Category: You Can’t Make This Up

Trans gunman caught in alleged casino terror plot with huge cache of weapons 

Las Vegas cops busted a transgender gunman who allegedly planned a casino massacre using a huge cache of weapons.

Allison Howlett, 36, who was born a man but lives as a woman, was arrested Saturday on charges of making terroristic threats, assault with a deadly weapon, auto theft, gun theft and other offenses.

The wild story unfolded shortly after 9:30 a.m. Saturday when Howlett’s former spouse, who is female, called police to report Howlett had stolen her car and the vehicle held numerous firearms, Henderson Police Chief Reggie Rader said.

The former spouse said Howlett intended to commit “suicide by cop” or carry out a mass shooting, Radar said.

Howlett’s ex was tracking her stolen car on her phone and led cops to it where it was parked in a garage at Sunset Station hotel, the top cop said.

As officers approached the vehicle Howlett blasted music over the car’s stereo and refused commands to exit. He did, however, ask cops for a drink of water.

“Officers were eventually able to establish communication and convince her to roll down her window during negotiations,” said Rader.

“When she asked for water, the quick-thinking officers developed a plan to take her into custody as an opportunity arose when she reached for the water,” he explained. “Officers used that moment to gain control of her hands and remove her from the vehicle.”

Allison Howlett in a jail uniform during a court appearance.
Howlett is seen in a courtroom still on July 1. The judge set her bail at $500k.

Continue reading “”

The Black Codes Are a Cautionary Tale, Not a Useful Precedent

It has not been a great few months for Neal Katyal. As Charlie Cooke has detailed, Katyal and Hawaii got trounced, and properly so, in Wolford v. Lopez, which sought to masquerade a state law by which the government criminalizes having a gun on any private property as merely private conduct, because it allows the property owner to explicitly permit guns to be carried. Nobody in the 6–3 majority was fooled.

The really contemptible thing in this case was Katyal trolling the Court’s consideration of history and tradition in gun regulation by arguing that Hawaii was just following in the path of Southern states that adopted strict “Black Codes” during Reconstruction that limited the right of freedmen to carry guns. As I explained after the argument in January, this is the worst possible use of history:

It was left to Justice Thomas to ask the obvious rejoinder: “If you’re going to cite the Louisiana black codes of 1865, don’t you also have to cite the subsequent adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment that was in part generated because of laws like that?”

Thomas is right. It’s not just that the Black Codes were later found to be unconstitutional; it’s that the people who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment were specifically responding to those laws. . . .

The history of the Black Codes [should be read] not as proof of our history and tradition, but as proof of what defenders of that history and tradition were aiming to abolish by enacting the 14th Amendment.

. . . Reading the Black Codes into the 14th Amendment is like reading the law of slavery into the 13th Amendment or reading bans on black voting into the 15th. It has the whole point of the amendment precisely backward.

Alito dismissed Katyal’s troll with the scathing contempt it deserved, saying that it “cannot be taken seriously” given the actual history. But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was taken with the argument, and as has happened several times of late when Jackson decides to promote some nonsense about the methodology of the Court’s work, Justice Amy Coney Barrett felt compelled to respond.

Jackson — joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor but, pointedly, not by Justice Elena Kagan  — leaped at the analogy to the Black Codes as a club to wield in her continuing campaign against the use of history and tradition in reading the Second Amendment. That’s why Katyal was offering her the argument — not because he seriously believed that anybody applying the Court’s existing tests in good faith would fall for this hackish fallacy, but so that the Court’s test itself could be attacked. That’s also why commentators such as Mark Joseph Stern like the argument: “Virtually all of the laws that SCOTUS credits as relevant to the Bruen analysis were written by racist white men . . . by and for heterosexual white males.” Here’s Jackson:

As I see it, there are two potential reasons to use—or exclude—the Black Codes in Bruen’s history-and-tradition test. First, it could be that the Black Codes regulated guns consistent with the Second Amendment but States chose to exercise their regulatory authority in a discriminatory fashion. . . . Under this framing, those gun regulations are not examples of an unconstitutional abridgment of the right to bear arms, but rather exemplify a violation of a different constitutional Amendment—the Fourteenth.

Alternatively, it could be that States did not have the constitutional authority under the Second Amendment to enact such regulations but did so anyway for discriminatory reasons. Under that framing, not only did the States violate the Constitution by acting on the basis of race; they also violated the right to bear arms. Only the second set of circumstances justifies removing these laws (and the experiences of those they targeted) from the body of evidence that determines the historical reach of the Second Amendment under Bruen.

Jackson writes this as if she is completely oblivious to both the cause-and-effect relationship between the Black Codes and the enactment of the 14th Amendment and the fact that states could violate the Second Amendment with impunity before 1868 because until then it only bound the federal government. (Of course, nearly all such states had their own state constitutional guarantees, but Jackson just blows past the distinction.)

Continue reading “”

Key rule: Don’t let weirdos run your society.

“A possible referendum in Oregon on animal rights would end fishing, hunting, even pest control, just when Democrats are trying really hard not to be seen as ‘weirdos again.’”

