Category: Goobermint

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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How Much are Gun Laws Repressing Exercise of 2A Rights?

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-– The states with the most restrictive gun laws are repressing the exercise of Second Amendment rights.  How much damage are they doing?

In the 2022 Bruen decision, released by the Supreme Court on June 22, the court named six states and the District of Columbia as polities where the governments were violating the rights of their residents to keep and bear arms.

Those states were California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia.

There are reasonably good measures to compare those states to the rest of the country, where laws restricting the sale, ownership, and carry of arms are less burdensome.

The National Instant background Check System (NICS) tracks retail gun sales in all the states. Gun sales are much closer than NICS background checks alone because NICS checks are done for many other things as well.

Gun sales, measured in the NICS system, give us a strong representation of how many guns were purchased in a given year in each state.

Looking at the restrictive states compared to the non-restrictive states will show if the restrictive state laws are repressing the exercise of the right to keep arms by repressing the number of people who purchase firearms.

The number of people who have permits to carry is not as easily obtained. The Crime Prevention Research Center (CRPC) has worked to determine how many carry permits exist in each state. The numbers reported in 2021 will be used for this comparison.

This is a quick, first-order comparison to see if any obvious disparity exists. If no disparity exists, a more sophisticated analysis may or may not show those laws repress the exercise of Second Amendment rights.

Population figures for the states were taken from the 2020 census. Gun sales and carry permits will be expressed as rates so as to make a state-to-state comparison meaningful. The numbers of gun sales are from two years, 2020 and 2021.

2020 is a particularly useful year, as there was both a significant increase in violent crime and political posturing to restrict firearms sales and possession. The motivation to exercise Second Amendment rights should have been high.

2020 recorded all-time records for gun sales.

Gun sales for the restrictive states and the District of Columbia in 2020, as calculated from the NICS data, were 2.05 million. Per capita firearm sales were .024 firearms per person.

In 2021, for the restrictive states and DC, the numbers were: 1.93 million, and .023 firearms sold per person.

Restrictive states gun sales per capita: 2020 – .024; 2021 – .023.

Gun sales for the rest of the USA in 2020 were 18.6 million, and .075 firearms sold per person. In 2021, there were 16.2 million firearms sold, and .065 firearms sold per person.

Less restrictive states, gun sales per capita: 2020 – .075; 2021 – .065.

This is significant evidence of repressing the exercise of Second Amendment rights.  In 2020 and 2021, the sales of firearms in the restrictive states were only one-third as many per capita as in non-repressive states.

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Federal Judge Blocks Latest New York Gun-Carry Restrictions

New York’s attempt to restrict gun carry after its previous law was struck down by the Supreme Court has failed.

Federal district judge Glenn Suddaby issued a temporary restraining order against the state’s enforcement of most provisions in the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA). He found all of the novel policies restricting gun carry by those with valid permits were unconstitutional under the standard set in New York State Pistol and Rifle Association v. Bruen, though he also upheld some more common regulations.

“Simply stated, instead of moving toward becoming a shall-issue jurisdiction, New York State has further entrenched itself as a shall-not-issue jurisdiction,” Suddaby wrote. “And, by doing so, it has further reduced a first-class constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense (which, during the 19th and 18th centuries in America, generally came with an assumption that law-abiding responsible citizens were not a danger to themselves or others unless there was specific ground for a contrary finding) into a mere request (which is burdened with a presumption of dangerousness and the need to show ‘good moral character’).”

The ruling represents a further victory for gun-rights advocates who have challenged severe restrictions on gun carry and a further setback for states that have sought to severely limit who can carry a gun and where they can carry it. Judge Suddaby’s decision is also one of the first to apply the Bruen standard to a gun-carry law passed in response to the ruling. It could serve as a guide for other federal courts across the country dealing with challenges to similar laws.

Suddaby ruled the state could not enforce its “good moral character” clause unless there is a preponderance of evidence the applicant is a threat to others with the exception of self-defense. He blocked the requirement that applicants turn over their social media history and information on others who live with them. He also blocked the CCIA’s requirement that applicants meet with permitting officials for an in-person interview,

Mexican official says new lawsuit against US gunmakers is on the way

There’s no reason to believe the outcome will be any different than the first lawsuit that the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador brought against U.S. gun makers; a dismissal of the case long before it ever reached trial. Still, with AMLO’s cartel strategy of “hugs, not bullets” resulting in even more cartel violence, it’s no surprise that he and other officials are trying to distract from their own failures by pinning the blame on the US firearms industry.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told the Mexican Senate on Wednesday that the government’s next lawsuit will be filed in the border state of Arizona, though he didn’t say whether any gun control groups will be a part of this new effort as they were the first time around.

