Category: Rights

US V. Quiroz – §922 (N) Held Unconstitutional

Jose Gomez Quiroz was indicted in a Texas state court for burglary and later indicted for jumping bail. Both are felonies under Texas state law. While on the lam, Quiroz sought to buy a .22LR pistol from a dealer and answered “no” on the Form 4473 when asked if he was under indictment for a felony. He got a delayed (but not denied) response and subsequently took possession a week later. Then, the NICS System notified the BATFE of Quiroz’s transaction. He was charged with lying on the Form 4473 (18 USC §922(a)(6)) and illegal receipt of a firearm by a person under indictment (18 USC §922(n)). A Federal jury found him guilty on both charges. A week later, Quiroz moved to set aside the conviction under Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and asked the court to reconsider in light of Bruen.

US District Court Judge David Counts of the Western District of Texas issued his decision yesterday and found §922(n) facially unconstitutional. Moreover, since §922(n) was found unconstitutional, Quiroz’s lie on the Form 4473 was immaterial. The US Attorney is already appealing the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The media is making a big deal over the fact that Judge Counts was appointed by President Trump. What they fail to say is that Counts was originally nominated for the position by President Barack Obama and that the clock ran out before he could be confirmed by the Senate. Prior to the nomination by President Obama, Counts served as a Magistrate Judge in the Western District and was the State Judge Advocate for the Texas National Guard where he was a Colonel.

The expansion of civil rights has often come in cases with less than desirable defendants. Witness the expansion of rights thanks to Clarence Earl Gideon, a drifter, and Ernesto Miranda, a kidnapper and rapist, whose cases established the right to counsel and the right to a warning against self-incrimination respectively.

Now it is time to examine the decision in detail.

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San Francisco’s Newly Passed Surveillance Plan Allows Police to Access Private Cameras Without Warrant

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved on Tuesday a plan that would allow police to access private security cameras without a warrant.

The board voted 7-4 to approve Democratic Mayor London Breed’s plan which allows police to access up to 24 hours of live outdoor video footage from private surveillance cameras without a warrant as long as the camera owner gives police permission, according to SF Gate. To access video footage without a warrant, police must be either responding to a life-threatening emergency, conducting a criminal investigation with written approval from a captain or higher-ranking official, or deciding how to deploy officers to a large public event, according to the report.

Breed said the legislation would allow police “to respond to the challenges presented by the organized criminal activity, homicides [and] gun violence,” according to The Associated Press. Breed introduced the proposal in 2021 to combat rampant theft, rioting and looting.

Board President Shamann Walton voted against the legislation, saying it’s a violation of civil liberties, according to AP.

“I know the thought process is, ‘Just trust us, just trust the police department.’ But the reality is people have been violating civil liberties since my ancestors were brought here from an entirely, completely different continent,” he reportedly said.

The ACLU of Northern California also voiced their opposition to the policy in February, with staff attorney Matt Cagle saying the policy would “give unchecked power to the police, and make San Francisco less safe.”

‘Fact’ Checker Glenn Kessler Claims Fetal Heartbeat Is a ‘Misnomer,’ Instantly Regrets Getting Out of Bed Today

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s intrepid “fact” checker, must have been salivating over his plan to “own the cons” when he retweeted Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ claim that “there’s no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks.” Abrams (D-Tinfoil Hat) claimed that a fetal heartbeat is just a Grand Plot by men to “take control of a woman’s body.”

Kessler weighed in with, “FWIW, ‘fetal heartbeat’ is a misnomer. The ultrasound picks up electrical activity generated by an embryo.”

“The so-called ‘heartbeat’ sound you hear is created by the ultrasound,” he added. “Not until 10 weeks can the opening and closing of cardiac valves be detected by a Doppler machine.”

Apparently, a memo went out on the Left this week with the new pro-abortion talking point to justify the murder of unborn children. Dr. Stacey Abrams, M.D., and Kessler wasted no time running to Twitter to shout the New Abortion Narrative.

Radiologist Pradheep J. Shanker quickly pointed out that Kessler has no idea what he is talking about:

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Denver Gazette: Gun control hits a wall in Colorado

Gun-control measures enacted in Boulder County have been placed on hold by the federal courts; left in doubt by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and, as reported in The Gazette last week, stymied even more amid further court developments here in Colorado.

All of which should prompt advocates of more restrictions on firearms to ponder shifting tack in the campaign to curb gun violence. If the courts are turning out to be no friends of more gun control, perhaps it’s time for policy makers to move beyond tilting at the Second Amendment.

How about focusing instead on steps that likely would draw little opposition while making a real difference — like beefing up security at our children’s schools? Let’s have more police deployed as school resource officers. And tighter limits on access during the school day. There’s even a program that has been training faculty and staff in firearms use if needed to defend kids at dozens of participating school districts around the state.

