NEW ORLEANS—During the COVID-19 pandemic Waylon Bailey made a joke about the virus, zombies, and his local sheriff’s department on Facebook. Today, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that Waylon’s joke was protected by the First Amendment and that deputies violated his free-speech rights and his Fourth Amendment rights when they arrested him. Waylon teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to appeal a lower court decision that granted qualified immunity to the detective and sheriff responsible for his arrest.
“I’m relieved that the court recognized that the deputies were wrong to arrest me for making a joke on Facebook,” said Waylon. “I’m glad that I will be able to hold the detective and sheriff accountable, and hopefully my case will stand as a strong statement to officers about what the First Amendment protects.”
Judge Dana M. Douglas, writing for the unanimous panel, said that: “The First Amendment’s protections apply to jokes, parodies, satire, and the like, whether clever or in poor taste.”
“The court’s opinion makes clear that the First Amendment applies with full force to online speech,” said IJ Attorney Ben Field. “Government officials can’t get away with stretching criminal laws to go after people who make jokes at their expense. This is a victory for free speech and common sense and against the pernicious doctrine of qualified immunity.”
Waylon Bailey’s March 2020 Facebook post used over-the-top language, emoji, and a hashtag referencing the Brad Pitt movie World War Z in facetiously warning that the local sheriff’s office had been ordered to shoot the “infected.” Despite the obvious indications that it was a joke, sheriff’s deputies decided to arrest Waylon, without a warrant, under an anti-terrorism law and sent a SWAT team with guns drawn to his garage.
Waylon was taken to jail and booked, though the absurd charge was dropped when a prosecutor reviewed the case. But when Waylon brought a civil-rights lawsuit, the deputy responsible for the arrest was granted qualified immunity by the district court. To add insult to injury, the court also said that Waylon didn’t have any free speech rights to make a joke in the first place. The 5th Circuit reversed and remanded to the district court, which will now fully consider Waylon’s civil-rights lawsuit.
“Any reasonable officer would have known that Waylon’s zombie joke was clearly protected by the First Amendment, and certainly wasn’t ‘terrorizing,’” said IJ Attorney Caroline Grace Brothers. “By denying qualified immunity to the detective who arrested Waylon, this decision confirms that government officials should not escape accountability when it should have been obvious that their actions were unconstitutional.”
Leftist politicians rarely tell the truth. Their policies and ideals are so bad that they can’t, and they know it, thus the nonstop hyperbole, grandstanding, and projection. It’s infuriating that so many Americans either are unable to see this, thanks in part to a complicit MSM, or so blinded by their ideology that they choose to ignore the fact that they get endlessly played by those they keep electing.
As with any good totalitarian leftist regime, gun confiscation is at the top of the leftist wish list. It’s much easier to institute control and compliance over an unarmed citizenry than it is an armed one. They may deny it, but deep down, this is what they want. All you have to do is watch and listen to them.
You hear them use code words like “military-grade weapons” and “red flag laws.” Even our leftist administrative state is getting in on the action, as the ATF is now targeting gun dealers by denying more and more of their business licenses. It probably won’t be long until this administration starts mandating that banks curtail any financial dealings with gun manufacturers and dealers, just as it has with the fossil fuel industry. House bills are already written to pin blame on gun manufacturers for gun-related crimes. Once instituted, there is no way those business can survive the legal onslaught that would come their way. Leftists may not be able to repeal the 2nd Amendment, yet, but they can sure regulate their way around it.
This leftist playbook was recently revealed by progressive St. Louis mayor Tishaura Jones. Under her leadership, the city recently passed Bill 29, which repealed the city’s open carry law, but that wasn’t enough for her. Now she’s proposing more “commonsense gun legislation,” including but not limited to red flag laws, background checks, banning “military-grade” weapons, and prohibiting insurrectionists and those convicted of hate crimes from owning guns.
While I find red flag laws deeply concerning, as they blatantly infringe upon an individual’s right to bear arms simply via another’s accusation, the last two in the list really set the alarm bells off. Of course, Mayor Jones didn’t specifically say what constitutes a “military-grade weapon,” and I’m not going to put words into her mouth, but any time the government looks to limit something, it’s only getting started. Military-grade weapons, or “weapons of war,” is an extremely vague term that can mean whatever the government wants it to mean, which is exactly how the government wants it. All these people need to do is to open that door and stick their foot in it, and then, over time they’ll be able to step right through.
This brings me to Jones’s most disturbing statement: “prohibiting insurrectionists and those convicted of hate crimes” from owning guns. We’ve already seen how loose our federal government is when it comes to labeling citizens as “insurrectionists.” Would local leftist leaders be at all different? Of course not.
In fact, let’s take this a step farther. With our federal Justice Department labeling concerned parents voicing opinions at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists,” what would stop local authorities from targeting them as well? Or the fact that certain crimes against certain “oppressed” or “victim” groups, as determined by the administrative state, constitutes forgoing your 2nd Amendment rights, too? This is nothing but blatant political weaponization against “enemies” in the guise of “commonsense” gun laws, with the government picking and choosing the winners and losers. In the 17th century, they were called “witch hunts.”
