Category: Goobermint

SAF SUES CALIFORNIA OVER ‘SENSITIVE PLACES’ LEGISLATION

The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit in California seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from the freshly inked Senate Bill 2 (SB 2), which makes nearly every public place in the state a “sensitive place” and forbids the carrying of firearms even by citizens who have gone through the lengthy and expensive process of obtaining a concealed handgun license.

SAF is joined by Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, the California Rifle & Pistol Association and eleven private citizens. Named as Defendant is California Attorney General Rob Bonta. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys C.D. Michel, Sean A. Brady and Konstadinos T. Moros at Michel & Associates in Long Beach, and Donald Kilmer, Law Offices of Don Kilmer, Caldwell, Idaho.

“SB 2 is designed to frustrate and ultimately discourage individuals from exercising their right to bear arms by creating a patchwork of locations where Second Amendment rights may, or may not, be exercised,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “That is not how constitutional rights work. SAF is happy to add California to the list of states that we have sued for adopting so-called ‘Bruen Response Bills’ that make it impractical, if not impossible for people to exercise their rights by essentially making carry permits useless.”

“Under SB 2,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “legally armed California citizens might be able to carry on some streets and sidewalks, and in a few private businesses that post signs allowing legal carry on their premises. Overall, however, SB 2 is a massive prohibition on legal carry throughout the Golden State, which runs counter to what the U.S. Supreme Court said in its Bruen ruling last year, and which Gov. Gavin Newsom and anti-gun-rights state lawmakers are desperately trying to get around.”

“The right to keep and especially bear arms is under direct attack via SB 2,” Kraut observed. “California continues its trend of ignoring rights safeguarded by the Constitution. Such disregard cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.”

Question O’ The Day

 

BLUF
If you want people to believe that the government is going to attempt to ignore the Constitution, seize their weapons, and forcibly subjugate them, you do exactly what Michelle Lujan Grisham chose to do here. You ignore the U.S. and state constitutions, you ignore your state legislature, you ignore the need to build consensus before you make a dramatic change in the law, and you accuse law-enforcement officials who object to the change, citing the Constitution, of being “squeamish.”

Gun Order and New Mexico: Michelle Lujan Grisham Breaks Badly.

On the menu today: New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham declares war on her own state’s constitution and mocks her state’s police for being “squeamish,” and a new book reveals how much the U.S. government and its contractors deliberately hindered the Afghan military’s ability to protect itself as the Taliban approached Kabul in the spring and summer of 2021.

Gun Order Backfires

Let us begin by being clear: The governor of a state does not have the right to unilaterally suspend laws or portions of the state or U.S. constitutions by an emergency declaration, absent an actual indisputable emergency and justification that will hold up under judicial review. The National Conference of State Legislatures summarizes:

In times of war, disease or other extraordinary conditions, each state authorizes its governor to declare a state of emergency. Once an emergency has been declared, executive powers expand until the emergency ends. These powers include authority normally reserved for legislatures, such as the ability to suspend existing statutes or effectively create new laws — albeit temporarily and only as needed to respond to the emergency situation.

Although governors need to be able to respond to emergencies quickly, legislatures have an important role in making sure these powers are not abused and that they do not undermine the separation of powers vital to our democratic system of government.

What is at stake in these circumstances is nothing less than whether the U.S. remains a country with a government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln described in the Gettysburg Address.

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Comment O’ The Day
Let’s call this what it is: The sex groomer Stasi.

BLUF
Make no mistake: This bill does involve training teachers to profile parents based on the likelihood that they may secretly harbor heresy against the transgender state religion

California Bills Headed to Newsom’s Desk Will Launch a Transgender Inquisition Targeting Parents.

“We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children” might as well become the new slogan of the Golden State.

California’s Legislature has passed—or is about to pass—a slew of bills aimed at undermining the rights of parents (and potential foster parents) who disagree with the transgender worldview.

What would the state need to launch a transgender inquisition? It would need inquisitors to identify and hunt down parents who dared to dissent from gender ideology. It would need an apparatus to induct kids into its cult while keeping parents in the dark. It would need institutions to screen potential foster parents to block heretics from fostering or adopting kids who might convert to the state religion. Most importantly, it would need a legal way to pry kids from the arms of their apostate progenitors.