Such alternatives to more gun control make all the more sense considering the inherent futility of attempting to legislate an end to gun violence. Rebranding firearms as “assault rifles” and banning them; limiting the capacity of gun magazines, and other knee-jerk responses were always more about sending a message in the wake of a shooting tragedy than about providing any realistic hope of heading off the next one.

Last Friday, a federal judge declined to combine four different lawsuits brought by right-to-arms advocates against Boulder County and the cities of Boulder, Louisville and Superior. The local governments had enacted similar firearms regulations, including bans on large-capacity magazines and on so-called assault weapons.

U.S. District Court Judge Raymond P. Moore, whose court is handling the lawsuit against Superior, declined that city’s request to merge all the court actions. The result could be conflicting rulings between various judges as to whether the local ordinances violate the Second Amendment. But as Moore observed, “if anyone thinks the district court is going to have the last say on this, they’re kidding themselves.” Perhaps there’s no harm, then, in giving each lawsuit its full day in court in light of the long legal journey that lies ahead.

The laws are not in effect thanks to court-issued restraining orders. That’s pending further proceedings and maybe even the resolution of the entire court challenge. Which could take years.

Underlying all of it is the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which set a higher bar for gun restrictions to pass constitutional muster.

Given a new prevailing philosophy on the Second Amendment at the nation’s highest court — and lower courts’ pragmatic deference to it — the prospects for imposing new restrictions gun ownership appear a lot dimmer than they used to. Gun control could become the dog that won’t hunt.

Coloradans across the political spectrum should resolve to lower the odds of random violence where they can, in ways that actually work. Our schools — the scene of some of the worst shooting tragedies in Colorado and across the country — are a good place to start.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board

DC says no right to carry on public transportation

One of the first lawsuits filed after the Supreme Court struck down New York’s “may issue” carry laws and firmly established that the right to bear arms in public for self-defense is protected by the Second Amendment was a challenge to the ban on firearms on the Metro public transportation system that serves Washington, D.C. and the city’s suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. The lawsuit argued that, based on the Court’s opinion in Bruen, the complete ban is a violation of the right to keep and bear arms and that the transit system should not be considered a “sensitive place” where the Second Amendment doesn’t apply.

In the complaint, the four plaintiffs (all of whom already possess a valid carry license in Washington, D.C.) acknowledge that D.C. has the authority to “regulate consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation the manner of carrying arms, including handguns, and may prohibit certain arms in narrowly defined sensitive places,” but argues that the blanket ban on lawful concealed carry on public transport isn’t narrowly defined or confined to a truly “sensitive place”.

… Even if the public transportation vehicles in question could be labeled “sensitive places”, the lawsuit argues that the ban has severe implications on the right of self-defense for those who have no other means of transportation and is a “substantial infringement” on their Second Amendment rights, with the practical effect of disarming all Metro riders “for the entirety of their journey.”

Now Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has weighed in with the District’s response to the lawsuit, and unsurprisingly is arguing that it’s perfectly acceptable to bar the hundreds of thousands of riders from carrying a firearm for self-defense.

Attorney General Karl Racine, in a pretrial motion in a federal suit filed by four people seeking to carry guns on the public transit system, said Metro, with rail and bus passengers, including thousands of federal workers and children riding to school, is one of the “sensitive places,” where guns can remain prohibited.

The lawsuit, which was filed shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision expanding gun rights, says while bans in schools, stadiums and restaurants are likely constitutional, the gun owners should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on Metro.

Racine disagreed, saying, “every modern mode of interstate transportation prohibits the carrying of loaded firearms on one’s person,” including commercial aircraft and interstate buses.

“In dense spaces characterized by jostling and interpersonal conflict, the risk of a gun being accidentally discharged or hastily fired is tragically high — not only for the innocent bystanders who may be shot, but also for the countless other victims who may be crushed or thrown from a platform by a panicked crowd,” Racine wrote.

In addition, Racine said any incident involving a gun “could disrupt transit of transit for the hundreds of thousands relying on government-provided transportation each day.”

Unfortunately for Racine, simply barring lawful concealed carry doesn’t stop criminals from violating the “gun-free zones”, as we’ve seen in  New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Instead, they prevent law-abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves against violent attacks inside these “sensitive places”.

Racine may be correct about interstate transportation banning the carrying of loaded firearms, but I would note that airlines and Amtrak at least allow for firearms to be stowed in checked baggage. Metro doesn’t provide riders with that opportunity, which means that those concealed carry holders who are dependent on public transportation are in essence disarmed throughout their day because they’re unable to lawfully bring their gun on board a bus or train car.

But as we discuss on today’s Cam & Co (today’s video can be found at the bottom of this post), Racine’s argument also opens the door to a challenge on those interstate bans on carrying. Why is the Second Amendment the only constitutionally-protected right that stops at the border of your home state? As a Virginian with a valid concealed carry license, why can’t I exercise my right to bear arms in neighboring Maryland or Washington without first obtaining a license to carry issued by those jurisdictions? In fact, some states like New York and California don’t issue licenses to non-residents, which means my right to keep and bear arms in self-defense ends at the state line. How can that be if we’re talking about a real and fundamental right?

