Goobermint – Page 27

The Secretary of Defense – and ONLY him, not some underling – by law is in the direct chain of command of the U.S. military from POTUS to the Combatant Commanders. This was blatant dereliction of duty what with a senile delusional dotard sitting in the oval office.

BLUF
Austin’s Department of Defense is a barking shambles. It is incompetent in action and not trustworthy. It not only lies to the people and to Congress, but to the White House and itself…okay, maybe that isn’t all that unusual. As the old saying goes, a fish rots from the head down. If Biden lets this slide by, he’s a much bigger imbecile than even I had considered possible.

SecDef Austin Did Not Tell Biden’s National Security Adviser He Was in the ICU

The Department of Defense didn’t notify the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in the Walter Reed National Medical Center intensive care unit until Thursday. That’s it.

I’ve posted twice on the growing mystery of why the Defense Department failed to notify Congress that Secretary Austin was in the hospital. In the first episode, it was revealed in a Pentagon statement on Friday that Austin had been in the hospital since New Year’s Day due to “complications” from an “elective medical procedure.” This came as a shock to the Pentagon Press Corps and Congress.

BACKGROUND: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Has Been Hospitalized for a Week and Just Told Congress Today

The second act materialized earlier on Saturday with the report that Austin hadn’t just been in the hospital; he’d been in the intensive care unit from Monday to Friday evening. His deputy, Kathleen Hicks, was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time. While he was incapacitated and she was sunning herself, the US ordered a drone strike on the leader of an Iranian militia; the US Navy was trying to make the Red Sea safe for commercial traffic without upsetting the Iranians or Houthis, a war raged between Israel and Hamas, and North Korea lobbed a couple of hundred artillery rounds into South Korean waters.

I ended that update with this note.

While we are focused on Congressional notification, no one has yet asked if the White House was told.

Now we have the answer to that question.

The Pentagon did not inform senior officials in the White House’s National Security Council of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization until Thursday — three full days after he arrived at Walter Reed Medical Center, two U.S. officials said.

The news came as a shock to top staff, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, as they were unaware the DOD chief was dealing with complications following an elective medical procedure, the officials said. NSC staffers were surprised it took the Pentagon so long to let them know of Austin’s condition. The Pentagon didn’t make the information public until Friday evening, notifying Congress about 15 minutes before releasing a public statement.

For three days, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the National Security Council, and, it seems, a lot of senior Pentagon officials did not know where Austin was, nor did they miss him.

The Pentagon did not inform senior officials in the White House’s National Security Council of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization until Thursday — three full days after he arrived at Walter Reed Medical Center, two U.S. officials said.

The news came as a shock to top staff, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, as they were unaware the DOD chief was dealing with complications following an elective medical procedure, the officials said. NSC staffers were surprised it took the Pentagon so long to let them know of Austin’s condition. The Pentagon didn’t make the information public until Friday evening, notifying Congress about 15 minutes before releasing a public statement.

In what is probably a monument of understatement, one unidentified US official said, “This should not have happened this way.”

Ya think?

There is a Paul Harvey “Rest of the Story” angle that remains to be teased out. What possible elective surgery could Austin have had that he’d literally go AWOL for a week and put the Nation’s security at risk rather than discuss?

Still, there are apologists at work. Democrat apparatchik Brad Carson doesn’t see anything wrong.

There is no standard protocol for when to announce a defense secretary’s hospitalization or temporary inability to do the job, said Brad Carson, formerly under secretary and chief management officer of the Army, though he added it could depend on the severity of Austin’s condition. If Austin were incapacitated, Congress would surely want to know. But if he were still capable of making decisions, even under a doctor’s supervision, “I don’t think Congress has to be notified in such cases.”

This is bullsh**. It makes no sense to say Congress doesn’t need to know if the Secretary of Defense is in the ICU because that affects national security. It certainly makes no sense to imply the national security adviser doesn’t need to be told.

It’s childish and unprofessional to tell the leaders of both chambers of Congress to FOAD by not informing them you are incapacitated. It is dangerously disloyal not to let the Jake Sullivan, idiot that he is, know. It is a sure bet that if Sullivan didn’t know that Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines were also out of the loop.

Austin’s Department of Defense is a barking shambles. It is incompetent in action and not trustworthy. It not only lies to the people and to Congress, but to the White House and itself…okay, maybe that isn’t all that unusual. As the old saying goes, a fish rots from the head down. If Biden lets this slide by, he’s a much bigger imbecile than even I had considered possible.

