Category: Goobermint

FPC VICTORY: Judge Issues Injunction Against California Gun Owner Data-Sharing Law

SAN DIEGO, CA (October 14, 2022) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that San Diego Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal has issued a preliminary injunction in its lawsuit challenging California Assembly Bill 173, which requires the state’s Department of Justice to share the personal identifying information of millions of gun and ammunition owners with other parties for non-law-enforcement purposes. The ruling in Barba v. Bonta, which was affirmed by the judge in full, can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“Defendant responds plaintiffs cannot establish irreparable harm because the personal identifying information has already been shared with researchers as recently as November of 2021. Yet this does not account for the potential ongoing and future harms that could occur by continuous use of the information,” wrote Judge Bacal in her ruling. “Additionally. . .this does not necessarily mean that future requests for data would not occur in the interim . . .and while this motion has been pending, a massive data breach reportedly occurred that leaked personal identifying information from the firearm databases for concealed carry applicants in or about June of 2022. Accordingly, plaintiffs have shown that the balance of harms weighs in favor of issuing the injunction.”

“The California government has proven time and time again that it can’t be trusted with the private personal information of its residents,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “Today’s ruling reinforces what FPC has been arguing all along; that you needn’t be forced to open your front door to immoral government intrusion in order to exercise your fundamental rights.”

FPC is joined in this lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation, California Gun Rights Foundation, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, Orange County Gun Owners PAC, and Inland Empire Gun Owners PAC.

Individuals who would like to Join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs can sign up at JoinFPC.org. Individuals and organizations wanting to support charitable efforts in support of the restoration of Second Amendment and other natural rights can also make a tax-deductible donation to the FPC Action Foundation. For more on FPC’s lawsuits and other pro-Second Amendment initiatives, visit FPCLegal.org and follow FPC on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.

Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org), a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, exists to create a world of maximal human liberty, defend constitutional rights, advance individual liberty, and restore freedom. FPC’s efforts are focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and adjacent issues including freedom of speech, due process, unlawful searches and seizures, separation of powers, asset forfeitures, privacy, encryption, and limited government. The FPC team are next-generation advocates working to achieve the Organization’s strategic objectives through litigation, research, scholarly publications, amicus briefing, legislative and regulatory action, grassroots activism, education, outreach, and other programs.

FPC Law (FPCLaw.org) is the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space.

NJ proposal would require insurance for carry permits

Following the Bruen decision, a lot of states suddenly found their gun control laws null and void. Since these were anti-gun states, it’s unsurprising that many are trying to find new rules that they believe will conform to the ruling.

But New Jersey’s latest proposal has serious issues. Why? An insurance requirement, that’s why.

New Jersey residents hoping to carry guns in public would first be required to buy insurance and complete gun-safety training under a measure to be introduced by legislative leaders on Thursday — steps that, if enacted, would represent some of the strictest gun rules in the country.…
William J. Castner, an adviser to Gov. Philip D. Murphy on firearms issues, said the legal challenges that the New York law is facing will be instructive as New Jersey finalizes its legislation.

“New Jersey at least now has the benefit of crafting this law with an eye toward defending new requirements on training, mandatory insurance, disqualifying offenses and sensitive places where guns will not be allowed at all,” Mr. Castner said.

One novel element in the proposed legislation is the statewide requirement that gun owners applying for permits to carry weapons in public also purchase liability insurance. In January, San Jose, Calif., will begin requiring all gun owners to carry liability insurance, but no state has mandated insurance as a condition of gun ownership.

Except there are issues with the comparison to San Jose.

For one thing, it turns out San Jose’s requirement is basically just homeowner’s insurance. It doesn’t require a specially-crafted policy.

However, mandating liability insurance for people who want a concealed carry permit actually does. There’s no such insurance on the market and, with New Jersey’s population, it’s not likely to create enough of a demand for anyone to actually develop it.

While I have no problem imagining New Jersey officials deciding to do something like this before even looking to see if such a policy exists, I also suspect they already know.

For them, it’s a feature, not a bug.

They can’t be accused of denying people permits if the problem is that no one can meet the requirements, now can they?

Too bad for them that yes, we can.

That’s because it’s one thing if someone is just unable to meet the requirements but quite another if it’s physically impossible for anyone to meet the requirements.

And one like this isn’t likely to survive a legal challenge anyways.

Let’s say, for example, such an insurance policy was created to meet this new demand. If that were the case, then this new requirement would amount to a poll tax. Those have long been declared unconstitutional as you cannot be charged such a fee in order to exercise a basic right.

However, some already think there’s a rebuttal for that:

“Every car on the road is required to have insurance,” said Nicholas Scutari, the Democratic president of the Senate, who is sponsoring the legislation. “We’re going to allow people to have weapons and carry them around with them without insuring them? They’re taking on a lot of responsibility.”

First, driving is categorized as a privilege, not a right.

Second, the roads are basically government property and so the government can create rules for using those roads. If I’ve got private property with sufficient area for me to drive on, I don’t need insurance, a license, or a tag to drive there. No one will say or do anything so long as I stay off public roads.

Then we get into the fact that car insurance is for accidents, not criminal acts. No insurance covers an individual acting criminally. While accidents can happen with guns, they’re a tiny fraction of the issue and are extremely rare when you consider how many guns there are in this country.

What this is, though, has nothing to do with public safety.

New Jersey wants to punish anyone who wants to carry a gun. They want to make it as hard as possible and as expensive as possible to get a concealed carry permit.

Which is what New York was basically doing before Bruen.

This will go about as well for New Jersey as Bruen went for New York.

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Majority Of Democrats Now ‘Concerned’ About Biden’s Mental Health, Poll Finds.

Finally, Democrats are starting to get it.

After yet another mental gaffe by President Joe Biden, a new poll has found a majority of Democrats are at least “concerned” about his mental health.

