Category: Goobermint

New Oregon gun law, Measure 114, to face federal court test next week

Oregonians passed Measure 114 in November. It would ban the manufacture, purchase or sale of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It would also require people to take a safety course and pass a background check to get a permit allowing them to purchase firearms. But before the law went into effect, it ran into a flurry of legal challenges at the state and federal levels.

The state case is expected to pick up again in September. And several bills meant to tighten Oregon’s gun laws are among the legislation sidelined by the Republican-led walkout in the Oregon Senate.

In the meantime, the federal bench trial — no jury — starts next week in Portland and will be heard by U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee. The federal trial, which is slated to run for five days, will result in a first ruling about whether the new law is legal under the U.S. Constitution. No matter what Immergut decides, the ruling will likely be appealed, possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A lawyer for one of the groups hoping to overturn the law declined an invitation to come on Think Out Loud this week, citing the pending case. But a lawyer for the state, Michael Kron, did agree to come on the show and spoke to host Dave Miller on Wednesday. Kron is special counsel to the State Attorney General and is part of the legal team defending the voter-passed law.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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Gun rights advocates ask judges to uphold ruling in fight over gun law

Attorneys for Second Amendment advocates fighting New Jersey’s new gun law are urging a federal appeals court to uphold a recent ruling blocking most of the law from taking effect.

State attorneys failed to prove anyone would be irreparably harmed by U.S. District Court Judge Renée Marie Bumb’s order earlier this month affirming people’s right to carry guns in many places state lawmakers banned them, the lawyers wrote in two briefs filed Tuesday in response to the state attorney general’s appeal of Bumb’s order.

Attorneys representing New Jersey gun owners Ronald Koons and Aaron Siegel filed separate challenges the day Gov. Phil Murphy signed the law in December. The cases were later consolidated.

In two briefs totaling almost 60 pages, the attorneys repeatedly refer to Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down restrictions on gun carry, as a reason why the state’s bid to halt Bumb’s preliminary injunction is “flawed from start to finish,” as Siegel’s attorneys put it.

“Governments may bar the carrying of firearms in only ‘exceptional circumstances,’” Koons’ attorneys noted, citing Bruen. “The exception cannot become the rule.”

In defending lawmakers’ decision to ban guns in about 25 “sensitive places,” the state failed to prove such prohibitions are “historically justified,” as Bruen requires, Koons’ attorneys added.

“The state is left with speculative public-safety and public-confusion arguments,” they wrote.

But any ruling further altering the status quo would just add to public confusion, they added.

Both briefs take aim at the new law’s “anti-carry default,” in which lawmakers banned guns on government and private property that is open to the public, such as stores, and guns loaded and within reach in vehicles. Private property owners have the right to forbid guns on their property, but the government can’t make that decision for them, the attorneys argue. Bumb had enjoined both the private property and vehicle restrictions.

“To the extent there is any ambiguity, it must be interpreted in favor of the Second Amendment,” Koons’ attorneys wrote.

A spokeswoman from the Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.

Massachusetts assault weapons ban targeted in federal suit 1998 law at odds with Supreme Court decisions, group says

A national gun rights group has asked a federal judge to immediately halt the state’s longstanding ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines while the court decides whether the law should stand at all.

The National Association for Gun Rights, a Colorado-based Second Amendment advocacy group, on Tuesday was heard by First Circuit U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in their attempt to overturn a 1998 assault weapons weapon ban made a permanent law in 2004 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney.

“Massachusetts has been directly violating the Second Amendment for decades,” NAGR President Dudley Brown said. “Under Bruen, there is no doubt in my mind the days of Romney’s Assault Weapons Ban are numbered. The National Association for Gun Rights will see to it that the rights of the people of Massachusetts are restored.”

The gun rights group says that their lawsuit comes following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which struck down certain licensing conditions in New York State and elsewhere, including Massachusetts.

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 The Great COVID Ventilator Death Cover-up. 

Tens of thousands of Americans died after being placed on mechanical ventilators in spring 2020. It’s long past time we got real answers as to how many were killed this way.

It’s long been something of a mystery why there have been no major studies on how many COVID patients were killed by mechanical ventilators in spring 2020. Early data from China had suggested that ventilators would need to be used widely in the treatment of COVID patients, and this led to a major rush to procure ventilators on the part of politicians and hospital systems all over the world.

