Category: Goobermint

Stupid is as stupid does

New York Democrats already looking to revise just-passed ban on body armor

New York Democrats have a history of acting before they think, especially when it comes to guns and gun control measures. In 2013 lawmakers rammed the SAFE Act through the legislature, only to find that many of the elements of the gun control legislation were completely unworkable in practice. The ban on magazines that can hold more than seven rounds, for instance, ultimately had to be changed to allow for gun owners to use ten-round magazines, though they’re only allowed to load seven rounds of ammunition (a law that’s impossible to proactively enforce). The SAFE Act was also supposed to require background checks on all ammunition sales, though nearly a decade after its passage that element of the law has yet to go into effect.

New York lawmakers similarly rushed through a package of nearly a dozen new measures after the recent targeted attack on a Buffalo grocery store, including a new ban on the purchase of some types of body armor. Supposedly the new law is meant to prevent mass killers from protecting themselves against returning fire from police, but as some critics have pointed out, the type of body armor worn by the suspect in the Buffalo shooting isn’t actually covered by the new law.

A law hastily enacted by state lawmakers after the attack restricts sales of vests defined as “bullet-resistant soft body armor.”

Soft vests, which are light and can be concealed beneath clothing, can be effective against pistol fire. Vests carrying steel, ceramic or polyethylene plates, which can potentially stop rifle rounds, aren’t explicitly covered by the legislation.

That has left some retailers confused about what they can and can’t sell — and lawmakers talking about a possible fix.

“I know you said soft vests, but what about hard armor plates, plate carriers, or armors that aren’t vests, but clothing that provide protection. Is that also prohibited? It is so vague,” said Brad Pedell, who runs 221B Tactical, a tactical gear and body armor store in New York City. He said his store tends to sell more hard-plated armor than the soft type being banned.

… Pedell says many customers at his New York City store buy the armor for their own protection.

“It’s disappointing because residents are just scared, and they come to us because they are scared, and we offer help that makes them feel more confident, that they won’t get stabbed or injured or potentially killed,” Pedell said. “The fact (lawmakers) are taking that away, for whatever purpose they have in their minds, I find that really sad and unnecessary and morally wrong.”

Yeah, well, this is what happens when lawmakers are so intent on “doing something” in response to a shooting that they don’t think about the unintended consequences of their own actions. The suspected killer in Buffalo was wearing body armor? Well then, better ban it. Never mind the fact that ban will impact law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves far more than it will thwart criminals from wearing body armor; there is virtue to be signaled here. And rather than recognizing the errors of their ways, supporters of the new ban say they’re ready to “fix” it if necessary.

Assemblymember Jonathon Jacobson, a lead sponsor of the legislation, told The Associated Press he would “be glad to amend the law to make it even stronger.”

… New Yorkers are still allowed to own body vests and purchase them in other states, though Jacobson, a Democrat, said he would work to eliminate that option during the next Legislative session in January.

“We wanted to get things done as quickly as possible, and not let the perfect get in the way of the good,” said Jacobson. “Like all laws in New York State, we always try to make them better in the future. Of course we’ll try to make this law better.”

The only way to do that would be to scrap this law entirely, which isn’t going to happen as long as Democrats have a majority in the statehouse in Albany.

Will Your “Smart” Devices and AI Apps Have a Legal Duty to Report on You?

I just ran across an interesting article, “Should AI Psychotherapy App Marketers Have a Tarasoff Duty?,” which answers the question in its title “yes”: Just as human psychotherapists in most states have a legal obligation to warn potential victims of a patient if the patient says something that suggests a plan to harm the victim (that’s the Tarasoff duty, so named after a 1976 California Supreme Court case), so AI programs being used by the patient must do the same.

It’s a legally plausible argument—given that the duty has been recognized as a matter of state common law, a court could plausibly interpret it as applying to AI psychotherapists as well as to other psychotherapists—but it seems to me to highlight a broader question:

To what extent will various “smart” products, whether apps or cars or Alexas or various Internet-of-Things devices, be mandated to monitor and report potentially dangerous behavior by their users (or even by their ostensible “owners”)?

To be sure, the Tarasoff duty is somewhat unusual in being a duty that is triggered even in the absence of the defendant’s affirmative contribution to the harm. Normally, a psychotherapist wouldn’t have a duty to prevent harm caused by his patient, just as you don’t have a duty to prevent harm caused by your friends or adult family members; Tarasoff was a considerable step beyond the traditional tort law rules, though one that many states have indeed taken. Indeed, I’m skeptical about Tarasoff, though most judges that have considered the matter don’t share my skepticism.

But it is well-established in tort law that people have a legal duty to take reasonable care when they do something that might affirmatively help someone do something harmful (that’s the basis for legal claims, for instance, for negligent entrustment, negligent hiring, and the like). Thus, for instance, a car manufacturer’s provision of a car to a driver does affirmatively contribute to the harm caused when the driver drives recklessly.