For gun rights advocates, a ‘Bruen’ bonanza
Upholding weapons ban just one development

In a Dec. 22 press release, the Attorney General’s Office trumpeted the fact that it had successfully defended the state’s assault weapons ban in federal court.

But not only has the final chapter in that case, Capen and National Association for Gun Rights v. Campbell, not yet been written, there is no end in sight — here and across the country — to the battles spawned by the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

In Bruen, the Supreme Court refined the Second Amendment jurisprudence it had previously laid out in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, clarifying that it believed that appellate courts had gone astray in interpreting Heller.

Since Heller, the appeals courts had developed a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges, combining history with means-end scrutiny, which the Bruen court said was one step too many. The proper test should involve drawing analogies to the country’s history of firearm regulation alone, the Supreme Court ruled.

The court stressed that it was attempting to create “neither a regulatory straightjacket nor a regulatory blank check.” As courts were engaging in “analogical reasoning,” they need only find “a well-established and representative historical analogue, not a historical twin,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the six-member majority in Bruen.

Since that ruling, courts in Massachusetts and elsewhere have begun fleshing out the standard, often prompted by cases filed by emboldened gun rights advocates. Recent weeks have not only seen U.S. District Court Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV’s denial of the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in Capen but a Superior Court judge similarly rejecting a post-Bruen challenge to Massachusetts’ ban on anyone under the age of 21 obtaining a license to carry a handgun outside their home.

Meanwhile, gun rights advocates are celebrating a Lowell District Court judge’s decision to dismiss a charge of carrying a firearm without a license that a New Hampshire man had been facing for bringing the weapon he was licensed to carry in his home state across state lines.

Bruen has also revived a challenge to the state’s “gun roster” in the federal case Granata, et al. v. Campbell, et al., and spawned a new lawsuit challenging gun license delays of six months or more in Boston in White, et al. v. Cox.

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A STERN WARNING

The Houthi terrorist group is an Iranian proxy that Iran has found increasingly useful. The Houthis have attacked American assets stationed in their vicinity at will and disrupted commercial shipping in the Red Sea. American forces sunk three Houthi boats attacking a commercial freighter this past Sunday.

The Biden administration has politely warned the Houthis to knock it off. Going a step further, the Biden administration has organized Operation Prosperity Guardian, “a multinational naval task force to protect commercial ships in both the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden,” according to the recent New York Times story.

And yet the Houthis persist. Yesterday the Houthis claimed responsibility for the latest attack on a merchant ship in the Red Sea, as the vessel’s operator sharply raised prices between Asia and Europe. The Times of Israel reports that story here (with credit to AFP).

It’s come to this: A Joint Statement from the Governments of the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. This is the statement in its entirety as posted by the White House:

Recognizing the broad consensus as expressed by 44 countries around the world on December 19, 2023, as well as the statement by the UN Security Council on December 1, 2023, condemning Houthi attacks against commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea, and in light of ongoing attacks, including a significant escalation over the past week targeting commercial vessels, with missiles, small boats, and attempted hijackings,

We hereby reiterate the following and warn the Houthis against further attacks:

Ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are illegal, unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing. There is no lawful justification for intentionally targeting civilian shipping and naval vessels. Attacks on vessels, including commercial vessels, using unmanned aerial vehicles, small boats, and missiles, including the first use of anti-ship ballistic missiles against such vessels, are a direct threat to the freedom of navigation that serves as the bedrock of global trade in one of the world’s most critical waterways.

These attacks threaten innocent lives from all over the world and constitute a significant international problem that demands collective action. Nearly 15 percent of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, including 8 percent of global grain trade, 12 percent of seaborne-traded oil and 8 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas trade. International shipping companies continue to reroute their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding significant cost and weeks of delay to the delivery of goods, and ultimately jeopardizing the movement of critical food, fuel, and humanitarian assistance throughout the world.

Let our message now be clear: we call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways. We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks.

I wish Henry Kissinger were available for comment. I’m quite sure this is not how he did these things. Under the circumstances, it seems unlikely that a rhetorical escalation will produce the desired deterrent effect, but that is only a guess. We shall see.

Typically Tyrannical: Biden Admin Slips Out Slew Of ‘Regulations’ Over Holidays

As tyrants so often do, on December 29th the Biden Administration quietly slid out a “slow-news/Holiday-hidden” announcement of many more “regulations” it is imposing on your market choices of home appliances.