A small sample of the hundreds of headlines from that period features ones such as:

“Cuomo refutes Trump, insists NY needs up to 40,000 ventilators,”

“NY may need 24,000 more ventilators to fight COVID-19. Here’s how it could get them,”

“Which coronavirus patients will get life-saving ventilators? Guidelines show how hospitals in NYC, US will decide,”

“Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Announces 1,000 Ventilators Donated to New York State,”

“A New York hospital is treating two patients on a device intended for one.”

However, it soon became clear that ventilators were being vastly overused, and the medical community gradually ceased this practice of mass intubation. Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell acted as an early whistleblower, sounding the alarm in a widely-shared video:

We are operating under a medical paradigm that is untrue… I fear that this misguided treatment will lead to a tremendous amount of harm to a great number of people in a very short time… This method being widely adopted at this very moment at every hospital in the country…is actually doing more harm than good.

In interviews with major media outlets, several practitioners later disclosed that patients had often been put on ventilators not for their own benefit, but in order to stop the virus from spreading. As one doctor later told the Wall Street Journal:

We were intubating sick patients very early. Not for the patients’ benefit, but in order to control the epidemic and to save other patients. That felt awful.

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Big win for homesick sailor forced to surrender guns

If someone feels a little down because they miss their family, is that alarming? So alarming that people should be forced to give up their guns?

That was the question at the heart of the matter in a case involving a Navy sailor stationed in Hawaii who was denied a gun permit and required to turn in his firearms because he acknowledged seeing professional help to deal with that depression.

Some would argue that missing one’s family is a good sign, a sign that they have people who love them and whose love is reciprocated.

Hawaii didn’t really get that.

The state stomped on the rights of Michael Santucci and Santucci responded with a lawsuit.

On Thursday, he scored a big win.

Santucci did everything right and by the book. He sought to register his firearms with the state as required and acknowledged getting help for his depression.

As a result, he was told to hand in his guns and forfeit one of the rights he serves in our military to protect for the rest of us.

It was idiotic.

Luckily, the judge agreed.

The court agreed with Mr. Santucci that he was not disqualified from registering his firearms based on Section 134-7. It determined that Mr. Santucci’s affirmative response to Question 11 of the Firearm Application Questionnaire, which inquired about behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders, did not render him ineligible for firearm registration or ownership under the statute. The court concluded that Mr. Santucci should not have been required to provide a doctor’s letter or compelled to surrender his firearms solely based on his affirmative response to Question 11.

Honolulu argued that it was obligated by law to request a doctor’s letter in accordance with Section 134-3, which mandates firearm registration using forms prescribed by the Attorney General. However, the court found no basis for requiring a doctor’s letter after an affirmative response to Question 11, as neither the statute nor the prescribed form supported such a requirement.

The court granted the preliminary injunction, ordering the return of Mr. Santucci’s firearms, and enjoined Honolulu from demanding specific certifications solely based on an affirmative response to Question 11. It also stipulated legal fees to be paid in the matter, with Honolulu paying $102,500 and the State paying $28,000 more.

So, in other words, it wasn’t just a win for Santucci, but also for gun owners in general.

Look, while I disagree with it entirely, I get the desire to keep guns out of the hands of people suffering from mental disorders. Some people are dangerous, either to themselves or others, and many figure that’s a good enough reason to curtail the rights of others.

Yet most people who seek counseling aren’t a threat to anyone, including themselves. They’re just feeling down and don’t want to anymore, or they’re processing a rough childhood or some other kind of trauma so they can live a better, more fulfilling life.

For authorities to swoop in and decide such people cannot be trusted with guns is wrong.

Moreover, it’s likely to prevent people from seeking help in the first place.

The truth is that if Santucci was dangerous, he’d have just lied on the form. If he was planning to kill himself, he wouldn’t worry about a perjury charge. If he were planning something far, far worse than that, I’m pretty sure perjury would have been the least of his concerns.

Instead, Santucci just wanted to obey the law, and he got screwed for it.

Now, things are being set to right.

New Jersey Politicians Enact Largest Gun Ban in U.S. History

When Governor Murphy and the New Jersey Democrats rushed a flurry of gun laws through the legislature last June of 2022, one of the laws rammed through was under the guise of banning guns with no serial numbers.