That’s not the main thrust of this particular lawsuit, however. Instead, the complaint focuses on the “sensitive place” designation for Metro, and rightfully points out that the restriction has a chilling effect on the Second Amendment rights of riders; particularly those who don’t have a car of their own and must depend on public transportation to get from Point A to Point B. Even if those individuals can lawfully carry in each of those locations, by prohibiting them from bringing their legally-owned guns onto Metro the transportation network is preventing them from doing so since they have no legal way to keep their firearm with them as they’re traveling.

D.C.’s public transportation system isn’t the only one facing a lawsuit over its prohibition on concealed carry. On Tuesday, the Second Amendment Foundation announced that it will be backing a similar lawsuit aimed at Illinois’ ban on firearms in public transportation, with SAF founder and executive vice president Alan Gottlieb remarking that the state is “trying to perpetuate an indefensible public disarmament policy despite the clear meaning of Supreme Court rulings and we’re going to help the plaintiffs put an end to this nonsense.”

That’s a welcome development, and hopefully we’ll soon see these infringements on the right to bear arms disappear from the books and be replaced with policies that respect the right to carry and the right of self-defense for all those who rely on public transportation to get them where they need to be.

This Should Terrify Every American: DOJ Harasses Citizens for Exercising Their First Amendment Rights

The Justice Department has hit the Eagle Forum of Alabama with a voluminous subpoena that violates the organization’s First Amendment rights to speak freely, engage in the political process, and talk to their elected representatives. It’s an intimidation tactic, pure and simple, and shows just how partisan the department has become. This out-of-control behavior should scare every citizen and volunteer organization, no matter where they stand on the political or social spectrum.

Eagle Forum is a very small non-profit in Alabama. It only has one full-time employee and a second, part-time employee. Virtually all of its work on issues of interest to its members is done by volunteers.  It is the quintessential, uniquely American grassroots membership organization that French historian Alexis de Tocqueville lauded in Democracy in America.

As the Eagle Forum’s motion to quash the government subpoena says, one of the issues its members have been concerned over is “gender-altering medical treatment to minors” and the “permanent and adverse effects of such medical procedures on those minors.” Those serious, lifelong effects deeply concern many physicians and parents.

Members of the Eagle Forum made their worries known by doing things every American has an absolute right to do: they spoke out, made speeches, organized meetings, talked to other residents and organizations in the state, and contacted their elected state representatives. In other words, they exercised their constitutional rights to engage in “freedom of speech,” to “peaceably assemble,” and “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” They also exercised their right to associate, recognized by the Supreme Court as implicit under the Fourteenth Amendment.

None of these activities should trigger stalking by Justice Department lawyers. So how has this come about?

Earlier this year, the Alabama legislature passed the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, which became effective on May 8. It bans puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery to alter the biological sex of a minor. A huge number of left-wing advocacy organizations immediately sued the state, and the U.S. Justice Department intervened in the lawsuit, echoing their claims that the new Alabama law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Related: Liberal Intolerance of First Amendment Freedoms on Full Display in Biden’s ‘Pride’ Month

The Eagle Forum is not a party to the lawsuit. Yet the Justice Department has served what is referred to as a third-party subpoena on the Eagle Forum. This subpoena outrageously demands that the Eagle Forum and its members turn over all:

  • information and communications it has or engaged in over the law and any predecessor bills;
  • materials that were considered by the Forum connected to the legislation or any draft or model bills;
  • documents concerning the Forum’s “legislative or policy goals, initiatives, and/or strategies relating to medical care or treatment of transgender minors, or minors with gender dysphoria”;
  • communications with—and testimony, letters, reports, etc., sent to—state legislators or their staff; and any other government agencies and officials in Alabama over the legislation;
  • communications with any other nongovernmental organizations over the legislation;
  • internal minutes and records of meetings, polling and public opinion data, video presentations and speeches, newsletters and emails, and social media postings related to the legislation.

In other words, the Justice Department wants to turn the Eagle Forum inside out, forcing it to turn over its records on everything it does. This would let government lawyers paw through and scrutinize everything, including privileged communications and even personal discussions and communications with other private citizens and nonprofit organizations.

And there isn’t a single, justifiable reason for the department to do this. The Eagle Forum is not a party in the lawsuit. It is not a government agency. It is not the legislature. It has no power to vote to enact this (or any) legislation or sign it into law.

Keep in mind that the lawsuit is making a constitutional claim. The plaintiffs, including the Justice Department, are arguing that the statute as written violates the U.S. Constitution. So, what do the Eagle Forum’s polling data or social media posts have to do with that constitutional question? What do its internal records, its “policy goals, initiatives, and/or strategies,” or the communications of its members with state legislators have to do with that issue?