Does that mean that modern (non-self-driving) cars must—just as a matter of the common law of torts—report to the police, for instance, when the driver appears to be driving erratically in ways that are indicative of likely drunkenness? Should Alexa or Google report on information requests that seem like they might be aimed at figuring out ways to harm someone?

To be sure, perhaps there shouldn’t be such a duty, for reasons of privacy or, more specifically, the right not to have products that one has bought or is using surveil and report on you. But if so, then there might need to be work done, by legislatures or by courts, to prevent existing tort law principles from pressuring manufacturers to engage in such surveillance and reporting.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since my Tort Law vs. Privacy article, but it seems to me that the recent surge of smart devices will make these issues come up even more.

Know the lying demoncraps infesting the White House, this can almost be seen as confirmation

White House denies claims from guns group that ammo ban is under consideration

The White House is denying a recent claim from a gun foundation that a limited ammunition ban is under consideration, which would drive the price of legal ammunition higher.

The Biden administration supposedly informed Winchester Ammunition that “the government is considering restricting the manufacturing and commercial sale of legal ammunition produced at the Lake City, Mo., facility,” a spokesman from the National Shooting Sports Foundation told the Washington Examiner on Friday.

A White House official denied the claim.

Currently, Winchester is allowed to sell surplus ammunition after meeting the military’s needs on the civilian market, but Mark Oliva, the NSSF spokesman, warned that banning the practice would “significantly reduce the availability of ammunition in the marketplace and put the nation’s warfighting readiness at risk. Both NSSF and Winchester strongly oppose this action.”

This practice now represents roughly 30% of the 5.56 mm/.223 caliber ammunition sales.

Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators announced they had agreed in principle to the framework of new legislation to instill additional restrictions on guns that may have a chance to be passed in the Senate. Twenty senators, 10 from each party, signed on to the legislation, demonstrating the support it would need to pass the 60-vote threshold.

A White House official told the Washington Examiner that the reports on a possible ban “are way off,” while Oliva warned that the implementation of such a policy “jeopardizes the fragile negotiations of the framework deal that was agreed to by the bipartisan group of senators.”

After mass shootings, such as the ones in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, it is typical that gun owners flock to firearm stores in order to buy weapons over fears of new gun control legislation. That fear also prompts ammunition purchases, which have led to a shortage. Both gun and ammunition manufacturers saw their stocks go up after the Uvalde shooting.

“The typical hypothesis is that this is an exogenous shock, unanticipated, and as a result of a mass shooting, the reaction is there is an expectation that legislative steps will be undertaken to potentially restrict ammunition, access to guns,” Brian Marks, the executive director of the University of New Haven’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, previously told the Washington Examiner.

Well, it can backfire on them

BLUF
The Left clearly intends to gain full control, and will not settle for less. If it cannot achieve its ends via ballot boxes (no matter how stuffed or harvested they might be), then agencies will connive with print, electronic and social media – in clear violation of First Amendment prohibitions against government abridging freedom of speech. Failing that, it will resort to cartridge boxes and Molotov cocktails.

Unless, that is, We the People stop this assault on Americas’ democracy and personal freedoms.

Leftist Intimidation – and Assassination?

One year ago, ProPublica published illegally leaked IRS data on America’s wealthiest taxpayers. The “newsroom” said it obtained the information from “an anonymous source,” thanks to the ease with which people with access to information can secretly copy and transmit it with a few mouse clicks.

ProPublica piously claimed its actions were meant to advance “tax fairness” and help Congress and the Biden administration pay for all the trillions of dollars lavished on Covid and Build Back Better, by making it harder for the über-rich “to avoid tax burdens borne by ordinary citizens.”

But as I’ve noted previously, their approach is hideously complicated. Assets that increase in value from some retroactive mythical or arbitrary acquisition price would get taxed whopping amounts. If assets later depreciate, the wealthy will require credits or refunds for billion-dollar unrealized losses. Worse, the initial 700-1,000 ultra-rich would likely balloon to millions of taxpayers, as happened with the Alternative Minimum Tax, under this accountant, appraiser, auditor and lawyer appreciation legislation.

The IRS and Justice Department say they are deeply concerned, devoted to protecting taxpayer information, and committed to getting to the bottom of the data theft scandal. But the perpetrators have yet to be identified, prosecuted or punished – and ProPublica certainly hasn’t been canceled by or banished from Facebook or Twitter.

Indeed, ProPublica published more stolen confidential data this year. Again, no accountability for the perps – any more than there was for Lois Lerner, who used the IRS to target conservative groups and obstruct their tax-exempt certifications, so that they could not engage in activities that might have affected the outcomes of multiple elections.