This law banned millions of rifles, shotguns, handguns, hunting guns, target shooting guns, military surplus guns, and virtually ALL muzzleloaders, black powder guns, antique guns, air guns and BB guns.

N.J.S. 2C:39-3 N screenshot 5-25-2023

There are NO exceptions and there is NO grandfathering. This was the largest gun ban ever passed in the history of the United States.

The law bans ALL firearms with a “…firearm frame or firearm receiver …which is not imprinted with a serial number registered with a federally licensed manufacturer…”

The term “firearm frame or firearm receiver” means the part of a firearm that provides housing for the internal components.

For ANY firearm to be legal in New Jersey, it must now meet two criteria established by this law:

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Justice, for once!

Last month I wrote about a case that the Pacific Legal Foundation was arguing before the Supreme Court.

At issue in the case, Tyler v. Hennepin County was the outright theft of Geraldine Tyler’s home equity. Geraldine is 94 years old, and currently living in a nursing home, having been driven out of her condo due to high crime (caused by the failure of the city and the county to enforce the law).

She fell behind in her property taxes, and the county sold her condo and kept all the money, including equity that remained after paying her tax bill.

It was an appalling act of government theft, but of course, appalling and government are often found in the same sentence.

Well, the Supreme Court ruled on the case today, and the news, for once, is good. The good guys won by a unanimous decision. Every single Justice agreed that Hennepin County is a bunch of lying, thieving, greedy, and tyrannical bunch of MFers.

Uh, maybe that last part is hyperbole. They only said lying, thieving and greedy. None of the Justices would swear in an opinion.

Governments are very big on seizing property. And in this case, the seizure was particularly galling because much of the money owed was due to penalties, not taxes. A small GoFundMe would have gotten the taxes paid off in a few days, but at 94 such things don’t generally occur to a person, and she had nobody to think of such matters.

The Court’s decision seems like a no-brainer, but then again it should have been for lower courts. The fact that she won in the Supreme Court is great news, but the fact that it had to be decided there is very bad news indeed. The county in which I live–and in many others around the country–have been stealing money from taxpayers without remorse.

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Like Vermont has a problem.

Vermonters, lawmakers await decisions on contentious gun reform bills

MONTPELIER, Vt. — One year after the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Vermont lawmakers looked back on firearm-related bills passed in the 2023 session that they believe will make Vermont a safer state.

One of those will implement a mandatory 72-hour waiting period from the time you purchase a gun to when it enters your possession.

“When somebody has the impulse to buy a gun and use it for a sinister purpose like maybe a school shooting or something like that, or if they intend on harming themselves, those 72 hours can be so vital,” Rep. Conor Caser, Executive Director of GunSense Vermont, said.

Some believe the bill violates the Second Amendment and is unconstitutional. Gov. Phil Scott has not said he will veto the bill but has expressed strong concerns in recent weeks.

“I don’t doubt that if this goes into law that there will be a constitutional challenge,” said Scott.

However, the governor is expected to sign off on a bill that strengthens penalties on straw purchases and the defacing of serial numbers on firearms, which lawmakers believe will reduce crime in and out of state.

“They go in and buy them [guns] and then trade them for drugs, and the folks who can’t possess obviously have the firearm. And we’ve seen them used in crimes in other states,” Sen. Richard Sears said.

It remains clear that lawmakers will not agree on the policies of all the bills, but both sides of the aisle say the fact that three firearm reform bills made it to the governor’s desk this session is something they have never seen before.

“Passing three is a first, I must say, but the dynamics have changed also in the last 15-20 years. The makeup of the body, the numbers in the body, you’ll see on most of those bills they are predominately supported by Democrats,” Rep. Patrick Brennan, a Republican, said.

Sears believes public tragedies such as what happened in Uvalde also played a role.

“I think Vermonters’ views of firearms have changed dramatically due to the mass shootings we’ve seen in other states such as Uvalde a year ago,” Sears said.

Most bills passed by the Senate and House within the last two weeks of the session, including the two firearm bills, have still not officially made it to the governor’s desk as the legislative council finishes the process of looking them over.

Once they do, Scott will have five days to make a decision on whether to sign them or not.

Biden Spent $1 Billion To Get Schools Electric Buses. This Michigan District Says Theirs Hardly Work.

