Category: Goobermint

The promoters of this state constitutional amendment have missed the boat, purposefully, or not I don’t know.
SCOTUS, in Bruen  ended the tiers of judicial scrutiny for fundamental rights, specifically RKBA and mandated ‘Text, History and Tradition‘ instead. If this state constitutional amendment were passed, it could be opposed on U.S. Constitutional grounds as SCOTUS in McDonald incorporated RKBA, protected by the 2nd amendment, onto the states.
This needs to go back for editing.

Iowa gun rights amendment: What a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote could change

Iowa voters in November will be asked to add language to the Iowa Constitution that states it is a “fundamental individual right” to keep and bear arms, and that any restraint on that right is invalid unless it meets the stringent demands of “strict scrutiny.”

A new coalition of gun safety advocates warns the pro-gun amendment will prohibit reasonable safety measures that Iowans support, such as firearm safety training, universal background checks and a license to carry a gun in public.

Republicans have argued for the measure for years, saying Iowa is one of only six states without protections in its constitution for the right to keep and bear arms.

Democrats and gun-safety advocates contend Republicans are misleading Iowans when they say the amendment is equivalent to the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The “strict scrutiny” language, they say, could prohibit reasonable safety measures that many Iowans support and could lead to courts overturning gun restrictions already on the books.

“Inserting gun rights with strict scrutiny into the (Iowa) Constitution would tip the balance of power, elevating access to guns above public health and safety,” said Connie Ryan, executive director of Des Moines-based Interfaith Alliance of Iowa and a member of the Iowans for Responsible Gun Laws coalition. “This is unacceptable and, quite frankly, it is dangerous.”

The Iowa Firearms Coalition, a gun-rights advocacy group, said in a statement that, “U.S. courts have long recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right that preexisted the Constitution and which is protected — not granted — by the Second Amendment. Although it is the ultimate guarantor of our other rights, Iowa is one of only six states that do not protect that vital right in their constitutions.”

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Why a national gun registry would not reduce crime

On Aug. 19th, Louisville, Kentucky Metro Chief of Police Erica Shields flashed her tyrannical instincts on local television.

Chief Shields’ sanctimonious comments perfectly illustrate an attitude that habitually pops up throughout the gun rights debate: It is your responsibility, the anti-gunners believe, to surrender your civil rights and other legal protections to make enforcing the law easier.

Louisville, Kentucky Metro Chief of Police Erica Shields. 

Commenting to a local news channel Shields said that anyone who does not support a new national digital firearms registry is not pro law enforcement, and that all such people “are giving law enforcement the middle finger.”

Her poorly thought-out statement assumes more than a good investigator would dare. The following disclaimer is on the ATF’s website regarding their firearms tracing: “Firearms are normally traced to the first retail seller, and sources reported for firearms traced do not necessarily represent the sources or methods by which firearms in general are acquired for use in crime.”

Tracing fireams

The ATF clearly acknowledges that firearms tracing produces mixed results, because firearms both voluntarily and involuntarily change hands – a fact that would confound a digital registry as much as the current system.

The logistical challenges of tying a name and serial number together for every firearm in the country is astronomical.

It’s also unclear what impact ATF traces have on convictions. Do ATF firearm traces substantially help convict murderers? There is very little data to support that assumption, or the legal validity of a trace report in a court of law.

The idea that a comprehensive digital database of gun owners would affect violent crime is nothing but speculation.

However, we do have recent examples of how local law enforcement and federal agents abuse the data they’ve collected on private citizen’s gun purchases.

While we have no fact-based reasons to believe a gun registry would benefit public safety, we can be certain it would create opportunities for more misconduct.

Policing a free society is necessarily difficult. And our justice system is adversarial for very important reasons.

We can’t have both fast and easy solutions, and real justice. We need law enforcement officials who will do the hard work and not cut corners at the expense of our civil rights.

How “sensitive area” battle is shaping up in New York

In the Bruen decision, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said that there were a handful of places where guns could be constitutionally banned. He called these “sensitive areas” and they include places like courthouses, jails, and things of that sort.

On one level, it makes sense. These are places where some are more inclined to be violent. Plus, they’re easily secured so that virtually no one is able to bring a gun in. In other words, they use metal detectors, not signs on the door.