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) says the ProPublica saga is just “one more example of the government being weaponized” against the American people. However, only the chairs of relevant committees can demand that the IRS Inspector General brief Congress, the IRS told Jordan, and those Democrat chairs have little interest in doing so.

Continue reading “”

Biden Is Blaming You, America, for His Rotten Economy.

“The World According to Joe Biden” is an interesting place. It’s full of unicorns and rainbows, cotton candy clouds, and magical gnomes who cause all kinds of mischief.

According to Biden, the gnomes have been busy. How else do you explain the worst inflation in 40 years or the baby formula crisis, or supply chain woes, or the other economic disasters that the president has visited upon us?

You explain it by blaming the American people. “People are really, really down,” Biden told the Associated Press in an interview on Thursday.

“Their need for mental health in America has skyrocketed because people have seen everything upset,” Biden said. “Everything they’ve counted on upset. But most of it’s the consequence of what happened, what happened as a consequence of the, the COVID crisis.”

Biden says America needs a mental health intervention. And he is dutifully following the first rule of politics: deny reality. Biden spoke of the warnings by some economists that a recession was on the way.

“First of all, it’s not inevitable,” he said. “Secondly, we’re in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation.”

As for the causes of inflation, Biden flashed some defensiveness on that count. “If it’s my fault, why is it the case in every other major industrial country in the world that inflation is higher? You ask yourself that? I’m not being a wise guy,” he said.

The president’s statement appeared to be about inflation rising worldwide, not necessarily whether countries had higher rates than the U.S. Annual inflation in Japan, for example, has risen in recent months though it’s still at a yearly rate of 2.4%, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Biden said he was still optimistic about the economy, given the 3.6 percent unemployment rate. But with interest rates rising — the largest increase since 1994 — unemployment will once again become an issue, along with inflation, and tightening credit.

About the only thing that’s missing from the 1970s is “malaise.” Oh, wait.

Yet Biden’s remedy is not that different from the diagnosis made by former President Jimmy Carter in 1979, when the U.S. economy was crippled by stagflation. Carter said then the U.S. was suffering from a “crisis of confidence” and “the erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

The president said he wants to endow the U.S. with more verve, fortitude and courage.

“Be confident,” Biden said. “Because I am confident. We’re better positioned than any country in the world to own the second quarter of the 21st century.”

Brave words. Empty words, but brave. Sometime in the next decade, China will surpass America as the number one economy in the world. And the Chinese government has a lot more confidence in their Communist system than Biden and his woke advisors have about American capitalism. If you’re looking for a reason for America’s decline, that’s a good place to start.

The similarities between Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter are eerie. Both men had no faith in the genius of America — its capitalists, its workers, or its ability to compete. The people aren’t inspired by leaders who whine about how unfair the criticism is, or how circumstances beyond the president’s control are the real cause of our problems.

For Carter, it was the Arab oil embargo that was the proximate cause of our economic woes. He, too, blamed the American people for not being inspired by his very existence. In a way, Biden and Carter are pathetic historical figures, lashed by forces they don’t understand. And like Carter, Biden will exit history in disgrace, leaving behind a prostrate nation needing to be inspired.

Double whammy; SloJoe’s antigun policy and military increases ‘going back to cold war era postures’, look to be cutting into civilian ammo availability

Biden Administration Moves to Cut Off Lake City .223/5.56 Ammo From the Commercial Market

Apparently not content with its efforts so far to make gun ownership more difficult and expensive for America’s 100 million firearm owners, a source tells TTAG that the Biden administration is taking steps to reduce the availability of .223/5.56 ammunition available to the average shooter.

A person with knowledge of the situation tells us that, more than just “considering” the move, Winchester, which operates the US Army’s Lake City ammunition plant, has been informed that it may no longer sell M855 and SS109 ammunition produced in excess of the military’s needs on the civilian market.

How would that affect the civilian supply of .223 and 5.56 ammunition? We understand that as much as 30% of the commercial market’s sales volume of .223/5.56 is produced by Lake City.

Apropos of nothing in  particular……….

They’ve been ‘beginning’ since 1934….

Democrat Admits Senate Gun-Control Plan ‘Just the Beginning’

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23) admitted something we all knew last weekend at the March for our Lives rally in Parkland, Florida, when asked about the gun control “framework” that a bipartisan group of 20 Senators have said they support.

It’s just the beginning, she said, and more “significant” gun control is coming.

“We were expecting moderate reform at best, I wasn’t expecting anything of significance,” Wasserman Schultz told MSNBC’s Alex Witt.  “Anything you can do to put an obstacle in the path of someone who would do themselves or someone else harm and save a life, is a step we should take while saying we should push for a lot more. This is only the beginning, it has to be only the beginning, not the end.”

Wasserman Schultz added that “extremists” will now likely target Senate Republicans and “everyone in congress.”