The Issues & Insights/TIPP survey of 1,376 adults released Monday showed 64% of Americans are either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned,” a 5-point jump from its last poll in August.

But the percentage of Democrats now concerned about Biden’s mental lapses leaped 13 points in two months.  “Virtually all of October’s gain came from Democrats, who went from just 39% expressing ‘concern’ over Biden’s mental health in August, a high number in itself, to 52% in the latest poll,” the pollsters wrote.

“Is Biden’s mental infirmity a danger to this country? Is it time for the president, who turns 80 next month, to be tested by competent medical experts and have the results openly released to allay public fears?” said the pollsters.

“Recent video snippets show Biden wandering off stage, apparently lost, after speaking briefly; forgetting the name of the Declaration of Independence, the nation’s founding document; not remembering that a congresswoman he was honoring at a ceremony was in fact dead, asking Where’s Jackie (Walorski)?’; invoking the possibility of nuclear ‘Armageddon’ after Vladimir Putin’s military suffered setbacks in Ukraine; and so on.”

On September 28, Biden delivered a speech at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in Washington, D.C. He recognized those involved in the effort, including Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN).

In his shout-outs, Biden said: “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? She must not be here.”

She wasn’t there because Walorski is dead. She died, along with three others, in a head-on car crash on August 3.

Biden, 79, had clearly forgotten that Walorski had died, even though on the day of her death, the White House released a statement from the president mourning her.

“Jill and I are shocked and saddened by the death of Congresswoman Jackie Walorski of Indiana along with two members of her staff in a car accident today in Indiana,” Biden said at the time. He also ordered the U.S. flag at the White House to be lowered for two days.

What made the whole mess worse is that the White House decided to lie about Biden’s confusion, implying that he knew Walorski was dead but that she was simply “top of mind.”

“So, of course, she was on his mind. She was of top of mind for the President,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the next day. “He looks — very much looks forward to discussing her remarkable legacy of public service with them when he sees her family this coming Friday.”

Reporters lashed out at Jean-Pierre, who simply repeated her scripted lies. But Fox News’ Peter Doocy delivered a zinger, telling the flack: “Karine, I have John Lennon top of mind just about every day, but I’m not looking around for him anywhere.”

Biden would eventually apologize to Walorski’s family when he met with them for a bill signing in the Oval Office two days later.

Maybe he should apologize to all Americans for being president.

‘plays’? He is old and ugly. He’s also stupid.

Joe Biden Plays the Old Ugly American
Having shut down America’s oil-producing abilities, Biden believes that he can strongarm his enemies to send us more of such taboo energy that we won’t produce ourselves.

The Left used to accuse imperialist, resource-hungry Yanquis in Washington of cutting selfish deals with illiberal dictatorships in Latin America to grab their natural resources.

How odd then that Joe Biden is now begging the despicable Maduro regime in Venezuela—corrupt, murderous, and anti-American—to produce more of its oil solely to send northward to America.

Biden is quite willing to ease sanctions and condone the human rights abuses of Maduro—if his dictatorship will just open its oil spigots before the November midterm elections.

Biden in 2020 campaigned on the supposed evil nature of the Saudi Arabian monarchy. Yet after vainly entreating Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, it was inevitable that Biden would once again supplicate the Saudis to pump more oil.

Biden even pleaded with OPEC to increase its output and thus lower the world price of energy—again before the midterm elections.

Biden, remember, has a bad habit of bragging that he lowered gas prices at the pump when the natural volatility of the petroleum markets leads to a fractional decrease. But once prices spike, he is utterly silent about his own role in limiting U.S. oil and gas output.

So, was it any surprise that the Saudis became the fourth non-democratic regime to refuse Biden’s entreaties? During the 2020 campaign, when gas prices were dirt cheap, and when then candidate Biden was demagoguing about ending fossil fuel, he opportunistically libeled the Saudis a “pariah” state.

Biden also claimed that his opponent Donald Trump had cozied up to these supposedly awful Saudi royals. That accusation was especially ironic given that Trump was the first American president who had no need for Saudi oil.

His administration had managed to make the United States the largest producer of gas and oil in history— precluding any energy dependence on illiberal regimes abroad.

Trump was the first U.S. president whose interest in Gulf State monarchies was not energy-driven.

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New York’s new concealed carry law can remain in effect for now, court rules

A federal appeals court has agreed to let New York’s concealed gun law remain in effect until a three-judge panel weighs in on a court ruling that blocked parts of the restrictive gun measure.

In a two-sentence ruling, 2nd Circuit Court Judge Eunice Lee referred New York state’s request for a stay of the temporary restraining order to a three-judge panel while the state appeals the merits of a ruling blocking the enforcement of part of the law.

The court also granted the state’s request to pause the temporary restraining order from going into effect pending the result of the panel review.

Last Thursday, a federal court issued a temporary restraining order which would have prevented enforcement of parts of the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.” The law was enacted in the wake of the Supreme Court decision this summer striking down a New York gun law that placed restrictions on carrying a concealed handgun outside the home.

The measure enacts a strict permitting process for concealed-carry licenses and it requires background checks for ammunition sales. It also restricts the concealed carry of firearms in locations such as government buildings.

But the plaintiffs in the case at hand, including at least one individual who wants to carry his firearm in church, argue the state is violating their Second and 14th Amendment rights by denying them the right to self-defense.

Nationwide, in the three months since the 6-3 Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, scores of new lawsuits have been filed against gun restrictions at the federal, state and local levels.

Though the Supreme Court case concerned a type of gun permitting regime embraced by just a handful of states, the conservative majority used the Bruen decision to provide new instructions for how courts are to assess the constitutionality of gun laws nationwide.

The decision was the first major Supreme Court guns ruling in more than a decade, and it came after Justice Clarence Thomas — who authored the majority opinion — had previously complained that the high court had allowed the Second Amendment to be treated as “a disfavored right.”