However, in so doing, the term “sensitive area” is getting used to justify a whole lot of restrictions. In fact, the battle over them in New York is just starting to fire up.

“Put simply, there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a ‘sensitive place’ simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department,” wrote Thomas.

While New York politicians have yet to declare Manhattan a gun-free zone, they have pushed back against the ruling. In a long list of new “sensitive places,” state legislators named parks, which by definition includes the biggest park in the lower 48, the Adirondack Park in upstate New York. Interestingly, the Adirondack Park is home to about 130,000 residents—all of whom will effectively see their Second Amendment rights erased when the law takes effect on Sept. 1.

This law is in direct conflict with NYSRPA. When the U.S. Supreme Court recently confirmed the right of Americans to “bear” arms in this case, it didn’t do so in some mealy-mouthed manner that indicated the ruling was a difficult decision or was uncertain in any way.…

For residents of the Adirondack Park, which is about half private land and half publicly owned, the law puts them in a dilemma. Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, the state NRA affiliate, said he has received “hundreds of calls” about the ban from residents of the Adirondacks who are confused and frustrated.

Of course, Adirondack Park is only one of the battlegrounds. In fact, the above-linked piece goes on to quote a Democratic lawmaker who takes issue with this particular measure and how it impacts these good folks.

However, I’m going to go a step further and note that while Thomas explicitly wrote that the entire island of Manhattan couldn’t be declared a sensitive area, what has actually transpired there is just a step shy of precisely that.

For example, a large number of areas are declared sensitive areas, for one thing. Then there’s the idea of carrying on private property.

Now, in many states, business owners can put a sign up to serve notice that the building is gun-free. I know it’s not popular, but I’m actually fine with this because property rights are also a thing that needs to be respected. If a business owner doesn’t want guns on their property, they’re free to do so.

However, in New York, the default is that guns aren’t permitted.

While that’s fine for anti-gun businesses, it also means those ambivalent on the subject of concealed carry are, in effect, determined to be essentially the same as sensitive areas. Since most people try to actively avoid politics, the default for these folks is likely to be that ambivalence.

So, in effect, the majority of the island of Manhattan–and the rest of the state, really–has been essentially declared a sensitive area.

Yes, I support businesses being able to declare themselves gun-free–why would I want to spend money with companies who don’t support my fundamental rights–the default position on something like that should be toward freedom.

What New York did looks to have gone beyond what Justice Thomas intended.

The battle over what actually can constitute a sensitive area has just started. It’s going to be rough going for a lot of people, too, unfortunately, before it’s all settled.

In other words, SloJoe’s puppet masters tried a gambit to entrap President Trump over those ‘classified’ documents

Biden White House facilitated DOJ’s criminal probe against Trump, scuttled privilege claims: memos
“I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege,” acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote Trump’s team in May.

Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump’s estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president’s claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.

The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.

By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.

The machinations are summarized in several memos and emails exchanged between the various agencies in spring 2022, months before the FBI took the added unprecedented step of raiding Trump’s Florida compound with a court-issued search warrant.

The most complete summary was contained in a lengthy letter dated May 10 that acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent Trump’s lawyers summarizing the White House’s involvement.

“On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes,” Wall wrote Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran.

That letter revealed Biden empowered the National Archives and Records Administration to waive any claims to executive privilege that Trump might assert to block DOJ from gaining access to the documents.

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Biden Lied, Americans Died
Congressional report exposes Biden’s Afghanistan lies.

While Biden’s panicked evacuation from Afghanistan was going on, it had failed so badly that staffers from his own wife’s office were contacting private rescue groups to get people out.

This is one of the many damning revelations in the report by Rep. McCaul for the Republican minority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The interim report, “A Strategic Failure” was conducted despite every possible effort by the White House and House Democrats to stop it, including blocking information requests and keeping briefings unnecessarily classified.

With the revelations that the State Department is actively refusing to cooperate with the Special Inspector General on Afghanistan Reconstruction, this report is more urgent than ever.

Forced to rely on personal interviews and public non-classified testimony, the report reveals that Biden had made it a “priority” to maintain an embassy in Kabul even after he had withdrawn the troops and the country was on the verge of falling to the advancing Taliban terror forces.

“POTUS was publicly making it clear that this was a priority. Ambassador Wilson began stating that ‘I am maniacal about the Embassy remaining in Kabul,’” a military officer described.

