Category: Courts

Illinois assault weapons ban goes to 7th Circuit Court of Appeals

CHICAGO (WLS) — Gun control was on the docket in a federal courtroom in Chicago Thursday.

Illinois assault weapons ban went before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The popularity of the weapons the law proposes to ban could play a crucial role in the decision.

Assault-style rifles like the popular AR-15 remain hanging on gun store walls while the fate of the state ban hangs in the balance.

Thursday a three-member panel hear arguments from attorneys involved in six consolidated lawsuits challenging the ban. Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Hunger argued for the state and said of the AR-15, “These are not in common use for self-defense.” They are instead, she said, “offensive and militaristic.”

Supporters of the state’s assault weapons ban, including a survivor of the Highland Park parade shooting, rallied outside the courthouse.

“Gun violence and mass shootings affect entire communities,” said Ashbey Beasley, Highland Park shooting survivor.

Erin murphy, representing many gun groups, argued, “Our history and tradition is one of protecting weapons that are in common use today.”

Americans own an estimated 24 million AR-15s.

In response, Judge Diane Wood noted, “It’s unusual to have a popularity contest determine what is constitutional.”

“It ought not to be just a popularity contest in time, right,” said Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

But plaintiffs, including the owner of Naperville’s Law Weapons and Supply store, said the ban was about penalizing many law abiding gun owners for the heinous crimes of a few, and this fight is far from over.

“It’s illegal, and it’s hurting us, you know, and I’m tired and we’re gonna fight ’til the end,” said Robert Bevis, owner of Law Weapons and Supply. “Right now, we believe, we’re confident we’re gonna win here at the appellate court, and if we don’t we’re gonna take it to the Supreme Court.”

What is unclear at this point is how soon the Court of Appeals will issue a ruling. Judge Easterbook said this is an extremely difficult problem and the court was going to take it under advisement.

COURT’S IN SESSION
WE’RE LEARNING THERE IS JUSTICE FOR THE 2A

Attorneys specializing in Second Amendment cases are a busy bunch these days, sometimes filing lawsuits challenging new gun laws even before the ink is dry.

For those who have been waiting for the right to keep and bear arms to get a fair shake, it appears that time is finally arriving. As this column was being written, various gun rights organizations were in court all over the place, including Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Texas and California. The bulk of these cases are in federal court since they all have Second Amendment components.

For example, the Second Amendment Foundation, which has become something of a spear point over the past few years, now has more than 50 active cases, with more on the way.

While anti-gun lawmakers have been scrambling to push through as many restrictive gun laws as possible this year, SAF, the National Rifle Association, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and Gun Owners of America have been moving just as fast to block implementation of those laws in the courts.

Oregon is a prime example, where four federal lawsuits were filed following last November’s passage of a very restrictive gun control initiative — Measure 114 — by a razor thin margin.

In neighboring California, there are several legal actions in progress, including one filed recently by SAF, the Firearms Policy Coalition, North County Shooting Center, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, California Gun Rights Foundation, PWGG LLP, and private citizens John Phillips, Alisha Curtin, Dakota Adelphia, Michael Schwartz, Darin Prince and Claire Richards.

This legal action is known as Richards v. Bonta, and it strikes right at the heart of the textbook example of arbitrary gun control, California’s 10-day waiting period on firearm purchases.

What’s With The Number 10?
I’ll guess with you on this one: Why is 10 the right number for anything? It’s typically the maximum number of cartridges the gun control crowd thinks belong in a pistol or rifle magazine. It’s also the number of days they think people should wait in order to exercise a constitutionally-protected, fundamental right.

SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut had an interesting observation about this. In a prepared statement, he offered, “Where this really gets silly is when the waiting period restriction even applies to a gun buyer who already owns other firearms. Not to mention, those who are looking to acquire a firearm for protection immediately do not have the luxury of waiting ten days. Long story short, the state’s ten-day waiting period must be declared unconstitutional and enjoined, which is the purpose of our lawsuit. We’re asking the court for injunctive and declaratory relief.”

Nobody can explain why the number 10 is popular with gun control
zealots who want to limit magazine capacity to 10 cartridges. Dave’s
Ruger MKIV magazines hold that number, but he didn’t have to wait
10 days to take it home from the retailer!

A practicing attorney, Kraut’s got a point. Someone who already owns firearms doesn’t need a new one to cause trouble if that’s his or her intent. And looking back at history, one sees plenty of examples where waiting 10 days didn’t prevent anything. Elliot Rodger, for example, spent months preparing for his rampage in Isla Vista. He bought three different handguns, enduring three separate California waiting periods, and when he finally did erupt in May 2014, he used only California compliant 10-round magazines.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation some weeks ago also establishing a 10-day waiting period. Nobody knows why “10” is the magic number.

