Category: Rights

Kyle Rittenhouse Launches Foundation Aimed At Fighting Gun Control

Kyle Rittenhouse has launched an anti-gun control nonprofit in Texas, according to a filing with the Texas Secretary of State’s office, which was first reported on by the Texas Tribune—a sign the young man who became a conservative star after being acquitted of killing two Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, is ramping up his political activity in Texas.
Rittenhouse Conference

Rittenhouse filed with the Secretary of State on July 23 to create the Rittenhouse Foundation, a nonprofit based in Fort Worth, Texas, which aims to protect “an individual’s inalienable right to bear arms” through “education and legal assistance,” according to the filing.

Rittenhouse is listed as a director alongside Chris McNutt, president of the gun advocacy group Texas Gun Rights and Shelby Griesinger, treasurer of the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which has financed the campaigns of right-wing candidates across the state.

The foundation’s registered agent is the law firm of Tony McDonald, a long-time legal representative of conservative organizations in Texas, including Empower Texans, a now-defunct Tea Party-aligned group that was active from 2006 to 2020 and was described by Texas Monthly in 2013 as “one of the most influential advocacy groups in Austin.”

Defend Texas Liberty and Empower Texans have been given tens of millions of dollars by Tim Dunn, Farris Wilks and Dan Wilks, conservative mega donors who’ve spent decades using their oil wealth to promote their ultraconservative causes, according to the Tribune.

Forbes has attempted to contact Rittenhouse and his foundation via the foundation’s attorney.

KEY BACKGROUND
Rittenhouse first became a household name in August 2020 when he shot three Black Lives Matter protesters, two fatally, during the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. Rittenhouse, who was 17 years old at the time, attended a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, armed with an AR-15-style rifle with the stated goal of protecting private businesses from protesters.

After being chased into a parking lot, Rittenhouse fatally shot a man who had grabbed the barrel of his rifle. He then fatally shot another man who struck him with a skateboard, and shot and wounded a third person who subsequently pointed a handgun at him.

The incident was widely condemned by liberals, but many conservatives came to his defense. U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) both offered the then-teenager internships, and then-President Donald Trump hosted him at his Mar-a-Lago estate. In a closely-watched criminal trial in November 2021, a jury acquitted Rittenhouse of murder charges and ruled that his actions were done in self-defense. After the trial, Rittenhouse moved to Texas.

Since moving to Texas, Rittenhouse has become active in conservative politics. He has endorsed right-wing Republican political candidates including Andy Hopper, who attempted to unseat Lynn Stucky for her Denton-based seat in the state House of Representatives, and Brandon Herrera, YouTube star known for supporting gun rights, running against U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio). He also worked with Texas Gun Rights in May to oppose a House bill that unsuccessfully tried to raise the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. On social media, he railed against the Texas House impeachment of state Attorney General Ken Paxton and posted messages in support of gun rights.

Biden Administration Argues Texas and Florida Anti-Censorship Laws Are a First Amendment Violation

Presented as an effort to safeguard speech rights, the Biden administration has called on the Supreme Court to dismantle controversial segments of the anti-censorship social media laws ratified in Florida and Texas.

We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.

(President Biden is also using the argument that banning his administration from asking platforms to remove speech is a First Amendment violation.)

The laws in question restrict the autonomy of leading social media platforms by preventing them from censoring citizens speech and discriminating on the basis of political viewpoint.

Both Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott staunchly support these laws as a means of protecting voices from being suppressed. Governor DeSantis, at the law signing in May 2021, criticized Big Tech’s bias for Silicon Valley ideology and emphasized the need for accountability.

The Texas law, featuring a provision prohibiting discrimination based on viewpoints, incorporates several exceptions, permitting platforms to ban content promoting violence, criminal behavior, child exploitation, and harassment of sexual-abuse survivors and more. The law presses social media platforms to adopt user complaint procedures, disclose content and data management practices, and publish a comprehensive biannual transparency report.

The legislation only applies to platforms attracting over 50 million monthly users.

The Florida law has a similar scope and, in addition, mandates a detailed justification for each content moderation. The legislation also forbids the banning of political contenders or “journalistic enterprises.”

US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar perceives this as an encroachment on First Amendment rights. She contended in a recent court filing that such laws infringe the liberty of tech giants in selecting, editing, and arranging user-generated content. Essentially, she claimed these actions are all protected under the First Amendment.