Secretary of State Blinken and other State Department officials in D.C. and in Kabul refused to consider the possibility of a Taliban takeover. Only Blinken and his department could order an evacuation, and they refused to seriously plan for one until a week before the fall of Kabul.

Military officials were prevented from even discussing an evacuation, being told, “don’t say NEO” and “This is not a NEO for Afghanistan.” NEO stands for Non-Combatant Evacuation.

Biden’s refusal to listen to advisers who told him to maintain a minimal military force on the ground almost led to an even worse disaster as the only remaining airport was overrun.

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Gun bill modeled on ‘Strong Ohio’

Aug. 20—An attempt to revive some of the “Strong Ohio” proposals against gun violence, stalled in the General Assembly since 2019, faces a timeline that’s hard to meet.
State Sen. Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, announced Senate Bill 357 this week…….

Dolan’s bill has five major provisions:

—A “red flag” law in which a judge can allow police to temporarily take the guns of someone suffering a “severe mental health condition,” at risk of harming themself or others.

—Requiring anyone age 18 to 21 who wants to buy a gun that can fire more than one shot before reloading to get a cosigner at least 25 years old for the purchase. Dolan said there is an exemption for young people in the military or police.

—A written statement from a county sheriff would be needed for private gun sales, except transfers between relatives, confirming the buyer is legally eligible to own guns.

—Improving background checks by requiring information on gun buyers to be entered in law enforcement databases by the end of the following business day.

—Using $85 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to help hospitals and colleges train more mental health workers, and another $90 million in ARPA funds to build mental health crisis centers for people who need treatment but are now being sent to jails.

Both incumbent Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Nan Whaley, former mayor of Dayton, indicated their approval of SB 357.

Its provisions resemble some in the “Strong Ohio” bill that DeWine introduced in 2019 after the mass shooting in Dayton’s Oregon District. DeWine’s press secretary noted that similarity, while Whaley called Dolan’s bill a “good first step.”

The Buckeye Firearms Association denounced the bill as “‘Strong Ohio’ by another name.” The group has already opposed its major provisions, BFA Executive Director Dean Rieck said.

No Clintons, no Bushes, no Kennedys. And shortly, no Cheneys.

BLUF
“There is a new 21st century American Revolution taking place. Except the kings and queens are not in England but here among us. The patriots are voting these Tories out of office. We can hardly wait for Nov. 8,”
–John McLaughlin

Liz Cheney ends 75 years of modern political dynasties

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s GOP primary defeat this week did more than just end her family’s dominance in U.S. politics dating back to her father’s role as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff in 1974.

It also marked the coming end of a long stretch of at least 75 years of somebody from one of America’s modern political dynasties serving in federal elected or appointed office.

Since 1947, when then-Sen. John F. Kennedy came to Washington, there has been either a Kennedy, a Bush, a Cheney, or a Clinton in office. There was a two-year gap, between 2011 and 2013, when none of those families held an elected seat, but Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state for President Barack Obama.

And the streak could be stretched back at least to 1933 and the Byrds of Virginia, including former Sens. Harry Byrd and Harry Byrd Jr. (who left the chamber in 1983).

Despite a Britain-born hatred for blood politics by colonial Americans that continues to this day in many political circles, the United States has voted in members of prominent political families, which makes Cheney’s loss on Tuesday all the more jarring.

“The end of political dynasties represents the decline of the establishment wings of both parties and the desire by voters to have change and new blood in Washington. It’s unlikely we are going to see a political dynasty endure like we have over the past 75 years,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former House and Senate official.

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Ex-Gorsuch Law Clerk Takes a Blowtorch to the Imaginary Law Violations the FBI Cited in Trump Raid

It’s a move that House Republicans should consider when they regain the majority in November, but will they do it? In the aftermath of the unlawful August 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Republican Party has been united in its revulsion of what appears to be an unprecedented ransacking of a former president’s home. The legal justification doesn’t pass constitutional muster. There seems to be no crime committed, only that the National Archives grew impatient over record retrieval. That’s not a crime; people dragging their feet regarding government documents is quite common in DC.

