Congratulations, we are now a 3rd world country with troops at the train stations. https://t.co/vzNCHhZ3jb
— Tactical Wisdom (@DolioJ) March 7, 2024
Category: Goobermint
Americans Not Buying Gun Control. Instead, They’re Buying Guns.
President Joe Biden is still pushing gun control onto the American people. He’s absolutely convinced the public wants restrictions on our right to keep and bear arms. At least, he’s convinced of that when he can remember what a gun actually is.
Regardless, the president has been pushing it since he started campaigning in 2019, so it’s no surprise that it’s been a point of consistency.
What is surprising is that despite all the studies and polls that try to tell us that the public wants restrictions, they truth is that they’re buying guns like crazy.
The nation’s gun-buying binge remained robust last month amid the Biden administration’s latest plans to cut sales and intimidate customers.
The FBI said it conducted 2,336,390 checks through its National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the industry trade group, said that included an estimated 1,343,478 specifically for gun sales.
February was the 55th consecutive month that gun sales approved by the FBI exceeded 1 million. NSSF said the number was likely higher since the FBI count does not include all other legal pathways to obtaining a firearm.
The NSSF’s Mark Oliva said this was likely a reaction to Biden’s efforts to tighten gun control, which isn’t overly surprising.
During the Obama administration, the president was the gun salesman of the year for eight straight years. Biden has been no different.
I’ve long maintained that a lot of people want guns but because these aren’t inexpensive items nor higher ticket goods the whole family will enjoy day in, day out, firearm purchases get put on the back burner. Folks figure there’s always time to get them.
But when someone like Biden comes along and starts to rattle the saber about restricting things, “there’s always time” becomes “I’d better do something while I can.”
You know what would have been more helpful? Not letting crime get so out of control that you have to deploy the military to keep order in Manhattan on an ordinary Wednesday.
New York Gov Hochul calls in National Guard, state police to help curb crime in NYC subways
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending in the state National Guard to New York City to help police curb a surge in crime in the city’s subways.
Announcing a five-point plan on Wednesday, the Democratic governor said she was deploying 750 members of the National Guard to the subways to assist the New York Police Department with bag searches at entrances to busy train stations.
“For people who are thinking about bringing a gun or knife on the subway, at least this creates a deterrent effect. They might be thinking, ‘You know what, it just may just not be worth it because I listened to the mayor and I listened to the governor and they have a lot more people who are going to be checking my bags,'” Hochul said at a news conference in New York City.
The move came as part of a larger effort by the governor’s office to address crime in the subway, which included a legislative proposal to ban people from trains for three years if they are convicted of assaulting a subway passenger and the installation of cameras in conductor cabins to protect transit workers.
The governor’s plan also includes better coordination with district attorneys to help prevent repeat offenders and an additional $20 million for expanding subway outreach programs.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced plans on Tuesday to have more police patrolling the subways as the city attempts to curb a near 20% increase in crime levels during the first two months of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to NYPD data cited by the New York Post.
There were three homicides in the underground system over January and February, while incidents such as grand larcenies, felony assaults and robberies have also skyrocketed.
On Sunday, a 64-year-old postal worker was kicked onto the tracks at Penn Station in Manhattan, while a 20-year-old woman fought off a man who punched her in the face and tried to rape her in Queens. Last week, a subway conductor was slashed in the neck when he stuck his head out of the cabin window during a stop at a station in Brooklyn.
Biden Goes To Court, Demanding Warrantless Surveillance Powers
An attempt to bypass congress.
A request by the Biden administration to the courts for the renewal of contentious warrantless surveillance powers, has stoked controversy.
These surveillance powers, demanded by American intelligence agencies, are on the verge of expiration. Critics argue that this move either reflects business as usual, or reflects a sidestepping of spying reforms.
According to US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the decision of the US Department of Justice to pursue an extension of the FISA Section 702 for a year without congressional consideration manifests a disregard for reforms aimed at safeguarding American rights.
Expressing his criticism, Wyden offers an alternative legislation which he and other lawmakers proposed that seeks to maintain Section 702 surveillance albeit under strict regulations constraining unwarranted spying on Americans. Wyden is particularly irked by the White House’s direction to prosecutors to seek renewal of the FISA powers in court before his proposed alternative legislation could be wholly considered by Congress.
Senator Wyden did not mince words in expressing his dissatisfaction with the approach of the Biden administration and the Justice department. “It is utterly ridiculous that the Biden Administration and the Justice Department would rather risk the long-term future of an important surveillance authority than support a single meaningful reform to protect Americans’ rights,” he said.
The contentious issue revolves around Section 702, an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allows US intelligence agencies to spy on foreigners considered a threat to national security. Despite the fact that this surveillance is meant for overseas intelligence targets, the incidental warrantless surveillance of US residents has prompted concerns among privacy advocates.
The FBI’s past missteps of using Section 702 to snoop on various individuals ranging from US elected officials to campaign donors adds credence to these concerns. Section 702 is scheduled to lapse by April 19 unless Congress moves to renew it. This has led to a push among several lawmakers to alter the rules and add guards against potential future abuse. To keep it running, Congress had granted a four-month extension last year.