And to add insult to injury, it’s all for their religion-like claim to be preventing a Kali-esque demigod, “anthropogenic climate change” from destroying the world.

It’s a false religion, backed by fake claims of “science” and false claims of “savings” that they’re imposing on you.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

Indeed, as American families gathered for the Holidays, the Biden Department of Energy (DOE) under slick, smarmy, “enriched by stock options received from palsy corporations” DOE head Jennifer Granholm and her cult released the song of Kali.

Nick Pope reports on it, for DailyCaller:

“The Department of Energy (DOE) finalized or proposed a bevy of regulatory actions cracking down on numerous appliances on Friday.

The DOE proposed new rules designed to promote ‘energy efficient’ commercial fans and blowers, and also finalized energy efficiency standards for refrigerators and freezers, the agency announced Friday. The regulatory actions are the latest in a string of moves by the Biden administration intended to phase out a host of fossil fuel-powered appliances and replace them on the market with more energy efficient, and often electric, equivalents.”

I suspect that you, too, might be wondering where their vaunted US Constitution hides the so-called “authority” for the feds to create a DOE, let alone tell private makers of appliances what they can and cannot offer you to freely purchase or leave on the showroom floor. Perhaps, you, also, might be scratching your head over the easy way elitist bureaucrats and politicians claim to define for US what is “efficient.”

Well, you’d better extend the sentiment of “Silent Night” to your potential protestations about those matters, because, of course, the mandates are for YOUR OWN GOOD, to stop their magic monster of “anthropogenic climate change,” and if you should question either their mandates or their faulty claims of “science,” you are an apostate of the new religion.

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Looks Like There’s Massive Non-Compliance With Illinois Gun Registration

The deadline for Illinois gun owners to register their banned “assault weapons” with the state police has come and gone, and contrary to the predictions of Gov. J.B. Pritzker it looks like there was no last-minute flood of registrations. According to the latest figures from the Illinois State Police, about 15,000 FOID holders had registered one or more firearm, “large capacity” magazine, or other device named in the Protect Illinois Communities Act as of late last week; about double the number that the ISP had previously reported, but still fewer than one percent of the nearly two million Firearm Owner ID card holders in the state.

Not everyone who possesses a valid FOID card ones one or more of the guns banned under the Protect Illinois Communities Act, but my guess is that the vast majority of them own either a firearm covered under PICA or a “large capacity” magazine that’s supposed to be registered with the state police. Compliance with the registration looks to be almost non-existent, which raises the question of how, exactly, the new ban will be enforced going forward.

In November, state police said it is up to prosecutors in the state’s 102 counties to enforce the law, but it’s unclear what penalties would be in store for those who fail to register their weapons. Penalties can vary for illegal weapons. Carrying or possessing unauthorized assault weapons could result in a misdemeanor, with one year in jail or a fine of up to $2,500. Manufacturing, selling, or purchasing an unauthorized weapon could constitute a felony and result in up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000.

Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain explained that his deputies won’t be going door to door to find residents who may have a FOID card and “asking to see all of their weapons.” He said the law works more during high-profile investigations.

“However, if we are investigating a criminal organization and we do come across firearms that are in violation of the assault weapons ban, we will certainly use this new law to enhance criminal charges against them,” Hain said.

While some sheriffs like Hain say they’ll enforce the law if there are more serious charges attached, other sheriffs and even some state’s attorneys have indicated they have no plans on enforcing the law at all, much to the chagrin of gun control advocates, anti-gun politicians, and their allies in the media.

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The Biden Administration Hasn’t Just Abandoned You, It’s Actively Trying to Subject You to Invasion

The federal government has many jobs. In fact, I’d say it has more than it should, but one of its primary duties is to guard and protect our borders. Since day one of the Biden administration, it has done its level best to ignore that duty and at times, make it even harder for the states to do.

As Becca Lower reported recently, Texas has made moves to batten down the border and see to it that the uncontrolled flow of illegal immigration is halted. The Biden administration’s response was to threaten to sue Texas for the effort to do what the federal government is refusing to do:

The Justice Department said it would file a lawsuit against SB4 if Texas did not assure federal officials by Jan. 3 that the state would refrain from enforcing the law as planned in March, according to a letter sent to Gov. Greg Abbott on Dec. 28 and obtained by CBS News. In addition to creating illegal entry crimes at the state level, the law would allow Texas judges to issue de facto deportation orders.