“We absolutely have an opportunity to move forward, and let me just be clear, Alex, for those of us who support much more significant reform, this is just the beginning,” she said. “We have to begin to make some progress, I’m glad that those 10 senators had the courage thus far.”

In Congress, Wasserman Schultz is far from being a back-bench first-termer. When she makes an admission like this – that the Senate plan is just the beginning and more gun control is coming – she is certainly not speaking out of turn. She has been in Congress since 2005 and serves as the Chief Deputy Whip of the Democratic Caucus. She was the first woman to chair the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee, and she also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, which according to her website, “has vast jurisdiction over the government and private sector, and plays a key role in overseeing the Biden Administration.”

Wasserman Schultz’s comments prove that if we willingly give the gun banners a slice of bread every time we sit down with them, eventually, they’ll have the whole loaf. She just said the quiet part out loud. There will be no appeasement if we agree to let them infringe on our constitutional rights. All the Senate plan will do is whet their appetite.

It is clear based on the Congresswoman’s comments that their true goals remain “assault weapon” and standard-capacity magazine bans and restricting firearm sales to those over 21. These were their goals before the Senate “framework” agreement was announced. These remain their goals today.

Anyone who thinks that the bipartisan Senate plan will somehow stop the gun banners from trying to achieve their ultimate goal of total civilian disarmament is deluding themselves. They will never stop. There will be no appeasement, regardless of what happens in the Senate.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BIDEN: TRANSCRIPT

I was looking for transcript in all the wrong places, i.e., for the official White House transcript of President Biden’s fabulations at the 29th quadrennial convention of the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia yesterday morning. The White House posted it under Statements and Releases here. I commented on it here based on the PBS video (below).

Today’s New York Post devotes a good editorial to Biden’s speech under the heading “The Post says: Biden pumps out more economic baloney.” The editorial concludes: “Until he gets his head out of … the clouds, inflation and all our other economic woes are only going to get worse.”

I found Biden’s speech a disgraceful and disgusting performance. The professional fact-checkers could have a field day with it, if only…but the stretchers, whoppers, and lies aren’t the worst of it. The worst of it would be the destructive mission on which he is gleefully bound.

I bet he’s weighing the political negatives of the deal vis-à-vis the number of calls he’s getting telling him where to go and how to get there.

Cornyn says “issues” remain in Senate gun deal

It doesn’t sound like Texas Sen. John Cornyn isn’t ready to throw in the towel on the Senate negotiations, but some hangups are apparently starting to emerge as Democrats and Republicans move from a “framework” to actual legislation.

Wednesday morning Cornyn met with a group of reporters to give them an update on the status of the bill, and Cornyn suggested that a deal might not be done this week because of a couple of “issues” that are popping up, starting with the language around giving

Continue reading “”

Cornyn Proves Senate Republicans Didn’t Negotiate, They’re Giving Our Rights Away For Nothing

Following the weekend announcement of a compromise framework for a gun control deal in the Senate, Texas Senator John Cornyn apparently felt the need to address angry constituents who aren’t nearly as enthusiastic as he is about expanding “red flag” laws, enhancing background checks for those under 21 among other points in the deal.

Cornyn partnered with Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut to negotiate and broker the deal that got nine other Republicans to sign on, greatly increasing the chances of the final bill clearing the Senate once the legislation is actually written.

There’s only one big problem with Cornyn’s much-heralded achievement: his tweet proves that he wasn’t even trying to actually negotiate anything.

It’s pretty clear what his staffers (it’s doubtful he has the graphics skills or computer literacy to do that) were trying to do with yesterday’s tweet — damage control. By showing us all how the deal he struck with Democrats could have been so much worse, he’s trying to frame the agreement as a grand compromise that saved firearm owners from some of the worst that gun-grabbers had in mind.

The way Cornyn portrays it, if he and his fellow collaborators hadn’t rushed in to give some ground, we’d be facing magazine bans, “assault weapons” sales restrictions, waiting periods, safe storage mandates, and more if Democrats went ahead and scuttled the filibuster to force the House gun control bills through the Senate.

Then they could also pack the Supreme Court and we’d really be stuck, right?

I know the comments section is already filling up with “come and take it” and “shall not be infringed” declarations, but I want readers to notice something else — the things that aren’t on Cornyn’s list of rejected proposals that didn’t make it into the Senate deal.

Why doesn’t that list include anything from the Republican side? Why is there no plan for a federal law to allow armed teachers nationwide? Why wasn’t 50-state concealed carry reciprocity considered? How about deregulating suppressors or removing short-barreled rifles and shotguns from the NFA?

Surely if the Democrats really wanted “common sense gun control” as badly as they claim, they’d have stepped up and paid for it with some sort of compromise. Right?

Instead, what we’ve really learned from Cornyn’s sorry excuse at tamping down the blowback he’s undoubtedly getting is that he never really negotiated with Senate Democrats at all.