There are currently four legislative proposals in the works to renew Section 702. Two of these initiatives, namely the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act and the Government Surveillance Reform Act of 2023, entail a warrant requirement prior to investigations.
The White House has resisted attempts to reform Section 702.
Either SecDef Austin, didn’t know, or didn’t care that HAMAS runs the Gaza Health Ministry.
Pentagon Walks Back Austin’s Gaza Casualty Figures
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress on Thursday that more than 25,000 women and children had been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, but the Pentagon later clarified that estimate, saying the figure came from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, not U.S. intelligence.
During a congressional hearing, Austin was asked how many Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israel and Austin replied: “It is over 25,000.”
A few hours later, Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson, said that Austin was citing an estimate from the Gaza health ministry and was referring to total Palestinians killed, not just women and children.
“We cannot independently verify these Gaza casualty figures,” Singh said in a statement.
In late January, Palestinian health officials said the death toll from Israeli strikes had passed 25,000. That number, according to the Gaza health ministry, is now over 30,000 Palestinians.
Gaza health authorities said more than 100 Palestinians had been shot dead by Israeli forces as they waited for an aid delivery on Thursday, but Israel challenged the death toll and said many of the victims had been run over by aid trucks.
Austin, during the hearing, also added that about 21,000 precision guided munitions had been provided to Israel since the start of its war in Gaza.
California Violated the Second Amendment by Disarming People Based on Nullified Convictions
A federal judge ruled that three men who committed nonviolent felonies decades ago are entitled to buy, own, and possess guns.
The state of California employed Kendall Jones as a correctional officer for 29 years and as a firearms and use-of-force trainer for 19 years. But in 2018, when Jones sought to renew the certificate of eligibility required for firearms instructors, the California Department of Justice (DOJ) informed him that he was not allowed to possess guns under state law because of a 1980 Texas conviction for credit card abuse. Jones committed that third-degree felony in Houston when he was 19, and his conviction was set aside after he completed a probation sentence.
According to the DOJ, that did not matter: Because of his youthful offense, which Jones said involved a credit card he had obtained from someone who falsely claimed he was authorized to use it, the longtime peace officer was permanently barred from owning or possessing firearms in California. That application of California law violated the Second Amendment, a federal judge ruled this week in Linton v. Bonta, which also involves two other similarly situated plaintiffs.
“Plaintiffs were convicted of non-violent felonies decades ago when they were in the earliest years of adulthood,” U.S. District Judge James Donato, a Barack Obama appointee, notes in an order granting them summary judgment. “Each conviction was set aside or dismissed by the jurisdiction in which the offense occurred, and the record indicates that all three plaintiffs have been law-abiding citizens in every respect other than the youthful misconduct. Even so, California has acted to permanently deny plaintiffs the right to possess or own firearms solely on the basis of the original convictions.” After considering the state’s cursory defense of those determinations, Donato thought it was clear that California had “violated the Second Amendment rights of the individual plaintiffs.”
Like most jurisdictions, California prohibits people with felony records from buying, owning, receiving, or possessing firearms. That ban encompasses offenses that did not involve weapons or violence, and it applies regardless of how long ago the crime was committed. Federal law imposes a similar disqualification, which applies to people convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year of incarceration (or more than two years for state offenses classified as misdemeanors). But the federal law makes an exception for “any conviction which has been expunged, or set aside or for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored.”
California’s policy is different. “The DOJ will permit a person with an out-of-state conviction to acquire or possess a firearm in California only if the conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor, or the person obtained a presidential or governor’s pardon that expressly restores their right to possess firearms,” Donato explains. The requirements for California convictions are similar.
In Jones’ case, the same state that suddenly decided he was not allowed to possess guns employed him as the primary armory officer at the state prison in Solano, where he specialized in “firearms, chemical agents, batons and use of deadly force training,” for nearly two decades. Despite all that experience, the sudden denial of his gun rights put an end to his work as a law enforcement firearms and use-of-force instructor in California. The other two plaintiffs told similar stories of losing their Second Amendment rights based not only on nonviolent offenses that happened long ago but also on convictions that were judicially nullified.
According to the 2018 complaint that Chad Linton filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, he was pulled over by state police in 1987, when he was serving in the U.S. Navy at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington. The complaint concedes that Linton was “traveling at a high rate of speed” on his motorcycle while “intoxicated” and that he initially “accelerated,” thinking “he might be able to outrun” the cops before he “reconsidered that idea, pulled over to the side of the highway, and voluntarily allowed the state trooper to catch up to him.”
Linton was charged with driving under the influence, a misdemeanor, and attempting to evade a police vehicle, a Class C felony. He pleaded guilty to both charges and received a seven-day sentence, time he had already served. In 1988, he “received a certificate of discharge, showing that he successfully completed his probation.” It “included a statement that ‘the defendant’s civil rights lost by operation of law upon conviction [are] HEREBY RESTORED.'”
Linton, who was born and raised in California, returned there in 1988 after he was discharged from the Navy. He successfully purchased several firearms after passing background checks. But when he tried to buy a handgun in 2015, the DOJ told him he was disqualified because of the 1987 felony conviction. In response, he asked the Superior Court of Washington to vacate that conviction, which it did in April 2016. The order “set aside” the conviction and released Linton “from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense.” But when he tried to buy a rifle in November 2016, he was rejected.