Mike Davis has gone on epic threads on social media gutting the case the government has made for the raid. Davis, a former law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch, decided to take his legal takedowns of this arguably illegal search and reorganize it into an opinion column for Newsweek. He took the position many have felt for a long time: FBI Director Chris Wray, and now Attorney General Merrick Garland should be removed from office. He also added that it’s telling why AG Garland did not seek the opinion of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel about signing off on the search warrant (via Newsweek):

All presidents take mementos and other records when they leave office. They don’t pack their own boxes. The National Archives takes the position that almost everything is a “presidential record.” And the federal government, in general, over-classifies almost everything.

Even if Trump took classified records, that isn’t a crime. The president has the inherent constitutional power to declassify any record he wants, in any manner he wants, regardless of any otherwise-pertinent statute or regulation that applies to everyone else. The president does not need to obtain Congress’ or a bureaucrat’s permission—or jump through their regulatory or statutory hoops—to declassify anything.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed this in the 1988 case, Department of the Navy v. Egan : “The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.’ U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security…flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.”

Thus, if Trump left the White House with classified records, then those records are necessarily declassified by his very actions. He doesn’t need to label that decision for, or report that decision to, any bureaucrat who works for him. It is pretextual legal nonsense for the Biden Justice Department to pretend Trump broke any criminal statute. Indeed, it is noteworthy that Attorney General Garland apparently did not seek an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—the de facto general counsel for the executive branch—before ordering this home raid of his boss’s chief political enemy. Perhaps Garland knew OLC wouldn’t give him the answer he wanted.[…]

All former presidents also get a federally funded office, called the Office of the Former President. They get lawyers and other staff, security clearances, Secret Service protection, and secure facilities (SCIFs) for the maintenance of classified records. Even if Trump had classified records, then, they were protected and secure.[…]

FBI Director Christopher Wray recently testified that the FBI was too busy to stop dangerous and illegal intimidation campaigns outside Supreme Court justices’ homes. This was after an attempted assassin was thankfully arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home. The FBI apparently didn’t have the time to investigate actual threats to the lives of constitutional officers, but it had plenty of time to raid the home of a former president over an 18-month-old records dispute—with which Trump publicly stated he was fully cooperating.[…]

House Republicans must impeach Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray for their unprecedented and destructive politicization of the Justice Department, when they reclaim power in January. And over the long term, House and Senate Republicans must dismantle and rebuild the FBI, so political raids like this never happen again. We cannot allow our law enforcement agencies to become third-world political hit squads.

It’s a line-by-line takedown of the DOJ’s overreach. The Presidential Records Act isn’t a criminal statute. Since Trump was president, the removal of alleged classified materials isn’t a crime. The president is the ultimate decider on classification status, which dresses down the violation of the Espionage Act allegation as lunacy.

Davis also highlights the gross incompetence and hyper-politicization that has engulfed the Justices Department, noting the FBI’s inability to protect sitting Supreme Court justices from death threats after the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, because they were too busy. And yet, the FBI had plenty of time to pursue this search of Mar-a-Lago with a 30-person team following a treasure hunt over allegations that aren’t crimes regarding Donald Trump and classified materials. People were showing up at the homes of Supreme Court justices; some were armed and prepared to commit political acts of violence over abortion. That was real. The purported classified documents at Mar-a-Lago are not actual law violations, but Garland’s presser, which gave this smash-and-grab a federal blessing, tossed him into the same rogue camp as Wray.

House Republicans promised investigations into these egregious acts of extrajudicial operations conducted by the DOJ.  They better make good on those overtures, leaving the door open for possible impeachment articles against these two men.

Fauci and Walensky Double Down on Failed Covid Response

Wonder Land: Like other world leaders who leaned into lockdowns, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party are now realizing how complicated the private economy actually is, and how easy it is to wreck it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention belatedly admitted failure this week. “For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Director Rochelle Walensky said. She vowed to establish an “action-oriented culture.”

Lockdowns and mask mandates were the most radical experiment in the history of public health, but Dr. Walensky isn’t alone in thinking they failed because they didn’t go far enough. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, recently said there should have been “much, much more stringent restrictions” early in the pandemic.

The World Health Organization is revising its official guidance to call for stricter lockdown measures in the next pandemic, and it is even seeking a new treaty that would compel nations to adopt them. The World Economic Forum hails the Covid lockdowns as the model for a “Great Reset” empowering technocrats to dictate policies world-wide.