Endorsing two industry trade groups that have formally contested the laws, she implored the Supreme Court to scrutinize both measures.

Federal appeals courts, however, are divided over the issue. The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has primarily blocked Florida’s legislation, deeming it potentially unconstitutional. Conversely, the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit backed the Texas law but held it back to permit an appeal to reach the Supreme Court.

Certainly, both states, as well as the trade groups, are petitioning the Supreme Court to adjudicate on a range of issues concerning the two cases. An announcement of the court’s decision is expected as early as September.

While Prelogar largely aligns with the social media companies, she refrained from endorsing their protest against the “general-disclosure provisions” that require the publishing of content-management policies and production of transparency reports. These issues, she argued, are not the main subject of the lawsuits and high court review would be premature.

Illinois’ latest gun law is an affront to more than just the Second Amendment

Illinois’ new “Firearms Industry Responsibility Act” isn’t just an attack on our right to keep and bear arms. It’s an assault on our freedom of speech as well. On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation sits down with me to discuss the group’s newly-filed lawsuit challenging HB 218, as well as the impending ATF rule on private sales and transfers of firearms.

The NSSF’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Illinois, challenges the validity of Illinois’ new gun control law on multiple counts, starting with the argument that HB 218 is preempted by the Protection of Lawful Commerce Act. But the NSSF is also raising a First Amendment challenge, asserting that the law discriminates against speech based on its content or viewpoint and arguing that such discrimination should be subject to strict scrutiny by the courts.

The topics and views that Illinois has singled out in HB 218 do not fall into any “well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech” unprotected by the First Amendment. To be sure, the First Amendment does not preclude imposing liability for false, deceptive, or otherwise “misleading” commercial speech.

But HB 218 does not even purport to target only speech that is false or misleading. It authorizes the imposition of liability for speech about a product—a product expressly protected by the Constitution, no less— even when that speech is truthful and not misleading. Indeed, the words “false,” “misleading,” and “deceptive” appear nowhere in the relevant provisions.

A manufacturer that places online advertisements containing entirely accurate specifications of its products and subsequently sells that product to a distributor, could be liable under HB 218, even if that product is fully lawful in every state in which it is sold, if a Illinois court later deems the product to have been marketed (1) in a way that “contribute[d] to a condition in Illinois that endangers the safety or health of the public,” or (2) encouraged non-servicemembers to use it for “a military-related purpose”.

“They’re trying to squelch the First Amendment rights of firearm manufacturers and retailers,” Oliva explained to me. “If they can eliminate the discussion of safe and responsible firearm ownership to the next generation, they can diminish the desire for ownership and people exercising their Second Amendment rights. So they’re trying to play the long game of eliminating the Second Amendment by eliminating and curtailing the First Amendment. And it’s important to remember that commercial speech is protected by the First Amendment. It is a right for these companies to be able to advertise a constitutionally-protected product.”

In its suit, the NSSF says that the speech code established by HB 218 is so vague that it’s “virtually impossible for regulated parties to tell what speech is and is not permitted, leaving them with no realistic choice but to err on the side of refraining from exercising their First Amendment rights.”

By its terms, HB 218 renders unlawful any marketing of a firearm-related product that “create[s], maintain[s], or contribute[s] to a condition in Illinois that endangers the safety or health of the public” if it is deemed “unreasonable under all circumstances.” This restriction “will provoke uncertainty among speakers,” as such indeterminable and subjective abstractions do not articulate at all—let alone articulate with “narrow specificity”—what kind(s) of speech may later be deemed to have unreasonably contributed to a “condition … that endangers the safety or health of the public.”

Those restrictions are problematic enough, but HB 218 further prohibits marketing “in a manner that reasonably appears to support, recommend, or encourage individuals” who are not in the military “to use a firearm-related product for a military-related purpose.” The problem with this broad prohibition is that Illinois provides no guidance on what qualifies as a “military-related” purpose, leaving industry members to guess whether their marketing materials will later be deemed unlawful.

HB 218 goes on, moreover, to prohibit an industry member from “advertis[ing], market[ing], promot[ing], design[ing], or sell[ing] any firearm related product in a manner that reasonably appears to support, recommend, or encourage persons under 18 years of age to unlawfully purchase or possess or use a firearm-related product.”