The fact that Mayor Jones used the word “insurrectionists” was no accident. On the surface, who would argue with disarming insurrectionists, right? But to the left, “insurrectionists” refers to anybody leftists disagree with, as well as other code words like “fascists,” “MAGA,” and “terrorists.” This is the semantic word game that leftists love to play. They’ll pass laws that, on their surface, may appear sensible and provide a good sound bite, just for them to then use these laws to cudgel their opposition, while giving free passes to those who support them.
We all have to vehemently resist leftists’ assault on the 2nd Amendment, for there is absolutely no question as to what their end game is: the disarmament of the populace and the persecution of their adversaries.
“Only the police should have guns”
(You ever notice that all the gun control laws the demoncraps want always exclude the police?)
A gunman who killed three people Wednesday night at a beloved local bar in Trabuco Canyon and wounded six others — including his estranged wife — was a former police officer, according to officials.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department identified the gunman as John Snowling, a retired Ventura police sergeant. When John Snowling, 59, came to Cook’s Corner, his target was his wife, who was a regular at the bar on Santiago Canyon Road. He fired on her and then began “shooting randomly,” Sheriff Don Barnes said Thursday afternoon.
Snowling entered the bar around 7 p.m. Wednesday during its weekly $8 spaghetti night — a family-friendly event — armed with two handguns, Barnes said. The retired cop walked up to his wife and immediately shot her once, wounding her, then shot the woman with whom she was dining. That woman, who has not been identified, later died.
There was no conversation or argument that preceded Snowling opening fire on his estranged wife, Barnes said.
“Mr. Snowling … then started randomly shooting at patrons within Cook’s Corner,” Barnes said. “That progressed to the outside area.”
At one point, Snowling returned to his truck in an upper parking lot, where he was confronted by a man from the bar — whom Snowling also shot, Barnes said. That man, who also has not been identified, later died.
When deputies arrived — within two minutes of the first 911 call — they found Snowling in the parking lot, Barnes said. The former cop began firing at deputies, hitting multiple law enforcement vehicles.
A gunfight ensued, and “it was gunfire from those deputies that ultimately took the life” of Snowling, Barnes said. Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said seven deputies opened fire, firing at least 75 shots.
After the shooting, deputies recovered four weapons Snowling had brought to the scene: two pistols, a revolver and a shotgun, Barnes said. All were acquired legally.
Barnes identified one of the men who was killed as John Leehey, 67, of Irvine. He did not identify the two others who were killed, as officials have not yet notified next of kin.
The six people who were injured in the shooting were taken to Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo on Wednesday night. Two were in critical condition — a man shot in the chest and a woman shot in the jaw, according to James Chisum, a spokesman for the hospital. The woman, believed to be Snowling’s estranged wife, Marie Snowling, was transferred overnight to UC Irvine Medical Center, Chisum confirmed Thursday.
The four other victims, all men, were stable, Chisum said. One was released from the hospital late Wednesday, and two others with minor injuries were expected to be released Thursday. A fourth man, shot in the arm, was likely to have surgery Thursday.
No children or deputies were injured in the shooting.
The Sheriff’s Department confirmed that Snowling’s wife was among the injured.
Mark Johnson, pianist for the Orange County band that was performing at the bar Wednesday night, said two members of the M-Street Band “were hit and were hospitalized but stable.” Johnson, drummer Brian Lynch and singer Debbie Johnson said in a video that guitarist Ed Means and bassist Dave Stretch were in the hospital. Lynch said they were “all going to be OK.”
Officials declined to identify the other injured victims.
Barnes said investigators were still searching for a motive. Snowling, who used to share a home with his wife in Camarillo, was most recently living in Ohio, Barnes said. He recently traveled back to Southern California, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he followed his estranged wife to the bar or found out she was going there, Barnes said.
On Thursday morning, heavily armed Orange County sheriff’s deputies surrounded Snowling’s home in the Camarillo neighborhood of El Capitan Place, not far from Adolfo Camarillo High School.
Deputies ordered any occupants to exit as they prepared to serve a search warrant. Two vehicles were in the driveway, but no one exited.
It wasn’t immediately clear what deputies seized or hoped to find in the search.
Snowling worked for the Ventura Police Department from 1986 to 2014, rising to the rank of sergeant, according to a department spokesman. He served as the president of the city’s police union in 2008 and 2009, records show.
In December 2022, Marie Snowling filed for divorce, writing that she had been estranged from her husband for two years, court filings show.
The couple had been married almost 32 years when they separated in November 2020, her attorney wrote, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the split. The case file contains no allegations of acrimony or abuse.
In February, John Snowling was served with the divorce papers in Newark, Ohio, records show. He had yet to respond to his wife’s petition.
His attorney, Tristan Tegroen, told The Times he was shocked by the shooting Wednesday, given how measured and fair the divorce proceedings had been so far.
Tegroen noted he is accustomed to rancorous divorces, but said with the Snowlings, “there was nothing like that — nothing at all.” As the lawyers in the case went about identifying and valuing their assets, Marie Snowling did not seek a restraining order against her husband, raise accusations of abuse or say she was fearful of him, he said.
Tegroen did not get the sense that any one issue had prompted the split, only that the two felt their marriage had run its course. “John was living in Ohio and she was here, and they were living apart,” he said.