Cornyn and the other GOP collaborators who agreed to the framework showed up with no demands at all of their own. They were only prepared to haggle with Democrats over how much the rest of us will give up so he can become GOP leader in the Senate some day.

Senators like Cornyn and Romney didn’t give anything up in the Senate deal. They have security details, large houses in gated communities with armed patrols, and plenty of other measures to keep them and their families safe while the rest of us rubes have to fend for ourselves like nearly everyone else who has ever walked the earth.

Just as it’s awfully easy to spend other people’s money, Cornyn had no qualms about giving our rights away for his own political benefit. He never had any plan to actually negotiate for us, to get something in return in an actual compromise with Democrats. Instead, he got rolled and he couldn’t be happier about it.

Cornyn’s just another elitist who wants to see how we can better serve him. He won’t have to face Texas voters again for four more years, by which time he’s betting the folks back home will have mostly forgotten about this. Sadly, he’s probably right.

Them: ‘You Must Care!’ Us: ‘No.’

We refuse to care about stupid Democrat obsessions.

We don’t care about climate change. It’s a hoax designed to fill the hole in lib souls that used to be filled with faith, and for the ruling caste, it’s a tool to steal our money and freedom.

We don’t care about some alleged moral necessity to disarm normal Americans. When they whine, “The purpose of guns is to hurt people,” we nod. Yes, they are. Our guns never have and never will hurt anyone who is not a criminal or an aspiring tyrant. But when those categories of bad people get uppity, yeah, we reserve our right to hurt them within the bounds of proper laws and morality.

We don’t care about claims that America was stolen from other people. Like every other patch of inhabitable dirt on the planet, America was conquered from people who conquered it from someone else first. When we make a “land acknowledgment,” it goes as follows: “Yeah, we took it, and now it’s ours.”

We don’t care about their froth-mouthed accusation that America is some sort of racist cauldron of hatred. Many of us served in real racist cauldrons of hatred and have no time for the silly posturing of frivolous ninnies pretending to be white saviors by nattering on about non-existent “white supremacy” – which is a remarkably colorblind concept since anyone who rejects the ideology of the faculty lounge can practice it regardless of race or ethnicity, including people who are black and Latinx – hey, it’s our word now, commies, and we’re never letting you live it down.

And we don’t care about a minor tussle – punctuated by an unpunished government murder of an unarmed trespasser – from over a year and a half ago, except to the extent that the political persecutions that followed must be remedied and avenged. Every non-narc victim of this Stasi witch hunt should be pardoned and the next GOP administration should settle their civil rights suits for the outrageous violation inflicted upon them by a politicized DOJ for huge sums. The guy who shot Ashli Babbitt should be prosecuted – there’s no statute of limitations on murder – and the GOP, once it takes Congress back in November, should investigate the federal agents on the scene, the systemic denial of rights, and the selective prosecutions that followed. That would make for an interesting set of primetime hearings, as opposed to the tedious political onanism of the current kangaroo kommittee.

We don’t care about any of it. And that is important. The left can only impose its will when it convinces us to choose to let them do so. They have to make us care. Look at them. They are a gaggle of mutated misfits, neurotic chicks, academic parasites, grievance hustlers, and femmy doofuses who can’t do a push-up. They can force nothing on us. That’s why they attempt to enlist the power of the state to do it for them, but their real power comes from us going along. When you watch some stupid Star Wars spin-off on Disney, you empower them. When you refuse to vote because you are convinced your vote will never be counted – despite huge election reforms in places like Georgia – you help them. When you let yourself think, “Gosh, maybe this androgenous fatty screaming that I am a privileged tool of the patriarchy has a point because s/he/it would never lie to my face,” you let them win.

No.

Instead, fight for what you care about.

We care that America neither be humiliated by seventh century savages nor abandon our allies to them. We’re going to reform our military into what it was meant to be – an awesome and awesomely unwoke killing machine that strikes terror in the hearts of communists and other terrorists around the globe.

We care that American warriors are no longer sacrificed in stupid wars by people who never pick up a weapon except to shoot their hunting buddies in the face by accident. We’re going to oust the Beltway Cowgirl and her ilk. But not Adam Kinzinger – his new Democrat friends already ousted him through gerrymandering, and it must sure be humiliating to have been so publicly treated like a cellblock punk. No, we’re electing based Republicans who know what time it is. It’s time to fight.

We care that our schools are hardened to protect themselves from the little psychos this sick culture breeds. And we care that they not teach woke nonsense. We’re going to clean them up one school board insurrection at a time, and if the FBI thinks that makes us terrorists, then that’s just another reason to close it down.

We care about the culture enough to make it clear to woke companies that if they side with our enemies, they are our enemies, and there is a price for choosing to be our enemies.