The answer is: absolutely nothing. None of the documents or information sought by the Justice Department has any relevance to whether the text of a state law violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

This subpoena, issued by Jason R. Cheeks, an attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Alabama, has but one intent: to harass and intimidate a conservative organization for daring to engage in the democratic process by working on an issue that inflames the Left.

The right to associate freely with other citizens who share your interests was recognized by the Supreme Court in 1959 in NAACP v. Alabama. Ironically enough, in that case, the Alabama state government was harassing the NAACP with similar demands for information due to its work on civil rights issues and legislation.

In an affidavit filed with the court in the current case, Rebecca Gerritson, the executive director of the Eagle Forum of Alabama, correctly warns:

If this subpoena is enforced, legitimate, law-abiding organizations like ours will be subject to scrutiny for engaging in constitutionally protected activities.  Further correspondence by EFA, including emails, notes, presentations, speeches, interviews, etc. could be weaponized by government officials who hold (or are being required to assert) opposite political views.  In addition, enforcement of the federal government’s subpoena would set a precedent that would stifle other citizens who want to exercise their constitutional right to make their views known to their elected officials on public policy matters.

This is a dangerous action by the Justice Department. It’s something that all Americans who value their constitutional rights should oppose.

Well, yes they can. And it’s not just by the GPS feature. That’s because the thing has to to continually communicate with a cell tower, that’s recorded and can be tracked.

Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement Can Track You on Your Phone

It is hard to imagine that James Madison — who wrote the words of the Fourth Amendment, which limits the ability of the federal government to intrude upon the privacy of its citizens — would approve of it, but law enforcement from local police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can now track your every movement.

How? A data broker known as Fog Data Science, based in Madison’s home state of Virginia, is now selling geolocation data to state and local law enforcement. Federal law enforcement obtains its information on American citizens from other data brokers. Either way, law enforcement can track exactly where you have been at any time over the past several years.

Personal data is collected through the multitude of applications that Americans use on either their Android or iOS smartphones. Data brokers then sell that data to others, including Fog Data Science, which in turn sells it to local law-enforcement agencies across the country, including Broward County, Florida; New York City; and Houston. And it is not just big cities. Lawrence, Kansas, police use it, as well as the sheriff of Washington County in Ohio.

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Well, he’s a anti-gun (for the people) political hack, so nothing surprising here.

AG Garland ignores the importance of arms when congratulating newest citizens

The readers of Bearing Arms are no stranger to the fact that our Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as many of the three lettered agencies that fall under the supervision thereof, has become a machine to crush political opposition and push a radical progressive agenda. Just by trending what the DOJ prosecutes versus what they don’t, or what areas they focus on in their speeches and summits, people can figure out the DOJ under the Biden-Harris administration plays favorites on who/what gets prosecuted. Merrick Garland, who failed to meet the proper standards to sit on the High Court, congratulated the United States’s newest citizens the other day, and in doing so, he exposed some of his own personal history as well as neglected one of the most important civil liberties we have.

In the preamble of the Constitution, those Americans enumerated those hopes: to form a more perfect union; establish justice; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare …

And importantly – in their words – “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Like them, each of you has now made a commitment not only to this nation and your fellow Americans, but to the generations of Americans who will come after you.…

I come from a family of immigrants who fled religious persecution early in the 20th Century and sought refuge here in the United States. Some of my family entered right here, at Ellis Island. My grandmother was one of five children born in what is now Belarus. Three made it to the United States, including my grandmother who came through the Port of Baltimore. Two did not make it. Those two were killed in the Holocaust. If not for America, there is little doubt that the same would have happened to my grandmother. But this country took her in. And under the protection of our laws, she was able to live without fear of persecution.

I am also married to the daughter of an immigrant who came through the Port of New York in 1938. Shortly after Hitler’s army entered Austria that year, my wife’s mother escaped to the United States. Under the protection of our laws, she too, was able to live without fear of persecution.

That protection is what distinguishes America from so many other countries. The protection of law – the Rule of Law – is the foundation of our system of government. The Rule of Law means that the same laws apply to all of us, regardless of whether we are this country’s newest citizens or whether our [families] have been here for generations.

The Rule of Law means that the law treats each of us alike: there is not one rule for friends, another for foes; one rule for the powerful, another for the powerless; a rule for the rich, another for the poor; or different rules, depending upon one’s race or ethnicity or country of origin. The Rule of Law means that we are all protected in the exercise of our civil rights; in our freedom to worship and think as we please; and in the peaceful expression of our opinions, our beliefs, and our ideas.

Garland’s full remarks are worth a read. If our eyes were shut and we heard some of (not all) these words come from the mouth of a Regan or Trump, the rhetoric could be believable. However, these “encouraging” words are hissed out from the current Attorney General who’s complicit to allow the Second Amendment rights of the people be infringed.