The same thing happened in March 2018, when Linton tried to buy a revolver for home protection. The following month, Donato notes, “DOJ agents came to Linton’s home and seized several firearms from him that he had legally acquired and owned for years, including an ‘antique, family-heirloom shotgun.'”
Although Linton moved to Nevada in 2020, partly because of these experiences, he still owns a cabin in California. He said he felt “unsafe and unprotected” there “without at least the option of having appropriate firearms available or at hand if needed.” He added that he “would like to be able to possess or handle firearms or ammunition for recreational purposes, such as target shooting,” while visiting friends and relatives in California.
Paul McKinley Stewart’s disqualifying offense dates back even further than Jones’ and Linton’s. In 1976, when he was 18 and living in Arizona, he “stole some tools from an unlocked truck in a commercial yard.” He was found guilty of first-degree burglary, a felony, and served three years of probation, after which he was told that his conviction had been dismissed.
Stewart moved to California in 1988 and tried to buy firearms in 2014 or 2015 (the record is unclear on the exact date). The DOJ “advised him that he was ‘disqualified’ from purchasing or possessing firearms ‘due to the presence of a prior felony conviction.'” Like Linton, Stewart went back to the court of conviction. In August 2016, Donato notes, the Arizona Superior Court “ordered ‘that the civil rights lost at the time of sentencing are now restored,’ ‘set aside [the] judgment of guilt,’ ordered the ‘dismissal of the Information/Indictment,’ and expressly held that the restored rights ‘shall include the right to possess weapons.'” The DOJ nevertheless blocked a gun purchase that Stewart attempted in February 2018, citing the 1976 conviction that officially no longer existed.
Defending these denials in federal court, the state argued that the plaintiffs were not part of “the people” whose “right to keep and bear arms” is guaranteed by the Second Amendment because they were not “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” In California’s view, Donato writes, “a single felony conviction permanently disqualifies an individual from being a ‘law-abiding, responsible citizen’ within the ambit of the Second Amendment.” He sees “two flaws” that “vitiate this contention.”
First, Donato says, “undisputed facts” establish that all three plaintiffs are “fairly described as law-abiding citizens.” Judging from the fact that “California entrusted Jones with the authority of a sworn peace officer, and with the special role of training other officers in the use of force,” that was the state’s view of him until 2018, when he was peremptorily excluded from “the people.” And as with Jones, there is no indication that the other two plaintiffs have been anything other than “law-abiding” since their youthful offenses. “Linton is a veteran of the United States Navy with a clean criminal record for the past 37 years,” Donato notes. “Stewart has had a clean criminal record for the past 48 years.”
Second, Donato says, California failed to identify any “case law supporting its position.” In the landmark Second Amendment case District of Columbia v. Heller, he notes, the Supreme Court “determined that ‘the people,’ as used throughout the Constitution, ‘unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.'” That holding, he says, creates a “strong presumption” that California failed to rebut.
Donato notes that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit rejected California’s argument in no uncertain terms last year, when it restored the Second Amendment rights of Bryan Range, a Pennsylvania man who had been convicted of misdemeanor food stamp fraud. “Heller and its progeny lead us to conclude that Bryan Range remains among ‘the people’ despite his 1995 false statement conviction,” the 3rd Circuit said. “The Supreme Court’s references to ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens’ do not mean that every American who gets a traffic ticket is no longer among ‘the people’ protected by the Second Amendment.”
Since Jones, Linton, and Stewart are part of “the people,” California had the burden of showing that disarming them was “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the test that the Supreme Court established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. “California did not come close to meeting its burden,” Donato writes. It did little more than assert that Americans have Second Amendment rights only if they are “virtuous,” a criterion that is highly contested and in any case would seem to be satisfied by the plaintiffs’ long histories as productive and law-abiding citizens.
“California otherwise presented nothing in the way of historical evidence in support of the conduct challenged here,” Donato says. “It did not identify even one ‘representative analogue’ that could be said to come close to speaking to firearms regulations for individuals in circumstances akin to plaintiffs’. That will not do under Bruen.”
Donato rejected “California’s suggestion that it might have tried harder if the Court had asked.” Under Bruen, “the government bears the burden of proving the element of a national historical tradition,” he writes. “California had every opportunity to present any historical evidence it believed would carry its burden. It chose not to do so.”
Donato was dismayed by the state’s attitude. “The Court is not a helicopter parent,” he writes. “It is manifestly not the Court’s job to poke and prod litigants to live up to their burdens of proof.”
The policy that Jones, Linton, and Stewart challenged seems inconsistent with California’s criminal justice reforms, such as marijuana legalization and the reclassification of many felonies as misdemeanors. It is also inconsistent with the way California treats voting rights, which are automatically restored upon sentence completion. Gun rights in California, by contrast, are easy to lose and hard to recover, even when they have been restored by courts in other states. That disparity seems to reflect the California political establishment’s reflexive hostility to the Second Amendment.
“This case exposes the hypocrisy of California’s treatment of those convicted of non-violent crimes,” says Cody J. Wisniewski, an attorney with the Firearms Policy Coalition, one of several gun rights groups that joined the lawsuit. “While California claims to be tolerant of those that have made mistakes in the past, that tolerance ends when it comes to those individuals [who want] to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. Now, the state has no choice but to recognize the rights of peaceable people.”
