that secure freedom. It’s violence. Some dumb people will tell you violence never solves anything.

The only people who can tell you violence never solves anything are people for whom the problem of violence has been solved by other people who know what the hell they’re talking about and who use violence to solve the problem of violence.

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Interesting point of view.

The Virginia Democrats’ gun legislation is reactionary, not progressive

The United States is an empire, with the most powerful military in the world. It’s also one of only two nations in the world with the right to bear arms enshrined in its founding legal documents, the other being Guatemala. The Second Amendment is considered by many to be the amendment that safeguards all other rights.

Nevertheless, many people have seen the Second Amendment as harmful due to the presence of powerful firearms, such as semi-automatics, in the hands of U.S. civilians. They point to tragedies, especially mass shootings, as justification for regulating firearms.

They see the “well-regulated militia” statement as a caveat that limits what firearms we can possess, claiming that “weapons of war” shouldn’t be in the hands of civilians. They see those who believe in these so-called weapons of war being in the hands of civilians as inherently taking a normatively right-wing standpoint.

For the sake of testing this argument, we can acknowledge that the right to bear arms shouldn’t be infringed only within the context of where there’s a well-regulated militia in the context of the necessity of the security of a free state. In that case, we must also understand what follows if we investigate the premise that the state itself has refused to self-regulate. When the state refuses to self-regulate, we can come to the conclusion that the civilian populace being armed to counter the unregulated militia becomes, in a sense, the regulation of the unregulated militia.

To those who call themselves progressive and also call themselves pro-gun control or pro-gun ban, I ask you to consider your thought process. Is the U.S. government a well-regulated militia when it’s enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza? Is it a well-regulated militia when it’s engaging in wars to further the longstanding goals of American imperialism that benefit the richest and most powerful, such as in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the current war in Iran? Is the U.S. government a well-regulated militia when it violates Americans’ constitutional rights, prioritizes corporate interests and targets people based on race?

To me, the answer is no, in all of these cases. Nevertheless, gun-control advocates seem to believe that the government and military is more entitled than the civilian populace, which does not engage in these acts. The irony, to me, is that many within the gun-control advocacy sphere also happen to oppose at least one or more of the aforementioned operations. I join them in opposition to these actions, but I find their belief in disarming the populace to be self-defeating.

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There Are No ‘Moderate’ Democrats When it Comes to Gun Rights.

Virginia’s Gov. Abigail Spanberger is determined to make her mark in the Old Dominion. She campaigned for office as a moderate Democrat, but Virginians are learning quickly that they’ve been hoodwinked. The reaction is astounding.

A recent poll conducted by George Mason University and The Washington Post found that Gov. Spanberger earned the highest disapproval rating from Virginians of any governor since 1994. Forty-six percent of Virginians disapprove of Gov. Spanberger’s job performance, just three months into the job. To put that into perspective, Gov. Spanberger won by 15 points in her race against former Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Her performance is also a glaring contrast to former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 53-39 job approval rating at the same point in his administration, according to Fox News.

Chief among those headwinds are two issues that the firearm industry is tracking very closely. First, Gov. Spanberger is expected to sign into law SB 749, which would unconstitutionally ban the purchase of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs), or the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles — the most common rifle in America — as well as semiautomatic shotguns used for hunting and home defense and many pistols and standard capacity magazines. Gov. Spanberger is also considering a bill, HB21, that would attempt to circumvent the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to allow frivolous lawsuits against firearm industry members for the criminal misuse of firearms by remote third parties.

Add to that, Gov. Spanberger is backing a referendum effort to gerrymander the Congressional districts in Virginia that would bring a new hyper-partisan Virginia congressional delegation to Congress. If successful, it would change Virginia’s 11 Congressional districts that are currently comprised of six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats and just one Republican.

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The who, what, and where of gun control

A Second Opinion is a recurring series by Haley Proctor on the Second Amendment and constitutional litigation.

My previous column examined what it means for a gun control measure to fit within “the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” This month I want to focus on how the court has analyzed gun regulations that limit (1) who may possess a firearm, (2) what arms people may own or carry, and (3) where they may take them.

Who may keep and bear arms?

As of writing, the court’s latest word on the Second Amendment concerns the “who” of gun control: may the government permissibly restrict the ability of certain types of people to keep and bear arms? The court provided important guidance on that question in the 2024 case of United States v. Rahimi, but significant questions remain open.

The Second Amendment secures to “the people” the right “to keep and bear Arms.” In District of Columbia v. Heller, the court held that “the people” refers “to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.” This means that the “plain text” contains no limitation on the right that would permit the government to deprive some category of persons of firearms without meeting its burden to show that the deprivation is consistent with the “Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

The court has occasionally used the phrase “law-abiding, responsible citizens” to describe “the class of ordinary citizens who undoubtedly enjoy the Second Amendment right.” Some have inferred that this phrase limits the category of people who may assert a Second Amendment right. The court’s decision in Rahimi made clear that this reading was mistaken. If the government wishes to limit the ability of any “member[ ] of the political community” to keep or bear arms – even those who break the law or might be thought to be irresponsible – it must point to a historical tradition that justifies doing so.

