Category: Scratch a Lib-Find a Tyrant

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Most of Restrictive New York Concealed Carry Gun Law; Next Stop SCOTUS
Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals upholds “good moral character” requirement of New York’s concealed carry gun law, setting up expected showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court

We have been following the twists and turns of litigation battles associated with New York’s most recent concealed carry gun law. This is important, not only because it affects the constitutional rights of millions of law-abiding New York State citizens, but also because this case could be a bellwether for the country, should the U.S. Supreme Court decide to review the case and provide further guidance on the gun rights of citizens nationwide.

You may recall that it all started, as we reported, when SCOTUS struck down New York’s previous concealed carry gun law, which required citizens to make a showing of “special need” when applying for a carry permit, as violative of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, in the seminal New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen case:

We…now hold, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.

The parties nevertheless dispute whether New York’s licensing regime respects the constitutional right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense. In 43 States, the government issues licenses to carry based on objective criteria.

But in six States, including New York, the government further conditions issuance of a license to carry on a citizen’s showing of some additional special need. Because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.

So after Bruen, as the case is typically called, New York could not require citizens to show a special need to get a concealed carry permit. And boy was Kathy Hochul, the far-left governor of New York, pissed: NY Gov. Hochul Loses Her Mind Over SCOTUS Ruling Striking Down Conceal Carry Law.

So pissed, in fact, that she rapidly called a special session of the New York legislature, and immediately passed a new concealed carry gun law even more restrictive than the previous one: New York Democrats Undermine Supreme Court 2nd Amendment Ruling In New Legislation.

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Never forget what they did to us.
Never forget what they meant to do to us.
Never.
Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt next time.
And did they forget we have guns?

CDC Planned Quarantine Camps, Nationwide

No matter how bad you think Covid policies were, they were intended to be worse.

Consider the vaccine passports alone. Six cities were locked down to include only the vaccinated in public indoor places. They were New York City, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. The plan was to enforce this with a vaccine passport. It broke. Once the news leaked that the shot didn’t stop infection or transmission, the planners lost public support and the scheme collapsed.

It was undoubtedly planned to be permanent and nationwide if not worldwide. Instead, the scheme had to be dialed back.

Features of the CDC’s edicts did incredible damage. It imposed the rent moratorium. It decreed the ridiculous “six feet of distance” and mask mandates. It forced Plexiglas as the interface for commercial transactions. It implied that mail-in balloting must be the norm, which probably flipped the election. It delayed the reopening as long as possible. It was sadistic.

Even with all that, worse was planned. On July 26, 2020, with the George Floyd riots having finally settled down, the CDC issued a plan for establishing nationwide quarantine camps. People were to be isolated, given only food and some cleaning supplies. They would be banned from participating in any religious services. The plan included contingencies for preventing suicide. There were no provisions made for any legal appeals or even the right to legal counsel.

The plan’s authors were unnamed but included 26 footnotes. It was completely official. The document was only removed on about March 26, 2023. During the entire intervening time, the plan survived on the CDC’s public site with little to no public notice or controversy.

It was called “Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent COVID-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings.”

“This document presents considerations from the perspective of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) for implementing the shielding approach in humanitarian settings as outlined in guidance documents focused on camps, displaced populations and low-resource settings.

This approach has never been documented and has raised questions and concerns among humanitarian partners who support response activities in these settings. The purpose of this document is to highlight potential implementation challenges of the shielding approach from CDC’s perspective and guide thinking around implementation in the absence of empirical data.

Considerations are based on current evidence known about the transmission and severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and may need to be revised as more information becomes available.”

By absence of empirical data, the meaning is: nothing like this has ever been tried. The point of the document was to map out how it could be possible and alert authorities to possible pitfalls to be avoided.

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Has J. Edgar Hoover’s Spy Program Been Resurrected?
The Bureau Apparently Now Targets MAGA Activists

Although the legacy media has buried the story, it turns out that over the last several years the Federal Bureau of Investigation has resurrected a hated and unconstitutional spying program once directed by the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. His program, called the COINTELPRO program, targeted Americans who committed no crime, but simply sought to express their political views.