These legislative proposals foot that bill. One of them would train teachers to profile these hated “anti-LGBTQ” parents, another would train psychotherapists to prepare to hide gender “treatments” from parents at a minor’s request, a third would prevent school districts from removing sexually explicit books if they contain transgender themes, a fourth would prevent Californians from becoming foster parents if they dissent from gender ideology, and the fifth would expand the definition of child abuse to include “non-affirmation” of a child’s claimed transgender identity.

In a supreme Orwellian irony, each of these California bills claims to uphold the virtues of “diversity” and “inclusion,” while forcing down parents’ throats a constricting worldview at odds with reality and seeking to exclude moms and dads from raising their own children if they dare to disagree.

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Does Grisham have an end game with her gun ban order?

The Albuquerque police chief says he won’t enforce it. The Bernalillo County sheriff says the same thing. Even the District Attorney in Albuquerque says he won’t enforce Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s order suspending open and concealed carry in the city for 30 days, calling it “clearly unconstitutional“. With gun owners rallying in Old Town Albuquerque over the weekend, many of them openly carrying firearms in defiance of Grisham’s order, gun control activists divided over her announcement, and the governor herself unclear about what enforcement might look like, I can’t help but wonder if she has an actual end game in mind or if she’s just making it up as she goes along.

Armed American Radio’s Mark Walters joins me on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co to kick around Grisham’s order suspending the right to carry in Albuquerque for the next 30 days, and we’re both in agreement that gun owners in Albuquerque should be disregarding the governor’s edict. I won’t even call continuing to carry an act of civil disobedience, because Grisham has no lawful authority to suspend the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms simply by declaring a public safety emergency. Gun owners who continue to carry, either openly or concealed, are simply continuing to exercise their Second Amendment rights as they always have, and the multiple legal challenges that have been filed in response to Grisham’s declaration should soon make that abundantly clear to the governor and any state official willing to try to enforce it.

The biggest question isn’t whether or not Grisham’s order will stand up to legal scrutiny, but why she made the ill-fated decision to unilaterally suspend the Second Amendment right to bear arms inside Albuquerque city limits in the first place. Grisham’s move doesn’t appear to have been coordinated with any major gun control organizations, and it appeared to blindside local Democrats and public officials, including Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and police chief Harold Medina, as well as Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen.

Political consultant Joe Monahan says the governor’s “grand but ultimately feckless gesture” is a sign that New Mexico Democrats are at odds with each other when it comes to addressing the high violent crime rate in the state’s largest city.

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Fort v. Grisham: 2A Challenge to New Mexico Governor’s Carry Ban

Summary: Federal lawsuit challenging the New Mexico Governor’s total carry ban.

Plaintiffs: Zachary Fort, Firearms Policy Coalition, Second Amendment Foundation, and New Mexico Shooting Sports Association.

Defendants: New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico Department of Health Cabinet Secretary Patrick Allen, New Mexico Department of Safety Cabinet Secretary Jason Bowie, New Mexico State Police Chief W. Troy Weisler.

Litigation Counsel: Jordon George

Docket: D. NM case no. 1:23-cv-00778 | CourtListener Docket

Key Events & Filings:

We all know New Mexico goobernor Grisham issued an Emergency “Health Order” suspending concealed and open carry of guns in New Mexico even for concealed carry permit holders.

Challenge to N.M. Governor’s Ban on Public Gun Carry in Albuquerque and Surrounding County

From the motion for a temporary restraining order in Nat’l Ass’n for Gun Rights v. Grisham, filed yesterday in New Mexico federal court (paragraph numbering removed).

Governor Grisham issued Executive Order 2023-130 (the “Executive Order”) on September 7, 2023…. In the Executive Order Governor Grisham declared that a state of emergency exists in in New Mexico due to gun violence.