Gun Owners Of America (GOA) shared their concerns Thursday with Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn after he announced his intention to run for Senate Republican Leader, just one day after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would be stepping down as leader in November.
In an exclusive phone call with the Daily Caller, Aidan Johnston, the Director of Federal Affairs for GOA, said Cornyn is not a Conservative pro-gun leader, mentioning pieces of legislation that Cornyn has supported in the past, which Johnston described as gun control.
“The United States Senate deserves a conservative pro-gun leader, and John Cornyn is not that person, it seems. I’ll say every time a gun issue comes up: He’s right there with a compromise. And that’s not leadership. That’s just capitulation to gun control. Americans deserve someone who will refuse to compromise with their God-given Second Amendment rights. And unfortunately, John Cornyn is, always, always, always cutting deals with our Second Amendment,” Johnston told the Caller.
“I mean, as far back as, 2007-2008 John Cornyn was not standing up to object to gun control when the Veterans Disarmament Act passed, otherwise known as the NICs Improvement Amendment Act. But then you’ve got the Fix NICs Act, the followed successor to that 2008 bill,” Johnston continued. “The Fix NICs Act, which passed in 2017-2018. And that bill was supposed to only pass coupled with concealed carry reciprocity, but it was squishy Republicans in Congress that let the two bills be separated, and they passed the gun control and not concealed carry.”
He then slammed Cornyn over the Safer Communities Act, which he cosponsored with Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy. The compromise package was negotiated between Cornyn and Murphy in the Summer of 2022 and created an “enhanced background check” for adults under 21. The bill also expanded the definition of who is a gun dealer and thereby required to conduct a background check. Under that new system, one single gun sale in a calendar year could lead to people having to get licensed as a dealer and having to conduct background checks.
“But I do think that the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which John Cornyn is the co-author with Senator Murphy, it was an omnibus gun control, this is the biggest gun control that has passed Congress in decades. Like we’re talking funding for Red flag gun confiscation laws, which, by the way, have been used in a scandal to bribe pro-gun states without red flag laws into enacting them.
We’re talking about a de facto wait period for 18- to 20-year-old adults before they can purchase a firearm and it opened the door, which we warned him [Cornyn] about, to backdoor universal background checks. And now the ATF is initiating a rule to institute background checks without a new law,” he added.
“Well, we warned Congress, we warned, John Cornyn, about all these consequences of the bipartisan Safer Communities Act that said he supported that bill anyway and now gun owners are living under the consequences of that. This is not the time to take someone who compromised with our Second Amendment and put them in charge of the Republican Party, whose platform claims to defend the Second Amendment.”
McConnell said he will serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, “albeit from a different seat in the chamber.”
Meanwhile, Cornyn spoke with former President Donald Trump on Wednesday and has started calling individual GOP senators for their support.
The Caller contacted Cornyn’s office about GOA’s opposition to him as leader, to which they did not immediately respond.
Yeah, this is going to turn out well
Los Angeles Hires And Arms Foreign Criminals To Police U.S. Citizens
Illegally present foreigners who don’t have the constitutional right to bear arms can arrest and even disarm a U.S. citizen who does.
President Barack Obama’s 2012 DACA order indefinitely delays the deportation of illegal border crossers who enter the United States claiming to be minors. Recipients do not start becoming U.S. citizens unless they apply for a green card. That is why many seek endless DACA renewals that allow them to continue working and living in the States while still foreign citizens and admitted border lawbreakers.
Until recently, California only allowed U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents in the process of obtaining citizenship to serve as law enforcement. In 2022, the Democrat legislature passed a law authorizing any of the hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossers, including DACA recipients, who obtain work authorization to join police forces across the state.
While some cities like Sacramento refused to hire illegal border crossers due to concerns about gun law violations, LAPD handed jobs and firearms to nearly a dozen DACA aliens. Capt. Robin Petillo told CalMatters these illegal border crossers will “possess department-issued firearms on and off duty.” The department also plans to give jobs to illegally present foreigners who are currently in police training.
“We’ve tried to carve just what is necessary for DACA, and these individuals be treated on the same basis of which non-DACA recipients are, as to the possession of a department firearm and its use,” Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore told ABC 7.
The Second Amendment states it is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” “The people,” according to American court precedent, refers to U.S. citizens only.
The 1968 Gun Control Act, passed by a Democrat trifecta, also prohibits illegally present foreign citizens from possessing firearms and ammunition. The Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals ruled in 2017 that DACA does not exempt illegal border crossers from that gun law.
An exception in the 1968 law, however, allows for illegal border crossers to possess guns “for the use of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or any State or any department, agency, or political subdivision thereof.” That means this federal provision technically provides any local or state government office, even if they don’t have a law like California’s, to arm illegal border crossers.
So in the case of the LAPD, a criminal foreign citizen who doesn’t have the constitutionally secured right to bear arms but was hired by a U.S. police department could arrest and even disarm a U.S. citizen who does have Second Amendment rights.
Under President Joe Biden and Democrats, illegal border crossers aren’t just getting jobs in local police departments, they are being rewarded for breaking U.S. laws with free transportation, shelter, and prepaid debit cards.