It was bad enough that Dr. Fauci, the CDC and the WHO ignored the best scientific advice at the start of this pandemic. It’s sociopathic for them to promote a worse catastrophe for future outbreaks. If a drug company behaved this way, ignoring evidence while marketing an ineffective treatment with fatal side effects, its executives would be facing lawsuits, bankruptcy and probably criminal charges. Dr. Fauci and his fellow public officials can’t easily be sued, but they need to be put out of business long before the next pandemic.

BLUF
What the CDC pushed on the country, even the world, was without precedent. The resulting disasters are everywhere present. At minimum we should expect the CDC to cease and desist, and certainly not entrench and codify. That the latter is taking place reveals what a long struggle lies ahead.

CDC Wants Its Covid Regime Made Permanent

There is no remorse at the CDC. Far from it. The model of virus control deployed over the last 27 months is now part of normal operations. It wants it institutionalized.

The bureaucracy has now codified this into a new online tool that instructs cities and states precisely of what they are supposed to do given a certain level of community spread. The new tool doesn’t say lockdowns as such but the entire model of containment via masks and distancing is baked in, and it can be easily expanded at will.

To understand how absurd this is, consider that as of this writing, major parts of Southern Florida are supposed to be masked up, according to the map provided by the CDC, because covid testing reveals high community spread.

Hardly anyone in Florida has worn a mask since 2020. The very notion is a joke there. However, what happens to the other states and what happens when or if political control of Florida changes to a pro-lockdown party?

Under the orange label (high), the following pertains:

  • Wear a mask indoors in public
  • Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
  • Get tested if you have symptoms
  • Additional precautions may be needed for people at high risk for severe illness

Some standout points here. Masks have nowhere controlled the spread of covid. We know this from countless examples all over the world. They have been a spectacular failure except as signals to others to feel a sense of alarm at the presence of disease. Neither have vaccinations achieved the stopping or even slowing of infection or spread. Note the new language too: “Stay up to date.” Vaccinations are headed toward the WEF ideal of subscription plans.

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ONCE AGAIN FOR THE GUN CONTROLLERS IN THE BACK:
IT’S THE CRIMINALS

New York’s gun laws are a mess. Antigun politicians passing them don’t have a clue. Worse yet, the people facing consequences are law-abiding New Yorkers.

They’re also the ones facing danger. Case in point – New York City’s Democratic Mayor Eric Adams recent reveal. The mayor told media, “When it comes to guns, this year, 2,386 people were arrested with a gun. Of those, approximately 1,921 are out on the street.

“This year, 165 people were arrested with a second gun charge,” Mayor Adams added. “Of those, 82 — out on the street. Not one arrest but two gun arrests — back out on the street.”

Does He Listen?

Mayor Adams won election on a “tough on crime” message. He said he would carry his own firearm and forego using the mayor’s personal security detail. “We cannot have a city where people are afraid to walk the streets,” he proclaimed early in his tenure.

He’s now singing a different tune. “How do you take a gun law seriously when the overwhelming numbers are back on the streets after carrying a gun?” he unironically asked media.

New Yorkers know criminals don’t take laws seriously. That’s why law-abiding New Yorkers have been screaming for years as gun control politicians in Albany impose stricter gun control laws on them, not criminals.

New Yorkers rejected restrictions and legally purchased firearms in record numbers, despite the state’s restrictive and burdensome process to obtain a handgun permit. Since 2020, nearly 1 million New Yorker’s have passed an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification to buy a firearm. Industry research continues to show “self-defense” is the number one reason buyers walk out of a retailer with a new purchase. That’s especially true of African American women, in New York City and across the country.

Soft on Criminals, Hard on Industry

New York’s backwards gun control laws are only half the problem. Soft-on-criminal prosecutors refusing to hold criminals accountable allow the cycle to continue. Notorious criminal sympathizer Chesa Boudin was given the boot and recalled as San Francisco’s District Attorney. Nearby Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon possibly faces a similar fate.

Manhattan’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg is cut of the same cloth. His office refuses to bring charges against repeat criminals, allowing them to walk back out on the streets and terrorize victims.

In New York, it’s not just about Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Adams and DA Bragg’s collective failure to address crime and keep New Yorkers safe. Democratic Attorney General Leticia James joined to do her part to crush New Yorkers’ Second Amendment rights by suing gun companies for the crimes unrelated to the lawful sale of the firearm.