“Honestly, this came as a horrible shock to me,” Tegroen said. “There was nothing on the radar to suggest he might do this.”
Marie Snowling’s lawyer, Kenneth Henjum, said his team was awaiting further information about her condition.
“The Snowling family is in shock at the events from last night and are requesting their privacy,” Henjum said in a statement.
John Snowling, then a Ventura police officer, patrols the Pacific View Mall in Ventura in 2000. Snowling, who retired in 2014, was identified as the gunman in Wednesday night’s mass shooting in Trabuco Canyon.
(Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)
James Goldsmith, 68, lived two doors down from the Snowlings in Camarillo for more than two decades. Marie Snowling had moved out to live with her sick mother in Orange County a few years ago, he said, adding that he knew the couple had been going through “marital issues” but never heard any shouting or saw the police come by due to domestic disputes.
“John was always kind of a standoffish kind of person,” Goldsmith said. “He wasn’t the most personable guy, not that I can say that there was anything really negative. He wasn’t the type of neighbor that you’d get the warm fuzzies from.”
He described Marie Snowling as an “absolute sweetheart.” She was the more social one of the couple, according to Goldsmith.
Goldsmith didn’t know whether Marie had a new partner but said she often posted on Facebook about her life after filing for divorce.
“I think she wanted to have friends and live life, and that’s why I think she made the move that she did,” Goldsmith said. “It’s sad that he couldn’t allow that and let her live her own life.”
Snowling had recently purchased a house in Ohio and was staying there most of the time, Goldsmith said. He most recently saw Snowling come back a few months ago to do some maintenance work on the house, he said.
Marie Snowling had moved to a mobile home community in Orange, where she’d recently become a manager, a job her late mother previously held, residents told The Times.
On Wednesday night, neighbor Mary Talian watched out her window, waiting for Snowling to come home. Talian, 82, knew her neighbor was at Cook’s Corner because Marie often talked about the bar’s spaghetti night.
“She loved to be around people, around music, and she loved to go out,” Talian said.
“Marie would always take my calls,” Talian said, adding that Snowling would often check on her and pick up her groceries. “That’s how I knew that something was wrong last night, when she didn’t call back.”
Snowling was the perfect fit to manage the mobile home park, said Talian’s daughter, Carol Franke.
“The first words out of her mouth are always, ‘How are you?’ or ‘How are the kids?’ She never talked about herself,” Franke said. “Marie celebrated other people’s wins. That’s just who she is.”
John Snowling, right, and Ventura police partner Sam Arroyo on patrol at Ventura’s Pacific View Mall in 2000.
(Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)
Denise Craft, another neighbor in Orange, described Marie Snowling as nice and personable. Craft knew about Snowling’s divorce and how her estranged husband had taken custody of their dog.
Marie Snowling had recently confided in her that her that John Snowling was being very sweet lately, but she didn’t know why.
“I told her to be cautious about that,” Craft, 59, said.
Geoffrey Kagy, 52, a regular at Cook’s Corner, said his girlfriend, Jacqueline Bass, was at the bar without him Wednesday night — but around 7:30 p.m. she suddenly sent Kagy a volley of text messages. The first said “911,” followed by “Help” and “Omg.” She’d been inside Cook’s Corner when the gunman opened fire.
When they spoke by phone, Kagy said, “she just kept saying how she was running and that she saw somebody shoot.”
At about 7:07 pm Wednesday, a dispatcher on the radio channel for local California Highway Patrol troopers said: “Male came in and started shooting. Eight shots were fired. White male. Plaid shirt and jeans. Still shooting. Possibly active shooter.”
Emergency dispatchers reported hearing gunshots in the background of radio traffic as multiple deputies arrived at the bar, Orange County Undersheriff Jeff Hallock said at a late-night news conference Wednesday.
In a video posted to Facebook by Betty Fruichantie, a friend of Marie Snowling’s, first responders are seen putting victims on gurneys to be taken to the hospital. Fruichantie wrote that the gunman fired “4 or 6 shots” at her but missed.
In the video, Fruichantie pans to a woman being wheeled away on a stretcher.
“Oh my God, Marie,” she says.
Fruichantie mentioned in Facebook comments that she was sharing a table with Marie Snowling before the shooting and later learned that the gunman was her friend’s estranged husband.
“He shot her in the face,” she wrote. “They transported her to the ER.”
Cook’s Corner, which sits at the juncture of El Toro, Santiago Canyon and Live Oak Canyon roads near O’Neill Regional Park, is a popular haunt among local riders who want to avoid freeway congestion and enjoy the winding route to get there, and it’s become a spot where families gather for an inexpensive weeknight dinner.
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner said he was devastated by the shooting, and that it happened at an establishment that had become a cornerstone of the community.
“You hear Cook’s Corner, ‘Oh it’s a biker bar,’ and in many ways it is. You go out there you’ll see motorcycles galore … because it’s really fun to ride your bikes out there,” Wagner said. “But the truth is that it’s a family spot.
“It will be forever sad — there’s no other word for it — that such a happy place will now go forward under the shadow of what happened last night,” he said.