Former President Richard Nixon directed Hoover to aggressively infiltrate and disrupt many political movements in the late ‘60’s and ‘70’s. This included the Vietnam War activists, the Rev. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders. They even spied on environmentalists, women’s rights groups and animal rights activists.

According to an exclusive Newsweek expose that was published three weeks ago, it now appears the ghosts of Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover were resurrected by the Biden administration with a new expanded government spying and infiltration program based on political views. The FBI apparently redefined extremism to include those whom the administration determined hold unacceptable political views.

We now learn that during the Biden administration, the Bureau changed its domestic violence definitions from the “furtherance of ideological agendas” to “furtherance of political and/or social agendas.” They report that it was a “gigantic departure for the Bureau.”

As Newsweek explained, “For the first time extremist groups worthy of surveillance and even infiltration could be so labeled because of their politics.” The FBI’s main target: Trump MAGA activists.

A review by its investigative reporters of previously unpublished FBI documents shows, “nearly two-thirds of the FBI’s current investigations are focused on Trump supporters and others suspected of violating what the FBI calls “anti-riot” laws.”

Although I’m not a MAGA activist, I personally abhor any government spying program against its citizens. In fact, I was a plaintiff in a 1970’s leftwing legal lawsuit against the COINTELPRO program. The United States Supreme Court ruled in the case, called Hobson vs. Wilson, that the federal government’s political surveillance program was unconstitutional.

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Walz’s Interview With ‘The View’ May Have Revealed More Than He Intended

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was asked another softball question about gun ownership and the Second Amendment on Monday, this time from the hosts of The View. While most of Walz’s answer was nothing more than a regurgitation of his campaign talking points claiming that gun owners have nothing to fear from the candidate who previously supported banning handguns and declared the Supreme Court shouldn’t find that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, one jab at Donald Trump highlighted the draconian stance that the Harris/Walz ticket has taken on who, exactly, possesses the right to keep and bear arms.

Walz made one more shady dig at his Republican opponent Donald Trump, telling the co-hosts, “The Republican nominee can’t pass a background check to get a gun,” referring to Trump getting convicted on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial early this year.

“We understand the Second Amendment and lawful gun owners, folks who have been doing this for 50 years like I have, we understand that there’s not a single thing that we’re proposing that takes away your right to be able to own that firearm, to be able to have it in your possession,” he continued. “But it does go a long ways to making sure that folks who shouldn’t have it, don’t have it.”

Clearly Walz believes that Trump’s felony convictions for the non-violent crime of falsifying business records should prevent him from lawfully possessing a firearm, though the Minnesota governor still believes felons should be able to cast a vote. Just last year Walz signed a bill allowing felons to have their voting rights restored after they complete their sentence, though their ability to legally own a firearm is still prohibited under Minnesota law.

Walz’s stance is right in line with Biden/Harri’s DOJ, which has argued that a lifetime prohibition on gun ownership is entirely appropriate for anyone convicted of a felony or criminal offense punishable by more than a year in prison, even non-violent crimes. That argument has its share of critics, however, including multiple judges on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which seems poised to once again rule in favor of a Pennsylvania man seeking to get his 2A rights restored almost 30 years after he pled guilty and received probation for falsifying his income on a food stamp application.

The Third Circuit previously ruled in favor of Bryan Range, but the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the appellate court after it issued the Rahimi decision. The appellate court held oral arguments in the Range case for a second time earlier this month, and the panel seemed skeptical of DOJ attorney Kevin Soter’s position that only “serious crimes” result in a lifetime loss of the right to keep and bear arms.

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TPTB have always been scared to the point they wet themselves that the peons possess the means to eliminate them from the equation.
It became even more scarier when reliable weaponry that can either smite from a distance, or be easily carried and concealed, was developed.
We’re going to see if this still holds basically true, or if our Supreme Justices can override the goobermint’s  fear that those in power can be help to ultimate consequences.