In its letter, the Justice Department said SB4 would effectively criminalize actions that are already illegal at the federal level, undermine relations with Mexico and prevent officials from enforcing federal immigration laws, including those designed to grant refuge to migrants fleeing persecution.

The ever-ridiculous KJP doubled down on the federal government’s decision by referring to Texas’s border protection as racist, claiming that the immigration laws don’t “make the communities in Texas safer” and saying Republicans are just trying to “demonize immigrants and also dehumanize immigrants.”

WH press sec says the new immigration law in Texas "does not make the communities in Texas safer" and claims "it is very much in line with what many Republicans like to do or tend to do which is demonize immigrants and also dehumanize immigrants." pic.twitter.com/4zn8vKeAKg

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 19, 2023

This is all ridiculous, of course. Not only does illegal immigration bring waves of crime of all kinds, including drug and sex trafficking, but it’s not just the people of Texas who are affected either. Blue cities such as Chicago and New York are also being invaded.

And that’s the issue. We’re being invaded and our government is helping. It would be one thing if they were doing nothing. In fact, that would be preferable to what they’re doing now, which is actively trying to hold the border open so that more illegal immigrants can come in.

Our own federal government has sided with the invasion force.

At this point, it’s not too extreme to say that your own federal government has turned against you. It’s continuously tried to empower anything that could possibly cause you problems like the IRS, and weaponized federal agencies like the FBI against parents looking after their children.

And the open border is just one more example of how your own government has abandoned its duties and actively worked against you. It is you vs. them, and you still have to endure one more year of the Biden administration’s control over your nation.

It’s safe to say that it has to be stopped. This kind of anti-American government is unsustainable and our nation will bear the scars the Biden admin inflicted on it for decades to come. And who knows what kind of fallout we’ll experience from so much illegal immigration as time progresses. We’re not just talking about cartel members here. We’re also talking about radical terrorists from the Middle East and agents from other countries.

Your federal government is not your federal government. It serves its own purposes, not yours.

Honolulu Has Cut Off Gun Sales

Gun sales have been blocked for much of December in Hawaii’s largest city.

That’s what the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, a local gun-rights group, claimed in a statement on Wednesday. It said the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) has advised gun purchase or carry permit applicants they won’t process them without a currently-unattainable training certification. And it’s unclear when those permits might become available again.

“It has been brought to our attention from multiple sources that the Honolulu Police Department, under the guidance of Police Chief Logan, is no longer processing ANY firearms permit applications or concealed carry applications until after the new year, and he has the ability to verify or certify instructors,” the group posted on social media. “The department requires all applications submitted after December 18th to provide proof of instruction by a certified/verified instructor before processing their application.

“The problem?????? He hasn’t certified or verified any instructors.”

The Honolulu Police Department did not return multiple calls seeking comment on the situation.

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UK: Welsh Government is using 14-year-old Welsh girls to attract migrant men to the country

Migrants arriving in Europe come from Africa and Asia where pedophilia is wide spread.

Wales is using little girls to encourage migrants to move to Wales and claim benefits and housings. pic.twitter.com/pjKIeoCQae

— Klaus Arminius (@Klaus_Arminius) December 26, 2023

With One Week Remaining, 99.4% of Illinois Gun Owners Have Said ‘No Thanks’ To Gun Registration

The Democrats who run Illinois decided long ago to blame gun owners for the results of the woke, soft-on-crime policies that have led to proliferating crime in the state. Instead of targeting the relatively small number of violent gang members who make Chicago live up to its Murder City USA moniker, politicians have instead targeted law-abiding gun owners with gun bans and a new gun registration scheme.

The so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act demanded existing owners of particularly frightening firearms register their magazine-fed, semi-automatic rifles. These include guns best-suited to self-defense including America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15. The law also bans many semi-auto shotguns and handguns. Then there are the accessories and .50 BMG ammunition that must be registered as well.

With a December 31 deadline fast approaching, the Illinois State Police released their Week 11 compliance update on Wednesday and it’s a doozy. While thousands of Illinois gun owners have dutifully complied, millions have not. Holders of 15,164 Firearms Owner ID cardholders have registered an average of about 3.5 covered items each.

Put another way, 2,400,317 FOID holders have registered…nothing. Running that through some public school math, that yields a 99.4% non-compliance rate.

Why are so few Illinois citizens complying? Aside from the fundamental 2A conflicts, there’s also the leak from the Governor’s inner circle to “close the existing owner loophole” as reported by Guns Save Life.