Given Garland’s sharing of his personal and family’s history, and that of his wife’s, one would think that he’d be all too knowing that the atrocity of the Holocaust was able to occur in part because of a disarmed citizenry. Do we know for a fact that had the people been armed at that time that the Holocaust would have been averted? No, we don’t. But I’m willing to wage many would have rather tested the odds by fighting it out as an armed populace, instead of being led to slaughter. Regardless, we won’t ever know.

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NYT Poll Finds More Voters Agree with GOP on Gun Policy

A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted September 6 to 14, 2022, finds more voters agree with the Republican Party on gun policy.

The poll questioned nearly Nearly 1,400 registered voters.

When asked, “Who do you agree with more on gun policy?” voters responded 47 percent to 43 percent, in favor of Republicans over Democrats

Voters were also asked, “Who do you agree with more on crime and policing?” They responded 47 percent to 37 percent in favor of Republicans over Democrats.

The NYT/Siena College poll also asked voters whether they support “A ban on semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.” Forty-nine percent of voters said they do not support such a ban, while 46 percent said they did.

When responses were broken down among voting patterns, 74 percent of Biden voters supported banning semiautomatic weapons and “high capacity” magazines. An identical percentage of Trump voters opposed banning semiautomatic weapons and “high capacity” magazines.

When ages were taken into account, 54 percent of the youngest voters–ages 18-29–opposed a ban on semiautomatic weapons and “high capacity” magazines, while 41 percent of the youngest voters supported it.

Demand for private security is booming in Minneapolis.

In June 2020, the Minneapolis city council famously vowed to defund the police department. Though their plans fell through, the fully funded MPD is nonetheless struggling. More than 250 officers have resigned or retired since then. Earlier this year, the Minneapolis supreme court ruled that the city has a duty to staff the MPD with a minimum of 731 sworn officers, but the department is at least 100 officers short of that target. Meantime, crime has spiked, with 96 homicides in 2021—doubling the number in 2019 and tying a 1995 record.

Private security has stepped into the breach. The number of licenses approved for new private providers rose from 14 in 2019 to 27 in 2021, according to data from Minnesota’s Board of Private Detective and Protective Agent Services. Demand is exploding as businesses increasingly opt for private guards over off-duty cops.

Christopher Forest started his private security firm, Unparalleled Security, after the rioting of 2020. Today, he has 175 employees. Forest did not set out to start a private security firm, having previously worked as CEO of Minnesota’s largest valet-parking company. But after June 2020, his clients began approaching him with requests for security guards. These clients had once hired off-duty police officers for their security needs, but the MPD’s image after the George Floyd killing made that more difficult.

“I think it just had to do with the temperature in the room when you have a police officer in a venue versus an unarmed security guard,” Forest says.

Michael MacDonald, who runs a smaller private security firm called JomsVikings Protection and Security, agrees. “Stores do not want cops out in front because of the negative attention it can bring to their facilities,” says MacDonald. His license to operate was issued July 31, 2020. Today, he has 18 full-time and ten part-time employees.

High crime means that new clients, such as movie theaters, are entering the market for private security, says Richard Hodson, the chairman of Minnesota’s Board of Private Detective and Protective Agent Services. Hodson says he knows of a retired police officer who recently got a license to run his own private security firm but has had to turn down contracts because he cannot hire enough guards to staff them. Demand exceeds supply.

Businesses still fear negative publicity from taking an aggressive enforcement stance. Forest says retail clients instruct his guards not to confront shoplifters. “Retail is in a place where they do not want you to even address the person,” he says. “You are not to talk to them. You are not to approach them. You are not to ask to see the items in their bag. If they are purchasing something, you are asked to not look at the receipt. You are 100 percent visual deterrent, and that is all.”

That approach isn’t universal. MacDonald says that his guards sometimes confront shoplifters, but never aggressively. “When we zone in on the individual who is stealing, we go over there and we say, ‘Hey, man, we know you stole. Can you just put it back and then leave?’ We start with that approach. We don’t go right to the top,” he says. “I will only take a contract for a store if there is a clear understanding that we are strictly there for employee safety. We are not loss prevention.”

Should guards call police to stop crimes in progress? MacDonald’s personnel tend not to do so for shoplifting. Forest says that some of his guards who work for hotels do intervene if guests are engaging in illegal activities; in theory, they should call the police, but they usually don’t. “If it is not a life threatening situation, the police do not show up,” Forest says. “They let my guards de-escalate on their own.”

Even a nonconfrontational approach can escalate. MacDonald describes an incident that occurred in July: “A guy stole a bag of chips and shoved it down his pants. Our guy made an approach and was like, ‘You can keep the chips, but you still got to go.’ Well, the guy brandished a firearm out of his bag. So our guy pulled his firearm. And then the guy took off running. But our employee had the level of training to remember that he could still re-holster it, and he does not have to engage any further.” That incident merited a rare call to the MPD. “If it gets higher than a theft, like what happened with my employee, then the cops will actually come, because otherwise they are not coming,” says MacDonald.