Perhaps the Most Concerning Comment on Vanderstock

The ATF’s rules on so-called ghost guns don’t actually stop bad guys from making their own guns. Still, those rules exist.

At least, they exist until after the Supreme Court rules on Vanderstock v. Garland.

As we’ve noted previously, though, the odds don’t look good for pro-gun folks. It seems the Court had at least some interest in keeping the rules in place, which is troubling because it seems pretty clear to me that the ATF overstepped.

However, there was one comment that bothered me more than just about anything else I saw come out of the arguments.

“Drilling a hole or two, I would think, doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends… My understanding is that it’s not terribly difficult for someone to do this,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.

While it’s easy to ridicule the Chief Justice for this misguided statement, it’s important to consider his sources for the hyperbole, the ATF and the Biden administration.

“Drilling a hole or two” is a demonstrably dishonest take on the process, and I would have particularly enjoyed seeing a kit laid out in front of the Justices for a hands-on show of how “not terribly difficult” it is.

This would have been good for a few laughs.

Representing manufacturers and groups opposing the rule, Peter Patterson pointed out that building the kits is far more complicated than the administration has suggested, however, Patterson wisely remained grounded in his argument, staying with the facts and nature of the litigation, which had nothing to do with how easy or difficult a kit is to build, and everything to do with the ATF overstepping its authority.

Since the conclusion of the day’s oral arguments, the mainstream media has touted the Supreme Court’s disposition during the hearing as signaling a tendency towards the ATF and Biden administration’s arguments regarding lack of manufacturing difficulty and the potential for prohibited individuals to purchase kits and build them at home for criminal intent.

I will point out, however unnecessarily, that violent crime has been around long before 80% receiver kits, and violent criminals have never had an issue arming themselves, sometimes aided by our own government. Just ask Barack Obama and Eric Holder about Operation Fast and Furious.

All of that is absolutely true, of course. It’s a good deal more complicated than just drilling a couple of holes and calling it good, which is why the ATF’s argument regarding how “readily” it can be turned into a firearm is wrong and should be overturned.

But I’m bothered by Roberts’s statement about how it does give “the same sort of reward” that one might get from working on their car.

I wasn’t aware that was the legal threshold for our rights, whether or not a judge finds it satisfying.

Especially when I don’t find working on my car particularly rewarding. If I’m working on my car, it’s because something isn’t right and I can’t afford to take it to a mechanic. Since that’s what my son does for a living now, that’s rare, but that’s how it’s been in the past. For me, it was a task that needed to be accomplished, not something I found enjoyment in.

That’s kind of how hobbies work, though. Some people are really into DIY projects like renovating their bathroom. Others do it because they need the bathroom fixed and can’t afford to hire someone. The first group is the amateurs in the original sense of the word–those who do something for the love of it–while the others aren’t necessarily finding any sense of reward, necessarily.

Some people get a charge out of collecting stamps while others only buy them now to pay bills that don’t have an online presence for whatever reason.

Yet Roberts’s comment, while possibly meaningless, suggests that the justice might well consider whether they see this as a real hobby or not, and if they don’t because they, personally, don’t see anything fun in making one’s own firearms, we have a big problem.

Kamala Harris Wanted To Ban The Gun She Now Claims To Own

When it comes to gun ownership and the Second Amendment, Kamala Harris has successfully shot herself in the foot.

Vice President Kamala Harris has in recent weeks claimed to be a proud gun owner who is not afraid to exercise her Second Amendment right to self-defense. The Democrat’s radical gun control track record, especially during her tenure in California politics, however, shows she tried to ban the type of firearm she claims to own.

“What kind of gun do you own, and when and why’d you get it?” “60 Minutes” Correspondent Bill Whitaker asked Harris during the pair’s Oct. 7 sitdown.

“I have a Glock,” Harris claimed.