“There should be no more immunity for gun distributors bringing harm and havoc to New York,” AG James said.

Her premise is a lie, of course, exactly like those repeated ad nauseum by President Joe Biden and gun control pundits. They prefer deflecting blame on a lawful and Constitutionally-protected industry from those actually responsible for gun crimes. It’s the reason for the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). President Biden and others have repeatedly been fact-checked about their false claims.

New Yorkers wanting safer communities must feel like they’re in a madhouse. Their state’s highest elected officeholders dismiss criminals as the root of the problem. They then pass more flawed and unconstitutional laws, while refusing to hold criminals to account. The result is a circular blame game.

One thing New Yorkers can do to change the game in their favor is #GUNVOTE® this November. They can send a clear message to the antigun politicians in New York their rights – and their safety – aren’t a game.

The Post-Bruen New York and California Punitive Gun Control Laws are Clearly Unconstitutional

After Bruen, a notable noncomplier is New York Governor Kathy Hochul. She also follows in the footsteps of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. Both passed their big gun control bills by sending a “message of necessity”—a maneuver to prevent legislative hearings and to deprive legislators of time to read a bill before they vote on it. As the New York State Sheriffs’ Association explained:

The new firearms law language first saw the light of day on a Friday morning and was signed into law Friday afternoon. A parliamentary ruse was used to circumvent the requirement in our State Constitution that Legislators—and the public—must have three days to study and discuss proposed legislation before it can be taken up for a vote. The Legislature’s leadership claimed, and the Governor agreed, that it was a “necessity” to pass the Bill immediately, without waiting the Constitutionally required three days, even though the law would not take effect for two full months.

The Sheriffs’ Association criticized “thoughtless, reactionary action, just to make a political statement,” and “the burdensome, costly, and unworkable nature of many of the new laws’ provisions.” “We do not support punitive licensing requirements that aim only to restrain and punish law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

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In the course of 5 seconds Biden forgets that he already shook hands with Chuck Schumer

Schumer shakes Biden’s hand. Turns and shakes other hands, then Biden just sticks his hand out again as if he didn’t just shake hands with Chuck.

Or maybe he’s shaking hands with the invisible man again.

What is going on in this man’s brain? He is not well.

Portland mayor admits homicides have increased 200% over last year

One of the bitter ironies in the gun control debate is playing out right now in Oregon, where years of progressive policies have led to a huge spike in shootings and homicides and gun control activists have successfully used that staggering rise in violent crime to put a voter referendum on the ballot this year promising increased public safety at the expense of the right of self-defense; outlawing the sale, transfer, and possession (in most circumstances) of “large capacity” magazines, imposing a new “permit-to-purchase” requirement on all firearms, and creating a state-run database of all permit holders.

Legal gun owners aren’t the drivers of Portland’s crime spike, but that’s not stopping these anti-gun advocates from blaming them for the actions of criminals, even though most folks might point to the city’s opposition to policing as a bigger factor in the increasing dangerousness of Portland’s streets.

It was just a little more than two years ago, after all, when Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced he was disbanding the police department’s gun violence reduction team, and in the months afterwards violent crime and shootings soared across the city. A little more than a year later Wheeler reversed course and launched a new Focused Intervention Team with the same mission, only to find a lack of volunteers within the Portland Police Bureau eager to sign up for the job. After months of struggles the FIT unit hit the streets in January of this year, but so far it hasn’t had much of an impact. As Wheeler acknowledged during a recent interview with public radio program Here & Now, homicides in the city are up a staggering 200% over the past year, and are double the national average.

“We engaged an organization to do a study, and what they concluded for the city of Portland is that more than half of the shootings involved group or gang activity. There’s a very small population of people, about 200 people in our city driving the vast majority of gun violence in Portland. And black teen and adult men continue to be disproportionately impacted by shootings and homicides. They represent nearly 47% of suspects and victims in these shootings, but they only make up 6% of the city’s population.”

If a tiny fraction of Portland’s 650,000 or so residents are driving the “vast majority” of violent crime in the city, it makes even less sense to impose new gun control restrictions on millions of law-abiding Oregonians, but Wheeler is also insistent that an increase in gun sales is to blame for the violence in his city.