This is much easier for Congress because that’s much easier than having to exert oneself to get out of that cushy chair on the .gov gravy train and actually do what they’re getting paid for.

The New Bicameralism and Presentment
The executive branch proposes a rule, a district court judge can block it, then one member of the Supreme Court determines if Congress would have approved of that rule.

The Constitution establishes a very precise process by which laws can be enacted. First, a bill must be approved by one house of Congress. Second, the other house of Congress must approve the bill. Third, the President can sign the bill into law. If the bill is vetoed, Congress can override the veto. This process is known as bicameralism and presentment: two houses must pass the bill, which is then presented to the President for his signature.

This process, regrettably, has become rarer and rare. Virtually all major changes to the law occur outside the confines of the traditional form of bicameralism and presentment. Instead, there is a different three-step process.

First, the executive branch proposes a new legal regime. Maybe there is notice-and-comment rulemaking, or maybe it is bypassed. There is always good cause when the need arises. Or an agency issues some sort of non-binding guidance document that regulated entities treat as binding.

Second, after the policy is promulgated, it is challenged in favorable forums. A district court judge then decides if the rule can go into effect, or not.

Third, if the trial court blocks the rule, the case is presented to the Supreme Court. And pursuant to the major question doctrine, the Justices must determine if this is the sort of rule that Congress would have approved of.

In this regard, there is still a familiar three-step process, involving the executive branch, the lower courts, and the Supreme Court. Congress is involved in an imaginative sense, as one Justice gets to decide what Congress would have intended. If all three boxes are checked, federal laws is changed! Call it a new bicameralism and presentment.

3 Months After Bruen Ruling, Antis Still Trying to Dance Around Constitution

More than three months after the landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down New York’s unconstitutional, and century-old gun permit “good cause” scheme, anti-gunners continue trying to get around the Second Amendment, while the media seem content to help the whining.

According to CNN, since the June 23 smackdown of New York’s carry permit law in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, “scores of new lawsuits have been filed against gun restrictions at the federal, state and local levels.” The cable news network report also noted, “This shift in burden has put gun rights groups at a greater advantage in court. It has also changed the type of work that government defenders – and the outside gun safety groups that often support them in litigation – must do to advocate for their laws.”

Monday, anti-gun New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced she will fight a federal court ruling from last week that declared some tenets of the state’s new law—hastily adopted just days after the high court ruling—were unconstitutional. Speaking defiantly, James said her office had “filed a motion to keep the entire Concealed Carry Improvement Act in effect and continue to protect communities as the appeals process moves forward. This common-sense gun control legislation is critical in our state’s effort to reduce gun violence. We will continue to fight for the safety of everyday New Yorkers.”

In a prepared statement, James’ office said the new law “strengthens requirements for concealed carry permits, prohibits guns in sensitive places, requires individuals with concealed carry permits to request a property owner’s consent to carry on their premises, enhances safe storage requirements, requires social media review ahead of certain gun purchases, and requires background checks on all ammunition purchases.”

Critics complain the new statute is as bad, if not worse, than the original law.

The New York Times said ruling by District Judge Glenn Suddaby “dealt a sharp blow to New York, which had sought to provide a model for new gun legislation for the five other states whose laws were invalidated by the Supreme Court’s June ruling — in part by outlining how those ‘sensitive places,’ where the court said it was permissible for states to bar guns, can be defined.”

Ramping up the rhetoric, anti-gun New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday he was designating Times Square as a “gun free zone.”

The Times story quoted Judge Suddaby, who called the “good moral character” requirement of the new law “fatally flawed.” He also said the demand for access to someone’s social media accounts for the previous three years would not pass muster.

“No such circumstances exist under which this provision would be valid,” the judge said.

Lawsuit Targets Glendale, CA Over Gun Ban On Public Property

California – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation and its partners today filed a federal lawsuit asking for declaratory and injunctive relief against the City of Glendale, Calif., its police chief and city clerk. The case is known as CRPA v. Glendale.

Joining SAF are the Gun Owners of California and the California Rifle & Pistol Association. They are represented by attorneys Chuck Michel, Joshua Robert Dale, Konstadinos T. Moros of Long Beach, and Donald Kilmer of Caldwell, Idaho. In addition to the City of Glendale, the defendants are Police Chief Carl Povilaitis and City Clerk Suzie Abajian in their official capacities. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division.

“The City of Glendale’s municipal code generally bans possession of firearms and ammunition on any city property, with no exception for citizens with concealed carry permits,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This ban applies not just to city property, but also publicly-controlled property or public-affiliated private property, with the only exceptions being streets, roads and sidewalks. Such restrictions relegate the right to keep and bear arms to the status of a strictly-regulated government privilege.

“Our lawsuit is blunt,” he continued. “The Glendale ordinance is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms for personal protection extends outside the home. As we note in our complaint, the burden is on the city to prove that all areas falling within the definition of ‘city property’ are so-called ‘sensitive places,’ and they cannot do it.”

As explained in the 24-page complaint, the city has 47 parks and recreation facilities (including four community centers, one golf course, three soccer fields, and sixteen ball fields), playgrounds, eight public libraries, three downtown parking structures and other city-owned or operated parking lots, the Glendale Civic Auditorium and civic center complex, a youth center, an emergency center, undefined “open spaces” and “plazas,” and an unknowable amount of properties in the possession of private companies under contract with the city.

“That broad definition essentially turns much if not most of the city into a gun-free zone where Second Amendment rights do not exist, and that simply doesn’t pass the smell test,” Gottlieb stated. “We are hopeful the court quickly recognizes this and grants our request.”