Continue reading “”

Castle Rock v Gonzalez     DeShaney v Winnebago
Supreme Court cases holding that there is no ‘duty to protect’.

Parkland shooting verdict: School security officer Scot Peterson acquitted over failure to confront gunman
Scot Peterson had been charged with neglect of a child and culpable negligence in the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which killed 17.

A Florida jury on Thursday cleared a former school security officer who was charged over his failure to confront a gunman who massacred 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, in an emotional trial that left bitter feelings on both sides.

Scot Peterson, who was a Broward County sheriff’s deputy and worked as a resource officer at the school in Parkland, was charged in 2019 with seven counts of neglect of a child, three counts of culpable negligence and one count of perjury.

He was found not guilty on all counts. As the first acquittals were announced, an emotional Peterson put his head down on the defense table and openly wept.

The charges carried a maximum potential sentence of 96½ years in state prison, the Broward County State Attorney’s Office said.

Seventeen students, teachers and staff members were killed Feb. 14, 2018, and 17 more were injured.

Peterson, 60, was the only other person at the school with a gun when the shooter opened fire. He was forced to retire after the shooting.

“We got our life back after 4 ½ years … and being able to put the truth out of what happened,” Peterson told reporters outside court. “It’s been an emotional roller coaster for so long.”

In a lengthy post-verdict statement, Broward County State Attorney Harold Pryor was unapologetic about his office’s decision to prosecute Peterson even though no convictions were won.

“For the first time in our nation’s history, prosecutors in this case have tried to hold an armed school resource officer responsible for not doing his job. We did so because we think it’s important not only to our community, but to the country as a whole,” Pryor said.

He addressed anyone who has “tried to make this political.”

“It is not political to expect someone to do their job,” Pryor said in the statement. “Especially when it’s the vital job of being a school resource officer — an armed law enforcement officer with special duties and responsibilities to the children and staff members they are contracted to protect.”

Peterson was arrested in Broward County after a 15-month investigation found he “refused to investigate the source of the gunshots, retreated during the active shooting while victims were being shot and directed other law enforcement who arrived on scene to remain 500 feet away from the building,” according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Pryor thanked jurors for their service but did not stop hammering Peterson.

“Scot Peterson’s inaction and the misinformation he provided to law enforcement officers had a dire impact on the children and adults who died or were injured on the third floor of the 1200 Building,” Pryor said in his statement. “He stood by, leaving an unrestricted killer to spend 4 minutes and 15 seconds wandering the halls at leisure — firing close to 70 rounds and killing or injuring ten of the 34 children and educators who bore the brunt of the massacre.”

Outside court Thursday, Peterson maintained only one person was to be blamed for the deaths of 17 people more than five years ago.

“Don’t anybody ever forget this was a massacre on Feb. 14,” he said. The “only to person to blame was that monster.”

Peterson grouped himself with the other police officers and sheriff’s deputies who flooded the scene shortly after shots were fired and said law enforcement offers were not at fault.

“We did the best we could with the information we had,” he said. “And God knows we wish we had more.”

A former student pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. Last year, a jury spared him the death penalty, recommending that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In an interview with NBC’s “TODAY” show about three months after the shooting, Peterson, a 33-year law enforcement veteran, apologized to the families of the 17 victims.

“I’m sorry,” he said through tears.

He said at the time it wasn’t fear that kept him from rushing into the school as the gunman stalked the halls with an AR-15. He cited chaos, miscommunication and his assumption that the shots were being fired outside by a sniper.

“I didn’t get it right,” Peterson said. “But it wasn’t because of some, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go into that building. Oh, I don’t want to face somebody in there.’ It wasn’t like that at all.”

Peterson’s lawyer hailed the verdicts as a win for law enforcement.

“We are extremely pleased with the outcome today. But understand something: This is not just a victory for Scot. It’s a victory for every law enforcement officer in this country who does the best they can every single day,” Mark Eiglarsh said. “How dare prosecutors try to second-guess the actions of honorable, decent police officers.”

Even with across-the-board acquittals, Tony Montalto, the father of victim Gina Montalto, refused to believe Peterson was not criminally at fault.

“His inaction contributed to the pain of our entire community, and we don’t understand how this jury looked at the evidence that was presented and found him hot guilty,” he told reporters outside court.

 

E-Q-U-A-L Justice under Law.

BREAKING: Supreme Court Rejects Race-Based College Admissions

In a major 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court has struck down race-based admissions at two universities, declaring it a violation of the equal protection clause.

The conservative justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, made up the majority. Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote the dissent in the Harvard case and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson wrote the dissent in the University of North Carolina case, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan.