We care about it taking $140 to fill up the tanks of our SUVs when oil is sitting there untouched under the surface of our great land because to get it would offend Gaia and all her followers in Manhattan and Santa Monica. We’re going to elect a new president from the “Drill, baby, drill” caucus.

We care about our kids not becoming the psycho-sexual playthings of skeevy perverts, whether hired by some idiot principal or elsewhere in the culture. We’re going to punch back so hard on these mutants that they’ll understand that der kinder are off-limits or else.

We care about America. We’re well aware that this is the greatest country on earth, the greatest country in human history, and we are not about to give it up to mollify a bunch of tantrum-throwing weenies trying to draw us into the psycho-drama created by their daddy issues.

And we care enough about America to tell these freaks demanding that we care about their Toobin Zoom call litany of gripes, “No.”

Here’s some updated material

Today’s Senate ‘Bipartisan Gun Safety’ Proposal Is Just as Bad as You Feared It Would Be

Sunday, a bipartisan group of Senators agreed to an expanded package of ‘common sense’ gun control measures. The Vichy Republican contingent consisted of Pat Toomey (PA), Susan Collins (ME), Lindsey Graham (SC), Thom Tillis (NC) and Bill Cassidy (LA) under the leadership, if I may be so bold as to use such a word, of John Cornyn (TX). My colleague Bonchie covered the deal in Republicans Prepare to Play the Sucker After ‘Gun Safety’ Bill Is Revealed. This is how he sums it up:

Here’s the thing. There is going to be another mass shooting. No matter how many laws we pass, evil people will get their hands on the tools necessary to commit evil acts. When that mass shooting occurs, Democrats are going to scream about how the last “gun safety” bill wasn’t enough and how we must “do something.” That “do something” will include confiscation and outright bans on common weaponry. By compromising now without laying a marker down they are willing to stand by, they are simply handing Democrats the leverage to take the whole pie the next time around.

The left-wing push to ban semiautomatic weapons is not going to end here. Republicans that don’t recognize that are being suckers.

Now Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has released more detail on what is included in the deal, and “suckers” hardly does the Republican participants credit for their duplicity.

NEWS: We have a deal. Today a bipartisan group of 20 Senators (10 D and 10 R) is announcing a breakthrough agreement on gun violence – the first in 30 years – that will save lives.

 

2/ Major funding to help states pass and implement crisis intervention orders (red flag laws) that will allow law enforcement to temporarily take dangerous weapons away from people who pose a danger to others or themselves.

3/ Billions in new funding for mental health and school safety, including money for the national build out of community mental health clinics.

4/ Close the “boyfriend loophole”, so that no domestic abuser – a spouse OR a serious dating partner – can buy a gun if they are convicted of abuse against their partner.

5/ First ever federal law against gun trafficking and straw purchasing. This will be a difference making tool to stop the flow of illegal guns into cities.

6/ Enhanced background check for under 21 gun buyers and a short pause to conduct the check. Young buyers can get the gun only after the enhanced check is completed.

7/ Clarification of the laws regarding who needs to register as a licensed gun dealer, to make sure all truly commercial sellers are doing background checks.

8/ Will this bill do everything we need to end our nation’s gun violence epidemic? No. But it’s real, meaningful progress. And it breaks a 30 year log jam, demonstrating that Democrats and Republicans can work together in a way that truly saves lives.

9/ So grateful to @JohnCornyn @kyrstensinema @SenThomTillis @SenToomey @Sen_JoeManchin @SenBlumenthal @SenatorCollins @LindseyGrahamSC @ChrisCoons @TeamHeinrich @BillCassidy and others for their amazing work to get us this far.

10/ Drafting this law and passing it through both chambers will not be easy. We have a long way before this gets to the President’s desk. But with your help and activism, we can get this done. This time, failure cannot be an option.

I’ve already expressed my opinion about the cravenness of Republican officeholders who crawl over broken glass to appease Democrats; see Don’t Bother Me With Your ‘Common Sense’ Gun-Grabbing Ideas, I’m Not Playing the Game, and Matthew McConaughey Sold the White House’s Gun-Grabbing Agenda Today Just Like He Has for Years. In my opinion, the problem is less a case of needing more laws and more one of chickensh** prosecutors with a political agenda refusing to enforce the laws already on the books. If we passed a law making prosecutors criminally liable for future gun crimes of anyone not prosecuted for a gun offense, I’d go along with that plan.

Let’s look at the items on the list.

2/ Red Flag laws are a civil rights non-starter as far as I’m concerned. Giving a disgruntled neighbor, a deranged leftist relative, or a vindictive current or former “partner” the ability to have your weapons confiscated while you bear the burden of proving you are not dangerous is antithetical to our system of justice. Above and beyond the Kafkaesque process, the procedure is a sham. A judge will not deny a “Red Flag” order and risk that person killing someone with a firearm. They are never giving your firearms back for the same reason. This is simply a backdoor for anti-gun activists to harass and intimidate gun owners. Any Republican who votes for this is not worthy of our support.