Michigan’s fourth-largest school district is having “significant” performance issues with its expensive electric buses, issues that come after the Biden administration spent $1 billion to “transform America’s school bus fleet” with electric models.

During an April 19 presentation to the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education, the district’s environmental sustainability director, Emile Lauzzana, highlighted a number of issues with the district’s electric bus fleet. Those buses, Lauzzana said, have “a lot of downtime and performance issues” and aren’t “fully on the road,” despite the fact that they are “approximately five times more expensive than regular buses.” The infrastructure upgrades required to use the buses, meanwhile, were “originally estimated to be only about $50,000” but “ended up being more like $200,000,” according to Lauzzana. “I have a number of colleagues in different states who are facing similar challenges,” the district official lamented. “For the school bus market, it’s been challenging for us.”

Just months before Lauzzana’s admission, President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency announced it awarded nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funds to “transform America’s school bus fleet” with “over 2,400 clean school buses that will accelerate the transition to zero emission vehicles.” But problems with electric buses occurred long before the agency’s announcement.

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Joe Biden isn’t speaking coherently enough to fact-check him

If he didn’t bear the title of president of the United States and you met Old Joe Biden in any social setting, you’d smile and nod and not try to make any sense of what he was saying, because it would be abundantly clear that this is a man who is not in full possession of his faculties. But the poor WhiteHouse.gov transcript wonks have to try to turn Old Joe’s dementia-addled ramblings into something remotely approaching sense and accuracy, and he had them working overtime at a G7 Summit press conference on Sunday.

Observation O’ The Day

It’s clear this crook cannot function, which begs the question, who is running things & making decisions? Kamala? Um, no. Nancy’s gone. Klain is gone. Jill? Maybe. Either way, it’s clear nobody elected the actual boss(s), whomever that may be & the press remains uninterested

Remember all the “Stop Asian Hate” posturing? That went away when people started pointing out where the violence was coming from.

No prison time for black man who set Asian Berkeley students on fire with homemade blowtorch

Prosecutor funded by George Soros gets criminal sent to ‘diversion program.’

A black man found guilty of setting two Asian University of California Berkeley students on fire will face no jail time as part of a plea deal with a prosecutor who ran on an agenda of ending “mass incarceration.”

Brandon McGlone “was found guilty of lighting UC Berkeley students on fire at a boba shop near the Cal campus in 2020 has been released from custody without prison time or probation after agreeing to participate in a diversion program for veterans,” according to The Berkeley Scanner, which reviewed the court records.

But he reached a plea deal with the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, which is run by Pamela Price, who “has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the progressive billionaire George Soros,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.

The two students were not the first victims of McGlone, who earlier in the day had said he “wanted to light someone on fire” and then proceeded to carry out his wishes.

He first chased one man down the street and tried to light him on fire after spraying him with WD-40. “Another man also ran from McGlone to escape being set on fire after being sprayed with a liquid while waiting in line at Taco Bell Cantina, according to testimony,” the Berkeley Scanner reported.

The paper further reported:

McGlone’s next stop was Feng Cha Tea House, at 2528 Durant Ave., where he found students waiting in line to order food and drinks.

He sprayed two of them with WD-40 and used a lighter to ignite the gas, creating a massive fireball, witnesses said.

The students managed to pat out the flames and escape injury. Members of their group then confronted McGlone and fought with him in the street.

During the fight, according to testimony, McGlone first pulled out a knife and then pulled out a hatchet.

Student senators also cited the incident in 2020 when it passed a resolution that called for mandatory xenophobia training.

Dër GrëtchënFührër® is at it again.

Michigan governor signs red flag gun law, questions linger over enforcement

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gave final approval Monday afternoon to a red flag law that aims to keep firearms away from those at risk of harming themselves or others as the state grapples with ways to slow gun violence in the wake of its second mass school shooting.

Michigan joined Minnesota as the second state in under a week to implement a red flag law after Democrats in both states won control of both chambers and the governor’s office in November. New Mexico previously was the last state to pass a red flag law in 2020.

Whitmer signed the legislation just outside of Detroit, flanked by state lawmakers and individuals affected by gun violence. Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who began campaigning for gun safety after she was shot in the head in 2011, was also in attendance.

“We have heard too many times from those who knew a mass shooter who had expressed concern in advance about that mass shooter’s intentions,” Whitmer said Monday. “With extreme risk protection orders, we have a mechanism to step in and save lives.”