So what is next? Following a mass-casualty incident, especially if it happens in the Land of Lincoln, the Governor will announce a plan to “close the existing owner loophole.” Their words, not ours.

Governor Pritzker will back legislation to call for those who have registered guns and accessories to surrender those registered items to the police after 90 days or so. Failure to do so would result in felony charges.

By mandating the surrender of those registered items, they can determine who has complied and who has not. Those who have not can expect ISP-led “firearm compliance teams” to knock on their doors.

That should surprise no one. Firearm registration has always had only one real purpose…to facilitate confiscation when politicians finally get up the testicular fortitude to press their anti-gun antipathy to that extent. That’s always been clear and it’s why there’s a law prohibiting federal firearm registration.

While achieving a compliance rate of more than one percent might be seen as some kind of psychological milestone of “success” by Governor Pritzker, it’s actually a humiliating public repudiation of Pritzker’s radical left anti-gun politics.

The little people have made it perfectly clear that they have no intention of complying with Illinois politicians’ gun-grabbing schemes. Don’t expect their attitude toward “closing the existing owner loophole” to be any more enthusiastic.

Gun deaths rise along with gun control grade

Gun control advocates should have reason to celebrate. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence upgraded Colorado’s grade on the “annual gun law scorecard” from a C+ in 2021, to a B in 2022 and an A- this year.

As reported in Gazette sister publication Colorado Politics, Colorado earned its A- for imposing waiting periods, banning “ghost” guns, enacting legislation on victims’ legal access, increasing the minimum age to purchase firearms and investing $1 million in community violence intervention.

The grade would deserve accolades — if it correlated with a decrease in gun violence. It does not. The year Colorado moved from a C to a B was the year Colorado’s rate of gun deaths reached a 40-year high. It is also the year Colorado set a record for the most people injured in mass shootings in a single year.

Since the Columbine High School massacre of 1999, Colorado has understandably pursued more gun regulation. The state enacted background checks at gun shows in 2000. It later passed a 15-round limit on bullet magazines. In 2013, Colorado required universal background checks.

From there, the state passed a red flag law in 2019. The next year, it enacted mandatory reporting for lost or stolen firearms and a safe firearm storage law.

Despite a 23-year gun-control effort, gun sales and gun crimes have risen.

Colorado’s gun sales in 2022 were 26% higher than in 2019. Early indicators suggest this year’s Colorado holiday gun sales will set a record.

An A- for gun control — after a significant rise in gun crimes — amounts to accolades for policies that don’t work.

It frustrates Colorado’s political leaders. Gov. Jared Polis and state’s Attorney Gen. Phil Weiser want to spend $600,000 to hire outside lawyers. They would lend the attorneys to the federal government to prosecute gun crimes.

If federal enforcement saves lives, this proposal could pay off. Properly written and enforced, gun regulations should allow guns in the hands of stable, sober, law-abiding adults.

It should keep guns from substance abusers, criminals, domestic abusers, severe mental illness patients, and others given due process and deemed likely to misuse them.

If Colorado subsidizes enforcement of federal gun laws, Polis and Weiser should take similar action regarding federal drug laws.

Colorado has undermined federal drug laws and enforcement for years, even as fentanyl became the number 1 killer of young adults. We legalized recreational pot in 2012. More recently, our state decriminalized fentanyl, heroin, crack cocaine and other deadly street drugs.

Likewise, Colorado has consistently undermined federal immigration laws. The combined chaos of immigration, rising crime, drug deaths, homelessness and needles in parks probably led to escalating gun ownership in Colorado and the rest of the country.

“There are many communities with sustained levels of crime that have not abated,” said National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesperson Mark Oliva, as quoted in Gazette sister publication The National Examiner.

“Those concerns, along with the punishing anti-gun measures by the Biden administration and threats of more gun control promised by the Biden-Harris reelection campaign, cannot be discounted as contributing factors (to rising gun sales).

“Americans have demonstrated month after month and year after year, (that) Second Amendment rights matter, and they are investing their hard-earned dollars to exercise their right to lawfully possess firearms before the right can be further infringed (upon).”

Reducing gun violence means more and better mental health care. It means restoring harsh penalties for crimes. It means controlling the border. It means enforcing drug laws and offering help for addiction. It means more looking out for those who suffer.

Sadly, it seems we don’t save lives by simply churning out gun laws — even if handed a medal for doing so.