. More than 28.1 Million Modern Sporting Rifles in Circulation.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) recently released a “Firearm Production in the United States and the Firearm Import and Export Data” report which indicates that 28,144,000 modern sporting rifles (MSRs) have been put into circulation since 1990. MSR production increased 32 percent from 2020 to 2021 alone.
The figure includes the latest data provided—up to and including 2021—by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (BATFE) Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Reports. “The data continues to show that the modern sporting rifle is the most popular centerfire rifle sold in America today with over 28.1 million in circulation and being used for lawful purposes every day,” said Joe Bartozzi, NSSF President and CEO. In addition, he added, “The continued popularity of handguns demonstrates a strong interest by Americans to protect themselves and their homes, and to participate in the recreational shooting sports.”
In 2021, according to the findings, more than half of the 21,037,810 total firearms made available for the U.S. market were either pistols or revolvers. In all, 12,799,067 were handguns, 4,832,198 were rifles and 3,406,545 were shotguns. The figure includes firearms domestically produced plus those imported (minus exported firearms).
Total domestic firearm production reported in 2021 was 12,521,614—an increase of 28.6 percent over 2020 reported figures. Firearm and ammunition manufacturing accounted for more than 12,400 employees producing over $5.6 billion in goods shipped in 2021. “This report demonstrates the strength and durability of the U.S. firearm manufacturing sector and the U.S. firearm sales markets,” Bartozzi said.
As for more recent figures, BATFE’s interim 2022 estimate showed a total of 11,217,388 domestically produced firearms. Of those 6,148,877 were pistols, 830,800 were revolvers, 3,575,322 were rifles and 662,389 were shotguns. The Bureau’s interim report will be updated once complete figures are compiled.
In all, NSSF estimated the total number of firearms in civilian possession from 1990 to 2021 is 473.2 million.
The purported “Economic Growth” under Biden has been bought with debt.
With a total of $1.13 trillion in debt, credit card debt that moved into serious delinquency amounted to 6.6% in Q4 2023, while it had been around 4% at the end of 2022.
Read more: https://t.co/BNKcHEzuWO
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) February 29, 2024
Biden Is Destroying the Firearm’s Industry
The Biden administration is driving gun dealers out of business and radically transforming the firearms industry. Unfortunately, President Biden is only getting started, and four more years of these policies will have truly detrimental impacts on the ability of people to buy guns for self-defense.
Biden sold his “zero tolerance” policy as going after “rogue gun dealers” who “knowingly” sell guns to violent criminals. Of course, no one wants dealers secretly selling guns to criminals out of the back of their stores. But Biden’s zero-tolerance policy isn’t about that. Instead, it makes trivial and inconsequential paperwork errors into grounds for losing one’s license and going out of business.
Tom Harris of the Sporting Arms Co. in Lewisville, Texas, is a disabled father of five who made two small paperwork mistakes fifteen and sixteen years ago. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATF) during the Obama administration cleared Harris, who has made a single paperwork mistake since then. But now, the Biden administration is reopening closed cases, including Harris’s. Harris had to create a crowdfunding page to cover his legal costs.
By the middle of last year, Biden’s zero-tolerance for paperwork typos had put nearly two thousand dealers out of business.
It’s not the only policy that is making life difficult for gun sellers. A gun dealer must comply with new, costly reporting requirements if he has sold at least 25 guns that were traced to crimes committed over a year. The guns traced were purchased within the past three years. This doesn’t even require that the guns were used in a crime, only that the BAFT traced them.
However, identifying gun stores based on the number of guns traced is problematic. It is one thing for a store that sold 50 guns to have 25 guns traced. It is entirely different for a store that sold ten thousand guns to have 25 tracks. Identifying stores based on the percentage of crime guns, not the total number of traced guns, makes much more sense.
The Biden administration has publicly released the list of these stores, presumably to give negative publicity. Unsurprisingly, the 1,300 outlets targeted in 2023 by the BATF include the largest firearms dealers – Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s, Scheels, Rural King, and Sportsman’s Warehouse. Large gun stores in higher-crime areas are more prone to fall victim to the new policy through no fault of their own.
The new detailed reporting requirements might create costs that cause some stores to stop selling guns. If that isn’t enough, Biden may hope that publicly demonizing stores will cause them to stop selling guns.
At the same time that Biden is driving gun dealers out of business, he is proposing other regulations that will force everyone who transfers or sells guns to be a licensed firearms dealer. The BATF released a 150-page proposal last year that would require you to have a licensed dealer if you sell a friend a gun once and then even discuss the sale of a second gun. Or if you sell one gun and keep any record of what it was bought and sold for. Or, for that matter, if you rent a space at a gun show without selling any firearms (anyone who has been to a gun show knows that most tables aren’t selling guns).
Leaked information reports the BATF’s proposal has ballooned to 1,300 pages and effectively bans private gun sales. One can only imagine how much more complicated these rules will be.
These rules will only make Americans less able to afford protection, as guns will become increasingly expensive amidst so many regulatory obstacles. The rich won’t have a problem buying firearms, but many low-income people who are the most likely victims of violent crime will be left vulnerable.