The new law, also known as extreme risk protection orders, is expected to go into effect next spring. It will allow family members, police, mental health professionals, roommates and former dating partners to petition a judge to remove firearms from those they believe pose an imminent threat to themselves or others.

The judge would have 24 hours to decide on a protection order after a request is filed. If granted, the judge would then have 14 days to set a hearing during which the flagged person would have to prove they do not pose a significant risk. A standard order would last one year.

Michigan became the 21st state to implement a red flag law. Questions remain of whether the state will have better success in enforcing it than others have. An Associated Press analysis in September found that in the 19 states with red flag laws, firearms were removed from people 15,049 times since 2020, fewer than 10 per 100,000 adult residents.

Some local sheriffs in Michigan have told The Associated Press that they won’t enforce the law if they don’t believe it’s constitutional. Over half of the state’s counties have passed resolutions declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, opposing laws they believe infringe on gun rights.

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US Senator Tries to Undermine Branch of Government Intended as a Check on HIS Branch of Government

As anyone who has an elementary school level education understands, our Founders established our federal government to have three branches—the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary—each designed with their own duties, and also designed to act as a check on the others from trying to assert too much power.

In a fairly simplistic breakdown, Congress determines what laws should be in place, the President makes sure the laws are put into place and enforced, and the Supreme Court determines if the laws comport with the US Constitution.

Sadly, some politicians simply ignore this dynamic, and hate being less powerful than they believe they should be.

Case in point: US Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

Murphy has long been a staunch advocate of diminishing the Second Amendment. He has supported virtually every anti-gun proposal that has come before him for consideration, including banning guns. But, thus far, he has failed to achieve much success in imposing the Draconian restrictions on law-abiding gun owners he would like to see passed at the federal level.

There are, however, a handful of states that are under the political control of anti-gun zealots; states such as California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. These states have, as our readers know, passed laws that infringe on our rights protected under the Second Amendment; ranging from annoying bureaucratic impediments to exercising the right to arms to actual bans on some of the most popular firearms people choose for self-defense.

That said, while our Founders may have given deference to the states to manage their own affairs, it has been long established that there are certain things that are sacrosanct—like individual rights—and states can be limited as to their authority on establishing laws in certain areas.

So, after a trio of Second Amendment-affirming decisions handed down by the US Supreme Court based on challenges to laws at the state and city level—in the cases of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen—the days of anti-gun states and localities being able to violate Second Amendment rights with no accountability may be numbered.

This seems to terrify Sen. Murphy, and so much so that he has taken up the tactic of making thinly-veiled threats towards the US Supreme Court and questioning our nation’s very foundations of government.

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Fact Check: New Mexico’s Democrat Gov. Claims an AR-15 Is an ‘Automatic Weapon’

CLAIM: During Friday’s airing of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) claimed an AR-15 rifle is an “automatic weapon.”

VERDICT: False. AR-15s are semiautomatic firearms.

Grisham made her comments during a discussion of the May 16, 2023, Farmington, New Mexico, shooting that left three people dead.

CNN identified the Farmington gunman as an 18-year-old male and noted his family had worried about his mental health. He used three different guns in the attack and was ultimately killed by police.

One of the guns was an AR-15, which Grisham described as an “automatic weapon.” She said:

Frankly, no one that isn’t in the military — this is a weapon of war — or a trained police department, in my view, no one in America who isn’t in one of those two situations should own an automatic weapon. There is no reason to own one of those.

Contrary to Grisham’s assertion, AR-15s are semiautomatic firearms. They fire one round, and one round only, per trigger pull.
The AR-15 has a safety on the lower that allows the owner of the gun to switch between “safe” and “fire.” Automatic weapons, on the other hand, have a select fire switch that allows the owner of the gun to switch between “safe,” “semiautomatic fire,” and “automatic fire.” (In some cases the choice is a three-round burst of auto fire instead of unlimited auto fire.)

M16s and M4s are exampled of automatic weapons with the select fire switch.

M16s and M4s are actual “weapons of war,” but the AR-15 is just a semiautomatic rifle that shoots one round per trigger pull.

Grisham’s claim that an AR-15 is an “automatic weapon” is false.