A state of course may prohibit speech directly concerning unlawful conduct. But, unless this provision covers nothing more than advertisements that tell minors to buy guns (despite being minors), it is not at all clear what it means. Does any advertisement that shows minors lawfully using firearms (e.g., with a parent while hunting, or at a Boy Scouts shooting event) fall on the wrong side of the line?

What about marketing in a way targeted toward young men, who share many characteristics with those just a few years younger—but are lawfully able to purchase firearms (and serve in the armed forces)? The questions vastly outnumber the answers. And while no statute must preempt all potential complications, when it comes to a prohibition on speech, the lack of clarity is destined to create a massive chilling problem.

If HB 218 is so narrow that it only prohibits advertisements that entice juveniles into breaking the law, then this particular provision is never going to come into play in practice. If, on the other hand, the bill is written broadly enough to target manufacturers like Wee1 Tactical and its JR-15 rimfire rifle, then it’s going to make it virtually impossible to not only market but produce firearms designed for youth shooting. As Oliva says, that’s nothing more than abridging the First Amendment rights of gun makers to curb the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, and a sign of the contempt that Illinois lawmakers have for all of our individual rights.

Check out the entire conversation with Mark Oliva in the video window below, including his initial thoughts on the yet-to-be-introduced ATF rule that seeks to impose a near-universal background check system on gun sales and the dangers it poses to lawful gun owners across the country. Be sure to tune in tomorrow as well, when we’ll be talking with Jim Wallace of the Gun Owners Action League about how gun owners are pushing back on the “Lawful Citizens Imprisonment Act” and what’s happening behind the scenes at the statehouse in Boston.

Our Nightmare is Their Utopia

The United States is just waiting on divorce papers, the separation is already here.

In the part of this nation controlled by communists like Antifa and BLM a defense attorney can openly declare herself to be a member of Antifa and (during a civil suit between Antifa and longtime Antifa nemesis Andy Ngo) tell the jury that she will remember their faces long after the trial and that isn’t considered jury tampering, obstruction of justice or threatening a jury.

How is that any different from a defense attorney looking at the jury and saying: “I work for a powerful crime family and they know where each of you live.” ?

In the same part of this divided nation, by the same political ideology, a former president and front-running candidate for the presidency can be tried on felony charges (during the campaign, not the two years before the campaign) for saying that he believed the election was stolen and for employing the tactic, openly utilized by the Democrats, of challenging the electors.

What is free speech to the right is deemed a felony to the left.

What is legally challenging an election to the right is an insurrection to the left.

This isn’t about fair, or right, or justice. This is the playbook; the time-honored communist procedure. The obvious injustice and amazing lawlessness of their actions are intended to drive the opposition mad. This is why standing behind Trump is important, because he does exactly the same thing to them. Every time he wins, they lose their mind and that doesn’t matter whether it’s in an election or in court.

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Gov. Lee sets parameters for special session on the Second Amendment, public safety

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Gov. Bill Lee’s office released the topics of legislation for a special session that would take on public safety in tandem with Second Amendment rights.

The document lists 18 different topics from mental health resources to juvenile justice reform.

This special session on Aug. 21 follows The Covenant School shooting back in March that claimed lives — including three children.

Critics had hoped the session would focus on guns and what they call sensible gun reform. The governor, however, intends to focus on the state’s broken mental health and juvenile justice systems.

Near the end of the regular session, Gov. Bill Lee proposed a bill that would have allowed extreme risk orders of protection or so-called red flag laws. The bill would have made it easier for a judge to take away someone’s guns if they are deemed a threat to themselves or others. But the Republican supermajority killed the bill.

Here are the parameters of the special session this August:

  • mental health resources providers, commitments or services;
  • school safety plans or policies;
  • offenses of committing mass violence or threatening to commit acts of mass violence;
  • reports from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation regarding human trafficking;
  • identification of individuals arrested for felonies;
  • law enforcement’s access to information about individuals who are subject to mental health commitment;
  • information about victims of violent offenses;
  • stalking offenses;
  • measures encouraging the safe storage of firearms, which do include the creation of penalties for failing to safely store firearms;
  • temporary mental health orders of protections, which must be initiated by law enforcement, must require a due process hearing, must require the respondent to undergo an assessment for suicidal or homicidal ideation, must require that an order of protection be reevaluated at least 180 days and must not permit ex parte orders;
  • the transfer of juvenile defendants age 16 and older to courts with criminal jurisdiction, which must include appeal rights for the juveniles and the prosecuting authorities;
  • limiting the circumstances in which juvenile records may be expunged;
  • blended sentencing for juveniles;
  • offenses related to inducing or coercing a minor to commit an offense;
  • the structure of operations of state and local courts
  • making appropriations sufficient to provide funding for any legislation