During his speech on Wednesday, Ebrard referred to a bipartisan package of gun safety measures passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in June. The law blocks gun sales to those convicted of abusing unmarried intimate partners and cracks down on gun sales to purchasers convicted of domestic violence.

“Illicit arms trafficking is already a crime in the United States,” Ebrard said.

“You have to start establishing criminal responsibilities because the companies that are selling these weapons in these counties (in Arizona), which are very few, of course they know where those weapons are going,” he added, but did not specify which companies he was referring to.

Ebrard makes it sound as if there are no laws whatsoever governing gun sales from licensed firearms retailers, even though border state gun dealers not only have to follow the long list of federal regulations surrounding firearm transfers, but even have special requirements placed on them like reporting multiple sales of modern sporting rifles to the ATF.

Frankly, if he really wants to talk about establishing criminal responsibilities, I’d say he should start much closer to home and crack down on the graft, corruption, and theft within the Mexican armed forces.

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It’s easy to get ‘consensus’ when you persecute and prosecute anyone who disagrees.

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Psaki Buries Her Knife in Biden’s Back

Jen Psaki is usually wrong, not because she’s stupid, but because she’s an ideologue, a rabid partizan, and statist zealot. And, she seems to savor a well placed lie. But that’s expected from a former White House press secretary, and William and Mary graduate, who spent her entire tenure contorting the borders of reality, gleefully creating fictions to explain Joe Biden’s precipitous decline into senility.

Joe Biden has always been a dummy. Obama admitted it when he commented on Lunch Bucket Joes’ propensity to always screw things up. Biden is a comic book character inked and colored by media hacks and stooges like Psaki.

Jen’s recent statement is a concession to the spectacular proportion of Joe Biden’s failures. To ignore this would produce a lie that would simply be too big to sustain its own mass — even Psaki has to face the facts at some point:

“If it is a referendum on the president, they [democrats] will lose. And they know that.”

The Biden calamity is everywhere. Even casual, single issue voters are forcefully confronted by Biden’s imbecility, ineptitude, and brittle vindictiveness at every turn. Contrary to Psaki’s statements, no one down ballot is safe from this democrat owned and operated national calamity.

He’s that mean old man, raging in his senility from the front porch at all the kids enjoying a bright summer’s afternoon — a pervert showering with his daughter and sniffing the hair of little girls. With a grumpy, malevolent, misanthrope occupying the White House, the November election cycle is there for the taking — and Jen knows it, is gathering her skirts, hoping to salvage a shred of credibility.

The only things standing in the way of a sweeping Republican win in November are the calcified crony capitalists like Mitch McConnell, diddling the Chinese yen in his pocket. Or the moon-faced warmonger Lindsay Graham. This brand of Republicanism is in league with Democrat statists who all vie, like squealing piglets, at the slop trough of tax payer funded slush.

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It’s not ‘seemingly unrelated’.
Pagans have always sacrificed their children to their gods

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Biden Compares Himself to the Devil

President Joe Biden has been incessantly bringing up abortion, in hopes that the issue will save the Democrats from losing their narrow majorities in the House and Senate in the upcoming November midterm elections. On Sunday night, Biden’s tactic got even more desperate, and bizarre, as he appeared to compare himself to the Devil.

Biden’s tweet mentions how his father told him “don’t compare me to the Almighty,” but “to the alternative,” presumably the Devil. The president then goes on to tweet a seemingly unrelated point claiming “Democrats want to codify Roe. Republicans want a national ban on abortion,” and that “The choice is clear.”

In addition to making quite an odd comparison, Biden isn’t even being all that truthful. As Guy has highlighted, the Democrats don’t merely want to “codify Roe v. Wade,” but rather expand it through extremist legislation known as the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). The bill would not only make abortion legal up until birth without limit, it would invalidate pro-life laws passed at the state level.

Further, the “national ban on abortion” that Biden is referring to is a 15-week abortion ban, with exceptions, to reflect that unborn children can feel pain at this point and that the particularly brutal method is also more dangerous for women. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced the legislation last month.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced the legislation last month.