Gus Gunderman, 60, stopped by Cook’s Corner on Wednesday evening for a bite to eat and left just minutes before the shooting started. The bar was filled with patrons sipping beers as the band prepared for its set. On the patio, families sat devouring large plates of spaghetti and salad.
Gunderman ordered a burger and a soda, not remembering it was all-you-can-eat spaghetti night. Looking back, he’s grateful for that decision.
“Had I ordered spaghetti I would have gotten another plate or more salad, and then I would have been in the thick of it,” Gunderman said. “It’s a tragedy.”
Orange County sheriff’s deputies monitor the scene after the shooting.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
In the four decades he’s frequented the eatery, Gunderman said he’d never once felt unsafe.
“I’ve never even seen a fight there. This could have happened anywhere,” he said. “It has nothing to do with motorcycles or motorcycle culture.”
News of the shooting brought concern from local officials and residents.
An aerial view of investigators on the scene at Cook’s Corner.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“I’m heartbroken by the news of yet another mass shooting tonight, this time at Cook’s Corner, a historic bar in the heart of Orange County,” state Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine) said in a statement. “My heart breaks for the families and loved ones of the victims.”
In a statement Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he “mourns for the victims of last night’s horrific shooting.”
He also urged Californians to utilize the state’s red flag laws, especially in instances of domestic disputes, which can temporarily remove firearms from someone who poses a threat to themselves or others.
“We must continue to strengthen, defend, and use these laws,” he said. “If you see red flags, say something — and in doing so, save lives.”
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley echoed the governor’s call for people to proactively respond to threats, stalking or domestic violence.
“It’s disturbing to learn that another domestic dispute led to another mass shooting,” Foley said. “We must do more to prevent senseless acts of gun violence and protect survivors.”
“Our hearts weigh heavy with the distressing incident at Cook’s Corner,” Ventura Police Chief Darin Schindler said in a statement. “Our deepest condolences are with the families of the victims, the survivors, [and] the Orange County deputies who swiftly responded to the scene.”
Ventura County Fire Capt. Brian McGrath said the Snowlings’ son, Patrick, works for the department as a firefighter. “We are doing everything we can for him in his time of need,” McGrath said.
Spitzer said his heart was “broken into a million pieces for the people who know and love Cook’s Corner … and for the people who were subjected to this unspeakable act of violence.”
First responders attend to people at the shooting scene.
(OnScene.tv)
On Thursday morning, Erwin Lima stood outside the police tape blocking the two-lane road that leads to Cook’s Corner. The Victorville resident has worked weekends detailing motorcycles at Cook’s Corner for more than 15 years and drove there hoping to learn anything he could about the condition of his co-workers and friends.
“I couldn’t believe it when I started getting calls,” said Lima, 54. “My body just shut down.”
Marie Snowling frequented the bar most weekends for the live music, Lima said. Sometimes it would get so crowded that she’d bring her own chair so she’d have somewhere to sit.
“Everywhere now is shootings: schools, bars, church,” he said.
BELLEVUE, WA – Two days after filing a federal lawsuit challenging a so-called “Red Flag” law in Maryland, the Second Amendment Foundation is announcing the launch of a new project to take subsequent legal actions against similar laws in several states.
This new initiative is called “Capture the Flag,” and it will focus on abuses and mis-application of “Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO)” statutes which have been adopted by 21 states and the District of Columbia.
“SAF’s ‘Capture the Flag’ initiative looks to challenge these laws that deprive individuals of their right to keep and bear arms, where appropriate, based on evidentiary standards that are constitutionally impermissible,” explained SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, who is a practicing civil rights attorney.
Kraut said the project will initially focus on “Red Flag” laws in six states: California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington.
“SAF has been concerned about these statutes since they first started showing up,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We have already taken legal action against officials in Maryland for an egregious abuse of the law against a citizen in Dorchester County. But all of these laws should raise alarms because they prioritize citizen disarmament ahead of due process, and that can easily lead to deprivation of rights under color of law.”
Kraut said the fundamental flaw in all of these laws is that they essentially consider people guilty until they prove themselves innocent, a concept diametrically opposed to the way our criminal justice system is supposed to work, where the burden of proof is on the state, not the individual.
“When any citizen is unjustly deprived of his or her rights, it is an affront to all of us,” Kraut observed, “and we must do whatever we can to prevent it, including challenging such laws in federal court. ‘Capture the Flag’ provides the means for us to seek out such cases and take appropriate action.”
SAF encourages individuals residing in California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Washington that have been subject to a baseless, groundless and unsubstantiated ERPO to contact the organization by sending an email to info@saf.org with information regarding the circumstances surrounding the petition, order, and outcome.
Image generated with MidJourney using the prompt dawn swat raid in the suburbs
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I was going to make this a paid post, but I think I want people to see it more than I want to make money. It’s not a minor matter.
In my last post, I talked about why we might want to make it hard for the government to get a warrant. And before we start, let’s make something clear: this is a right afforded to all Americans and cannot be undercut by state or local authorities. Also understand that there is no specification about who does the searching and seizing. It does not matter if it’s the President of the United States himself. He doesn’t get to look at your stuff without a damn good reason and a warrant.