The Gazette Editorial Board

2024—the Year of our Reckoning
Will we meet the challenges or ensure the ongoing decline?

We should remember the now modern proverb of Nixon-era economic advisor Herb Stein to the effect that what cannot go on (without destroying the nation), simply will not go on.

In some sense, the country for recent years has been cruising on the fumes from prior and likely better wiser generations and institutions. In 2024, the tab for our current apathy, toxic politics, and incompetence will come due.

So next year we will likely see the climax to a number of current dangerous ideas, events, and forces, which finally will either overwhelm us or be addressed and remedied. We live in a Neronian age but can recover if we first understand how we got here and the nature of the suicide we are committing.

In 2023, it became clear, to even the most loyal supporters of the Biden administration, that the U.S. has simply lost or indeed forfeited American deterrence abroad. Our enemies do not fear us; our friends do not trust us; and neutrals do not care either way.

After the 2021 Kabul debacle, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the 2023 brazen Chinese spy balloon’s uncontested trajectory over the United States, the recent Hamas invasion of Israel, the serial Iranian-fueled terrorist attacks on U.S. installations in the Middle East, and the terrorist Houthis’ veritable absorption of the Red Sea, many of America’s opportunistic enemies drew conclusions and adopted strategies that would have been previously unthinkable.

Either adversaries will be so emboldened to start regional wars—an impotent Iran now brags it will block the entire Mediterranean—or a United States will be shocked into action and have to deter Iran, the Houthis, and Islamic terrorism, while dealing with an opportunistic China eager to annex Taiwan, and Russia determined to finish off Ukraine.

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Incompetent ‘Contagious Disease’ Diagnosis for Guns a Prescription for Tyranny

“New Mexico Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham held a recent press conference to praise herself for implementing dubious gun control measures,” the National Shooting Sports Foundation reported. “‘I won’t rest until we don’t have to talk about (gun violence) as an epidemic and a public health emergency,’ the governor said.”

If a prominent politician declares an epidemic and imposes edicts and orders to enforce them, it’s fair to ask, “Where’s the science?”

“Lujan Grisham was born in Los Alamos and graduated from St. Michael’s High School in Santa Fe before earning undergraduate and law degrees from the University of New Mexico,” the governor’s official biography states. Neither her education nor her claimed career highlights show her qualified to make such a proclamation on her own, which makes it fair to ask, “Who’s advising her?”

That would be Patrick M. Allen, her New Mexico Health Department Secretary.

“In simple terms, violence, especially gun violence, behaves like a contagious disease,” Allen pontificates in his op-ed, “Tackling Gun Violence: A Public Health Challenge — DOH secretary says rapidly-spreading violence behaves like a contagious disease.”

“Imagine treating violence as if it were an infectious disease. Just as we study diseases’ origins to combat them effectively, we can apply the same approach to violence,” Allen proclaims. “How do we address gun violence as the contagious disease it is? Gun violence is a public health emergency.”

He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, doesn’t he? The thing is, like the governor, the secretary in charge of the Land of Enchantment’s public health doesn’t have a qualified medical background, either.

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The Great Legal War Over Your Freedom

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022, the lower courts have been either trying to apply, or to resist, its directive to decide the validity of restrictions on the basis of the text of the Second Amendment and historical analogues from the time of the Founding. According to the ruling, an activity is presumed to be protected if it involves keeping and bearing arms by the people. The burden is then on the government to find historical precedents to show that a restriction is part of the nation’s history and tradition.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals applied Bruen to the federal ban on gun possession by a person subject to a domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) and found it to violate the Second Amendment. State DVROs are often issued with little pretense of an adversary hearing or are mutually agreed upon in divorces without knowledge that it evokes a federal gun ban.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, U.S. v. Rahimi, and a barrage of amicus briefs have been filed on both sides. Mr. Rahimi faces several state charges involving actual violence, dwarfing the federal possession charge. The amicus brief of the National Rifle Association put it this way: “Rahimi should not only lose his Second Amendment liberties, but he should also lose all of his liberties—if the allegations against him are ultimately proven true with sufficient due process. But constitutional safeguards cannot be set aside to obtain those ends.”

Consider the supposed historical analogues cited by Biden’s Justice Department and its amici—discriminatory laws disarming Catholics, slaves and “tramps”; confiscation of arms by oppressive British monarchs and by our own patriots in the American Revolution (there was a war going on, after all); and wholly irrelevant laws against gun sales to children and intoxicated persons. The Court heard oral arguments in the case on Nov. 7, 2023.