Rahimi recognized a historical tradition that “allows the Government to disarm individuals who present a credible threat to the physical safety of others,” “temporarily.”  And it identified one group of individuals who the government may disarm consistent with that tradition: individuals presently under a restraining order issued upon a finding that the recipient poses “a credible threat to the physical safety” of another.

This term, the court has taken up the “who” question once more. The case of United States v. Hemani requires it to decide whether the same tradition permits the government to disarm individuals who unlawfully use drugs. Several additional “who” questions are in the offing.

First, despite Heller’s holding that the “people” includes “all members of the political community,” and despite the fact that 18-to-20 year-olds are undoubtedly part of the political community (and many shoulder the responsibility to bear arms for that community), some courts have continued to hold that they are not part of the “people” who enjoy a right to keep and bear arms. These courts have therefore rejected challenges to laws restricting adults’ ability to purchase or carry firearms until they reach the age of 21. There is a circuit split on this question, and the  court has been holding several petitions since November. It could be that the court plans to grant, vacate, and remand these cases in light of Hemani, but given that they focus on the meaning of “people” and a different aspect of the historical regulatory tradition, it’s doubtful that Hemani will supply much guidance.

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John  Konrad V

What if America is already far richer than anyone in the swamp is allowed to admit?

What if the real drag on the Republic isn’t taxes, isn’t debt, isn’t even the deficit, it’s Europe?

What if NATO was never a mutual defense pact, but a 75-year subscription America forgot to cancel?

What if “burden sharing” is the most expensive euphemism in the English language?

What if the City of London cabal is draining our banks?

What if the advice from globalists is terrible advice that’s costing us big?

What if every European basing agreement, every forward-deployed brigade, every Ramstein runway, every Aviano hangar, every Souda Bay pier is a tax American workers pay so Berlin can run a welfare state and Paris can run a 35-hour week?

What if foreign aid to Europe isn’t aid, it’s tribute, flowing the wrong way?

What if transporting the vast majority of trade on European owned ships costs more than we realize?

What if the NGO archipelago in Brussels, Geneva, and The Hague is just a money-laundering loop where US taxpayer dollars get rinsed through a “civil society” conference and returned as lectures about our democracy?

What if the UN isn’t a parliament of man, it’s a Manhattan timeshare with diplomatic plates, an accounting black hole, and a Human Rights Council chaired by people who’d jail you for tweeting this?

What if “the rules-based international order” was always code for: Americans build it, Americans pay for it, Americans bleed for it, and Europeans grade it?

What if $36 trillion in debt looks a lot smaller the second you stop underwriting a continent that sneers at you in three languages?

What if you zeroed out the Europe line, the NATO line, the UN line, the NGO line, and woke up tomorrow in a country with the fiscal headroom to rebuild every shipyard, every foundry, every rail line, and every Navy hull we’ve let rot since the Cold War ended?

What if American tourists went to American cathedrals, American opera, American museums, American cities instead.

I’m not saying I believe all of it.

I’m saying maybe, just maybe, we could pay down all our debt and wouldn’t have to pay taxes at all if we cut Europe loose.

The Rational Animal

The average American today lives better than John D. Rockefeller did in 1926. That is not an exaggeration. It is a fact.

Rockefeller could not fly across the country in five hours. You can for $200. He could not video call his family from another continent. You do it for free. He had no antibiotics, no MRI, no air conditioning in July. He could not carry every book ever written in his pocket. You are reading this on a device that does all of that and more.

Americans throw away 30-40% of their food. Not because they are wasteful, but because food is so abundant that waste is affordable. Your car has climate control, navigation, and safety systems that did not exist at any price a century ago. Your home has heating, cooling, refrigeration, and entertainment that emperors could not have imagined.

None of this was voted into existence. None of it was redistributed from the rich. It was created by free minds operating in what remains of a free market. Every comfort you enjoy today is the product of a man who thought, invented, produced, and traded voluntarily.

This is what the remnants of capitalism still deliver, even while it is being dismantled. Imagine what a fully free society could build.

Virginia gun bills take aim at the Constitution

As a Virginia resident and a longtime advocate for the Second Amendment, I’ve spent decades covering the gun debate from every angle. I’ve spoken with lawmakers, law enforcement officers, gun owners and crime victims. And I can tell you this: What happened in Richmond this legislative session was both unnecessary and unconstitutional.