Some Minneapolis residents still prefer to hire off-duty cops, whom the department makes available through what it calls the “buyback program.” The upscale Lowry neighborhood established the Minneapolis Safety Initiative for off-duty police to conduct patrols. Residents are trying to raise $210,000, suggesting a recurring contribution from their neighbors of $220/month for at least six months. The Minneapolis Safety Initiative attracted significant coverage, including criticism from some who argue that wealthier neighborhoods are purchasing scarce police hours.

Nevertheless, demand for private security is growing. MacDonald and Forest expect to see significant expansion in the year ahead. High crime and police shortages are changing the public-safety landscape in Minneapolis.

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New Software Negates Latest “Ghost Gun” Rules

A new software program (protected under the First Amendment) is protecting the Second Amendment. The software allows a 3D printer to create a “jig,” a simple but necessary piece of plastic that is used in assembling a firearm at home.

After the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued its latest infringement on the Second Amendment, software developers quickly created open source (free to the world) software to allow owners of 3D printers to print out their own jig. In essence this is an end-run around the latest ATF transgression of precious rights.

The continuing flow of misinformation from the ATF sets up the straw man to justify its latest violation of the Second Amendment:

To help keep guns from being sold to convicted felons and other prohibited purchasers, the rule makes clear that retailers must run background checks before selling kits that contain the parts necessary for someone to readily make a gun.

To help law enforcement trace guns used in a crime, the rule modernizes the definition of frame or receiver, clarifying what must be marked with a serial number – including in easy-to-build firearm kits.

To help reduce the number of unmarked and hard-to-trace “ghost guns,” the rule establishes requirements for federally licensed firearms dealers and gunsmiths to have a serial number added to 3D printed guns or other un-serialized firearms they take into inventory.

It admitted that its latest transgression generated a lot of pushback from gun owners:

On May 7, 2021, the Department of Justice issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, and during the 90-day open comment period, the ATF received more than 290,000 comments, the highest number of comments submitted to a proposed rule in ATF’s history.

Here’s the loophole in the new regulation that software developers are exploiting: if the jig isn’t part of the “kit,” then there’s no firearm under the latest definition and hence no required background check. Specifically, the rule states that when an unfinished frame or receiver is “distributed or possessed with a compatible jig or template,” it is now automatically considered to be a firearm. Leave out the jig, however, and the” kit” is incomplete and doesn’t fall under the rule.

On its website, Tactical Machining in Orlando, Florida, offers this update to its customers:

As many of you know or heard, ATF’s lawless and corrupt ruling went into effect on August 24, 2022. At the advice of our counsel, Tactical Machining was advised to maintain a holding pattern. Since then, we have some developing updates.

Per ATF, 80% AR-15 lowers are still legal!

In recent testimony during lawsuits against the ATF, they have admitted in open court that the “Final rule” does not restrict the sale of 80% lowers IF they are not sold with a jig/instructions or Templates.

Our local ATF agent tasked with enforcing the new rule changes also confirmed, in writing, that all of Tactical Machining’s 80% products are legal to buy and sell since we stopped offering our jigs.

Jim Jusick, Tactical’s design engineer and manager, quoted this from that letter from the ATF:

As we’ve been instructed, and our understanding here in Orlando, the unfinished receiver, with a jig, instructions, or template is NOT A FIREARM.

The combination of such an item (unfinished receiver) with other parts (excluding the jig) does not reach the standard for Readily Convertible.

In other words, your manufacture and selling of unfinished receivers with a lower parts kit [without the jig] does not meet the [newly defined] firearm threshold.

Just as was the case with radar detectors, developers were always one step ahead of the enforcers. In their zeal to criminalize all gun owners and eventually disarm them, the enforcers continue to play catch-up ball with the developers.

The Supreme Court and the uses of history

Sept. 17 is designated by federal law as Constitution Day to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. The U.S. Supreme Court is responsible in the American system of separation of powers for deciding what the Constitution means in specific cases. The first Monday in October marks the beginning of a new Supreme Court term.

The court’s previous term was the most conservative in nearly a century. The nation’s highest court overruled its two landmark pro-abortion rights precedents, expanded Second Amendment gun rights, reinvigorated the First Amendment’s free-exercise-of-religion guarantee against establishment-of-religion clause challenges and reined in the rulemaking authority of executive branch administrative agencies on the ground that only Congress is permitted to make law.

The court’s six-member conservative majority arrived at most of these results by turning to history to understand the meaning of the Constitution’s text. Specifically, in what may be fairly called “conservative originalism,” the court endeavored to enforce the Constitution’s “original meaning” by opining about historical sources that illuminate what the men (and it was only men in 1787) who wrote and ratified the Constitution intended for the textual provision at issue in a particular case to mean.