And yet we violate this amendment so often that we don’t even think about it. Why should we? The letter of the law is usually followed. The spirit, however…
We’re talking about the Fourth Amendment, kind of in isolation, but it doesn’t exist by itself, and there isn’t really any order of priority to the rights enumerated. In other words, you can’t justify breaking the Fifth Amendment just because you kept the Fourth. And the Fifth actually has bearing on what has happened with the Fourth because of one of its clauses: [No person shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Why is this clause important? Because you either have a system in place to protect We the People from abuse by those who have authority to take away everything, or you don’t have a government established by We the People. The whole process, the whole system, is designed to give every American a chance to argue their case, and not just in front of a judge. It’s also designed to give every American a chance to cooperate with the process peacefully.
Which brings us to one of the major loopholes in the above amendment. It says that a warrant must be issued. It does not say how that warrant has to be delivered.
Look at the illustration above. Are there times when this is the correct approach to serving a warrant? Possibly. Had all other avenues been exhausted first? There are two recent cases that I will highlight to suggest that they were not.
The first happened in Utah, in a scenario similar to the illustration above. The FBI gathered before dawn and breached a man’s residence at six in the morning using a vehicle mounted battering ram. The details aren’t clear about what happened, but the man in question was shot and killed. He was in his seventies, needed a walker to get around, and the FBI says he pointed a gun at them. But none of the agents involved wore a body cam, and they left the man’s body on the sidewalk for hours. This was not an isolated property, either, but in a residential area, where stray shots could have injured or killed people who were not involved.
The second happened in Kansas, where local law enforcement raided a small newspaper’s office and the home of the one of the co-founders. They had a warrant that said they could seize all the computers and cell phones in connection with their investigation of alleged identity theft by one of the paper’s reporters, which of course effectively kept them from publishing until the equipment was returned.
Without getting into the details of either case, my concern is not about the guilt or innocence of the citizens involved. My concern is that in both cases, the accused was not given a chance to comply peacefully, or to cooperate with the investigation. This is opposite of why the Bill of Rights was even considered necessary, which was to give the highest respect to every individual American.
The Kansas case gets into the problem of perception. If you serve a warrant on any news organization, you have to be very careful that you do not give the appearance of violating the Freedom of the Press. In this case, the newspaper had printed some accurate but embarrassing information about someone who then accused the paper of obtaining the information illegally. The fact that local law enforcement obtained a warrant in order to start their investigation comes across as way of saying, “No, no, we’re completely following the Bill of Rights. We’re good Americans, and we would never violate anyone’s God-given rights, especially the Freedom of the Press!” The fact that they served their warrant forcefully, even grabbing a cellphone out of a woman’s hand, does not really lend credence to that claim.
Similarly, the Utah case completely misses the point of having to get a warrant in the first place. Especially if you are going to bring a SWAT team in to serve the warrant, and even if everything goes perfectly peacefully, the warrant and the process leading to the decision to use massive firepower to serve it had better be public after the fact. I don’t care if it happens against a gang-banger in the depths of the urban jungle. I want to see the justification for such an intimidating display, and I want it to be judged.
And here’s where we get into the way the Constitution and the Bill of Rights see the government as opposed to the citizen. Going back over the way the branches of the Federal Government are given checks and balances, while the citizen is given every benefit of the doubt, tells me that America is based on the idea that any government is suspect, and will eventually devolve into a system that abuses the authority it is given. Americans have the civic duty to notice these impulses and stop them before they get out of hand.
The individual American is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The government gets no such protection, and perhaps we should treat it that way.
FOX News reported a woman was driving the car around 1:00 p.m. Sunday when a suspect approached and demanded her keys. The woman believed she saw a gun in the suspect’s waistband.
The Washington Timesnoted that the woman refused to hand over her keys, and the suspect, believed to be the 12-year-old, ran away.
The boy was apprehended while fleeing, and police indicated he was armed when arrested.
The Metropolitan Police Department pointed out that the 12-year-old was “charged with armed carjacking (gun) and carrying a pistol without a license.”
Breitbart News explained that D.C. witnessed 166 homicides from January 1, 2023, through August 16, 2023, a 27-percent increase over the same time frame in 2022.
Robbery is also up, rising 63 percent from where it was at this point last year, and auto theft is up a whopping 114 percent.
On Monday, Hawaii’s Democrat Governor Josh Green announced that his administration is actively considering acquiring properties in Lahaina that have been devastated by recent wildfires.
A total of 99 deaths were recorded as a result of the wildfires that occurred in Maui. Concerns have been raised among officials regarding the potential increase in the death toll, as just 25% of the burn area has been searched thus far.
Local residents are grappling with not only the loss of homes and loved ones but the unsettling attention of developers looking to capitalize on their tragedy.
USA Today reported a particularly distressing account of Tammy Kaililaau, whose home of 20 years was reduced to ashes.
Less than a week after the catastrophic event, she received a Facebook message from someone in real estate. Kaililaau, along with other residents, had been warned via social media that developers might try to buy their land, so she ignored the message.
Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners in a federal lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s “sensitive places” statute have filed a response brief to the state’s appeal. The case is now known as Koons v. Platkin.
In May, U.S. District Court Judge Renee Marie Bumb granted a preliminary injunction against the state. New Jersey sought a stay of that order pending appeal, to which Second Amendment Foundation filed a brief in opposition.