The Sunday night tweet brought about considerable attention, and as our friends at Twitchy highlighted, some suggested the tweet was so nonsensical that it actually made it likely Biden himself wrote it.

Other users also pointed out how Democrats have a veto-proof majority in Congress before, and yet failed to pass such legislation then. This included during the first few years of the Obama administration, during when Biden even served as vice president. Along with such urgency has also brought about a more radical position from the Democratic Party, which has not only rejected the mantra of keeping abortion “safe, legal, and rare,” but even opposes the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayers from having to fund elective abortions.

Biden, who presents himself as Catholic, has brought up faith in the context of abortion before. “I happen to be a practicing Roman Catholic, my church doesn’t even make that argument now,” Biden claimed just last month, as Sarah covered. The president was referring to Graham’s bill. As Sarah also pointed out, Biden lied about the bill’s exceptions as well, which include rape or incest that a woman receives treatment for and for when it is reported if there is a minor involved.

The Catholic Church takes an abundantly clear stance against abortion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who is similarly pro-abortion, has been told by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco that she should not present herself for Holy Communion.

In response to such a tweet, RNC Director of Faith Communications Andrew Brennan told Townhall that “Democrats will lie and desperately try to distort their pro-abortion agenda to mislead voters. Folks aren’t buying it. In 36 days Americans will vote to reject Democrats’ radical, out-of-touch late-term abortion extremism.”

Such fear-mongering from Biden and fellow Democrats doesn’t appear to be working, as polls not only show that abortion just isn’t that major an issue for voters, but also that Republicans are gaining in the polls.

Happy Anniversary to ‘Let’s Go Brandon!’

It’s hard to believe it, but one year has passed since Americans nationwide began using the ironic catchphrase “Let’s Go Brandon!” to mock Joe Biden.

It all started with an interview when NBC reporter Kelli Stavast claimed during an interview with NASCAR driver Brandon Brown that chants of “F— Joe Biden!” at the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega were actually “Let’s go, Brandon!”

The phrase was quickly adopted by conservatives as a family-friendly alternative for expressing anger and defiance at Joe Biden and his policies, as well as a dig at media bias. Before long, “Let’s Go Brandon!” went from a viral social media meme to being recited at sporting events all over the country. It wasn’t a short-lived fad either; it became a chart-topping song on iTunes, and it even made its way into the House chamber.

Triggered leftists insisted the phrase was vulgar. At-home fitness company Peloton even banned its users from using the hashtag #LetsGoBrandon and other variants on their profiles. Some on the left have even tried to reclaim the Brandon moniker by giving Biden the nickname “Dark Brandon,” which is just as silly as it sounds.

My personal favorite moment was when Joe and Jill Biden did a video call into NORAD to see where Santa was on Christmas Eve last year. After speaking with some kids, a father said to the Bidens: “I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well. Merry Christmas, and Let’s go, Brandon.”

“Let’s go, Brandon. I agree,” Biden replied.

It was awesome.

“Let’s Go Brandon” has gone through quite a journey over the past year. It’s been amusing, to say the least, and I can’t wait to see what other joys it will bring this coming year.

A Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against COVID-19

The current report presents the case of a 76-year-old man with Parkinson’s disease (PD) who died three weeks after receiving his third COVID-19 vaccination.
The patient was first vaccinated in May 2021 with the ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vector vaccine, followed by two doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine in July and December 2021. The family of the deceased requested an autopsy due to ambiguous clinical signs before death.
PD was confirmed by post-mortem examinations. Furthermore, signs of aspiration pneumonia and systemic arteriosclerosis were evident. However, histopathological analyses of the brain uncovered previously unsuspected findings, including acute vasculitis (predominantly lymphocytic) as well as multifocal necrotizing encephalitis of unknown etiology with pronounced inflammation including glial and lymphocytic reaction. In the heart, signs of chronic cardiomyopathy as well as mild acute lympho-histiocytic myocarditis and vasculitis were present.
Although there was no history of COVID-19 for this patient, immunohistochemistry for SARS-CoV-2 antigens (spike and nucleocapsid proteins) was performed. Surprisingly, only spike protein but no nucleocapsid protein could be detected within the foci of inflammation in both the brain and the heart, particularly in the endothelial cells of small blood vessels.
Since no nucleocapsid protein could be detected, the presence of spike protein must be ascribed to vaccination rather than to viral infection. The findings corroborate previous reports of encephalitis and myocarditis caused by gene-based COVID-19 vaccines.