In the majority opinion, Roberts writes that the court has “permitted race-based admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions. University programs must comply with strict scrutiny, they may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and — at some point — they must end.”

He also wrote that “however well-intentioned and implemented in good faith,” the admissions programs at Harvard and UNC “fail each of these criteria.”

More from the majority opinion:

Immediately after Brown, we began routinely affirming lower court decisions that invalidated all manner of race-based state action.…

In the decades that followed, this Court continued to vindicate the Constitution’s pledge of racial equality. Laws dividing parks and golf courses; neighborhoods and businesses; buses and trains; schools and juries were undone, all by a transformative promise “stemming from our American ideal of fairness”: “‘the Constitution . . . forbids . . . discrimination by the General Government, or by the States, against any citizen because of his race.’”

The majority opinion closed by saying that “nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

In other words, Roberts and the majority maintain that a person’s race is an invaluable part of their background, but it should not be used to create new barriers to college admission.

“But,” Roberts concludes, “despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.”

(Introducing:) The Big Money Donors Behind the Attacks on Conservative Supreme Court Justices.

The coordinated and sophisticated attacks on conservative Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are no accident. This is a deliberate campaign to tarnish the reputation of justices and delegitimize their decisions in the eyes of citizens.

These attacks are long on rhetoric and short on substance. But that’s how the game is being played. Lacking actual proof of wrongdoing, the left has taken to insinuating ethics violations.

The smears are being published on the left-wing website ProPublica.

“ProPublica isn’t a news organization; it’s a front group for liberal billionaires wanting to ensure that the court rubber stamps their political agenda,” Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino told the Washington Examiner.

ProPublica is a non-profit news site funded primarily by the Sandler Foundation, “which has given nearly $40 million to the organization since 2010,” according to the Examiner. The Sandlers have been plagued by ethics problems themselves. They helped initiate the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s by being the first to offer “Adjustable Rate Mortgages” (ARM) that led to dozens of S&Ls going under. Then the Sandlers were also partly to blame for the housing crash in 2008, according to Time Magazine.

“The same Sandler Foundation that ‘made ProPublica possible’ with an astounding $40 million also gave $500,000 to Demand Justice, a ‘dark money’ court packing group that spearheaded smear campaigns against Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, told the Washington Examiner.

“ProPublica has been in the business of launching partisan attacks on conservative Supreme Court justices for months now, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone given their funding from left-wing groups,” Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, told the Washington Examiner, adding that the “entire project is revenge for overturning Roe v. Wade.”

The Sandler Foundation also gave $7.5 million to the Campaign Legal Center since 2015, a group whose senior director, Kedric Payne, testified before Congress as a Democratic witness arguing that the legislative branch should write ethics rules for the judicial branch. CLC wrote an April letter calling for a Department of Justice investigation into Thomas “for potential criminal and civil penalties.”

“The corrupt corporate media has been working with these liberal activists for decades, so of course Soros-type donors would be behind this,” a spokesperson for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner. “The fact is, Justices Thomas and Alito have complied totally with the Supreme Court’s ethics rules.”

If the tactics of the left in attacking Supreme Court Justices seem vaguely familiar to you, you’re correct.

“This is a textbook example of one of the Left’s favorite tactics: the pop-up pressure campaign,” Thayer explained. The left, through their media outlets and social media presence, creates the appearance of a political groundswell coming from the bottom up when actually, it’s a top-down effort all the way.

“It’s easy to spot once you know the secret,” he said. “First, one or two donors pay a legion of different organizations to get involved in a certain policy debate. Then, all at once, these groups start making noise about an issue nobody cared about five minutes ago.”

ProPublica claims that “40,000 people actively fund our investigative, nonpartisan journalism. Our newsroom operates with fierce independence. No donor or board member is even aware of the subjects of our stories before they are published.”

That’s no doubt true. But it’s also true that a huge portion of their funding comes from a few Democratic billionaire donors who give to ProPublica because they can be relied on to smear the conservative opposition and support the far-left agenda of their benefactors.

Conservative Supreme Court justice hit pieces: We are being lectured on ethics by scoundrels.

“Wait till the next empty shoe drops.”

That’s how law professor Josh Blackman concludes a discussion of The New York Times’ open-mouthed discovery that law schools have summer study-abroad programs and sometimes they recruit celebrity professors, even Supreme Court justices, to teach them.

The Times believes it has found a scandal because George Mason’s Scalia Law School has one of these programs and seeks Supreme Court justices to teach in the summer.

My law school has one of these too. So does Blackman’s.