SAF is joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, New Jersey Second Amendment Society, and four private citizens. Attorney David Jensen, Beacon, N.Y represent them.
“The state is trying to justify the challenged provisions of its ‘sensitive places’ law, which makes it virtually impossible for people with carry permits to actually go to most places,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Essentially, Garden State residents can walk out the front door with their legally-carried firearms, but they can’t really go anywhere.”
“We maintain the District Court acted properly by issuing a preliminary injunction against enforcement of this ‘sensitive places’ statute,” added SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The Anti-Carry Default provision of the law, which prohibits carrying on private property without the owner’s express permission, is tantamount to prohibiting lawful carry in most public places. The section prohibiting carrying a gun in a vehicle, unless the gun is unloaded and placed in a securely fastened case literally makes legal carry impossible while traveling.”
Both Second Amendment Foundation officials say it is impossible for the state to show the challenged provisions of the law, known as Chapter 131, are consistent with a historical tradition of firearm regulation.
“It is a requirement of the Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling last year,” Kraut noted, “and they can’t meet that requirement because there was no such Founding-era tradition. The state has failed to show such examples, and the injunctions should be upheld.”
I see this as nothing much more than Goobernor CYA
[On the 21st] the Tennessee General Assembly convened for a Special Session at the request of Governor Bill Lee. While the announced purpose of the session is to address public safety, there is an attempt to force through several ineffective gun control measures that were rejected by the General Assembly earlier this year. As of this afternoon, there are numerous anti-gun bills introduced. We urge all NRA members and Second Amendment supporters in Tennessee to contact their state senators and representatives to let them know you OPPOSE all gun control and ask them to protect your Second Amendment rights.
House Bill 7001/Senate Bill 7068 specifies that classes that qualify as training for issuance of an enhanced handgun carry permit or concealed handgun carry permit must include training on the use of gun locks. Therefore, classes that don’t explicitly address “gun locks” would no longer be certified by the state for permitting purposes.
House Bill 7047/Senate Bill 7011 creates a Class E felony of threatened mass violence for the reckless handling, displaying, or discharging of a firearm while operating or as a passenger in a motor vehicle. This legislation could seemingly sweep in conduct, such as a person or passenger moving guns around in their car in a completely non-threatening manner. Under current Tennessee law, threatening someone with a firearm from a motor vehicle is already aggravated assault and is a Class C felony.
House Bill 7056/Senate Bill 7049 expands the offense of aggravated stalking to include persons who purchase a semi-automatic rifle or attempt to use a semi-automatic rifle for the course and furtherance of stalking. The legislation attempts to carve out lawful semi-automatic firearms for different treatment under the law.
House Bill 7079 requires a federally licensed firearm dealer to install a firearm safety device on a firearm before delivering the firearm to a purchaser if the purchaser is not a federally licensed firearm dealer.
House Bill 7090/Senate Bill 7040 requires the Department of Safety to use its existing permanent electronic overhead informational displays located on the interstate system to provide messages that encourage the safe storage of firearms.
House Bill 7098/Senate Bill 7026 establishes the Tennessee voluntary do not sell firearms list to prohibit the possession, transportation, and sale of firearms to any person who is voluntarily admitted to a public or private hospital or treatment resource for diagnosis, observation, and treatment of a mental illness or serious emotional disturbance and voluntarily registers to be enrolled to the list.
Amid recruiting shortfalls, the U.S. military is planning a policy change that would make it easier for applicants to qualify for service.
Military applicants taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery could soon be allowed to use calculators to help them pass the timed test, which measures aptitude and helps determine the positions in the military one is qualified for.
“We are taking a systematic approach, which will assess the impact of calculator use, and we are developing a way forward for calculator inclusion,” a Pentagon official told Military.com.
The change in the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, orASVAB, could help relieve an ongoingrecruiting slump, which is attributed to many young Americans not scoring high enough to qualify for enlistment. It would also put the ASVAB on par with how test-taking has evolved in the past decade, with calculators being widely used in math classes and on college entrance exams such as the ACT and SAT. […]
The [recruiting] shortfalls are due to an amalgamation of issues — but at the forefront is a shrinking pool of qualified young Americans, 17- to 24-year-olds, who are eligible to enlist. Many of those applicants are being turned away due to poor performance on the military’s aptitude exam.
Last year, the Army launched its Future Soldier Preparatory Course, a two-track camp for applicants who came just shy of the service’s standards for academic performance or body fat.
There, soldiers have 90 days to come into compliance. The Army can graduate about 12,000 soldiers from that course into basic training, making up much of the recruiting deficit it saw last year with enlistees who otherwise wouldn’t have qualified for service.
The academic track — applicants who struggle to hit education standards necessary for entrance — makes up the lion’s share of that course. (Military.com)
When the use of calculators for the test will be allowed remains to be seen, but already, the move is facing backlash for being yet another example of the “dumbing down” of the military.
Lower scores on the ASVAB test come at a time when the average ACT score fell in 2022 to its lowest levels in 30 years.
On August 17, 2023, President Joe Biden boasted about the number of times he has used executive action to institute gun control that Congress did not pass.