The first lawsuit, against manufacturers, was thrown out. This one is against dealers and distributors. I think it’ll fare no better, but you never know. In any case, most of the weapons the cartels have are stolen from the Mexican military, or sold to them by corrupt people in the Mexican military. You don’t buy M2, M240, M4 & automatic AK machineguns at the local gun store

Mexico files 2nd lawsuit against arms dealers in US

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government filed another U.S. gun lawsuit Monday, this time against five U.S. gun shops and distributors it claims are responsible for the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico.

Mexico’s first lawsuit, which was recently dismissed, targeted U.S. gun manufacturers. The second, which Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said was filed in Arizona’s federal district court Monday, targets gun dealers.

“We are suing them because clearly there is a pattern, we contend that it is obvious that there is weapons trafficking and that it is known that these guns are going to our country,” Ebrard said.

Ebrard promised last week the new lawsuit would target gun shops or dealers in U.S. border states who sell guns to “straw” purchasers who pass them on to smugglers, who then take the weapons into Mexico.

Mexico is suing for unspecified monetary damages and to demand the gun stores hire independent monitors to ensure that U.S. federal laws are followed in gun purchases.

Alejandro Celorio Alcántara, the legal adviser to Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department, said Mexico had chosen “the five worst stores” to name in the lawsuit, including three gun outlets in Tucson, one in Phoenix and one in Yuma, Arizona.

“They are not careful when they sell products, so they allow straw purchasers to buy guns,” said Celorio Alcántara, adding they sold multiple guns, multiple times to some purchasers. “We are saying they are negligent and facilitate straw purchasers, to the point of being accomplices.”

He claimed that U.S. criminal investigations had traced weapons purchases back to the stores, and said there was evidence that the shops had not filed required information on some purchases.

“The main argument of our lawsuit is that these businesses are an organized part of a criminal enterprise, a mechanism, to facilitate criminals and cartels in Mexico being able to use their weapons,” said Celorio Alcántara.

He said the first hearing on the suit might not come until the summer.

Ebrard said about 60% of the weapons seized in Mexico in recent years were believed to have been sold in 10 U.S. counties, mostly along the border. Mexico has very strict restrictions on weapon possession, but drug cartel violence has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the country in recent years.

“We are going to show that many of these outlets where they sell these products in these counties I mentioned, are dealing with straw purchasers, and criminal charges have to be brought,” Ebrard said last week in an appearance before the Mexican Senate.

A recently enacted U.S. law defines straw purchasing as a crime, and sets out sentences of as much as 15 to 25 years if the offense is related to drug trafficking.

Celorio Alcántara said that was a key difference between this and Mexico’s earlier lawsuit: in the Arizona suit, Mexico is arguing a violation of U.S. laws.

The announcement comes several days after a U.S. federal judge dismissed Mexico’s first lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers; Mexico has said it will appeal that decision.

The judge ruled Mexico’s claims against the gun makers did not overcome the broad protection provided to firearms manufacturers by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act passed in 2005.

The law shields gun manufacturers from damages “resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm.

Mexico was seeking at least $10 billion in compensation, but legal experts had viewed the lawsuit as a long shot.

The Mexican government estimates 70% of the weapons trafficked into Mexico come from the U.S., according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry. It said that in 2019 alone, at least 17,000 homicides in Mexico were linked to trafficked weapons.

NY AG appeals judge’s decision halting enforcement of most new carry restrictions

New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a federal judge’s decision to halt enforcement of many aspects of the state’s new Concealed Carry Improvement Act, arguing that there’s a “serious risk of irreparable harm to public safety and the possibility of regulatory chaos” if U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby’s decision to grant a temporary restraining order is allowed to take effect.

Suddaby’s ruling left intact, at least for now, the draconian training requirements imposed by the state in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, but barred enforcement of most of the state’s new “sensitive places” where guns are banned, as well as many of the other requirements mandated for those applying for a concealed carry permit; turning over social media accounts and informing authorities of all other family members living with the applicant among them.

In her request to the Second Circuit, James claims that if the appeals court allows the TRO to take effect, the result will be massive confusion over the status of the law, which might be true but pales in significance compared to the daily deprivation of the right to keep and bear arms that the CCIA has enabled.

Exposing eighteen million New Yorkers to a heightened risk of gunfire severely outweighs any prejudice to plaintiffs here from a stay.Five plaintiffs allegedly wish to carry guns into specific sensitive or restricted places, such as the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, the airport for a flight to Tennessee, the church where one plaintiff lives, or Catskills State Park, through which another plaintiff must drive.

Yet the district court restrained defendants from enforcing the challenged CCIA provisions on a statewide basis, as applied to anyone — a remedy far beyond what relates to the individual harms alleged.

Well, no. Virtually everyone who possesses a concealed carry permit and all those who wish to do so are being harmed by the state’s new restrictions. As for the potential for “regulatory chaos” if the new laws are halted, I have news for James and other anti-gun Democrats: the CCIA is already sowing confusion. In fact, in St. Lawrence County no concealed carry applications have been issued since the law took effect back on September 1st because no one is clear on what the law entails.

“We just haven’t been accepting applications since the new law has taken effect. Number one, the state has already changed the application that they originally came out with once. You know, to keep processing stuff that’s not even right to begin with. So at this point basically what it is is that we’re waiting for clarification from both the state and the judge,” said Santamoor.

As New York’s gun laws work their way through the courts, gun shop owner Matt Pinkerton is frustrated, believing the new laws were flawed from the start.

“I completely understand why the permit process would be slowed or halted at this point because the governor has put into place a system that is very logistically difficult to enact,” he said.

For New York lawmakers, the confusion isn’t a bug, but a feature of the new law meant to artificially depress the number of citizens exercising their right to carry a firearm in self-defense.

James offered no real historical analogues to the sweeping number of locations deemed “sensitive” and off-limits to concealed carry. Instead, she argues to the Second Circuit that it’s the plaintiffs themselves who had the burden of showing that the Second Amendment’s text and tradition “plausibly encom-passed any of these areas.” In a bit of circular logic, James claims that once a state has declared a location to be a “sensitive place”, it should automatically be presumed to be justified.