On top of all that, Biden has re-imposed Obama’s policy of pressuring Banks from doing business with “high-risk” industries, reviving what was called “Operation Choke Point.”
It’s clear that Biden is working hard to stop Americans from owning guns, and that he is destroying many law-abiding businesses.
This Is Why Biden Didn’t Take a Cognitive Test As Part of His Physical
President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Walter Reed Medical Center Wednesday morning for his annual physical.
“I’m squared away,” Biden said after the appointment and before a meeting with law enforcement at the White House. “They think I look too young.”
During the daily press briefing in the afternoon, Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said Biden didn’t take a cognitive test as part of the physically because he “doesn’t need one.”
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "The president doesn't need a cognitive test!" pic.twitter.com/NB2i0B2Clo
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 28, 2024
She also refused to make Biden’s physician available for questioning, arguing it isn’t “the norm.” Former President Donald Trump’s physician was made available to the press for robust questioning inside the briefing room.
The statements are at odds with a report put out by Special Counsel Robert Hur, which states Biden wasn’t charged for a serious of felonies because of his failing memory and lack of recollection.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during out interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report states. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Shopping during Bidenomics……..
How is American Freedom Too Sensitive for Public Spaces?
If a freedom-loving NRA member from, say, 1994, had been able to look into a crystal ball and see 30 years forward to today, they’d no doubt be pleased and perhaps a bit jealous, but also a little perplexed.
They’d notice the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in D.C. v. Heller (2008), McDonald v. Chicago (2010) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which together decree that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. It protects each law-abiding citizen’s right to own and carry firearms for self-defense and for other legal purposes. They’d be pleased to see this.
They’d notice the massive expansion of constitutional carry, the passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005 and the huge growth in gun ownership and of concealed carry in general and, again, they’d be pleased.
They’d see all the new and useful carry options in handguns, holsters and more and would likely be a little jealous.
Indeed, they’d marvel at the renaissance for this freedom.
But they’d also shake their heads and clench their fists at the endless, and often novel, attacks from gun-control proponents on our Second Amendment rights.
And then, finally, they’d have to be perplexed as they wondered what this “sensitive-places” thing is all about.
A U.S. District Judge has granted an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of California’s law that exposes firearms manufacturers and retailers to lawsuits in the state for lawful commerce in firearms that takes place entirely outside the state of California when those legally made and sold products are misused by criminals and others.
The ruling by Judge Schopler in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California enjoined the enforcement of California AB 1594, the so-called “Firearm Industry Responsibility Act.” NSSF sued to challenge the law in June 2023 and moved for an injunction. In granting the injunction, Judge Schopler found the law is likely unconstitutional because it violates the Commerce Clause.
“We are thankful the court enjoined the state from suing members of the firearm industry under this unconstitutional law that attempts to use the real threat of liability on commerce beyond California’s borders and impose its policy choices on its sister states,” stated NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane.
Among other provisions, California AB 1594 bans the manufacture, sale and marketing of firearms the state deems “abnormally dangerous.” It allows civil lawsuits against a firearm industry member to be filed by the Attorney General, any municipality and any person who claims to have suffered harm from the misuse of a legal, lawfully sold firearm by a remote third party. The law unconstitutionally invades the sovereignty of sister states by directly regulating lawful commerce occurring entirely outside the state of California in violation of the Commerce Clause and the United States’ system of federalism. The law also violates the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) enacted by Congress in 2005 to stop just these sorts of frivolous lawsuits against members of the industry.
“We are reviewing the balance of the court’s decision and whether we will file an amended complaint to provide the court more details on how California’s unconstitutional law and its threat of crushing liability is causing real and ongoing harm to members of our industry,” Keane said.
NSSF also claims in its lawsuit that the law also infringes on the Second Amendment and chills First Amendment rights by restricting protected free-speech advertising of Constitutionally-protected products that are lawfully made and sold – even when that advertising takes place outside of California’s borders.
Joe Biden Tries to Give a Massive Gift to Hamas, Israel Tells Him to Pound Sand
When conservatives were telling Democrats to “back the blue,” I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean like this. According to a new report, the Biden administration is demanding that Israel stop targeting the Hamas-controlled police forces in Gaza.
That comes as Israel continues its push into the southern part of the territory where the remnants of Hamas remain. It also comes amidst reports (including video evidence) of these “police forces” shooting civilians to facilitate the stealing of aid for the terrorists holed up there.
The Biden administration asked Israel to stop targeting members of the Hamas-run civilian police force who escort aid trucks in Gaza, warning that a “total breakdown of law and order” is significantly exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the enclave, three U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios.
Why it matters: U.S. officials say they are increasingly concerned “that Gaza is turning into Mogadishu” as a security vacuum and desperation have opened the door for armed gangs to attack and loot aid trucks, putting even more pressure on the Strip’s already strained humanitarian system.
In late December, a video emerged of a Hamas police officer shooting and killing a young boy for trying to take food from one of the aid trucks. Since then, numerous reports have emerged of civilians being shot while the trucks are escorted through starving crowds. Little if no international condemnation has followed the incidents, and apparently, Joe Biden is just fine with it.