He tweeted:
Since I've been in office, I've signed more executive actions to reduce gun violence than any of my predecessors.
Earlier this year, I signed an executive order to ramp up our efforts to hold the gun industry accountable, keep firearms out of dangerous hands, and more.
On April 8, 2021, Breitbart News reported Biden used executive gun controls that included restrictions on “ghost guns,” a push for red flag laws, recategorization of AR-15 pistols, and DOJ-led research into gun trafficking.
These controls led to an ATF-issued rule classifying “partially complete pistol frames” as firearms. That rule means a background check is now required in order to purchase certain gun parts kits.
The same executive controls also led to an ATF-issued rule categorizing AR-pistols with stabilizer braces as short-barrel rifles. This new categorization means owners of said pistols with stabilizer braces are required to the register the firearms under the auspices of the National Firearms Act (1934).
On July 21, 2022, the White House recounted that Biden had issued 21 executive actions related to gun control and gun violence up to that point in his presidency.
On May 14, 2023, Breitbart News noted that Biden issued yet another executive order on gun control, this one directing Attorney General Merrick Garland to act where Congress has not acted and take the United States “as close as possible” to universal background checks.
Another executive gun control is anticipated late this year or early next year, in the form of an ATF-issued rule to redefine the meaning of gun dealer so as to broaden it, and thereby broaden the number of gun sales in which a background check will be required. The goal of the ATF rule will be to get as close as possible to a universal background check scenario in America.
"This Court can think of no other constitutional right which a person loses simply by traveling beyond his home state's border into another state continuing to exercise that right and instantaneously becomes a felon" https://t.co/yd4AkDDpCD
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich revealed on Thursday that a reliable source told him that a request was made from Washington, D.C., to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis that she had to bring charges against former President Donald Trump because they needed a distraction from the “screw up” with recently appointed Special Counsel David Weiss.
“I am told—this is hearsay—but I am told by a reliable source, that Friday evening, somebody from Washington called the district attorney in Atlanta and said, ‘You have to indict on Monday. We have to cover up all of the mistakes we just made with Weiss,’” Gingrich told Charlie Kirk in an interview. “And she said, apparently, ‘My jurors aren’t coming back till Tuesday,’ and they said, ‘You didn’t hear me. You have to indict on Monday,’ And she said, ‘Well, they’re not gonna get here before noon.’ They said, ‘That doesn’t matter.’ She says, ‘This means it’s going to be eight or nine or 10 o’clock at night.’ They said, ‘It doesn’t matter.”
“Who made that phone call?” asked Kirk.
“We don’t know,” Gingrich said. “And that’s why I’m telling you upfront, this is hearsay, but it’s from a person who has remarkably good sources.”
“I totally believe it, though,” Kirk replied. “Because that would explain why they leaked and they messed up on the clerk document. Why she was exhausted and why they had the 11 pm press conference.”
DA Willis held a late-night press conference to announce that a grand jury had indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 associates on multiple charges, including violating the Georgia RICO Act, solicitation of oath violation, and various conspiracy and false statement offenses. The charges had been suspiciously leaked online before the grand jury’s decision.
While Gingrich was adamant in pointing out the story is merely hearsay, it not only fits with the circumstances surrounding the indictment, but with the past indictments as well. As we’ve previously reported here at PJ Media, each of Trump’s prior federal indictments immediately followed bad news days for Joe Biden.
This even raises the question as to whether Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump was ordered by Washington for similar reasons. On the same day that Trump was indicted in April, Kathy Chung, a former aide to Biden, testified before the House Oversight Committee, contradicting the White House’s account of Biden’s handling of classified documents. Chung testified that the documents Biden kept were not stored in a secured closet at the Penn Biden Center.
It may be hearsay, but everything fits.
Okay, this tells us that they know SloJoe is such a liability that if he can’t be stopped, he’s going to lose.
CNN’s Jake Tapper came clean and admitted that Trump was right and Joe Biden was wrong about Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in China.
TAPPER: Let’s turn to the Biden administration because Jeff you have some new reporting that President Biden might have a blind spot, according to people around him when it comes to his son Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and concerns about how this might impact his desire to be reelected. What do you got? What are you hearing?
ZELENY: Well, look, this is something that the President was hoping to put behind him. They were hoping that the plea agreement would go through, et cetera. Now there is very likely to be a trial unfolding at the same time as a presidential campaign. Even worse, a second special counsel’s investigation on top of the one that’s already investigating the President for classified documents.
So the point talking to a bunch of advisors is that this is something that is not discussed around the President in his orbit because they do not think voters care about it.
They think voters care about the economy, other matters. They’re probably right about that. However, we know that this is going to be a central piece of the Republican debate and Republican talking points next week and beyond, the Hunter Biden situation.
So what do swing voters think of Hunter Biden? As of now, they’ve never sort of drawn a correlation or blamed the President for his son’s conduct. They feel sympathy for him, et cetera.
But is there a blind spot directly around him and the campaign by not talking about this? It’s verboten. You can’t talk about Hunter Biden. We’ll see.
This is definitely going to be a topic on the debate stage this week.
TAPPER: Yes. And Kristen, Glenn Kessler from “The Washington Post” had a fact check about Joe Biden from earlier this month noting that Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies.