Carrying weapons in sensitive places has traditionally been “altogether prohibited.” These areas thus fall outside the “scope of the Second Amendment,” and are “an exception to the general right to bear arms” codified therein. 

The question, of course, is whether New York is violating the Second Amendment rights of its residents by declaring broad swathes of the state to be “gun-free zones.” Under James’s argument, once the state has deemed a particular location to be “sensitive”, it automatically falls outside of the Second Amendment’s protections; a nice trick, but one that flies in the face of what the Supreme Court actually said in Bruen.

James also takes issue with how Suddaby determined that many of the state’s “sensitive places” don’t have similar analogues in U.S. history.

Second, the court’s analogies were flawed—none more so than for barring weapons on mass transit, which the court held to be inconsistent with nineteenth-century laws authorizing carrying pistols when “‘on a journey.’” Old and new regulations may be “relevantly similar” in many ways.

Comparing hurtling through tunnels in electrically powered cars filled with thousands of people (including schoolchildren and the elderly) to journeying via horse through the countryside is like saying that “a green truck and a green hat are relevantly similar” because both are green.

It’s worth noting that “hurtling through tunnels in electrically powered cars” with a permitted concealed firearm was perfectly legal on New York City subways until just a few weeks ago. The ban on concealed carry on public transportation in the city and state wasn’t enacted until after the Bruen decision was handed down; before that those chosen few who were lucky or well-connected enough to receive a permit were perfectly fine carrying on the subway. Only after the average New Yorker was told she could do the same did the state reverse course and declare mass transit to be “sensitive places” where guns must be banned; again without any evidence that there were similar bans in place at the time of the ratification of either the Second or Fourteenth amendments.

All in all I found James’ initial filing to be less than impressive, but given the Second Circuit’s past hostility towards the right to keep and bear arms she might not need a strong argument to be successful at blocking Suddaby’s ruling from taking effect… at least immediately. No matter what the Second Circuit decides, expect this to be appealed up to the Supreme Court, and hopefully it won’t take long for the justices who struck down New York’s “may issue” laws to halt enforcement of the state’s latest infringements on the right to keep and bear arms.

SAF FILES MEMORANDUM FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys for the Second Amendment Foundation’s challenge of California’s new law that includes a one-way fee-shifting penalty to discourage lawsuits against restrictive gun laws have filed a memorandum of points and authorities in support of their motion for a preliminary injunction.

Attorneys Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay of the Benbrook Law Group, PC, and David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and Joseph O. Masterman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC filed the memorandum, which asserts plaintiffs have already suffered harm due to the constitutional violations contained in the new law.

The lawsuit, and this new memorandum, allege the law (Section 1021.11 of the California Penal Code) is unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause, and that it also violates the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. The statute also discriminates against gun rights plaintiffs in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, according to the lawsuit.

SAF is joined by Gunfighter Tactical, LLC, PWGG, L.P., the San Diego County Gun Owners’ PAC, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., Dillon Law Group, P.C., John Phillips, Ryan Peterson, George M. Lee, John W. Dillon and James Miller, for whom the lawsuit is named.

The new motion also says Section 1021.11 has “caused several Plaintiffs to dismiss or refrain from bringing additional lawsuits challenging other California firearms regulations that they believe are unconstitutional.”

“We are pulling out all the stops in fighting this new statute because of its egregious nature,” said SAF founder and executive vice president Alan M. Gottlieb, one of the plaintiffs in the case known as Miller v. Bonta. “Section 1021.11 is part of Senate Bill 1327, adopted earlier this year in reaction to a Texas law passed last year, which is about abortion. The California law was crafted as a political response to the Texas statute, which California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the chief defendant in our case, described as ‘blatantly unconstitutional.’

“Bonta is trying to have it both ways,” Gottlieb continued. “He simply cannot protest a law he considers unconstitutional by enforcing another law which is equally unconstitutional in what amounts to a childish political snit that began with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California legislature.”

 

Local Work By Anti-Gun Radicals Emphasizes Need For Preemption

We usually spend a great deal of time talking about the impact on the Second Amendment made at the federal and state level. But it is important to remember that attacks on our right to keep and bear arms are often made at the local level, and we don’t want these affronts to freedom to slip under anyone’s radar. Statewide preemption statutes that reserve the authority to enact gun-control laws to state legislatures are critical to diminishing these efforts. They help to avoid a patchwork of conflicting laws and regulations throughout a state.

Unfortunately, not every state has a preemption statute, and even with them in place, anti-gun local authorities regularly work to challenge, undermine or circumvent them. Here are a few of the things extremists have tried to do, or actually have done, at the local level to undermine law-abiding gun owners that may not have caught the attention of national news coverage.

Boulder County Adopts Gun Control
In Colorado, the Boulder County Commissioners unanimously voted to pass a gun-control package consisting of five ordinances to infringe on your Second Amendment rights. Commissioner Matt Jones claims these ordinances are “common-sense gun violence laws designed to help keep people safe,” but, apparently, common sense isn’t common. These ordinances are restrictions that attack your constitutional right to bear arms and do nothing to promote public safety.

The gun-control package includes: banning the sale of firearms to anyone under the age of 21; requiring a waiting period of 10 days to sell or purchase a firearm; prohibiting the carrying of firearms in a number of public places; banning the sale of “assault rifles,” “large” magazines, and trigger activators; and regulating the possession of unfinished gun frames and guns without serial numbers, sometimes referred to as “ghost guns.”

The city council forced this gun-control package through at the beginning of July with no opportunity for public comment. The first public hearing was in early August, which is conveniently when the gun-control package went into effect. Cities in Colorado like Boulder have had the authority to pass a patchwork of confusing and conflicting local laws throughout the state since Colorado repealed its firearms preemption statutes last year. By doing this, Colorado became one of the few states to take away the state legislature’s sole authority to regulate firearms, and the various cities’ gun-control regulations have already begun to create inconsistency and uncertainty statewide.