He comments: “Shocker! A DC law school works hard to connect its students with the leaders of the profession. My own law school has organized similar programs in the past with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Ginsburg. (My students described it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.)”

But, you see, the law school and the justices involved here are conservative, so the Times thinks — or, more accurately, wants its readers to think — there must be something nefarious going on, perhaps “collusion.”

Why, George Mason’s legal clinic sometimes files friend-of-the-court briefs in the Supreme Court, which the paper would like you to believe is some sort of conflict of interest.

Never mind that schools like Harvard and Yale were — until recently, anyway — much closer to many justices on the court than this.

(Note that every member of the court except Amy Coney Barrett is an alumnus of Harvard or Yale.)

There’s nothing there, but the Times doesn’t care.

The Supreme Court has ruled against the left on guns and abortion and is expected to strike down affirmative action any day now.

Thus it must be delegitimized in any way possible.

Continue reading “”

Silencers/Suppressors are in Common Use for Lawful Purposes

U.S.A. — The number of legal suppressors or silencers in the United States shows they are in common use for lawful purposes.  As of January of 2023, the ATF shows there were over 3.1 million silencers or suppressors legally owned in the United States for lawful purposes. In January of 2020, there were 1.8 million. Over the last three years, the number of legal suppressors has increased by an average of 450,000 suppressors per year. By the end of 2023, it is reasonably expected there will be over 3.6 million suppressors in the United States of America. To own these suppressors, the owners have gone through a complicated and lengthy process, often taking a year or more to process their applications for tax stamps. The federal government requires tax stamps to purchase a silencer legally.

In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects “arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-defense” and arms that are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Such arms are “chosen by American society,” not the government.

Silencers/Suppressors are in Common Use for Lawful Purposes
Silencers/Suppressors are in Common Use for Lawful Purposes

American society chooses what arms are in common use. The government does not make the choices. By choosing to possess arms, the people choose what is in common use. It is the possession of the arms which determines whether they are in common use or not.  Possession of arms is a use of the arms. In Heller, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled:

The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

In the Caetano decision, the Heller pronouncement was emphasized and magnified. When an arm was invented has nothing to do with whether it is protected under the Second Amendment. What matters is if the arm is in common use for lawful purposes. This was particularly emphasized by Justice Alito and Justice Thomas. From Caetano, concurrence by Justice Alito, joined with Justice Thomas:

The more relevant statistic is that “[h]undreds of thousands of Tasers and stun guns have been sold to private citizens,” who it appears may lawfully possess them in 45 States. People v. Yanna, 297 Mich. App. 137, 144, 824 N. W. 2d 241, 245 (2012) (holding Michigan stun gun ban unconstitutional); see Volokh, Nonlethal Self-Defense, (Almost Entirely) Nonlethal Weapons, and the Rights To Keep and Bear Arms and Defend Life, 62 Stan. L. Rev. 199, 244 (2009) (citing stun gun bans in seven States); Wis. Stat. §941.295 (Supp. 2015) (amended Wisconsin law permitting stun gun possession); see also Brief in Opposition 11 (acknowledging that “approximately 200,000 civilians owned stun guns” as of 2009). While less popular than handguns, stun guns are widely owned and accepted as a legitimate means of self-defense across the country. Massachusetts’ categorical ban of such weapons therefore violates the Second Amendment.

This was the first time SCOTUS put a number on what is “common use.”  Some may consider two hundred thousand items in the United States of America high, but this applies to many items. When legal suppressors were nearly banned by taxes of ten times the price of the item ($20 would buy most suppressors; the tax was/is $200), there were far fewer of them. In 2006, there were 150 thousand legally owned silencers in the USA.  Sometime between 2006 and 2011, the 200 thousand mark was passed. ATF records do not seem to be available from 2006 to 2010. In 2011, there were 285 thousand legal silencers.

The ATF and Biden administration’s strategy is to claim silencers are not “arms” but are only an accessory. It is difficult to see how they can claim silencers are not “arms” but are very dangerous.

The Texas case, Paxton v. Richardson, appears to be the most likely case to resolve this issue at this time.  In the case, Texas Attorney General Paxton has argued the common use, Second Amendment case, as well as persuasive arguments against the use of taxation to attack rights protected by the Second Amendment.

Judge Mark Pitmann heard the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment in the case on June 15, 2023.

I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘victory’. A judge on the Appeals Court simply stayed enforcement of an injunction to stop the law from taking effect.

NJ scores victory in federal court over concealed carry gun legislation

A federal court issued an order in favor of the state on Tuesday as the latest development in the legal battle over gun reform legislation.

The order, a stay requested by the state last month, will make it so that enforcement of limits on where concealed weapons can be carried in New Jersey is not restricted.