Contrary to what the Harris campaign’s social media posts suggest, “Glock,” is not a type of firearm, but the name of a popular handgun manufacturing company. Not only should the “g” in Glock be capitalized to reflect it is a proper noun, but Harris should have elaborated further on what specific type of Glock she claims to own by naming the model and caliber.

She did not, and Whitaker put himself in the camp of corporate media mouthpieces who have no business reporting about guns because they know nothing about them by failing to press her further on her vague answer.

Instead, after the VP asserted that she had the firearm “for quite some time” because “my background is in law enforcement,” Whitaker wondered if Harris had ever “fired” her weapon.

“Yes, of course,” Harris said through laughs. “At a shooting range. Yes, of course I have.”

Harris’ CBS sitdown may not have given Americans much more clarity on the firearm she purports to possess, but it did reveal her stunning hypocrisy on gun ownership.

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Oracle Founder Larry Ellison Imagines a Dystopian Future of Constant AI-Powered Surveillance to Enforce “Best Behavior”

Larry Ellison, co-founder, chairman of the board, and chief technical officer of Oracle, has revealed where he sees the world going in one particular aspect – continuous, real-time control of people.

It is a dark place of “AI” (machine learning, ML) mass surveillance, which Ellison wants to make sure is served by his company by way of providing the fundamental infrastructure. It isn’t irrelevant to this story that Oracle’s portfolio also includes multi-decade contacts with the US government.

Oracle is not often mentioned when Big Tech is talked about, but it is one of the biggest in the industry. The reason for staying out of the limelight is that, unlike its peers with big stakes in the social media space, Oracle’s business is database software and cloud computing.

This is the reason Ellison sees the opportunity to place his company, already involved in building AI models, at the center of producing the tools to make this nightmarish scenario of real-time ML-powered surveillance a reality.

Ellison spoke during the Oracle financial analyst gathering to suggest that the company’s databases will become indispensable for the AI infrastructure, and that proof for that is in companies like X and Microsoft having already picked Oracle to provide this service.

“Maximizing AI’s public security capabilities” is what’s on Ellison’s mind, and he decided to sell this by giving police accountability as an example.

The system would prevent police abuse, he said – but the way “AI” combined with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure arrives there is perplexing, to say the least. It involves police body cameras that are always recording (including in bathrooms, and during meals), always transmitting back to Oracle – and with no option to stop this feed.

“Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times” – that’s another way of putting it, and Ellison did.

But who would build such an expensive and elaborate surveillance system just to use it in law enforcement? Not Ellison.

The cops will be on their best behavior, but so will (the rest) of the citizens, he promised. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly recording and reporting,” Ellison added.

You can’t stop the signal when the horse is already out of the barn

Law enforcement leans on 3D-printer industry to help thwart machine gun conversion devices
Justice Department officials are turning to the 3D-printing industry to help stop the proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic transforming semi-automatic weapons into illegal homemade machine guns on streets across America

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials are turning to the 3D-printing industry to help stop the proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic transforming weapons into illegal homemade machine guns on streets across America.

The rising threat of what are known as machine gun conversion devices requires “immediate and sustained attention,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Friday. That means finding ways to stop criminals from exploiting technology to make the devices in the first place, she said.

“Law enforcement cannot do this alone,” Monaco said during a gathering in Washington of federal law enforcement officials, members of the 3D-printing industry and academia. “We need to engage software developers, technology experts and leaders in the 3-D-printing industry to identify solutions in this fight.”

Devices that convert firearms to fully automatic weapons have spread “like wildfire” due to advancements in 3D-printing technology, according to Steve Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His agency reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021.

“More and more of these devices were being sold over the internet and on social media, and more and more they were actually just being printed by inexpensive 3D printers in homes and garages everywhere,” Dettelbach said.

The pieces of plastic or metal are considered illegal machine guns under federal law but are so small they run the risk of being undetected by law enforcement. Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a sweet sixteen party in Alabama last year.

The devices “can transform a street corner into a combat zone, devastating entire communities,” Monaco said.