Pima County Passes Resolution Calling for Repeal of State Preemption Statute
In Arizona, the Pima County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in early August calling for a lawsuit to challenge the state’s preemption statutes, as well as urging the state legislature to repeal them. This resolution falls in line with efforts by both Pima County and Tucson to pass local gun-control ordinances. In 2017, the Arizona State Supreme Court ruled in the State’s favor, causing the City of Tucson to repeal an ordinance that was in violation of the state statute.

The Arizona Legislature enacted the state firearms preemption law in 2000, which has been modified and strengthened over the years, most recently in 2016.

Columbia to Consider More Gun Control
South Carolina’s capital city, Columbia, submitted a draft ordinance to Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office in July, asking if it violates the state’s preemption law. The draft ordinance victimizes gun owners who have suffered the loss or theft of their property if they fail to report a lost or stolen firearm within a certain period of time after discovering it missing. Nearby Virginia passed a similar law in 2020, which has not only been ineffective in hindering criminals, but also has been almost unenforceable, as there have been just three civil penalties in the two years it has been in effect.

Attorney General Wilson has previously stopped Columbia from violating the state’s preemption law, which prevents localities from passing their own gun control. Columbia’s newest effort is just another waste of time and taxpayer resources while doing nothing to hold criminals accountable for their actions, such as stealing firearms, and get them off the streets.

As we went to press for this issue, Attorney General Wilson had not yet responded to Columbia’s request for his opinion.

The answer to those first two questions is another one
‘Are you kidding me?’

Prudence Is a Virtue
The ethical man is also the prudent man. Is Joe Biden prudent? Was it prudent to talk about the prospect of Armageddon?

Joe Biden has me thinking about Aristotle.

If that seems odd—and I understand that it does—consider Biden’s much publicized remarks last week at a Democratic fundraiser about “Armageddon.” Referring to Vladimir Putin’s veiled but increasingly strident threats to use “all the means at our disposal” to defend Russian territorial integrity, Biden went full-Cuban missile crisis on the assembled members of the great Democratic ATM: “We have not,” he said, “faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis.”

Hmm.

Are we to infer that Joe Biden is like John F. Kennedy facing down Nikita Khrushchev? You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Granted, the idea is preposterous in about 87 different ways. But perhaps Biden’s speechwriters wanted to plant a seed. Anyway, we are probably meant to keep JFK in the back of our minds.

Biden did not actually cite the Book of Revelation, which identifies Armageddon as the site of the final battle between good and evil at the end of the world, but I have no doubt that the word “Armageddon” was echoing loudly down the corridors of the Kremlin. That, I am pretty sure, was by design. Did it have Putin polishing the launch apparatus on some of his 6000 nukes? I don’t know.

Probably, though, Putin’s lips were pursed when he heard Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president and celebrated T-shirt model, call upon NATO to conduct “preventative action” against Russian targets to prevent their use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

I thought it was cute that Zelenskyy’s translator first said “preventative strikes” before correcting himself and substituting “preventative action.”

Another seed planted. Was it deliberate? You tell me.

This is the first of two places that this little pas de deux (or is it trois?) reminded me of Aristotle.

You don’t have to know much about ye olde Stagirite to know that he had some interesting things to say about the idea of causation. When we ask about the cause of something, he noted, there are several things we might mean. I won’t go into that interesting discussion here but will note that in common parlance, when we ask what causes X, we are asking what brings X about.

Often, the answer to that question involves several things, some less obvious than others. What caused World War I? German aggression? Unwise alliances and security guarantees in the West? The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand? All of those and more?

In this sense, when we are thinking about what is happening—and what might happen—in Ukraine, we have an abundance of what Aristotle called “efficient causes.” First of all, there is Vladimir Putin. After all, he invaded Ukraine last winter and so brought about the conflict that is raging there now.

But as the war has unfolded, we see that there are many other causative agents at work in perpetuating and escalating the conflict. Zelenskyy has contributed his bit. So has NATO by suggesting that anyone, except Russia, might be a good candidate for that boy’s club. And so has the Biden Administration by supplying arms and intelligence to Ukraine to carry on the fight.

What if that hot war gets hotter? What if Putin continues to suffer setbacks and, taking on board the belligerent rhetoric emanating from the Biden Administration, decides to use nuclear weapons? What if we intervene ourselves with nukes? Who or what will have caused that horrific eventuality

The answer, I think, is not as simple or straightforward as you might think. Sure, if Putin uses nukes, he can be said to have caused the conflagration. But what about statements designed to push Putin to the wall? What role will they have played?

Consider, to take just one example, the recent column by John Bolton, unhappy chest-beating former national security advisor to Donald Trump and one of the most belligerent senior neocons on the scene today. Bolton said that “There is no long-term prospect for peace and security in Europe without regime change in Russia.” Regime change. And he made it crystal clear that he would be happy for America to go to war to achieve said regime change, i.e., removal of Putin from power.

Like almost all leaders, Vladimir Putin will strenuously resist such efforts. Which is why Scott McKay, in an intelligent column for the American Spectator about Bolton’s saber-rattling effusion, included some sage advice from the venerable Sun Tzu: “Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across,” Sun Tzu advised. That is, give Putin an attractive off-ramp. As McKay put it, “A wise American leadership would be building that golden bridge for Putin, not openly plotting his downfall.” Because, as Sun Tzu warned, “an opponent with his feet in the river will fight to the death.” Often, it is worth remembering, to the death of both parties.

“A wise American leadership.” Is that what we have now?

That question brings me to my second page from Aristotle.