Virginia is the home of James Madison, who boasted that, unlike the monarchs of Europe who were “afraid to trust the people with arms,” the United States recognized the inherent right of the people to keep and bear them. It’s through that lens that we should look at our current situation.

Politicians in Richmond have advanced one of the most sweeping gun control packages our commonwealth has seen in years. Clearly, they don’t understand what the words “keep and bear” in our Second Amendment actually mean. Those words mean “it’s ours, and you can’t take it.” Supporters claim these bills are necessary to make our communities safer. But recent feedback from actual Virginians tells a very different story.

According to a new survey of Virginia voters, 90% say the criminal is responsible for violent crime. A firearm being used in the commission of a crime is only a tool for the havoc they cause, whether it’s a hammer or a handgun. That distinction is crucial.

Public safety starts with prosecuting violent crimes and putting offenders in prison. Dreaming up new restrictions on law-abiding citizens who already follow the rules should play no part in it and is against every principle of American freedom.

In fact, 63% of Virginians say tougher sentencing and better enforcement of existing laws is the most effective way to reduce crime. Only 16% believe adding new gun regulations will make the biggest difference. That’s not close, and we shouldn’t tolerate these infringements from a moral standpoint or a constitutional one. We already have the necessary gun laws on the books; what we should do is actually enforce them.

Just look at Senate Bill 749, which now awaits Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s signature to become law. The bill would impose a broad and unconstitutional ban on a number of commonly owned guns under the politically loaded and vague label of “assault firearms” — a phrase that is completely meaningless. The result is that Virginians would no longer be able to purchase or transfer some of the most popular firearms in the country, and that’s just the first step towards prohibiting their possession too. Reclassifying and banning widely owned firearms based on arbitrary criteria does not disarm criminals. It penalizes peaceable citizens who have complied with every regulation already on the books. And voters know it.

Sixty percent of Virginians oppose an “assault weapons” ban. Strong majorities oppose gun-related taxes which disproportionately impact regular families. Pricing a constitutional right out of reach for working adults isn’t justice, and it’s not about public safety. It’s political retribution for exercising a right too many Democratic lawmakers find objectionable.

Pakistan says a new round of peace talks with Afghanistan is underway in China after deadly fighting Pakistan says a new round of peace talks with Afghanistan is underway in China after deadly fighting

There are also efforts underway to undermine federal law which protects lawful businesses such as family-owned gun ranges and firearm manufacturers. This is not what we want, and it’s not who we are. The right to self-defense is not a fringe idea. It’s a mainstream value deeply rooted in our constitutional tradition.

Public safety and constitutional liberty are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they go hand in hand. Violent crime is plunging across the country and commonwealth, while the number of guns in the hands of lawful owners is at an all-time high. Spanberger should veto these bills and work to keep Virginia safe and free instead of fruitlessly searching for security at the expense of our fundamental civil rights.

Cam Edwards of Farmville has covered the Second Amendment for 20 years as a broadcast and online journalist, and serves on the board of directors for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

 

BLUF
Honest discussion requires acknowledging the data on who commits these attacks rather than filtering it through political narratives about which threats are acceptable to discuss.
If policymakers and the public want effective prevention, they must start with a clear-eyed assessment of the risks rather than with wishful thinking.

The Terror Threat Americans Aren’t Supposed To Discuss

John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center

Many commentators claim that Islam does not pose a threat of violence in the United States. Influencers such as Tucker Carlson often repeat this argument. Others, including then-President Joe Biden and FBI Director Christopher Wray, have argued that white supremacists represent the primary domestic threat.

Yet March alone saw multiple terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. In Austin, a terrorist wore a sweatshirt reading “Property of Allah” during an attack. In New York City, bomb throwers shouted “Allahu Akbar” while throwing a homemade shrapnel bomb. At Old Dominion University, a shooter also yelled “Allahu Akbar” and had previously been convicted of supporting ISIS. Another attacker, whose brother was a Hezbollah terrorist commander, targeted Temple Israel in Michigan, and yet another attack, involving three men of Iraqi origin, targeted the U.S. embassy in Norway. The Austin, Old Dominion, and New York City bombers and the Michigan synagogue attackers were also all foreign-born individuals who were naturalized U.S. citizens.

Terrorist attacks take many forms. For example, the January 2025 truck attack in New Orleans, with an ISIS flag on the truck, left 14 people dead and 47 injured. But let’s focus the discussion on one type of attack that has been extensively studied: mass public shootings. Researchers define a mass public shooting as an attack in which a perpetrator kills four or more people at one time in a public place, excluding crimes such as gang fights or robberies.

Looking at all mass public shootings from 1998 through 2025 reveals several patterns. Muslims commit these crimes at a disproportionate rate. White males commit them at a rate below their share of the population. And most shooters express no clear political ideology.

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