“The ‘why’ of it is an increase in purchasing of firearms, disinvestment in communities that are struggling even more than ever under the impacts of COVID, and tensions are really high and people are settling their disputes with firearms. We had one shooting earlier this year where three adults settled a fight that they had during lunch at a really nice restaurant in a nice part of the city with gunfire.”

If the “vast majority” of gun violence is stemming from about 200 people across the city, then it shouldn’t matter how many people lawfully purchased firearms over the past couple of years, but Wheeler is largely following the Democratic playbook in targeting guns and not the trigger-pullers. I say largely because Wheeler told Here & Now that with his latest proclamation of a state of emergency over “gun violence,” the city does indeed want to focus on “those who we know are directly impacted by gun violence,” but only through “non-law enforcement interventions.”

While Wheeler and other Portland progressives are loathe to use police against the most violent and prolific offenders in the city, they’re fully on board with creating new non-violent, possessory crimes out of our right to keep and bear arms… crimes that will be policed not by community activists but by law enforcement officers.

Given Oregon’s leftward tilt, IP17 stands a very good chance of passing, though the odds of it being struck down by the courts are also strong. Regardless of what happens with the gun control initiative, however, Portland’s murder problem is going to remain in place as long as anti-gun politicians like Ted Wheeler recognize the problem is being driven by a relative handful of violent and prolific offenders but choose to target law-abiding gun owners and their Second Amendment rights instead.

California Had the Most Active Shooter Incidents in 2021: FBI

In a report issued by the FBI, California ranked first for the most active shooter incidents in 2021. The state has been in the top spot in three of the past five years.

According to the study, a total of 61 active shooter incidents occurred across 30 states last year with 103 people killed and 140 wounded. This is up from 40 incidents and 38 killed in 2020.

California had 6 incidents that claimed the lives of 19 people with 9 wounded. Texas and Georgia each had 5.

California, which has some of the strictest gun laws, saw 0.015 shootings per 100,000 people. Texas, which has very unrestrictive state gun laws, had nearly the same at 0.0167 per 100,000 people. Georgia had 0.045 per 100,000 people.

Criminal attorney Arash Hashemi told NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times, that in his opinion there’s no easy answer to how gun laws should be handled.

“We need both sides to sit down and listen to what’s going on. I know one side says we need to ban guns, one side said there would be no regulation. But there needs to be a meeting of the minds in the middle,” Hashemi said.

California is moving ahead to implement more gun restrictions. The new state Senate Bill 918, which is currently on its way through the legislature, would ban the carrying of guns in most public areas, regardless of whether someone has a carry license or not.

However Hashemi suggested a slightly different approach. He said the Second Amendment can’t be violated, but he thinks certain people should be restricted from owning a firearm.

“I think California needs to implement these background checks but at the same time make sure they don’t infringe on people’s rights to bear arms,” Hashemi said.

He said vetting gun buyers for red flags like mental illness or psychiatric medication is important.

He added that the importance of the Second Amendment is to give the civilians of the United States a check on the government.

The greatest number of casualties and injuries at an active shooter incident in 2021 was 15, at both a FedEx center in Indiana and a Kroger grocery store in Tennessee.

June had the most with 12, and December had the least with 1.

The FBI defines an active shooter as one or more people engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. The 2021 report is limited to these incidents and does not include other gun-related situations like self-defense, drug violence, or gang violence.

BLUF
Politicians railing against MSRs might argue that recreational target shooters and hunters could use other rifles to do the same thing. The numbers, though, don’t lie. The MSR is filling their need – and the Second Amendment gives them the right to choose the firearm that meets their needs. It is not for the government to decide.

WINCHESTER AMMUNITION STUDY SHOWS TARGET SHOOTERS, HUNTERS CHOOSE MSRs

The time has come for President Joe Biden and the rest of the gun control politicians to pack up the worn-out line that “no one needs an AR-15 to hunt deer.”

Turns out, recreational target shooters and hunters do want Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs). That’s the family of AR-platform [semiautomatic] rifles that come in many calibers. According to the 2022 Ammunition Consumption Study by Winchester Ammunition, more than half of recreational shooters firing a centerfire rifle used an MSR. Of those who hunted with an MSR, 40 percent chose the MSR as their firearm of choice.

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