At the center of Aristotle’s ethics is the concept of “prudence.” The ethical man is also the prudent man. Is Joe Biden prudent? Was it prudent to talk about the prospect of Armageddon when his relevant audience was not a bunch of Democratic moneybags but an increasingly isolated and jumpy Russian dictator?

This was something that worried Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. “We must,” he said in response to Biden’s talk of Armageddon, “speak with prudence” when we speak of such matters. “I have always refused to engage in political fiction,” Macron continued, “especially . . . when speaking of nuclear weapons.”

Most of the time, I am not part of the French president’s fan club. But I do think that he is 100 percent right in this case. It is good, peace-loving advice. It is a pity that Biden and his handlers seem less and less willing to follow it.

Why Did Biden Just Send Top U.S. Officials to Meet With the Taliban?

In a shocking development Saturday afternoon, it was first reported by CNN that top officials within the Biden administration met with top Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, marking the first meeting with the terrorist group since al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was vaporized by a U.S. drone strike in July, under Taliban care and comfort.

CNN noted:

The administration sent the CIA’s deputy director and the top State Department official responsible for Afghanistan to the Qatari capital of Doha for the talks with the Taliban delegation which included their head of intelligence, Abdul Haq Wasiq.

The presence of CIA Deputy Director David Cohen and the Taliban’s Wasiq at the meeting on Saturday indicates an emphasis on counterterrorism. The White House last month called cooperation with the Taliban on counterterrorism “a work in progress.”

Cohen was accompanied by the State Department’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Tom West, who has often led engagement with the Taliban since the US withdrawal last year.

The goal of the meeting is still unclear, but it comes in the wake of recent news regarding a giant pile of cash — $3.5 billion — that Taliban leaders in Afghanistan would love to get their hands on. The money was frozen after the Taliban took over Afghanistan following President Joe Biden’s disastrous, failed withdrawal of U.S. troops, allowing terrorist masterminds back to their sandy playground.

The meeting also comes just weeks after Taliban terrorists celebrated the first anniversary of Biden’s botched pullout by parading some of the billions in top-tier U.S. military equipment left behind by Biden and Pentagon brass.

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Toddlers In Charge

Watching the Biden Administration announce, retract, modify, announce, let Joe speak, retract… and on and on is like watching a toddler on a sugar high. Think about it. Anybody who’s ever raised or dealt with small children knows that within the limits of their understanding, toddlers don’t necessarily lie. Tell outrageous stories about why or how something happened, yes. Understand that those stories are what adults often consider to be lies, no.

Ask a toddler how a vase got broken and s/he might tell you that the dinosaur did it. Yeah, right, you say. No, really mama! The dinosaur flew around the room and crashed into the vase! It wasn’t me! The dinosaur did it! The kid totally believes this and does not recognize it as a lie. Why? Well, it’s true that the dinosaur flew around the room and hit the vase. What the child has neglected to mention is that it flew out of their hand. Yep, they tossed it. But after that, the dinosaur was on its own, therefore its inability to fly properly led to it crashing into the vase. So, it’s not the kid’s fault. See how that works?

The Biden Administration seems to think that those sorts of fantastical, detail omitting stories can be utilized by adults trying to clumsily talk their way out of a bad situation that they created. They don’t seem to understand or recognize that they were supposed to leave that behavior behind when they were five or six years old. We have a bunch of toddlers in charge.

The magical thinking that this administration engages in is astounding. I mean, yes, magical thinking is emblematic of Democratic administrations, but this one is taking it a step further. Okay, on second thought, Gavin Newsome may be tied or pulling ahead in the race for most magical thinking by a Democratic pol. After all, Newsome seems to believe that he can order California drivers to go all in on electric cars with zero consequences for the electrical grid. Given his penchant for magical toddler thinking, I’m sure the fault for the electrical system will reside with the states from whom California purchases electricity and the failure of the grid will be the fault of the electrical companies who can’t upgrade their grid due to California’s highly restrictive environmental laws and regulations.

Back to our national toddler drama.

The Biden administration has been putting ideas out in the media-sphere and stating that these are done deals. Then when the public and often other Democrats push back and either refuse to deal or publicly state that this is not only a bad idea, it’s a stupidly bad idea, the administration pulls back and claims that this was never a done deal, but rather a suggestion. Just like the toddler who told mom, that no, he really wasn’t planning on jumping off the back of the sofa onto the dog, even though the kid is standing on the back of the sofa, looming over the dog. Not a lie for the toddler, simply a change of plans.

The entire kerfuffle with DeSantis over Hurricane Ian is a good example. Biden called the governors of the states affected by Ian, except for DeSantis. When DeSantis pointed that out, Biden called a few hours later. The administration of the President of the United States got called out for toddler behavior. They tried to justify it as scheduling. A toddler would argue that he meant to do it all along, and just hadn’t gotten to it yet.

A week or so ago, the feds were discovered purchasing $290 million worth of Nplate, a medicine used to treat radiation poisoning. Right after Putin threatened to use nukes against Ukraine. What are the feds (led by the Biden administration) expecting to happen? And who’s getting that medicine? When asked, Biden’s press secretary tried to pass it off as a scheduled and normal purchase. Uh-huh. Yep. Of course. Toddler magical thinking again, this time of the “What? I do this all the time!” variety.

Another example… refusing to reopen the Keystone pipeline for gas but trying to get OPEC to increase production and then relaxing sanctions on Venezuela in the hopes that we can up their production and buy gas there. It’s clear that the administration will do anything to avoid giving jobs to the middle, fly-over states and it’s clear that environmental concerns regarding pumping oil are not a consideration with regard to other, poorer countries. Toddlers engaging in payback behavior combined with the selective amnesia about prior behavior that led to current situation.