3/ I’m not convinced “community mental health clinics” do very much other than provide a sinecure purple-haired transgenders with an MSW degree. Be that as it may, linking these clinics to a bill ostensibly designed to prevent school shootings means that schools will be pressured to refer students to the clinics for evaluation and treatment. If they don’t, their reason for existence will be revealed as a fraud (SPOILER ALERT: it is). Those mental health referrals will be made by the same people who teach Critical Race Theory, make your elementary school student experiment with “pronouns,” and groom them towards transgenderism and the remainder of the alphabet soup of perversions. If we want more “community mental health clinics,” then authorize them independent of any gun control law. By the way, mental health people are pretty adamant that mental health is not a factor in the overwhelming majority of shootings. The problem is Evil, not crazy.

4/ If you want to understand what “closing the boyfriend loophole” opens the door to, check out what goes on in Title IX sexual harassment/assault hearings in colleges. Without a cohabitation requirement, you are fair game for any woman you went out with one time who wants revenge. If you feel in danger, get a restraining order and stay the hell away from the person. If you can’t qualify for a restraining order, then maybe vindictiveness, not personal safety, is your goal.

5/ Straw purchases are already illegal. Gun trafficking, unless you have a Federal Firearms License, is illegal. Without seeing an actual proposal, my best guess is that this will end the private sale of weapons, the so-called “gun show loophole” that the anti-gunners have been after for years.

6/ Other than the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), I don’t know of any other systems available for background checks that do not involve field investigators. I suspect there is no such system, and this law will try to create any additional level of surveillance of American citizens. The problem with NICS continues to be incomplete and inaccurate information entered into the system. I am at a loss of what an “enhanced” background check would include that isn’t a restraining order, a felony conviction, or a civil commitment order. Just joking, those “community mental health centers” will feature prominently here. I also don’t know how you make a juvenile record available for “young” buyers without making it available to nearly everyone and why only “young” buyers would be subject to such an “enhanced” background check

7/ What constitutes a “licensed gun dealer” is damned clear. This is aimed at shutting down the private sale or gifting of firearms.

10/ Dude, you are in Congress. Failure is always an option.

This is all eyewash. Besides funds for hardening schools, the whole plan is an exercise in “doing something.” Literally, nothing in this proposed bill would have done any good in any major shooting. It wouldn’t even have an impact on Saturday night in Chicago or LA, which is where the focus should be for anyone serious about ending firearms deaths. I’d done playing this game. As Bonchie and I have pointed out, this is not an end state but a waypoint. This is just the anti-gun left getting Republicans to buy into the concept of silly measures that can’t work so that at some point in the future, the left can say we’ve tried everything, and they know there will be quisling Republicans to help them ban firearms.

New gun laws won’t fix the problem

Another senseless act of violence against children and anti-gun groups are blaming gun advocates for this violence, but the answer could be closer to home.

Gun control has been with us since 1968 and since then a myriad of gun laws has emerged. Clearly, they haven’t worked. Totally ignored are the shooters who have been from broken homes, isolated, prone to other types of violence, had interactions with police and been active on social media. Their behavior was excused or ignored.

The politicians say it’s easy to get a gun, but if the system was effective and criminals prosecuted, it could be more of a deterrent to block sales to potential shooters. While enhanced background checks may sound good, if the local authority doesn’t inform the investigating agency, and in most cases they don’t, then a shooter will be able to get guns. Reporting agencies aren’t obligated to inform them.

If all factors are considered, then it is not a gun problem, and a new gun law will not fix it. The legal gun owner is not the problem, and within the context of self-defense they prevent potential victims in defense of self or others, often without shots fired. The gun-owning public has grown and includes women, minorities and prior gun control advocates due to violent criminals having gun charges disappear in plea bargaining, as well as being released before the ink is dry on the booking form.

The danger of being a victim has increased because of an agenda that puts criminals ahead of the public’s safety. Unfortunately, many mass shootings are ignored by the media such as in Chicago or New York, but gang violence has become commonplace and non-newsworthy except to those affected in the inner cities. Poor minorities tend to bear the brunt of ineffective political policies.

President Joe Biden has suggested that the Second Amendment is “not absolute” and if so, then freedom of speech, religion, assembly and the press are also “not absolute.”

William Aherin, Southampton

Biden Admin Dropping COVID-Testing Requirements for International Travel

The Biden administration has finally dropped a Covid-19 testing requirement for travelers entering the country, the White House announced on Friday.

The rule, established during the Trump administration and later enhanced by Biden, required all inbound travelers — including US citizens — to show proof of negative Covid test before boarding flights headed for the US…….

Hmm. Inciting insurrection?