Of course, it is impossible for Supreme Court justices who are trained as lawyers rather than as historians and who decide scores of cases on the merits every year to do the historical research for themselves, notwithstanding that they each are assisted by four bright recent law school graduates.

Indeed, Justice Clarence Thomas (the court’s longest serving justice and its most unabashed proponent of conservative originalism) admitted as much in what court watchers should consider the most significant footnote since footnote 4 in the court’s 1938 decision United States v. Carolene Products Company.

In Carolene Products, the court upheld a federal law regulating “filled” milk, an imitation or adulterated milk product. Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, writing for the court, declared that the justices would no longer subject economic legislation to heightened scrutiny, but would instead now apply minimal scrutiny that was deferential to the legislature.

Justice Stone then inserted a footnote (footnote 4) that declared that the court would continue to apply heightened scrutiny in situations in which a law conflicts with Bill of Rights protections, where the political process is malfunctioning and when regulations adversely affect “discrete and insular minorities.” Concisely put, footnote 4 ushered in a new role for the federal courts in the American constitutional order.

Jumping ahead nearly a century to the court’s most recent transformational footnote, Justice Thomas wrote the following in footnote 6 in the court’s 2022 decision expanding Second Amendment gun rights: “The job of judges is not to resolve historical questions in the abstract; it is to resolve legal questions presented in particular cases or controversies.” He continued: “That ‘legal inquiry is a refined subset’ of a broader ‘historical inquiry,’ and it relies on ‘various evidentiary principles and default rules’ to resolve uncertainties.” Finally, and most importantly: “Courts are thus entitled to decide a case based on the historical record compiled by the parties.”

Thomas should be commended for acknowledging in footnote 6 that the justices don’t do their own historical research. But unfortunately for conservative originalists, what he says in that footnote calls into question the entirety of conservative originalism.

After all, lawyers are notorious for cherry-picking history to try to get the result their clients are paying them to get. As Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Gordon Wood put it in a public debate about the Supreme Court and the uses of history: “Judges have to invent another kind of history: we call it ‘law office history,’ or ‘history lite.’ … It’s a necessary fiction for judges and other jurists to get along with their work—they need some kind of history to work with. History is much too complicated to be used effectively by judges and the courts.”

I agree with Dr. Wood. Consequently, my answer to the question whether Supreme Court justices should use history to decide cases is a qualified yes. This is what I mean by that: They should use history to identify the political philosophy of the American founding and then decide cases in light of that political philosophy.

In other words, judges should employ “liberal originalism,” which is “liberal” in the classical Lockean libertarian sense that the principal purpose of government is to protect individual rights, and it is “originalism” in the sense that the Framers wrote the Constitution with that principal purpose of government in mind. “To secure these rights,” the Declaration of Independence proclaims, “Governments are instituted among Men.”

Liberal originalism and conservative originalism sometimes (though not often because conservative originalism tends to be majoritarian rather than libertarian) lead to the same result in specific cases. To mention one example from the court’s most recent term, liberal originalism, like conservative originalism, reveals that the establishment clause doesn’t make the free-exercise clause meaningless. The political philosophy that the Constitution was adopted to effectuate reveals that America has been devoted since before the First Amendment was ratified to the free exercise of religion, which is a quintessential individual right.

 

Political Cartoons by AF Branco

Mike Lindell Is Suing the FBI and the Government for Violating His Rights. Pay Attention.

Mike Lindell wants more than just his phone back. Following the incident in Minnesota during which agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation blocked his vehicle at a Hardee’s drive-through and seized his phone, Lindell made an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room. He announced that he was filing a lawsuit against the FBI and the government. You can watch Lindell’s conversation with Bannon posted by The Post Millennial below.

Lindell makes the point that his phone is what he uses to run his company and that it even controls his hearing aids. As someone who wears hearing aids, I had the option of connecting mine to my phone and even activating the Bluetooth feature. But while I don’t need to pair my ears with my phone, Lindell chose to do so. And for better or worse (probably worse), our lives are now almost inextricably linked to our phones. While that says more about the continuing decline of Western Civilization than anything else, let’s face it: we’d all be lost without our phones, no matter how erudite we think we may be.

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Once again, the political acumen of Mitch McConnell deserves praise for stopping such a political hack as Merrick Garland from being seated on the Supreme Court

FBI Agents Accuse Biden of Pressuring FBI to Fabricate ‘Extremist’ and ‘White Supremacist’ Cases.

Current and former FBI agents have come forward saying the Biden administration is deliberately exaggerating the danger posed by white supremacists. They claimed that high-ranking FBI officials were pressuring field agents to fabricate domestic terrorism cases and label people as white supremacists in order to “meet internal metrics.”

“The demand for white supremacy” coming from FBI brass “vastly outstrips the supply of white supremacy,” one agent told the Washington Times. “We have more people assigned to investigate white supremacists than we can actually find.”