A Silly Argument: The Second Amendment Insurrectionist Purpose

U.S.A. — One of the silliest arguments about the purposes of the Second Amendment is put forward this way. The newly formed Constitutional government would never have created an amendment with the purpose of destroying the government just created. Here is an example from the far-left eugeneweekly.com:

That newly created narrative included the supposed purpose of arming citizens in order to enable them to rebel against the very constitutional government which the Founders were establishing with its checks and balances. This despite the Founders having defined treason as taking up arms against that very government.

But this glaring contradiction persisted and found a home within the halls of the Supreme Court, whose collective wisdom may have suffered from the influx of unreported gifts by billionaires to a number of justices weighing in on the question.

The writer does not appear to have read the history of the Revolutionary War, the Federalist Papers, the arguments surrounding the Bill of Rights, the rudiments of the political theories the Constitution is based on, or the Constitution itself. Knowledge of any one of these fields provides ample refutation of the argument above.

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BLUF
Maybe a few honest liberals might come out against this. But don’t hold your breath waiting on a major reaction from the Democratic establishment; unfortunately, this is the exact kind of thing they think the federal government should be doing. And that’s the truly scary part of this whole saga.

Leaked emails expose Biden White House’s attacks on the First Amendment

The “Twitter Files” reporting from last year exposed a disturbing collusion between Twitter executives and officials from the federal government to censor the public’s speech. But new revelations from Congress show that the Biden White House and Facebook have engaged in similar collusion.

On Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who leads the House Judiciary Committee, released internal Facebook emails that show the Big Tech platform was explicitly pressured by the Biden administration to take down specific posts that the president’s allies disliked.

WDOC rolls out Restoration of Rights certificates

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (RELEASE) – The Wyoming Department of Corrections (WDOC) has begun accepting applications and evaluating discharging individuals on their eligibility to receive a restoration of rights certificate in the State of Wyoming.

The WDOC is able to begin this process due to a change in Wyoming Statute §7-13-105 that went into effect July 1, 2023, which allows individuals that are convicted as a first time, non-violent felon, to have their right to vote, along with the rights lost as outlined in W.S. §6-10-106 to be restored. The rights restored under W.S. §7-13-105 include the ability to be an elector or juror or to hold any office of honor, trust or profit within this state or to use or knowingly possess any firearm.

The WDOC is accepting applications by mail, by email or in person at the Central Office. For more information in regards to this process, please visit https://corrections.wyo.gov/restoration-of-rights. Senator Eric Barlow, who was the sponsor for the original bill, commented “I am thankful to those who supported allowing more folks who have fulfilled their debt to society to re-engage in the most foundational aspects of citizenship, including the right to hold public office, serve on a jury and exercise their Second Amendment rights. The Legislature recognized the importance of voting rights for these same folks several years ago and I was pleased to assist with that too. I appreciate the Department of Corrections for implementing this program in a timely and efficient manner.”

Sen. Chris Murphy Targets Military Gun Owners In Defense Bills

It takes a certain amount of brazenness to put the responsibility of defending the nation on a young American and then, in the next breath, demand they forfeit those freedoms they are literally willing to die to protect.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is never one to disappoint, though. His latest legislative move is to put a target on the back of every service member as someone who cannot be entrusted to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Military members already sacrifice many of their freedoms to protect the United States. Sen. Murphy, who has never served a day in uniform, doesn’t think that’s enough.

Sen. Murphy thinks Second Amendment freedoms for those in uniform is, well, too much freedom.

Gun control isn’t anything new to Sen. Murphy. He’s made a career of attacking the Second Amendment and the firearm industry. That’s made him the darling of gun control groups but now he’s putting the Second Amendment rights of military gun owners in his crosshairs.

Sen. Murphy introduced an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which empowers our government to fund and support our nation’s military. As a “must-pass” bill, it naturally attracts thousands of amendments for pet projects every year. Most of those are ruled out of order, or not defense related, so they can’t be attached to the bill.