The motion filed by the state’s Attorney General’s Office said that not allowing enforcement of the restrictions “threatens public safety by allowing loaded guns in crowded theaters, bars, protests, and Fourth of July celebrations in parks, as well as zoos and libraries where children gather — just to name a few.”

Continue reading “”

FOID card legal battle moves forward in Sangamon County

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — Attorneys presented oral arguments Tuesday morning in the Sangamon County court battle over the constitutionality of FOID cards in Illinois.

Guns Save Life founder John Boch believes it is unconstitutional for the state to require people to have a license before they can buy guns.

Boch’s lawsuit was originally filed in 2019 against Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly, former McLean County State’s Attorney Don Knapp, and former McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage.

However, the case is now only between Guns Save Life Inc. and Kelly as the Illinois State Police are the organization responsible for the FOID card system.

Plaintiffs argued Tuesday that the FOID Act burdens actions protected under the Second Amendment. Attorney Christian Ambler said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the 2022 Bruen case found laws similar to the FOID Act are unconstitutional.

Although, the Attorney General’s office said this is a straightforward case. Assistant Attorney General Isaac Freilich Jones noted that people apply for FOID cards and the Illinois State Police issue the identification cards if they are not found to be criminals. Jones said there is no difference between waiting for a FOID card and waiting for a background check before buying a gun.

Ambler later argued that there is no historical support for a law allowing states to require people to have a license before they can purchase guns. He said people did not face this type of burden when the Second Amendment was approved by Congress in 1789.

Yet, the Attorney General’s office stressed there is no way to prove that people living in the 18th century would disapprove of the FOID law. They also claimed that there is no world where $10 is an unreasonably high fee to pay for a FOID card. However, plaintiffs said there is no historical context for fees people would face before purchasing their firearms.

Judge Jennie Ascher was assigned to the case Tuesday morning and told counsel that she would take the matter under advisement. Both sides were also asked to provide their proposed orders for the case within 21 days.

 

‘Bad people’ – like Zachey Rahimi – have often been the central player in the Court’s decisions about expanding and protecting civil rights. If you’ll remember, Ernesto Miranda, namesake of the ‘Miranda Warning’ everyone knows by heart from all the police/crime TV shows, was a long time thief and robber who had his first conviction for rape and kidnapping overturned because his civil rights protected by the 5th amendment had been violated.

Is SCOTUS ready for another 2A case?

While the Supreme Court has sidestepped both New York’s post-Bruen carry restrictions and Illinois’ ban on so-called assault weapons and high capacity magazines in recent months, likely because both cases involved emergency appeals, justices are set to consider another case this Thursday that has made its way to the Court under more ordinary circumstances… but one that could have major implications for gun control laws going forward.

The case is known as U.S. v. Rahimi, and its centered around the domestic violence restraining order issued against Zachey Rahimi that prohibited from owning firearms. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the federal statute in question is unconstitutional under the Bruen test; not because the judges on the panel decided domestic violence is a minor concern, but because the Department of Justice’s assertion that only “law-abiding citizens” possess the right to keep and bear arms is so broad that its without any limiting principle. From the Fifth Circuit’s opinion:

Indeed, the upshot of the Government’s argument is that the Second Amendment right can be readily divested, such that “a person could be in one day and out the next: . . . his rights would be stripped as a self-executing consequence of his new status.” But this turns the typical way of conceptualizing constitutional rights on its head. And the Government’s argument reads the Supreme Court’s “law-abiding” gloss so expansively that it risks swallowing the text of the amendment.

Further, the Government’s proffered interpretation of “law-abiding” admits to no true limiting principle. Under the Government’s reading, Congress could remove “unordinary” or “irresponsible” or “non-lawabiding” people—however expediently defined—from the scope of the Second Amendment. Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms? Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle? One easily gets the point: Neither Heller nor Bruen countenances such a malleable scope of the Second Amendment’s protections; to the contrary, the Supreme Court has made clear that “the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans,” Heller, 554 U.S. at 581. Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless among “the people” entitled to the Second Amendment’s guarantees, all other things equal.

Rahimi is probably not a model citizen. In addition to the domestic violence restraining order, he’s accused of multiple shootings in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. But the state of Texas didn’t try to hold Rahimi without bond in those cases, which would have also kept him away from guns. Instead, they relied on a civil order of protection to deny him the ability to lawfully possess a firearm; a legal shortcut that might not be lawful after all.

Now the Supreme Court is set to consider Rahimi’s case in conference this Thursday, and with appellate courts starting to split on several other prohibited persons statute all eyes on are the justices to see if they’ll take up the case or allow the Fifth Circuit’s decision to stand. NBC News provided its own slanted coverage of the case, and while its report is just as biased as you’d expect, there was one passage that I think is largely correct.