The Third Circuit, in Range v. Merrick Garland, held the federal ban on gun possession by felons to be unconstitutional as applied to a person convicted of a minor, non-violent offense. Again, no laws in the Founding era disarmed persons who were not dangerous. The government is asking the Supreme Court to hear that case after it decides Rahimi.

When it decided Bruen, the Supreme Court directed the Fourth Circuit to reconsider its upholding of Maryland’s “assault weapon” ban in Bianchi v. Frosh. That court had held that ordinary AR-15 semi-automatic rifles are not really different from machineguns and are “weapons of war most useful in military service,” even though no military force in the world issues them as service rifles.

The Fourth Circuit got right on it, holding its oral argument on Dec. 6, 2022. A year later, crickets. Still no decision. Is it really so hard to apply Bruen’s simple tests, or would the court not like the result?

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Massachusetts Assault Weapon Ban Ruled Constitutional by Judge

Massachusetts’ law prohibiting the possession and sale of some semiautomatic weapons commonly used in mass shootings is acceptable under a recent change to Second Amendment precedent from the US Supreme Court, a federal judge said Thursday.

The National Association for Gun Rights asked the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to prevent the state from being able to enforce its law, claiming the weapons are protected under the Second Amendment because they were in common use at the time the Second Amendment was adopted.

The banned weapons “are unreasonably dangerous for ordinary purposes of self-defense due to their extreme lethality and high potential for collateral harm,” Chief Judge Dennis Saylor wrote in an order denying the gun rights group’s request to halt enforcement of the law.

This IS NOT the Bruen Standard.

The US Supreme Court held last year in New York State Rifles & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen that state governments must prove a regulation would have been consistent with the nation’s historical regulation of firearms.

Saylor’s decision helps build the jurisprudence for the types of state regulations that remain acceptable under the Second Amendment post-Bruen as many states grapple with challenges to their weapon laws. States like Illinois, California, and Connecticut have also been allowed to move forward enforcing their assault weapon bans.

“The relevant history affirms the principle that in 1791, as now, there was a tradition of regulating ‘dangerous and unusual’ weapons—specifically, those that are not reasonably necessary for self-defense,” the order said, and the current restrictions “pose a minimal burden on the right to self-defense and are comparably justified to historical regulation.”

THIS, is not the Bruen Standard either!

Saylor was not convinced that assault weapons are commonly used for self-defense, finding them “generally unsuitable” for that purpose because of their weight, size, and firepower.

“The features of modern assault weapons—particularly the AR-15’s radical increases in muzzle velocity, range, accuracy, and functionality—along with the types of injuries they can inflict are so different from colonial firearms that the two are not reasonably comparable,” the order said.

The case is Capen v. Campbell, D. Mass., No. 1:22-cv-11431, order 12/21/23.

Federal Judge Declines to Temporarily Block Key Portion of Illinois High-Power Semiautomatic Weapons Ban

A federal judge in Illinois has declined to temporarily delay a portion of the state law banning some high-power semiautomatic weapons from going into effect.

U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn on Friday declined a request from several gun rights groups that would have delayed the Jan. 1 deadline for residents of Illinois to register their guns that are under the ban, according to the Chicago Tribune.

According to the report, those who have guns or accessories that are included in the ban are required to file “endorsement affidavits” with the Illinois State Police on their website.

Individuals who fail to register could be charged with a misdemeanor for the first offense and a felony for any offenses after.

McGlynn wrote in his opinion that a temporary injunction would “create further delays in this litigation when the constitutional rights of the citizens demand an expeditious resolution on the merits.”

President of Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, Dan Eldridge, told the outlet that the issue could end up in the Supreme Court.

“There’s a lot of stuff in motion in here,” Eldridge said.

The ban, signed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker in January, includes penalties for individuals who, “carries or possesses… manufactures, sells, delivers, imports, or purchases any assault weapon or .50 caliber rifle.”

The law also includes statutory penalties for anyone who, “sells, manufactures, delivers, imports, possesses, or purchases any assault weapon attachment or .50 caliber cartridge.”

Any kit or tools used to increase the fire rate of a semiautomatic weapon are also included in the ban, and the law includes a limit for purchases of certain magazines.

On Dec. 14, the Supreme Court allowed the law to remain in place after the National Association for Gun rights asked for a preliminary injunction.