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Supreme Court Considering a Case That Might Upend Hundreds of January 6 Prosecutions

Prosecutorial overreach is not uncommon in high-profile cases. The prosecutors pile on the charges to frighten defendants with the prospect of long prison terms so they plead out. The state also hopes to throw enough charges against the wall to see what sticks.

But the danger of overreach is that a judge may want to smack a prosecutor down for bringing unnecessary charges. Such is the case in the January 6 prosecutions.

One of the rioters, Edward Lang, is facing 11 charges and pleaded not guilty to all of them. But a district court judge threw out the charges relating to “obstruction of an official proceeding” concerning Lang and two others accused of violence at the Capitol.

The law in question sentences a guilty party to up to 20 years in prison for anyone who “corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document,” or “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” Lang is questioning whether the Sarbanes-Oxley statute fits the behavior of hundreds of rioters.

Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in response to financial malfeasance in the 2002 bankruptcies of telecom giant Worldcom and Enron, an energy company based in Houston. Lang argues that the obstruction defined in Sarbanes-Oxley bears no relationship to the violence that occurred on January 6, 2021.

The New York Sun:

The panel of the United States Appeals Court for the District of Columbia, though, by a 2-to-1 margin, upheld the use of the obstruction charge, deciding that Judge Nichols’s reading was too cramped. Judge Pan, writing for the majority, ruled that the “broad interpretation of the statute — encompassing all forms of obstructive acts — is unambiguous and natural.”

The request for a hearing before the Nine asks whether the statute, intended to clamp down on financial malfeasance, “can be used to prosecute acts of violence against police officers in the context of a public demonstration that turned into a riot.” Mr. Lang argues that a “statute intended to combat financial fraud has been transformed into a blatant political instrument to crush dissent.”

Lang’s petition before the high court warns that a “revolution is underway, with ambitious federal prosecutors reworking the penal code to make it do work never intended to be done, work that threatens to chill, and does chill, ordinary Americans in their First Amendment rights.” The petition says there’s no need to “create a new and novel application of a statute to capture the violence that took place that day.”

Lang argues that the obstruction must be done “corruptly,” which doesn’t appear to be the case in his prosecution. And finally, Lang warns that this prosecutorial strategy “will serve to chill political speech and expression on the eve of one of the most consequential events in American life — the election of the next President of the United States.” He says it “falls to this Court to rein in the Department of Justice.”

It’s easy to argue that there is a certain amount of vindictiveness in many of these prosecutions. The question facing the court will be, did prosecutors go too far in fashioning a legal argument to prosecute based on a loose interpretation of a statute that was never meant to cover violence during a riot?

Courts are reluctant to reign in prosecutors, but in this case, there’s a chance the Supreme Court might look to cut the DoJ’s misused freedom of action and bring them down a peg.

For some rioters, it could mean the difference between prison and freedom. For others, taking a 20-year sentence off the table will be, if nothing else, a relief.

Feds Argue First Amendment Causes ‘Irreparable Harm’ in Bid to Save Censorship Regime
In seeking to stay the injunction against their speech policing in Missouri v. Biden, the government betrays its view that your right to speak is conditional, while its power to censor is absolute

U.S. Government Says Inability to Censor You Causes It ‘Irreparable Harm’

The U.S. government betrayed its total and utter contempt for the First Amendment in a recent filing in the landmark Missouri v. Biden free speech case.

The filing—a motion responding to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s bombshell Independence Day injunction freezing federal government-led speech policing—calls for the judge to permit the federal government to continue its censorship activities while it fights the injunction.

While Judge Doughty has now smacked the federal government down, ruling against its motion for a stay, the feds’ perverse position merits scrutiny, especially given it’s likely to persist in it for as long as this case is litigated, and as high as it will reach, perhaps up to the Supreme Court.

The crux of the government’s argument for staying the injunction was this: Prohibiting federal authorities from abridging speech, directly and by proxy, could lead to “grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes,” thereby causing the government “irreparable harm.”

Another way to read the government’s argument is that if it can’t interfere in elections or engage in rampant viewpoint discrimination, that causes it “irreparable harm.”

Still another way to read the government’s argument is that your right to free speech causes it “irreparable harm.”

I explain why in a new piece at the Epoch Times.
As I conclude in part:

The government’s fight for the right to censor reveals a conception of free speech, and its own authority, that is totally backward.