Based on the Executive Order, [N.M. Secretary of the Department of Health Patrick Allen issued “Public Health Emergency Order Imposing Temporary Firearm Restrictions, Drug Monitoring and Other Public Safety Measures” dated September 8, 2023 (the “PHE Order”)[:] …

[1] No person, other than a law enforcement officer or licensed security officer, shall possess a firearm … either openly or concealed, within cities or counties averaging 1,000 or more violent crimes per 100,000 residents per year since 2021 according to Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program AND more than 90 firearm-related emergency department visits per 100,000 residents from July 2022 to June 2023 according to the New Mexico Department of Public Health [which, according to news accounts, includes only Bernalillo County, where Albuquerque is located -EV], except:

 

[A] On private property owned or immediately controlled by the person;

[B.] On private property that is not open to the public with the express permission of the person who owns or immediately controls such property;

[C.] While on the premises of a licensed firearms dealer or gunsmith for the purpose of lawful transfer or repair of a firearm;

[D.] While engaged in the legal use of a firearm at a properly licensed firing range or sport shooting competition venue; or

[E.] While traveling to or from a location listed in Paragraphs (1) [sic] through (4) [sic] of this section; provided that the firearm is in a locked container or locked with a firearm safety device that renders the firearm inoperable, such as a trigger lock….

Bruen states that the appropriate test for applying the Second Amendment is: “[1] When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. [2] The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s unqualified command.” … The Carry Prohibition flatly prohibits Plaintiffs from carrying handguns (or any other firearm) in public for self-defense. Therefore, Plaintiffs’ burden under step one of the Bruen analysis is easily met for the same reason it was met in Bruen….

In Bruen, the State of New York conceded a general right to public carry. Instead, New York argued that that the Second Amendment permits a state to condition handgun carrying in certain areas on a showing of a “need” for self-defense in those areas. The Court held that to “support that claim, the burden falls on respondents to show that New York’s proper-cause requirement is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” After an exhaustive analysis of the relevant historical tradition, the Court held that New York failed to demonstrate that its law was consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation….

If New York’s “proper-cause” requirement for public carry failed Bruen’s second step, New Mexico’s flat prohibition of public carry under any circumstances necessarily fails Bruen’s second step as well. The Court can reach this conclusion without reviewing any of the relevant history, because as a matter of simple logic it is not possible for New Mexico to demonstrate that a flat prohibition on public carry is consistent with history and tradition when even a proper cause requirement for public carry was not….

Plaintiffs [also] desire to go to private businesses open to the public while lawfully carrying a firearm for lawful purposes, including self-defense, without first obtaining the express affirmative permission of the person who owns the property. The Carry Prohibition prohibits that conduct. Last month, in Wolford v. Lopez (D. Haw. 2023), the court issued a TRO and preliminary injunction enjoining a practically identical Hawaii law. Hawaii argued that there was historical support for its prohibition on carriage on private property without consent. After examining the historical record submitted by the state, the court rejected its argument. It wrote:

… The State has not established that the portion of [the statute] that prohibits carrying firearms on private property held open to the public is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation. Because the State has not met its burden, Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their challenge to [the statute] to the extent that [the statute] prohibits carrying firearms on private property held open to the public.

The historical record has not changed since last month. Like Hawaii, New Mexico will not be able to show that the Carry Prohibition’s prohibition on lawfully carrying firearms into private businesses in Affected Areas open to the public without first obtaining the express affirmative permission of the person who owns the property is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation. There is no such historical tradition. Therefore, the State is unable to carry its burden….

I intend to blog the other side’s argument when it becomes available. (You can read the full order, which is written to last until Oct. 6, here.) In the meantime, here’s the relevant part of the New Mexico Constitution’s right to bear arms provision (enacted in 1971):

No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons.

City of Las Vegas v. Moberg (1971) interpreted the 1912 constitutional right to bear arms  provision (“The people have the right to bear arms for their security and defense, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons”) as indeed invalidating laws that ban both open and concealed carry of guns. The argument in this federal case doesn’t rely on the state constitutional provision (likely because federal courts generally can’t issue injunctions against state governments violating state law), but I thought it worth noting, since the New Mexico Governor is of course obligated to comply with the state constitution.

Staff Pulls Plug on Presser as Biden Goes Over Edge in Vietnam With Confusion, Dog-Faced Pony Soldiers

Joe Biden was in Hanoi on Sunday, meeting with Vietnam’s Communist Party leader, General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng.

After the meeting, he made some remarks and took a few questions from the press. We probably don’t even have to say anymore that it didn’t go well, you can just assume that there are going to be big embarrassing issues.

Biden started in confusion about whether it was evening there (it was).

I think he was trying to make a joke about “Good Morning, Vietnam,” which was a famous Robin Williams movie, not a “famous song.” And maybe that’s not the best movie to bring up when you’re in Vietnam. As my colleague Andrew Malcolm observed in his post about Joe Biden’s visit, Biden said his Afghanistan withdrawal would not be as bad as the Saigon panic, but then it was.