The path to victory likely involves winning the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Although both were part of the 6-3 conservative majority in Bruen, Kavanaugh wrote a separate concurring opinion joined by Roberts in which he outlined what he called “the limits of the court’s decision,” making it clear that the Second Amendment does allow for gun regulations.

Citing previous court rulings, Kavanaugh specifically highlighted the prohibition on the possession of firearms by felons and people with mental illnesses as an example of laws that were not under threat.

I suspect that Roberts and Kavanaugh are the most likely justices on the conservative wing of the Court to uphold Rahimi’s conviction, but I don’t think it’s a done deal by any means. The lack of limiting principle in the DOJ’s argument is a valid concern on the part of the judiciary, and under the Bruen test laid out by the Supreme Court last year the government strained to find any true historical analogue to a prohibition on gun ownership because of a civil order issued by a court.

The earliest we’ll learn whether SCOTUS has accepted the Rahimi case will be next Monday when the Court issues its orders from this week’s conference. I won’t be surprised if there are four justices who are ready to hear the DOJ’s appeal, but acceptance doesn’t guarantee that the Biden administration’s argument is going to carry the day if and when Rahimi is heard by the highest court in the land. If the Court follows its own test instead of just relying on the status quo I think there’s a very good chance that the Fifth Circuit’s verdict will stand… but first we have to see if SCOTUS will step in or stand by once again.

Hateful Gun Banner Sent to Prison for Threatening Congresswoman Boebert

U.S.A. — A 39-year-old South Florida man who is an ardent anti-gunner was sentenced last week to 15 months in federal prison and one year of probation for threatening U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, in a series of social media posts that targeted the Congresswoman for her strong Second Amendment support.

In 2021, Matthew Lee Comiskey sent five threatening tweets to Boebert that mentioned firearms and encouraged readers to do her harm. Comiskey originally faced five counts of making an interstate threat but pleaded guilty last year to one count.

His tweets show that Comiskey is violently anti-gun:

  • “Someone needs to put Lauren down like a sick dog. She is a true waste of life! Someone exercise their second amendment right to her face! Since the CIA is a failure and FBI is incompetent at charging her for being a terrorist it’s time to do it ourselves! Pew pew Lauren,” Comiskey wrote in September 2021.
  • “Don’t come to Florida us libs have big guns here and we stand (our) ground. Take you down like Trayvon,” Comiskey wrote a month later.
  • “Don’t worry Lauren, someone is coming soon to show your face the 2nd amendment in practice with a copper jacket. Enjoy,” Comiskey wrote.

Boebert’s pro-gun credentials are well known.

Before the 36-year-old conservative was elected to Congress in 2020, she owned Shooter’s Grill, a Western-themed restaurant in her hometown of Rifle, Colorado, where staff openly carried firearms.

Boebert has earned A-ratings from Gun Owners of America, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and the National Rifle Association. In Congress, she is a member of the Freedom Caucus and the Second Amendment Caucus.

During his sentencing last week at the Paul G. Rogers federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, Comiskey told the court he let his “personal emotions get in the way of my common sense.”

His mother told the court that her son’s actions were “out of character.” Yeah right….
U.S. District Judge Robin L. Rosenberg rejected Comiskey’s requests for a shorter prison sentence or home confinement.

‘Smart Gun’ Inventor Explains Why He’s Trying to Get a California Gun-Control Law Struck Down

The man behind the first gun with an integrated biometric lock set to come to market is backing a suit against one of California’s most restrictive gun laws.

Kai Kloepfer, Biofire founder, told The Reload his company wrote an amicus letter supporting plaintiffs in a case against the state’s Unsafe Handgun Act (UHA) because it believes the law holds back firearms safety innovation. That law bans the sale of any handgun that isn’t on the state’s approved roster, which hasn’t seen a new handgun model added to it since 2013. Biofire wrote to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month urging them to strike down the law in Boland v. Bonta.

“Our argument is the roster doesn’t serve the needs of Californians because it arbitrarily restricts the options that are available,” Kloepfer told The Reload. “California is to guns as Cuba is to cars. You can’t take advantage of all the advancements in technology, including in safety, that have been made since the guns the roster grandfathered in.”

The company’s involvement in the case is at least a public relations win for the California Rifle and Pistol Association and other plaintiffs in the case. It could also help sway the appeals panel reviewing the case that the law does more harm than good in its stated goal of protecting Californians from unsafe handguns. The move also indicates how Biofire plans to convince gun buyers, who have long been skeptical of “smart gun” technology, it is working in their interests.