The government operates as if speech is a privilege over which it holds total power, ceding to us only the ability to talk on heavily circumscribed terms—rather than that we have a natural right to speak freely, and that the government’s ability to regulate our speech is heavily circumscribed.

Government derives its powers from us, and with our consent, not the other way around.

At stake, therefore, in Missouri v. Biden is more than free speech.

At stake—and currently on display—is the very nature of what remains of our republican system of government.

Read the whole thing here.

Nice when PID is provided.

Law professor: ‘Unfortunate’ that Michigan anti-free speech bill likely unconstitutional.

A constitutional law professor at Georgia State University recently said it’s “unfortunate” that the Michigan “pronouns” bill making its way through the state legislature is likely unconstitutional.

Georgia State College of Law Professor Eric Segall told Newsweek this was his “personal view” regarding House Bill 4474, which would criminalize sparking “frightened” feelings in someone in a protected class such as sexual orientation or gender identity.

The proposal “is probably in trouble under American law. I also think that’s unfortunate because my personal view is the law should be constitutional, but I think it’s likely not,” he said.

“In a sane world, which is most free countries on Earth, you just outlaw all threats,” said Segall (pictured). “And if you threaten somebody, you go to jail. It’s much more complicated in America. Guns and free speech. America is crazy about both.”

But the author of “Originalism as Faith and Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is not a Court and its Justices are not Judges” emphasized what makes the U.S. rather unique regarding free speech.

“The [Michigan] law basically says you can’t threaten somebody with speech that will discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Segall said. “And here’s the deal. Hate speech and threats aren’t the same thing.”

Segall noted “the fact that I can stand on a street corner and say ‘All Jews should be sent back to Israel’—which I can do in America—does not mean that I can go up to a Jewish person and get in their face and say, ‘You should be sent back to Israel.’”

The U.S. Supreme Court would strike down the Michigan law, Segall added, “both because it protects LGBTQ speech, which this court no longer wants to do at all, and because of their definition of free speech which is way overbroad.”

The College Fix asked Segall via email if he indeed would favor fining or jailing someone who, for example, told a transgender female in a non-threatening manner that she (he) “really is a man.” (Someone violating HB 4474 could face a $10,000 fine and up to five years in jail.)

Segall reiterated that “threats are unprotected speech” and repeated his point about someone saying (peacefully) that Jews should go back to Israel “should probably be protected speech.”

However, he added that such “depends on context” and he “could be talked out of” his current view.

As previously noted by The Fix, Western Michigan University Law Professor William Wagner warned that those in favor of the Michigan legislation will use it “as a weapon capable of destroying conservative expression or viewpoints grounded in the sacred.”

The Michigan Democratic Party’s Andrew Feldman told Newsweek that HB 4474 was being “deliberately misinterpreted to polarize voters and cause outrage among conservatives.”

Bruen might thwart Tennessee special session on gun control

Following the shooting at a Nashville school, the previously pro-gun governor decided what the state needed was some gun control. There wasn’t much chance of that happening, mind you, but he wanted to push it anyway.

In fact, he called a special session of the legislature just to address the issue.

However, it seems that in some circles, there’s concern that Bruen might prevent much of anything from happening.

Tennessee lawmakers hoping to take on gun control in an August special session could face hurdles from a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is now causing turmoil in courts across the country.

The so-called Breun decision in June 2022 overturned a New York law limiting the right to carry guns in public and has since sparked hundreds of legal challenges to gun laws, with varying opinions from judges.

While gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association have lauded the ruling as a major win for the Second Amendment, others say it’s causing more legal questions than answers.

“There’s a lot of confusion and a lot of chaos right now,” said Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law, a gun control nonprofit. “Supreme Court decisions are supposed to provide clarity and certainty, but instead what we see is decisions just going all over the palace.”…

Here in Tennessee, the ruling has already impacted the state’s permitless carry law and it could affect the governor’s push for an emergency protective order law in the wake of the Covenant School shooting, as a local gun rights group has said it plans to sue if the state passes new legislation.

Gun control advocates hope to see clarity from an upcoming Supreme Court case out of Texas that would be the first to test the ruling, but for now, states in some cases have been left scrambling to change their laws.

Now, to be fair, challenges for red flag laws have survived plenty and Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal has fewer due process concerns than most.

That said, I don’t think there have been any challenges to red flag laws post-Bruen, which might well change everything.