This is akin to the Allied Powers in World War II being commanded to not kill members of the Gestapo to ensure they can “maintain order.” There is no actual “civilian police force” in Gaza. They are all supportive of Hamas. They all commit and/or allow atrocities against innocent people, and they are all facilitating the theft of aid that is only prolonging the war.
So naturally, Biden is all for doing what it takes to knee-cap Israel and help keep that status quo in place. We are talking about the worst foreign policy mind in American political history when considering the breadth of time his penchant for failure has presided over. If there’s a bad decision to be made, Biden is going to be there to make it.
Frankly, I’m a little tired of hearing about the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza sans any context, as if it gets solved by leaving Hamas in power. This can all end tomorrow if the terrorist government simply agrees to go into exile and lets some kind of coalition demilitarize the territory. That’s the way to help the people in Rafah right now. The way to not help them is to preserve the “police force” that is helping exacerbate their situation.
Smartly, Israel told Biden to pound sand.
But Israel rebuffed the request because one of its goals in the war is to ensure that Hamas no longer runs Gaza, two Israeli officials said.
Israel is also looking to cooperate with those in Gaza who oppose Hamas to facilitate aid instead of relying on the very terrorists they are fighting to deliver it. That would seem like a common sense approach given the entire point of the war is to depose Hamas. Perhaps that’s too complicated for the Biden administration to understand.
Any “solution” to the war in Gaza that doesn’t include the complete removal of Hamas as a governing force is not a solution. It’s simply a massive gift to terrorists who will inevitably strike again, leading to yet another war and yet more death and destruction. The United States, Europe, and the dictators at the UN can either figure that out or get out of the way.
Judge Declares Fargo’s Ban on Home-Based Gun Businesses Goes Too Far
For several years the city of Fargo, North Dakota has prohibited FFL’s from operating out of their homes, but the state legislature took aim at that restriction last year and passed a law that bans localities from establishing zoning ordinances that specifically include firearms and ammunition based businesses.
The city almost immediately filed suit challenging the law, but this week state District Judge Cherie Clark ruled against Fargo; tossing out the city’s lawsuit and rejecting its argument that the zoning preemption law violates the state constitution and the home rule powers granted to local authorities.
“While the Court agrees that (the North Dakota Constitution) intends for ‘maximum local self-government,’ the law is not settled that this language alone provides home rule cities the right to legislate on topics the state legislature has limited,” the judge wrote.
But she also expressed concerns about the Legislature’s actions: “If the legislature continues to pare home rule powers, home rule cities lack the discretion to address important issues impacting their respective and unique communities.”
What, exactly, is so unique about Fargo that federal firearms licensees shouldn’t be allowed to operate a home-based business? The city has never offered a good explanation, instead blithely asserting that it “does not want its residents to utilize their homes in residential areas as gun stores.”
Well, tough. There’s no prohibition in either state or federal law that precludes home-based FFLs, and it doesn’t appear that any other locality in the state has tried to erect any similar barriers, so why should FFLs in Fargo be punished or forced to spend money on a brick-and-mortar location, especially if they’re selling guns on a part-time basis?
This is actually the second law that the state legislature has adopted to deal with Fargo’s restrictions, but the city was successful in defending its ordinance in 2021, which led lawmakers to try again last year.
Bill sponsor and Republican state Rep. Ben Koppelman told a state Senate panel in April that the issue came to greater attention in 2016 when, because of the ordinance, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives refused to renew the federal firearms licenses of Fargo dealers who sold out of their homes.
“What is at issue is whether we want local governments creating gun control or whether we want gun regulations to remain a state-controlled issue,” Koppelman said in April. “Without this bill and in light of the (2021) court opinion, I think local political subdivisions could propose all sorts of local gun control, and based on the anti-gun track record of the City of Fargo Commission, I think we could expect it.”
Both sides in the lawsuit agree that the issue at hand goes beyond the zoning laws in question, and instead touches on the ability of home-rule localities to pass their own laws in any number of areas. But even though the North Dakota Constitution compelled the state legislature to come up with a home-rule statute and lawmakers granted home-rule communities the authority to adopt ordinances, resolutions, and regulations that provide for public health, safety, morals, and welfare, it’s still within the state’s authority to declare certain subjects off-limits to local control.
Three years ago the legislature adopted a preemption law stating:
1. A political subdivision, including home rule cities or counties, may not enact a zoning ordinance or any other ordinance relating to the purchase, sale, ownership, possession,transfer of ownership, registration, or licensure of firearms and ammunition which is more restrictive than state law. All such existing ordinances are void.
A state judge ruled that Fargo’s home-based FFL zoning prohibition could still be enforced because the state had no regulations concerning commercial firearms sales. While most of us would conclude that any zoning ordinance would be more restrictive than a state law that doesn’t exist, District Judge Stephannie Nicole Stiel sided with Fargo’s argument that the ordinance in question wasn’t more restrictive than state law because state statutes were silent on commercial gun sales sales.
That’s not the case these days, thanks to the legislature’s response last year, and Judge Clark made the right call, even though her editorializing on the legislature’s actions was completely unnecessary. Fargo officials could still appeal Clark’s decision, but the odds of success are pretty long, and it would be a waste of time and taxpayer money to try to keep this needless ordinance in place instead of accepting home-based FFLs and the tax revenue they generate.