Kessler wrote, Hunter Biden reported nearly $2.4 million income in 2017 and 2.2 million income in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests.
But this — and this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump.
Moderate members of both political parties are criticizing the Biden Administration for its recent move to defund longstanding scholastic archery and hunter education programs under a recently passed gun control law.
The programs, which have no demonstrable connection to crime or violence, are the latest innocent victims of the misnamed Bi-Partisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA).
The episode reinforces two critically important lessons that any pro-gun legislator should remember. One: there is no such thing as harmless gun control. Two: Moderates who join forces with anti-gun extremists will eventually be embarrassed by the partnership.
The BSCA was passed last summer over the NRA’s objections, with proponents congratulating themselves on their “bi-partisan” achievement. As we warned at the time: “This bill leaves too much discretion in the hands of government officials and also contains undefined and overbroad provisions – inviting interference with our constitutional freedoms.”
We have already explained how the infamously anti-gun Biden Administration is abusing authorities established under the BSCA to implement de facto waiting periods on certain firearm purchases, fund unconstitutional firearm seizure schemes, and curtail private firearm transfers. These steps have caused supporters of the law who are not reflexively hostile to the Second Amendment to complain the administration is misinterpreting its provisions. But if anti-gunners can interpret the individual right to keep and bear arms out of the Second Amendment itself, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the far more ambiguous language of the BSCA could be twisted to nefarious ends.
The latest issue arises out of an obscure provision of the BSCA that amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). That act is the “primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education” and is meant ““to strengthen and improve educational quality and educational opportunities in the Nation’s elementary and secondary schools.”
The state of New Jersey can sue firearms manufacturers under a new state public nuisance law designed to target the industry, a federal appellate court ruled on Thursday.
New Jersey, in July of 2022, enacted new statutory law that allows the attorney general to sue gun manufacturers for being a “public nuisance” if they have “endangered the safety and health of New Jersey residents through the sale, manufacture, distribution, and marketing of lethal, but nonetheless legal, gun-related products,” according to the law. The state was then sued by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) in November of 2022 in a “pre-enforcement action,” to stop them from bringing a suit under the law, which was on Thursday dismissed for a lack of ripeness — meaning that it hasn’t matured to the point where a genuine dispute exists — according to the court’s ruling dismissing the suit.
“Pre-enforcement challenges are unusual. To bring one, the plaintiff must show that the stakes are high and close at hand … Yet this suit falls far short of even the ‘normal’ pre-enforcement challenge. A brand-new civil tort statute, without more, does not justify a federal court’s intervention,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, for a unanimous three-judge bench. “[W]e see little evidence that enforcement is looming … the Foundation has jumped the gun,” Bibas noted.
New Jersey’s law was passed in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, where the court in a 6-3 ruling struck down a New York law that required pistol permit applicants to prove that a “proper cause exists” for having such a permit. The Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the Second Amendment.
“The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need. The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas for the majority in the case. The ruling was widely criticized by Democrats and left-wing groups, who argued that it would increase gun violence and prompted the passage of laws by Democratic-led states to curtail firearm access.
“A gun industry member shall not, by conduct either unlawful in itself or unreasonable under all the circumstances, knowingly or recklessly create, maintain, or contribute to a public nuisance in this State through the sale, manufacturing, distribution, importing, or marketing of a gun-related product,” reads the New Jersey statute, which was challenged by the NSSF. The law also specifies that “[t]he Attorney General shall not be required to demonstrate any special injury” to prevail in a legal challenge on these grounds.
The law had previously been blocked by U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi of New Jersey for purportedly violating federal law, which currently immunizes gun manufacturers from lawsuits when their guns are used to commit crimes.
The law adapts a model — creating a civil cause of action for private citizens to sue — that had been adopted by some conservative states, notably Texas, to enforce abortion restrictions prior to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Democratic-led states, such as California, then vowed to use the same model to target gun manufacturers.
“During oral arguments, the panel appeared to have concerns with the law, as did the district court that enjoined enforcement,” said Lawrence Keane, the NSSF’s senior vice president and general counsel. “Should New Jersey’s attorney general attempt to enforce the law, we will immediately refile our complaint.”
“I am thrilled,” said Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey.
BLUF
America needs only look to the recent past to see how the federal government handles a “public health crisis.”… The tendency of the government to assume police-state authorities is enough to warn Americans when their elected officials want to invoke a “public health crisis.”
Vice President Kamala Harris believes gun control is a public health issue, giving Americans more reasons to be wary of gun control efforts.
The problem is, crime isn’t a disease, as much as gun control advocates want to treat it as such. Criminal activity is a behavior and science has yet to bring about a medical remedy that prevents an individual from committing crimes. That’s not stopping Vice President Harris from tossing out debunked data, purposefully confusing suicides with criminal firearm misuse and conveniently glossing over the Biden administration’s failures to address the real problem of crime.
“I — as Vice President of the United States, I am acutely aware of the fact that gun violence is the leading cause of death of the children of America,” Vice President Harris told Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund’s Annual Gun Sense University Conference in Chicago last week. “It’s — it’s the number one cause of death — not some disease — well, although this is a form of a disease, to be sure. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of our children.”