Four Reasons For The Crime Increase
Whenever Anyone Tells You Guns are the Reason for the Rise in Crime, Show Them This Article

Miss Swearer hits another home run

The entirety of the American system of government rests on two very simple yet profound premises—that every human being is endowed by our Creator with natural and unalienable rights, and that the only just end of government is to secure these rights for its citizens. Unfortunately, far too often, ill-considered progressive policies not only fail to adequately secure Americans’ natural rights from criminals who would undermine them, but actively worsen the problem by making it harder for peaceable citizens to defend themselves. Here are four specific policies that routinely make us all less safe and that, after crime rates predictably rise, are then used as excuses from gun-control proponents to further restrict our right to keep and bear arms.

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‘We Want You to Be a Hero’: Sen. Hawley Warns How Daniel Penny’s Fate Could Affect Young Men

WATCH:

 

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The rush by the Left to vilify former Marine Daniel Penny before Americans have all the facts of his case could have a negative effect on American males’ willingness to be heroes, Sen. Josh Hawley said Thursday.

The Missouri Republican discussed Penny’s case during an interview with The Daily Signal about his new book, “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” following news that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had charged Penny with second-degree manslaughter in the death in the New York subway of Jordan Neely.

The senator pointed out that the American people still don’t have all the facts and details necessary to understand the incident fully.

“This is a good example of the extremely confusing signals that the culture and the media and the Left send to young men, which is that you don’t hear much outrage on the Left … about the fact that New York subways and streets are extremely unsafe, and that if you are an everyday citizen walking or traveling, you may well be subject to violence,” Hawley said. “That’s just wiped away. We’re supposed to just live with that.”

But then, you’ve got a guy who actually puts himself in danger to try to help other people. You’ve got a subway passenger now saying, ‘He saved my life. He put himself in danger.’ That is automatically condemned before we even know all the facts. It’s like, ‘Oh, that must be wrong’ or ‘That must be crazy.’

Young men looking at this situation, Hawley said, will likely think, “Well, now, hold on. I thought that a man was supposed to be willing to put himself on the line. Isn’t that what we celebrate in the Greatest Generation, for example, a whole generation of young men who went out there and sacrificed for their country? But you’re telling me now, ‘If I do that, I’m going to be vilified, sued, charged, what have you.’”

As the criminal justice system plays out, Americans will learn the facts and the truth about what happened between Neely and Penny, Hawley said. But based on what is known?

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Nashville Coverup Escalates: Tennessee’s Governor Must Cancel Special Session.

I was doing my usual Thursday morning stint on Tennessee Star Report radio, when host Michael Patrick Leahy read aloud the latest news from the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) regarding the ongoing controversy concerning the dreadful slayings of six people, three of them 9-year-olds, at the Covenant School that has become something of a national scandal.

The Epoch Times’ Chase Smith has done an admirable job of reporting the content of the police statement, although suffice it to say that Leahy and I both were stunned at the extent of what appeared to us as an enduring and expanding coverup.

The most important parts of the claims by MNPD Assistant Chief Mike Hagar were that the investigation of the fatal shootings by Audrey Hale is still an “active, ongoing criminal investigation and an open matter” that wouldn’t be concluded for “12 months.”

This, although the sole perpetrator, Audrey Hale, is herself dead, shot in the midst of her heinous crimes on March 27, approaching two months ago. (I “misgender” her as “she,” although Hale identified and dressed as a male. Call me old fashioned, but unlike a certain new Supreme Court justice, I understand our sexes to have been determined for the 300,000 years of homo sapiens, and probably before, by the number of immutable X and Y chromosomes in the 30 trillion to 40 trillion cells in our bodies.)

As for the 12 months, in government speak that often expands to 24 or even 36 months and, most likely of all—in the grand tradition of the FBI, which may be calling the shots here anyway—to never.

Meanwhile, without public access to the “manifesto” and other documents, not to mention the most important of all, the toxicology report (I will explain), Gov. Bill Lee will convene a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly on Aug. 21 to, in the official word of TN.gov., “strengthen public safety and preserve constitutional rights.”

Covers its bases, no? Sounds good. But what’s really behind this is an attempt to push through Lee’s version of a so-called red flag law and probably some form of gun control, both of which most of those who voted for him would never subscribe to, and neither of which have ever been shown to be effective.

Indeed, with gun control, as in Chicago, it’s arguably the reverse. The more control, the more corpses.

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