Biden Warns of ‘Mini-Revolution’ if Roe V. Wade is Repealed

 

President Joe Biden on Thursday warned of the potential for a “mini revolution” in November’s mid-term elections should the Supreme Court decide to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which made the right to have an abortion a constitutionally protected right.

Biden’s remarks come hours after a man travelled from California to Maryland with the intent on taking the life of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has voiced his decision to repeal Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft of the Supreme Court opinion earlier this year.

Speaking to Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night show which aired on Thursday, Biden said that overturning the court precedent would be “ridiculous,” and motivate large numbers of Democrats to turn out to vote.

“I don’t think the country will stand for it,” Biden said. “If in fact the decision comes down the way it does, and these states impose the limitations they’re talking about, it’s going to cause a mini revolution and they’re going to vote these folks out of office.”

Continue reading “”

Don’t Tell Joe: A Federal Government Study Showed 1994 ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Didn’t Reduce ‘Gun Violence’

Do something.

This is a response—and perhaps a natural one—to a human tragedy or crisis. We saw this response in the wake of 9/11. We saw it during the Covid-19 pandemic. And we’re seeing it again following three mass shootings—in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Tulsa Oklahoma—that claimed the lives of more than 30 innocent people, including small children.

In this case, the “something” is gun control. In Canada—where no attack even occurred—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the introduction of legislation that would freeze handgun ownership across the country.

“What this means is that it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” Trudeau said in a press conference.

In the United States, the rhetoric has tended to be more heated but also vague, though some specific proposals have emerged.

Over the weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris called for an all-out ban of “assault weapons.”

“We know what works on this. It includes, let’s have an assault weapons ban,” Harris told reporters in Buffalo after attending the funeral of a victim.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden, while speaking from the White House before a candlelit backdrop, called on Congress to pass new gun control legislation, including a ban on assault weapons.

“How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Biden asked.

There are numerous problems with this proposal, starting with the sticky question of defining what an “assault weapon” is.

Assault rifles, which by definition are capable of selective fire, are already banned under the National Firearms Act of 1934. The vague phrase “assault weapon” is basically a tautology—by definition, any weapon can be used to assault someone—and virtually useless. The term might be effective politically, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, the guns politicians choose to define as “assault weapons” typically “are no more dangerous than others that are not specified.”

We know this because the US had a ban on “assault weapons” as recently as 2004, something gun control supporters recently pointed out on Twitter.

“We had an assault weapon ban for 10 years: 1994-2004,” said Dr. Joanne Freeman, a historian at Yale University. “The world didn’t end. People kept their (other) guns. They bought new guns. It was hardly an attack on gun ownership.”

The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994 targeted firearms deemed “useful in military and criminal applications but unnecessary in shooting sports or self-defense.”

Freeman is right that the ban lasted a decade before expiring on September 13, 2004. She’s also right that the world “didn’t end” and Americans continued to use and purchase other types of firearms.

What Freeman didn’t bring up was the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the government’s Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Nearly two decades ago the Department of Justice funded a study to analyze this very topic, and it concluded that the assault weapon prohibition had “mixed” results.

Researchers noted there was a decline in crimes committed with firearms classified as assault weapons, but noted “the decline in AW use was offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns.”

In other words, there was a decline in crimes committed with firearms that were banned, but the drop was replaced by crimes committed with other types of firearms that were not banned.

Continue reading “”

As gas prices surge, Michigan sheriff asks deputies to manage some dispatch calls by phone

With average gas prices at well over $5 a gallon, at least one Michigan police force says it is about to go over its fuel budget and is now asking officers to handle “whatever calls are acceptable” by phone.

The Isabella County Sheriff’s Office announced this week that it is “feeling the pain at the pump,” and has “exhausted what funds were budgeted” for gasoline with “several months to go before the budget reset.”

The county, in the heart of central lower Michigan, is not alone.

Local governments are experiencing the same pain as commuters and trying to make adjustments, Dan Gilmartin, the CEO Michigan Municipal League, said Wednesday. He added that the problem is likely to get even worse.

Continue reading “”

Since all the previous laws didn’t work, let’s try it harder!

New York governor signs gun control package into law

The Supreme Court has yet to officially opine on the constitutionality of New York’s “may issue” permitting laws for concealed carry licenses, and now a host of other newer restrictions will likely be getting court attention in the days ahead. On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed several sweeping new restrictions into law, including a ban on sales of so-called assault weapons to adults under the age of 21, new registration requirements for all owners of modern sporting rifles, and an expansion of the state’s “red flag” law that could have some unintended consequences for those in need of mental health services or counseling.

The laws were rammed through the Democrat-controlled legislature last week as a response to the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store in which ten people were murdered by an 18-year old suspect, and during today’s signing ceremony Hochul and other Democrats made it clear that even more restrictions are on the way.

Continue reading “”