But that was the good part. It was all downhill from there once the presser started. Although to be fair, it’s not much of a presser when he limits it to five preselected reporters that “they gave me here.”

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‘no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution’……
Sounds like the newest set of damage control talking points got emailed out for the parrots

 

Students are entering college unable to write.

K-12 public education has failed to prepare incoming college students how to write at the public level.

In a desperate attempt to catch high school graduates up to speed, many universities are providing remedial writing classes to college students.

About 68% of those starting at two-year public institutions and 40% of students enrolled in public four-year universities took at least one remedial writing class between 2003 to 2009, according to an original report from the Department of Education.

Average math and reading test scores dropped significantly from 2019 to 2021, according to a 2022 study by two Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). It seems likely that the 2016 figures would be much worse if they were resampled in 2023, after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Megan Kuhfeld, one of three NWEA study researchers, told Campus Reform Aug. 30 that “It seems likely but with two caveats: (a) the students in our study have not reached college yet so it is hard to extrapolate from middle school test results and (b) colleges may have changed their criteria for routing students into remedial courses as a results of the pandemic, which would also change the proportion.”

The remediation statistics from the NWEA study indicate that many incoming and current college students are not prepared for university-level coursework. As such, numerous institutions are offering remedial writing courses aimed at preparing incoming freshmen on how to write at the college level.

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Gun Violence Declared a Public Health Emergency.

Gun violence has been declared a public health emergency in New Mexico following the death of an 11-year-old boy.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham made the announcement following the death of a young boy in a shooting on a highway. Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina confirmed in a press briefing that a boy was killed and a second woman was taken to hospital in critical condition. They were attacked while traveling westbound on Avenida Cesar Chavez near University Boulevard. Neither of the victims have been named.

Declaring a public health emergency, Lujan Grisham shared a statement lamenting the death of the boy and the earlier unrelated killing of a five-year-old girl in the area. “Today, I join the family of an 11-year-old boy in mourning his violent death yesterday. And I mourn the loss of a 5-year-old girl murdered in her bed last month,” the statement read.

“These are disgusting acts of violence that have no place in our communities. As a mother and grandmother, I cannot fathom the depth of these losses, and their effects will be felt by families, friends and communities forever.”

She said new measures need to be brought in to end gun violence in the state and called for a meeting to determine what steps can be taken to reduce harm caused by guns. Lujan Grisham continued: “The time for standard measures has passed. Today I am declaring gun violence a public health emergency in New Mexico.”

The executive order signed by Lujan Grisham stated the “rate of gun deaths in New Mexico” had increased by 43 percent from 2009 to 2018, compared to an 18 percent increase nationwide. It also said guns are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the state.

In her comments, the governor urged New Mexicans to take action against gun violence, saying: “To my fellow citizens: get loud. Step up. Demand change: from your neighbors, from your friends, from your communities, from your elected leaders. Enough is enough.”

Lujan Grisham’s actions were met with derision from New Mexico House Republican Minority Leader Ryan Lane, who accused her of politicizing the death to “push her anti-gun agenda.” Lane said in a statement: “The Democrat’s policies have created and exacerbated the crime crisis that is literally killing New Mexicans daily. It is unacceptable that it has taken this long to notice the number of everyday New Mexicans that are being affected by criminal violence.”

Newsweek has contacted Gov. Lujan Grisham via an email form on her website for comment.

___________________________________________

You know, concealed means concealed, but as I don’t live in NM……

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New Mexico governor issues order to suspend open and concealed carry of guns in Albuquerque

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency public health order that suspends the open and permitted concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days in the midst of a spate of gun violence.

The Democratic governor said she is expecting legal challenges but felt compelled to act in response to gun deaths, including the fatal shooting of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium this week.

The firearms suspension is tied to a threshold for violent crime rates that only the Albuquerque area currently meets. Police are exempt from the temporary ban on carrying firearms.

Lujan Grisham said the restrictions “are going to pose incredible challenges for me as a governor and as a state.”

“I welcome the debate and fight about how to make New Mexicans safer,” she said at a news conference, flanked by leading law enforcement officials, including the district attorney for the Albuquerque area.