The FBI agent, who requested anonymity in order to discuss internal bureau politics, said that top officials in the FBI “have already determined that white supremacy is a problem” and established a policy to prioritize investigations into racially-motivated domestic extremism.

“We are sort of the lapdogs as the actual agents doing these sorts of investigations, trying to find a crime to fit otherwise First Amendment-protected activities,” he said. “If they have a Gadsden flag and they own guns and they are mean at school board meetings, that’s probably a domestic terrorist.”

The FBI denies that they are targeting people based on politics, but sadly, these revelations are the latest in a longstanding pattern of the politicization and weaponization of the Justice Department under Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Last year, the administration previously came under fire for using the resources of the Department of Justice to target angry parents at school board meetings and treat them like domestic terrorists. Merrick Garland authorized the FBI to investigate parents who protested school board meetings alleging a “disturbing trend” of teachers being threatened or harassed. However, PJ Media’s Megan Fox looked into those allegations and concluded that they’re mostly bunk.

In addition, the National School Boards Association (NSBA), which had prompted Garland to write the memo with a letter likening parents to domestic terrorists, eventually apologized for doing so. Despite this, Garland has not rescinded the memo. Late last year, a whistleblower revealed an internal email showing that the FBI was using counterterrorism tools to monitor parents despite Garland denying before Congress that the FBI was doing so. This summer, whistleblowers revealed that the FBI “pressured and incentivized” agents to classify cases as domestic violent extremism.

FBI labeled veteran-led disaster organization a ‘terror’ group over government criticism, whistleblower says

The FBI was accused of falsely designating a veteran-led emergency prevention organization and its founder as facilitators of domestic terror, according to a whistleblower complaint made public via a letter from the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

In the letter, ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the FBI associated American Contingency with domestic terrorism despite its own investigation proving otherwise in an effort to “advance a misleading political agenda.”

“American Contingency is a company founded by former U.S. servicemember Mike Glover, who has publicly rejected the FBI’s accusations that he is a terrorist and has described American Contingency’s charitable work on behalf of communities devastated by natural disasters,” Jordan said in the letter addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

According to the letter, the FBI maintained a terror designation on American Contingency despite thoroughly investigating the organization and its founder.

The FBI investigated Glover’s “military records, his veteran’s disability rating, and even his monthly disability benefit” before ultimately determining he was not a perpetrator or instigator of domestic terror. Jordan said these details have been corroborated by an FBI whistleblower.

“We have no comment on any specific groups or individuals. However, the FBI does not and cannot designate domestic terrorist organizations. The FBI can never open an investigation based solely on protected First Amendment activity,” the bureau responded.

“We cannot and do not investigate ideology. We focus on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security. The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. One does not come at the expense of the other.”

Jordan said, “The FBI’s recent characterization of American Contingency as a DVE [domestic violent extremism] organization is striking in light of new whistleblower disclosures that show that the FBI had concluded as recently as 2020 that the group was not a threat.”

Following this investigation, the FBI determined Aug. 26, 2020, that Glover “is a decorated veteran of the United States” whose military record and frequent social media posts reflect his “patriotism for the United States.”

“Glover desires to assist Americans in preparing themselves for catastrophic events and not to overthrow the United States Government,” the in-line FBI administrative note said. “A background investigation and review of Glover’s social media failed to support the allegation that Glover is a threat to the United States or its citizens.”

While arguing that the designation was initially unjustified, Jordan highlighted that the FBI kept its terror designation “even after the FBI determined in 2020 that American Contingency was not a threat.”

Jordan then inquired further into the FBI’s “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide” on “Militia Violent Extremists” (MVEs) — which was publicly shared via Project Veritas — including questions about how and why the FBI pursues people or organizations such as Glover and American Contingency.

The FBI document flags symbols like “2A,” an abbreviation for the Right to Bear Arms under the Second Amendment, and “commonly referenced historical imagery or quotes,” like the “Betsy Ross Flag” and the yellow “Gadsden Flag” that states “Don’t Tread On Me” as symbols of “terrorists,” Jordan said.

Concluding the letter, the top Republican requested from Wray “all documents and communications referring or relating to the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide on Militia Violent Extremism, for the period of January 1, 2020, to the present.”

He also asked for “a full and complete explanation as to why the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Strategic Unit did not include symbols, images, phrases, events, and individuals about left-wing violent extremism of the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide.” Jordan urged Wray to “provide this information as soon as possible, but no later than 5:00 p.m. on September 28, 2022.”

The FBI had told reporters last month, “The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving and deadly. The FBI’s authority to investigate a case as domestic terrorism requires the existence of a potential criminal federal violation, the unlawful use or threat of force or violence and ideological motivation of any type. We do not investigate ideology.

“The FBI investigates individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and other criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security. We are committed to upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment activity.”