The Honorable Judge Benitez strikes again.
The state court mistakenly did not regard the pistol or the billy to be the sorts of arms protected by the Second Amendment. Instead, only weapons of war were covered by the Constitution, according to Workman. As to other kinds of arms, Workman incorrectly observed,
in regard to the kind of arms referred to in the [Second] amendment, it must be held to refer to the weapons of warfare to be used by the militia, such as swords, guns, rifles, and muskets,—arms to be used in defending the State and civil liberty,—and not to pistols, bowie-knife, brass knuckles, billies, and such other weapons . . . .
In short, Workman held that weapons of war are protected by the Second Amendment but found weapons like the billy are not weapons of war, and therefore are not protected.
Workman was wrong in concluding the Second Amendment does not cover arms like the pistol and the billy.…
The Second Amendment protects a citizen’s right to defend one’s self with dangerous and lethal firearms. But not everybody wants to carry a firearm for self defense. Some prefer less-lethal weapons. A billy is a less-lethal weapon that may be used for self-defense.
It is a simple weapon that most anybody between the ages of eight and eighty can fashion from a wooden stick, or a clothes pole, or a dowel rod. One can easily imagine countless citizens carrying these weapons on daily walks and hikes to defend themselves against attacks by humans or animals. To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms like the billy for lawful purposes.
America Has a State-Approved Domestic Terrorism Problem
During my internet perusing, I came across a post from comedian Kurt Metzger who had one of his shows canceled, alongside a few other comedians, at a comedy venue called “Capitol Hill” in Seattle. Why?
Because these comedians didn’t have the same “progressive” values as the surrounding community. Metzger notes that this comedy club is in the same district where the failed “CHAZ” encampment was created. You may recall that CHAZ was an attempt at creating an independent country with America based on the communist system that ended up being a place of murder, destruction, and flat-out idiocy.
These were communists, after all, but I digress.
Metzger posted the email he received about the cancelation of his show in full. Give it a read, and as you read it, try to notice the tone of it.
I’m sorry, but this is too funny not to immediately put on blast! Also, am I mistaken that this club is in Seattle’s historic “CHAZ” district?
(Kurt looks up toward heaven.)
THANK U GEORGE FLOYD! For the fun Im about to have with this on Twitter after I take a quick shit! BRB! pic.twitter.com/K4gGSGoPkW— Kurt Metzger (@kurtmetzger) February 23, 2024
The letter isn’t rude or condescending, or at least it doesn’t come off that way. After reading it a few times, it comes off more as being written out of fear.
Notice the language being used in it. Emphasis mine.
“…we’ve received significant feedback expressing concerns about the alignment of these upcoming shows with the neighborhood’s ethos.”
“Given the feedback and to avoid any potential negative impact on both our club and the artists involved, as well as to maintain harmony within our community…”
“…we want to ensure it does not reflect on your talent and the quality of your work but is instead a reflection of our commitment to our community’s values.”
This reads like a letter that the writer, Jes Anderson, didn’t want to write. It’s incredibly complimentary to the comedians and it’s clear that they do not want to close the door on them forever, but there’s repeated language that reads like appeasement and assurances that they’re on the same side of the community in question.
This is a letter that they knew would be read by multiple groups, not just the comedians and the ticket holders. Looking at it closely, this letter looks more like someone trying to avert the very literal destruction of their club and harm of their employees, patrons, and talent than it does anything else.
If this was a city where the politicians and local law enforcement didn’t tolerate crime and violence, guarantee this letter wouldn’t have been written. Sadly, this is Seattle, where a hostile takeover of a city block is nicknamed the “Summer of Love” by the city’s mayor.
What this has created is nothing short of state-approved domestic terrorism. This is what this comedy club is trying to avoid. Since it knows these lunatics will continue to haunt and hound the venue to no end, vandalizing and destroying what it can, it’s left to capitulation and knee-bending.
And this is a problem happening in many blue cities.
In today’s America, domestic terrorism is alive and well. Many citizens live in fear of it and even many corporations have decided to pack up and leave blue cities where crime has gotten so out of control that it’s effectively ruled by criminals.
This problem is only going to get worse as criminal elements continue to flow freely into the country. I don’t think I need to emphasize the importance of voting accordingly for leaders that will come stock with a zero-tolerance policy in the coming years.
Cities like Seattle and Portland are just examples of what could happen to any city if it doesn’t begin practicing a heavy crackdown on crime now, but as for cities like these, I’m not sure what can save them except for a complete and total cultural overhaul that focuses on the residents and communities truly becoming intolerant to the criminal element among them.
But hopefully, that will happen soon. These kinds of people don’t stay contained in the cities they start in. They travel and they become everyone else’s problem as they do.
They might be safe in Smurf-blue cities like Seattle, but the moment they step foot into a territory where that level of thuggery isn’t tolerated, politicians and law enforcement need to come down hard. At the very least, they need to be taught they can’t do it outside their “safe” cities.
LEGAL ALERT: A California federal judge has struck down the state's ban on less-lethal arms known as "billies," saying it violates the Second Amendment. The injunction is effective immediately. https://t.co/qXqWEMl2fJ pic.twitter.com/nnaJWLzFSV
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) February 23, 2024