Federal Judge Issues 42-Page Ruling on Floating Border Barriers

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the state of Texas to remove barriers from the Rio Grande, which Gov. Greg Abbott had put in place to deter migrants from entering his state illegally.

The Biden administration filed a lawsuit against Abbott in July, arguing that he had failed to obtain the federal government’s permission to place the buoys on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, CBS News reported.

In his 42-page preliminary injunction order, Judge David Ezra, a Ronald Reagan appointee, directed the state to remove the barriers from the river by Sept. 15.

Ezra wrote that Abbott needed permission to place the floating barriers in the Rio Grande because they obstructed a U.S. navigable waterway in violation of federal law.

The judge also pointed out that the water barrier raised international relations issues with Mexico, which are in the purview of the federal government.

“Mexico vigorously denounces the presence of the barrier, expressing its hope for expeditious removal of the barrier as the first topic at the August 10, 2023, meeting between Foreign Secretary Alicia Barcena and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken,” Ezra said.

I Can’t Stop Laughing: Biden Thinks He’s Treated Like a Toddler.

Joe Biden is a man who likes his ice cream and routinely needs the White House to clean up his messes. He could be in diapers at this point, too. Who knows? If he is, I’m sure the White House is doing everything possible to keep that under wraps.

But I digress. According to a new book by Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic and former editor of the New Republic, Joe Biden feels like his White House staff is babying him, and he’s not particularly happy about it.

The book recalls the incident where Biden riffed after the conclusion of a speech about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, making a statement that appeared to call for Putin to be overthrown. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said. According to Foer’s account, the White House was walking back the statement by the time Biden had reached his motorcade.

“Suddenly, the press wasn’t marveling at his rhetoric or his diplomatic triumphs; it was back to describing him as a blowhard lacking in self-control,” Foer writes in his book, and Biden was deeply upset over the media coverage of the gaffe and “left for home, ending his triumphalist tour, feeling sorry for himself.” The president “resented his aides for creating the impression that they had cleaned up his mess.”

“Rather than owning his failure, he fumed to his friends about how he was treated like a toddler,” Foer writes.

Naturally, the White House disputed this story when Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked about it.

“President Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. Why does White House staff treat him like a baby?” Doocy asked.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre might have needed a diaper of her own when she got that question, as she was none too pleased by it.

Doocy then quoted the book and asked, “Was John [F.] Kennedy ever babied like that?”

“So, look, I’ll say this,” she began. “There’s going to be a range — always — a range of books that are — about every administration, as you know — that’s going to have a variety of claims. That is not unusual. That happens all the time. And we’re not going to litigate those here. That’s something that we’re not going to speak to.”

Cute story. I wonder if Jean-Pierre would dismiss all the outlandish claims made about Trump in various books the same way.

Missouri has state preemption of any and all gun control laws, except they let cities ban open carry if a person doesn’t have a concealed carry permit. Strange, but that’s how permitless carry worked out when the different bills were combined and passed.

Gov. Mike Parson criticizes Kansas City’s new gun rules: ‘You can’t supersede state law’

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson spoke to KCUR’s Up To Date about the case of Kansas City Police officer Eric DeValkenaere, the expansion of I-70, the 2024 gubernatorial race, and Kansas City’s new gun ordinances.

Criminal justice advocates across Kansas City have speculated that Gov. Mike Parson might pardon Eric DeValkenaere, the former Kansas City Police detective who was convicted in 2021 for killing Cameron Lamb.

Parson told Up To Date’s Steve Kraske that he hasn’t sat down to discuss a potential pardon. He said that the legal process has to work out before he comes into play — DeValkenaere is currently appealing his conviction.

“It’s been unfortunate,” Parson said of the speculation. “I think a lot of people got spun up by that, elected officials up there are kinda claiming that. But the reality of it is that I haven’t had a conversation about that.”

Parson also criticized the new gun laws recently passed by Kansas City Council, outlawing certain modified firearms and prohibiting the transferring of weapons and ammo to minors.

“You can’t supersede state law, just like I can’t supersede federal law. I wish I could sometimes, there’s lots of things I’d like to change,” Parson said. “The reality is that it needs to go in front of the General Assembly or needs to be voted on by the people to make those changes.”

In 2021, Parson signed into law the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” which penalized law enforcement for enforcing federal gun restrictions. However, that law was ruled unconstitutional.