The truth is that most gun control laws were always unconstitutional. The Bruen decision’s text and history test is testimony to that. After all, efforts to defend gun control measures have come up short because no one can find historical gun control laws similar to those being challenged.

A red flag law isn’t likely to fare any better.

That, however, is ultimately a good thing. There are other ways to address potentially dangerous people besides just taking their guns and leaving them to go about their way, potentially finding other ways to kill people.

I get that Lee was impacted by the shooting in Nashville, having known a couple of the victims. I’m genuinely sympathetic. I mean, I’ve been there. In the wake of something like that, you want to do something. I was a newspaper publisher at the time. All I could do was talk about what happened. Lee is a governor and he can do a lot more.

The problem is, what he’s wanting to do is wrong.

So, if Bruen puts the kibosh on this, so much the better.

 The Geometry of Liberty: The Declaration of Independence Is a Logical Argument Based on Jefferson’s Axioms.

I was thinking about “We hold these truths to be self-evident” and remembered I’d written about it in 2019.

The Declaration as a whole is a logical argument that begins by stating its axioms:

  • That all men (by which Jefferson meant humanity, humankind) are created equal;
  • that by the very fact of their existence they have rights that inhere to them by their nature;
  • that among these right — that is, there are other natural rights that Jefferson doesn’t assert for the purposes of his argument — are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness;
  • that governments exists by the consent of the governed to secure — protect — those rights;
  • that a government’s only reason or justification for existence is to secure those rights;
  • and that a government’s only legitimacy and authority derives from that consent.

In that one sentence, Jefferson changes the world.

Democrat Rep. Has Psychotic Meltdown – Calls Supreme Court “Illegitimate White Patriarchy”

The separation of the political left from any sort of reasonable governance has been obvious for years now. To put it simply, they see the government as their personal weapon for deconstructing the country so they can rebuild society the way they want. They believe this is their right – The right of the collective to socially engineer

The notion that elements of the government might serve the interests of conservatives and independents is an unthinkable heresy. And, whenever they don’t get exactly what they want from the government (which is rare) they immediately act as if they have been betrayed; that an “insurrection” is afoot to enslave them.

This attitude seems to overlook the fact that every major institution in the US has been catering to the far-left for decades. Even when GOP Republicans have taken a majority in the House, the Senate or put their man in the Oval Office, the general legislative trend has always taken a progressive direction, to the point that America has become increasingly more socialist in its functions. It’s also the reason why America has become economically and socially unstable.

In truth, leftists have been getting what they want from governments and the corporate world for so long they have become utterly entitled, like spoiled children.

That’s the kind of sad energy we now see on display among Democrats in the face of multiple Supreme Court losses, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the blocking of Biden’s student loan relief program and the end of affirmative action on college campuses. All these court decisions really amount to is a reversal of entitlements that never should have existed in the first place. Leftists see such entitlements as “civil rights,” never mind that they exist as a means to take the rights of others.

Democrat Representative Jaamal Bowman echos this ideology, combining it with a tired and psychotic rant about “white patriarchy” being the core function of the Supreme Court.

The message? It’s complicated because it’s unhinged, but at bottom the far-left wants to fundamentally change the very fabric of the government so that it always acts in their favor regardless of who else is trampled in the process. Let’s try to break down Bowman’s claims…

Playing the racism card is the Democrat go-to tactic for a reason. The primary purpose is to incite civil unrest as a tool for control – “Give us what we want or the cities will burn.” The secondary purpose is to declare ownership of minorities. The propaganda acts as if all minorities are a monolith that serves the aims of the political left. The idea that minorities might also be conservative is ignored.

Affirmative action has always been a racist policy; it allows institutions to actively discriminate based on skin color and ethnicity. Interestingly, white people are not the most affected by affirmative action on college campuses; Asian people are the most discriminated against, with double standards in testing and academic excellence designed to keep them out of the classrooms. According to research from Princeton University, students who identify as Asian must score 140 points higher on the SAT than whites and 450 points higher than Blacks to have the same chance of admission to private colleges.

The notion of a constitutional convention has already been cited by other Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom as a means to dismantle the 2nd Amendment, but Bowman seems to be suggesting a convention to completely upend the Supreme Court and the very foundations of the law. Keep in mind that Democrats have avidly defended the court structure when it works in their favor, but since the court is finally operating on a more constitutional framework they argue it is now corrupt and white supremacist.