I know I’m not pointing out anything new or exciting here. Anybody who’s been paying attention has seen the projection of behaviors, the lies, obfuscations, hypocrisy, and contorted explanations coming out of the White House. But it just hit me that this is truly toddler behavior. What really scares me is that, like toddlers, I’m afraid that this administration – Ron Klain, Jill Biden on down – actually believes its own stories and doesn’t understand why the rest of us aren’t buying those stories. That’s the truly scary thing.

Toddlers are narcissistic little creatures. Everything is all about them, how they feel, and what they want. There’s a reason ages two to about four are called “The Terrible Twos.” Parents are supposed to train that out of their children so that they grow up to be a wee bit more self-aware and somewhat less navel-gazing. Adults with a narcissistic toddler mindset are created either through a chemical imbalance in the brain, or a failure to have that mindset trained out of them at an early age. For this administration I’m going with the latter.

I’m not sanguine about the ability of the rest of us to teach them that this sort of behavior is unacceptable. They’ve gotten their way for too long. But I do believe that we can (and must) somehow sanction this behavior. Like toddlers, they will squirm and scream to avoid taking any responsibility for any consequences arising from their actions. They will call their opponents (which encompasses all those who disagree with them) all sorts of names in hopes of getting those opponents to feel guilty and ashamed and give up on doing anything. They will continue to spin fantastical tales of evil aliens forcing them into actions they really didn’t want to take. They will do and say anything to get away with everything.

Don’t let them.

These are supposedly functional adults (note the modifier. However, they want us to believe they’re functional adults, so I’m going to treat them as such. If they can’t handle that, that’s their problem). Just like you would with a toddler, calmly and patiently point out the inconsistencies in whatever story they’re spinning out. Don’t allow the temper tantrums to affect you. Continue to point out the problems. Do it in public if you can, because throwing a temper tantrum in front of an audience has the beneficial effect of showing their toddler behavior to everyone.

Call them out when you see and hear those stories. Ask why they think that’s going to work, or why the other thing is true.

If you’re not a parent, or haven’t dealt with toddlers, ask someone who has for tips and tricks. They’ll happily share.

This administration and its supporters are toddlers who are acting up. Treat them as such.

Biden Issues ‘Highly Unusual’ Warning at Dem Fundraiser

President Biden on Thursday said the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” was at its highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962—a warning The New York Times is calling “highly unusual for any American president.” Speaking at a fundraiser in New York City for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the president admitted he didn’t know “Putin’s off ramp.”“Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?” Biden openly questioned.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” the president said.

Biden, claiming to know Russian President Vladimir Putin “fairly well,” argued the leader is serious when he speaks about using “tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.” Resorting to these weapons shows his military is “significantly underperforming,” he added.

In an angry and fiery speech last week, Mr. Putin raised the specter of using nuclear weapons to hold on to his territorial gains, which Ukraine’s powerful counteroffensives have begun to erode. Mr. Putin said he would use “all available means” to defend Russian territory — which he has declared now includes four provinces of eastern Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed in recent days.

The atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in 1945, Mr. Putin said in that speech, had “created a precedent.”

His remarks and others by top Russian leaders represent the first time since 1962 that Moscow officials have made explicit nuclear threats.

Officials in Washington have been gaming out scenarios in which Mr. Putin might decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon to make up for the failings of Russian troops in Ukraine. In late February, Mr. Putin called for his nuclear forces to go on alert, but there has been no evidence that they did so. (NYT)

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday the U.S. hasn’t seen a reason yet to adjust its nuclear posture as there’s been no sign that Russia is imminently planning to use nuclear weapons.

Critics ripped the president, arguing his policies helped get to this point.

Obama Judge Denies NY Jews a Temporary Stop of Hochul’s Ban On Guns In Synagogues

In an insulting reiteration of NY Governor Kathy Hochul’s stunning hypocrisy over the rights of people to defend themselves, an Obama-appointed judge has DENIED a requested Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the NY state “sensitive area” gun ban called the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA), which went into effect September 1.

As I recently reported, the New York State Jewish Gun Club filed suit on September 29, after members and the group’s legal council recognized the threat of the CCIA – which Hochul signed on July 1, and which represents her leftist NY Assembly’s blitzkrieg response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June “Bruen” gun decision supposedly insuring that the right to keep and bear arms also includes the obvious right to carry a concealed weapon outside the home. The half-hearted Bruen decision left wiggle room for oppressive state politicians to claim that certain “sensitive” public areas were off limits to the right of concealed-carry.

And Hochul’s hypocrisy is so towering that, even as she backed a “legislative package” supposedly honoring Holocaust victims over the summer, she and her pals in the state legislature smacked together a new statute that would ban concealed carry within synagogues and houses or worship — or, as I mentioned, at any of what they ambiguously call places where there is a “religious observance.”

In other words, she is threatening people that she will use gun-grabbing state aggression, and possibly use it against some of the same Holocaust survivors and/or their descendants who were attacked by the gun-grabbing Nazi regime.

Now, the new development. The NY State Jewish Gun Club filing in Federal District Court to temporarily restrain enforcement of Hochul’s gangland CCIA “religious observance” and “house of worship” gun ban has proven fruitless. BearingArms’ Cam Edwards caught the news, right away:

“Their first request was for a temporary restraining order prohibiting the state from enforcing that portion of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act; a request that was denied on Monday afternoon by U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick.”

And, guess what? The judge got his tax-funded job thanks to leftist political engineers:

“In his ruling, the Obama-appointed judge (who also has political ties to gun control fans Michael Bloomberg and former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo) found that the plaintiffs had not met the requirements for a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order)…”

Here, observers can see a telling sign of the difference between a person who respects natural, God-given, rights, and a person looking only at material concerns, a person who cannot understand, or will not acknowledge, that the term “injury” does not pertain merely to physical harm, but includes the abstract and perennial realm of principles.

Broderick’s argument stands on the spongy notion that, as he declares:

“…I find that the harm pled is too remote and speculative, and fails to reach the stringent standard of ‘immediate irreparable harm.’”

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