Kloepfer said the company, like other gun manufacturers, isn’t planning to become directly involved in general gun-rights legal activism. However, he said they do plan to pursue legal action when a law impacts their business.

“What we do engage in are areas directly involved with smart guns. And, in particular, we have this very strong stance of being against mandates of this technology,” Kloepfer said. “It doesn’t make any sense for the market. It doesn’t make any sense for our customers. It doesn’t make any sense for us. So, areas like Boland as well as, obviously, the now-repealed New Jersey mandate for smart guns and things like that. We do get involved in direct smart gun topics or topics that impact our ability to serve our customers.”

California passed the UHA in 2001. Initially, it barred the sale of any new handgun models without a loaded chamber indicator or magazine disconnect safety. In 2013, the state mandated new pistol models must include so-called microstamping technology. In theory, microstamping imprints an identifiable mark on every spent casing with the goal of helping police solve crimes. But, as Kloepfer pointed out, there has never been a production gun anywhere in the world that incorporates the technology, and critics argue the technology is impossible to implement in a practical firearm.

“Our understanding is that the roster requires microstamping, which has never been implemented in any sort of commercially available firearm,” he said. “Biofire does not have microstamping in it. Similar to every other manufacturer, we have not seen a viable approach there.”

The real-world effect of adding the microstamping requirement, which New York is now considering implementing, was a complete ban on selling any handgun models created after 2013. Outside of law enforcement officers, who are not subject to the handgun roster’s restrictions despite unrostered guns’ status as “unsafe,” Californians have been mostly limited to buying pistols first introduced to the market more than 15 years ago.

Boland v. Bonta is already changing that, though. In March, Federal District Judge Cormac J. Carney issued a preliminary injunction against the UHA because he found it likely unconstitutional.

“These regulations are having a devastating impact on Californians’ ability to acquire and use new, state-of-the-art handguns,” Judge Carney wrote. “Since 2007, when the [loaded chamber indicator] and [magazine disconnect safety] requirements were introduced, very few new handguns have been introduced for sale in California with those features. Since 2013, when the microstamping requirement was introduced, not a single new semiautomatic handgun has been approved for sale in California.”

California filed to appeal the ruling. However, it only requested a stay on Judge Carney’s ruling in regard to the loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect safety requirements. The court agreed to that request. That means the microstamping requirement will remain enjoined as the appeal proceeds.

Kloepfer said Biofire has a version of its gun that includes a loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect safety. But he argued those features shouldn’t be required either, and the company would continue to support the case against the law.

Biofire has already brought in thousands of pre-orders for its first “smart gun” model and plans to ship the first batch of $1,500-$1,900 firearms by the end of the year.

“We’ve seen really tremendous demand so far,” Kloepfer said.

The gun is only available for direct purchase through Biofire’s website at this point, but Kloepfer said the company hopes to expand in the coming months.

“We just very simply don’t have the inventory capacity to stock at distributors or things like that,” he said. “So, as we get larger and start to sort of fulfill a lot of this backlog of demand, the goal is definitely to build positive relationships with distributors, especially ones that our customers are excited about.”

Oral arguments in the Boland v. Bonta appeal have been scheduled for August 23rd.

 

Progressive Judge Says Commerce Clause Overrides the Bill of Rights

U.S.A. — At least one judge in the Third Circuit believes the Commerce Clause overrides the Bill of Rights. In a recent decision of The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in the case Range v Lombardo, on June 6, 2023, the en banc court ruled some felony convictions are not sufficient to restrict Second Amendment rights, based on the historical record. Eleven of 15 judges concurred with the majority opinion. Four judges dissented.

Judge Roth makes a strong case, based on Progressive philosophy, the Commerce Clause overrides the Bill of Rights. She gives the usual litany of Progressive “arguments”: Things have changed since the ratification of the Bill of Rights. The federal government has to have more power than the Bill of Rights allows. That was then. This is now. Here is part of the dissent from Judge Roth of the Third Circuit P. 96 of 107 :

In Bruen, the Supreme Court considered whether a regulation issued by a state government was a facially constitutional exercise of its traditional police power.

Range presents a distinguishable question: Whether a federal statute, which the Supreme Court has upheld as a valid exercise of Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause, 2 is constitutional as applied to him.

The parties and the Majority conflate these spheres of authority and fail to address binding precedents affirming Congress’s power to regulate the possession of firearms in interstate commerce. Because Range lacks standing under the applicable Commerce Clause jurisprudence, I respectfully dissent.

Judge Roth explicitly states the modern expansion of the commerce clause, to include virtually all activity that has any effect on commerce, overrides the Bill of Rights because the scope of modern commerce is far greater than commerce at the founding.