Student loan debt relief is nothing more than a way for Dems to buy votes – “Put us in office and we will eliminate the debts you accrued getting that degree that was probably useless.” Of course, taxpaying Americans would have to cover the bill for debt forgiveness on college loans, not the Democratic Party. It’s rather brilliant when you think about it – Democrats use your money to buy votes to keep themselves in office so they can continue to erode your constitutional rights. You pay for your own oppression.

People should have to pay for their own debts. Taxpayers should not have to pay their debts for them. It teaches a terrible lesson to the next generation that if they make mistakes the government will make sure they don’t have to learn from those mistakes.

Finally, it’s not surprising that Bowman attacks expanded gun rights in his diatribe on affirmative action, given that the political left cannot maintain power unless the public is eventually disarmed. Leftists believe in majority rule, as long as they are the majority. If they are the minority, they riot. If they are the majority, they demand government suppress their political opponents. In either case, gun rights stand as a major obstacle to them.

It was only a couple years ago that establishment elites and Democrats were pushing for permanent covid mandates, jail time for those who spread information contrary to the government narrative and economic discrimination for anyone who refused to take the vaccines. The political left took the mask off completely and showed who they really are. They cannot be trusted to rewrite or rebuild core government structures.

Their hatred of the Supreme Court is not based on any legitimate grievances, it’s based on how they view power. The court is a center of power that does not always act according to the dictates of social justice Marxism. They see the court as just another “platform” that needs to be co-opted.

Many conservatives and moderates also have concerns about how the Supreme Court makes decisions, but one cannot deny the constitutional logic behind their recent rulings. It’s a shift that should have happened a long time ago, though it is happening in an era in which leftists see ideological deviation as treason. They will use every trick at their disposal to undermine the law and create double standards to their benefit. Bowman essentially admits that this is the plan.

Another Financial Attack on Gun Owners

As Americans frequently utilize credit to purchase a wide array of things for everyday living, it should come as no surprise that one anti-Second Amendment congressman has decided that firearms purchases using one form of credit should be illegal. Specifically, it should be illegal for semi-automatic rifles that might fall under the political definition of “assault weapons.”

Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) is attempting to do just this with H.R. 4289, the “Assault Weapons Financing Accountability Act.”

According to the bill’s text, an importer, manufacturer, or retailer selling a firearm under a “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) financing agreement would be subject to a $100,000 civil fine. Likewise, the purchaser of a firearm bought using BNPL would be subject to the $100,000 civil fine.

In a press release touting this proposed legislation, Larson says, “Banning use of instant financing like BNPL options for assault weapons and the ghost gun kits [to make such rifles] is a step toward reducing the instant accessibility of these weapons and preventing the tragedies of gun violence before they occur.”

The elitism of it all is rather staggering, as Larson is effectively telling Americans they can’t use credit to purchase lawfully made and lawfully sold products. This legislation is certainly in line with other recent attempts by gun-control proponents to attack the right of citizens’ to purchase firearms some people simply do not like by impeding their access to the financial marketplace.

The anti-Second Amendment founder of Mom’s Demand Action, Shannon Watts, for example, is on record proposing that credit-card companies should be able to block their cards from being used to purchase firearm parts.

Closely related to this idea is the announcement by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that it would create a new Merchant Category Code (MCC) specific to firearm and ammunition retailers—and, in the process, likely create a gun registry.

The ISO announcement followed a petition by Amalgamated Bank to create such a code just for gun stores. That petition was supported by some of the top anti-Second Amendment politicians, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), as well as the anti-gun groups Giffords and Guns Down America.

BNPL financing for firearms is offered by the company Credova. A prospective buyer applies for the BNPL financing as part of their firearm purchase. If the BNPL request is approved, the sale goes through.

Larson falsely stated in the press release that the BNPL financing provides “instant access” to firearms. Even if the BNPL purchase is approved, the buyer of the firearm still must successfully pass the required federal firearms background check, as well as any state-applicable checks and requirements, before a firearm can be transferred.

Like so many of the attempts to strangle Second Amendment rights, Larson and his allies claim that the “Assault Weapons Financing Accountability Act” is needed to reduce “mass shootings,” which they insist are being financed by BNPL even though they haven’t produced any data to support this claim.

Given the current political make-up of the U.S. House of Representatives, this bill is unlikely to gain traction. If both chambers of Congress were in line with the Biden administration’s view of our rights, however, then this could certainly become law.