In November, a 7th District U.S. Court of Appeals panel also refused a request to block the law. In August, the law was upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision.

Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Overturn Injunction on Federal Agencies Influencing Tech Censorship
Biden wants the Supreme Court to support its censorship efforts.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed an injunction against federal agencies to stop the current White House from colluding with Big Tech’s social media.

And now, the Biden Administration is going to the US Supreme Court in a last-ditch attempt to reverse this decision.

The big picture effect – or at least, the intended meaning – of the Fifth Circuit ruling was to stop the government from working with Big Tech in censoring online content.

There’s little surprise that this doesn’t sit well with that government, which now hopes that the federal appellate court’s decision can be overturned.

The White House says the ruling is banning its “good” work done alongside social media to combat “misinformation”; instead of admitting its actions to amount to collusion with Big Tech – which has been amply documented now, not least by the Twitter Files – the government insists its actions are serving the public, and its “ability” to discuss relevant issues.

We obtained a copy of the petition for you here.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is back again here – to say that what those now in power in the US (a message amplified by legacy media) did ahead of the 2020 presidential election, as well as subsequently regarding the pandemic “misinformation” – which is now fairly widely accepted to be censorship (“moderation”) – is what Murthy still calls, justified.

By what, though? Because the appellate court’s ruling looked into the government’s “persuasive actions” (and no, you’re not reading a line from a gangster movie script, where “coercion” is spelled as, “urging”, etc.).

In any case, the appellate court found these actions were in fact coercive and unconstitutional.

Well, Murthy believes the court got it all wrong. The Fifth Circuit is accused of “improperly applying new and unprecedented” remedies. (No – he was not talking about the Covid vaccine(s). The reference was to the court’s allegedly flawed “legal theories”).

Murthy and other administration representatives are telling the Supreme Court that what the Fifth Circuit found to be unconstitutional, was actually “lawful persuasive governmental actions.”

The “grand” argument here is that, historically, US governments have been using free speech as a vehicle to promote their policies. And so – why would this case of “urging” Big Tech be any different?

“The Biden administration’s urging of social media platforms to enforce their content moderation policies to combat misinformation and disinformation is no different,” the government said.

In case you ever wondered what ‘bureaucrapese’ was:

"Can you point to one thing the White House is doing *right now* that is making an impact on the border?"

KIRBY: No pic.twitter.com/NUh3fwGKkC

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 21, 2023

Everytown and Baltimore Go Fishing With New ATF Lawsuit

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is teaming up with Everytown Law to challenge the ATF’s policy on firearm trace data; specifically, the agency’s determination that the particulars of firearm traces can be shared only with law enforcement and not, say, gun control groups or their anti-2A allies.

In a series of posts on X, the Bloomberg-funded gun control outfit claimed that mayors like Scott cannot keep their communities safe “without access to critical data that shows where crime guns are coming from,” but the real impetus for the lawsuit is about fueling even more litigation, not public safety.

According to Scott, city officials requested “the identity of the top ten sources of crime guns in Baltimore from 2018 to 2022 as part of the City’s effort to fight gun violence.” What they’re really looking for, however, are the names of high-volume FFLs; gun stores that they can blame for the city’s woeful rate of violent crime, suing them under the theory that they should be held responsible for the actions of criminals, even if there’s no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the retailer or its employees.

The ATF makes clear that the data isn’t supposed to be used in this fashion. Not every firearm that’s traced has been used in a crime, and not every gun used in a crime will be traced by the ATF, but that hasn’t stopped the gun control lobby from wanting to get its hands on the granular data collected by the agency; data that is, by the way, already available to the Baltimore Police Department, Maryland State Police, and other law enforcement entities across the state.

Continue reading “”

“I’ll take ‘Totally Lacking Due Process” for $500, Alex

On Trump and Colorado

By now most readers will have heard that Donald Trump was disqualified from the ballot in the state of Colorado, by the Colorado State Supreme Court, for what amounts to a criminal offense neither proven nor charged. Fifth Amendment, Schmifth Amendment, apparently.

This is a major escalation of the lawfare phenomenon that’s zoomed from simmer to boil in the seven short years since Trump was first elected in 2016. The glee of #Resistance dolts like Robert Reich and Dean Obeidallah at this decision shows that this was a move dreamed up at the very center of the bubble-within-a-bubble-within-a-bubble that is the blob of the modern Democratic Party. Racket readers, I had a piece planned for later on a quasi-related subject, but I’ll try to get it out in the day or so now.