This case involves the Second Amendment. Roth’s logic as easily applies to the First Amendment and others. Virtually all First Amendment usage involves items that have a connection to interstate commerce – printing presses, telephones, computers, satellites, fiber optic cables, etc. Church pews are made of wood shipped across state lines, paid for by credit cards recognized by interstate banks. Nearly all homes affect interstate commerce. Under the expansive interpretation, the federal government could regulate all use and sale of homes and inspect them at any time, in spite of the Fourth Amendment. Under the expansive, Progressive interpretation, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are swallowed up. Virtually all of life is encompassed by the absurd extension of the Commerce Clause created by Progressive judges.

Most of what Judge Roth writes about modern times applied to commerce at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

Continue reading “”

Gun Advocates Quick to Sue Over Connecticut’s New Gun Safety Law

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont on Tuesday signed the most wide-ranging state gun control bill since a 2013 law passed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, sparking an immediate lawsuit by gun rights supporters seeking to block a ban on open carrying and other parts of the new law.

It’s the latest legal fight over Connecticut’s gun laws, which are some of the strictest in the country, since the U.S. Supreme Court last year expanded gun rights and opened several states’ laws to challenges. The landmark 2013 gun law and others also are being contested in court.

“This bill that I just signed takes smart and strategic steps to strengthen the laws in Connecticut to prevent tragedy from happening,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “The inaction of Congress on critical legislation to keep Americans safe requires each state to act individually.”

Idaho-based We the Patriots USA, a group that bills itself as a protector of gun and other rights, filed a lawsuit in federal court late Tuesday with other plaintiffs in an effort to block the law, the group’s lawyer said.

“Individuals have a right to bear arms under both the state and federal constitutions,” the lawyer, Norm Pattis, wrote in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday. “The state constitution guarantees a right to protect oneself. No one sacrifices that right by walking out of their front door. In an era of defunding police, permissive bail reform and liberal clemency, folks depend on the right to self-defense more than ever.”

Continue reading “”

Federal Trial Rolls On.

06.08.2023

Before we share a report of the third day of OFF’s federal trial to stop the unconstitutional Measure 114, we want to take a moment to once again send our sincere thanks to the Republican Senators who have risked so much to protect our rights and basic common sense by refusing to participate in the Democrat’s war on sanity.

By protesting the Democrat’s outrageous agenda by denying quorum, the Senate Republicans, and two Independents, (Art Robinson and Brian Boquist) have put the brakes on SB 348.

SB 348, as you know, was Floyd Prozanski’s effort to make Measure 114 even worse than it was when passed by out of state millionaires.

The Democrat propaganda machine and their mouthpieces in the media have been working non-stop to demonize the peaceful protest of the Senators who denied quorum to protect the minority, even as they continue to pretend to want to protect the rights of minorities.

So please take a moment to send a word of thanks to Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp and ask him to share your appreciation with his fellow Senators.

At the trial we face a number of challenges. As you may know the Judge has declared that she will not hear arguments about the constitutionality of Measure 114 as applied. Her position is that the issue is “not ripe” because no one has yet been harmed by the measure.  Of course, the only reason no one has been harmed yet is because a state judge in Harney County, in a separate decision, placed an injunction on the measure. So it cannot go into effect until after a full trial in State Court which we expect to happen in September.

Continue reading “”

En banc! U.S. 3rd Circuit Court (The Bruen decision strikes again)

TLDR:
Range pleaded guilty in 1995 to committing welfare fraud, a misdemeanor punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. As we know, GCA’ 68 bans people convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year and a day in prison – which are usually felonies – from buying guns.
Range sued the government in 2020 saying the ban violated his 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
The appeals court – en banc – ruled that since there were no text, history or tradition of restrictions like this when the 2nd and the 14th amendments were ratified, the restriction was unconstitutional.

Another scene in the opening act of the end of gun control the goobermint has foisted on us

No Loss of Second Amendment Rights for Welfare Fraud

Range_v_Garland_En_Banc_Opinion

Oregon Measure 114 gun law faces federal court test Monday

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal trial over Oregon’s voter-approved gun control measure opened Monday in Portland, marking a critical next step for one of the toughest gun control laws in the nation after months of being tied up in the courts.

The trial, which is being held before a judge and not a jury, will determine whether the law violates the U.S. Constitution.

It comes after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment that has upended gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books. It changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions, telling judges that gun laws must be consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

The Oregon measure’s fate is being carefully watched as one of the first new gun restrictions passed since the Supreme Court ruling last June.

The legal battle over in Oregon could well last beyond the trial. Whatever the judge decides, the ruling is likely to be appealed, potentially moving all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Continue reading “”