Monaco on Friday also announced several other efforts designed to crack down on the devices, including a national training initiative for law enforcement and prosecutors. The deputy attorney general is also launching a committee designed to help spot trends and gather intelligence.

Biden’s Surgeon General Warns That Parenting Is Hazardous to Your Health.

Joe Biden’s attorney general has made “mental health” a priority for the government. This has both good and bad aspects to it.

There is an epidemic of “mental illness” in America, including depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior, addiction, and other impulse control problems like gambling. More serious forms of mental illness, including eating disorders, paranoia, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses, are dangerous to others as well as those afflicted.

Is parenting one of these “disorders”?

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy believes that parenting should have its very own warning label: parenting can be harmful to your mental health. It causes depression, dangerous levels of stress, and high rates of loneliness.

According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, “half of parents report overwhelming stress most days, compared with 26% of other adults,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

The temptation is to classify all sorts of situations and behaviors as “mental illnesses.” Everyday life for parents is stressful, period. Full Stop. End of story. Anyone who has sat up all night with a sick infant or a screaming two-year-old can define “stress” much better than childless couples.

But who isn’t feeling that way? Elderly people are lonely and stressed. Single men are lonely and stressed. College students are lonely and stressed. Gen X moms are lonely and stressed. There’s an epidemic of loneliness and stress in this country and it’s bad for our mental and physical health, which Murthy pointed out in a previous advisory.

His stark warning doesn’t necessarily help with the real problem. Fewer people are having children, some because they can’t—or can’t see a way to attain professional ambitions along with family ones. Politicians like JD Vance are outspoken on the primacy of parenthood, and lots of people feel the job is so sacred that it’s wrong to even talk about this.

Murthy believes that parents’ loneliness comes from their being totally and completely responsible for another human being. Frankly, I think that’s a bogus construct. Being responsible for another human being — a precious life that fills us at times, with unbearable joy and brings tears of happiness to our eyes — is not really a question of being alone. Yes, there are moments of sheer terror. But there are also moments of sharing that transcend any other human experience.

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I’m already a member. No need to oversell them.

The group rewriting America’s gun laws for the Supreme Court Is Worse Than the NRA.

The National Rifle Association is not what it used to be, and that’s created a gap. And what has gone into the gap are a bunch of further-right organizations that are trying to take the mantle of the NRA by being as extreme as possible. Foremost among them is the Firearms Policy Coalition. Friday was a real moment for them. It’s one of the most extreme groups; it uses extraordinarily violent rhetoric. And it’s putting out material that’s getting blessed by a majority opinion of the Supreme Court. You have to take a step back and look at where we are—I don’t think that’s anything you could imagine happening even 10 years ago.

David Pucino
Legal director of the Giffords Law Center
June 15, 2024

Breyer’s ‘Pragmatic’ Approach to Destroying the Second Amendment

Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer may no longer be in a position to decide cases that come before the Court, but he’s still trying to shape the judiciary in a way that would allow for judges to uphold virtually every gun control law the anti’s could dream up.

Breyer’s new book Reading the Constitution; Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism outlines his approach to interpreting the Constitution. I’m actually surprised he managed to fill several hundred pages with material, given that his view is basically that judges should have the power to ignore what the text of the Constitution has to say if they don’t like it.

Breyer highlights the need for considering the broader context in which laws are passed and the “practical consequences” of different interpretations. He refers to the majority judgment in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), in which he dissented. The Court held, 6–3, that New York’s law requiring a citizen to have a license to carry a gun outside his home violated the right to carry arms under the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Breyer expresses his disagreement with the ruling by emphasizing his preference to prioritize the practical implications. Considering the alarming patterns of gun violence in the US, Breyer believes the Court should have limited the access to firearms.

Does Breyer not know his history, or is he just choosing to ignore it? The Second Amendment was ratified shortly after a civil war that not only brought the United States its independence but led to small-scale reprisals between patriots and loyalists throughout the course of the war. As the Bill of Rights was being drafted and debated, the memory of Shay’s Rebellion was fresh in the mind of the Framers, while the Whiskey Rebellion broke out along the western frontier the same year the Second Amendment was ratified. The Founders knew all about “gun violence”. They just didn’t believe that disarming the American people was the answer.

Breyer’s criticism of textualism is based on his adherence to pragmatism. He contends that judges should endeavour to interpret the Constitution in a manner that is pragmatic and adaptable to the requirements of modern society. According to him, this approach is better aligned with the intentions of the Constitution’s framers, who intended for the constitution to be “workable” and responsive to evolving circumstances.

The Constitution is responsive to “evolving circumstances”, but the proper way to do that is through an amendment, not a panel of nine justices deciding that is language can be discarded because they think it’s right thing to do in our modern age.

Breyer’s not the first to adopt a “pragmatic” approach to the Constitution, of course. I’d argue that Roger Taney’s decision in Dred Scott is actually a pretty good example of the pragmatic philosophy that Breyer espouses. Taney twisted the Constitution’s text beyond recognition in order to reach his conclusion that black Americans could never be entitled to citizenship and that Congress had no power to regulate slavery in the territories. He did so in the belief that the practical implications of his ruling would make the country a more peaceful place by removing the issue of slavery and abolition (which Taney considered an act of “Northern aggression” from the national debate.

Pragmatism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. In Bruen, Breyer (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan) argued that the majority opinion “refuses to consider the government interests that justify a challenged gun regulation, regardless of how compelling those interests may be,” adding “the Constitution contains no such limitation, and neither do our precedents.”

The text of the Second Amendment doesn’t include a clause after “shall not be infringed” that says “unless the government thinks there’s a good reason to do so”. The entire purpose of the Bill of Rights is to restrain the government from violating our individual rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment applies those protections to abuses from state and local governments as well. The only pragmatic way to change that while remaining faithful to the Constitution is to pass another amendment negating the right to keep and bear arms. That option has been available to the gun control lobby for decades, but as we’ve seen with Gavin Newsom’s proposed constitutional amendment, it’s not feasible because the support simply isn’t there.

Since repealing the right to keep and bear arms is off the table, Breyer (and others) are left to insist that the Constitution is essentially whatever they want it to be. That judicial arrogance is at the heart of some of the worst legal decisions in this country, including Dred Scott, but thankfully was consigned to the minority in Bruen. If Democrats are able to reshape the court in their image after the November elections, however, that “pragmatic” approach could very well become the majority view on the Court. Our right to keep and bear arms could disappear as quickly as Dred Scott’s right to live free did in 1857; not because the Constitution demands that result, but because the “pragmatic” enemies of individual liberty do.

Indiana Prosecutor Laments That Self-Defense Laws Exist, Protect Defensive Gun Users.

Apparently, some Indianapolis public officials have forgotten how their own self-defense laws work and why they exist in the first place.

In an interview that’s equal parts amusing and alarming, Indiana’s Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears recently lamented an increase in self-defense shootings in Indianapolis.

Mears complained to reporters that shootings involving self-defense claims are challenging to prosecute. This “mean[s] that someone lost their life” and “that case might ultimately be cleared” without the shooter being charged, he said.

Mears also implied that defensive gun users who can’t be prosecuted are just as bad as the criminals they shot, simply by virtue of the fact that both parties were armed.

With all due respect to Mears, the county prosecutor seems to miss the point.

As in virtually every other state, Indiana law justifies the use of deadly force only when a person has a reasonable belief that such force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury, commission of a forcible felony, or unlawful entry into a home or vehicle.

Moreover, a person generally can’t rely on the protection of self-defense laws if he or she was committing a crime or fleeing after committing one, provoked the threat, or engaged in “mutual combat.”

In other words, to the extent that self-defense shootings are difficult to prosecute, it’s because there’s pretty good evidence that the shooter was morally and legally justified in doing what he did.

You would think that someone like Mears would comprehend this, given his position as a prosecutor.

The importance of armed self-defense can’t be overstated. Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2021, the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the issue concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year.

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