I’m reading “Protect Every Animal From Cruelty? Not in 2026, Oregon Democrats Say” (NYT).

The measure, known for now as Initiative Petition 28… would give all animals the same protections from cruelty that Oregon grants dogs and cats…. Hunting, trapping and fishing would be outlawed, along with scientific research on animals, lethal pest control and conventional livestock production….
The fight is in some ways very Oregon, long a proving ground for ideas that initially seemed politically impossible only to enter the mainstream, such as medical aid in dying, universal vote-by-mail and legalizing the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms for therapy.

When people think of “animals” — as in “I love animals!” — they’re not thinking about cockroaches and mosquitoes.

ADDED: According to Ballotopedia, the initiative “Applies to mammals (including vermin), birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish.” So I think “lethal pest control” is meant to call to mind mice and rats, not the various troublesome insects. The NYT article says “all animals” and also, more than once, says “pest control.”

In the comments here, Tom T. said, “Then would come the court decisions defining pet ownership as cruelty and outlawing it.” That got me looking into the argument that pet-keeping is a form of cruelty to animals. Here’s an interesting Vox article from 3 years ago: “The case against pet ownership/Why we should aim for a world with fewer but happier pets.”
Excerpt:
We demand companionship with as little friction as possible, expecting our pets (especially dogs) to be docile and agreeable, and to adapt quickly to the human world, with its countless rules and norms that mean nothing to them. And then when they inevitably fail to do so at first, we deem their natural habits misbehavior in need of correction, or abandonment….

Just how uneven the relationship is between pets and their human owners was demonstrated during the pandemic when, lonely and stuck at home, one in five households adopted a new pet. As new pet owners returned to work, however, their newly lonely pets struggled with the sudden change, showing high rates of chewing, digging, barking, escaping, pacing, hiding, and indoor urination and defecation. Our pets might not be so bored if they just had some autonomy, but having a pet means regularly denying it….

Gary Francione and Anna Charlton, a firebrand animal rights couple who teach law at Rutgers University… have advocated for the abolition of pet ownership. “Domesticated animals are completely dependent on humans, who control every aspect of their lives,” they wrote in a provocative essay for Aeon in 2016. “Unlike human children, who will one day become autonomous, non-humans never will. That is the entire point of domestication — we want domesticated animals to depend on us. They remain perpetually in a netherworld of vulnerability, dependent on us for everything that is of relevance to them.”…

Extreme Ballot Initiative in Oregon Criminalize Hunting, Fishing, and Trapping

I understand the allure of ballot initiatives for many people, especially those who believe their causes are popular enough to win with the public but controversial enough that no politician will touch them. A ballot initiative puts the matter before the people and lets them decide, and that’s had some interesting results in various places over the years.

The problem I have with them is that they also allow moronic people to potentially screw everyone else in the state over.

A prime example of this is a ballot initiative in Oregon that reportedly has enough signatures to go on the ballot. The initiative is…well, it’s something special because it basically bans, among other things, every way possible for a person to get meat besides the grocery store.

A radical initiative to ban hunting, fishing, and trapping in Oregon is now one step closer to making the ballot in November. The animal rights activists who are running a paid campaign to advance the petition say they’ve gathered enough support to surpass the threshold of 117,173 signatures. An online ballot tracker shows that the campaign had submitted 120,735 signatures as of Wednesday.

Those signatures still have to be verified by the Secretary of State’s office. There are certain verification standards for these signatures, and it’s possible (or even likely) that some of them will be thrown out before the official signature deadline on July 2….

Initiative Petition 28, also known as the People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act, would dramatically reform Oregon’s existing animal abuse laws by eliminating the legal exceptions that protect lawful activities like fishing and farming from the state’s animal abuse statutes. It would also establish a Humane Transition Fund and a Transitional Oversight Council to help Oregon transition into a “no kill or harm” sanctuary state.

Now, this might not sound so bad, because animal cruelty is a terrible thing that no one approves of.

The problem is when the rubber meets the road. (meats the road?) Like a lot of proposals, this might sound acceptable when you look at the overly broad strokes, but when you get into the nitty-gritty, it’s something far more dystopian.

Continue reading “”

Translated: “My friend has a small farm, but he suffers from a small problem, which is that he is always being chased by wild boars that naturally live around his farm. So he decided to get a dog to help him drive the boars away. The dog’s reaction to the first chase:”

BLUF
Nowhere in Bruen does the Supreme Court suggest that the only purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the individual right of self-defense. That’s a ludicrous argument, given both the text and history of the amendment and how the right to keep and bear arms has been exercised since 1791.

Gun Control Advocates: About Those Hunting Rifles We Said Were Okay…

Fifty years ago, the gun control lobby’s position was that handguns should (and could) be banned without violating the Second Amendment, but they had no interest in going after “sporting” arms. Even today it’s not uncommon for anti-gun politicians to argue that nobody “needs” a particular firearm to hunt deer or turkey, which insinuates that they believe those guns are okay to possess, at least in limited circumstances.

In court, however, the gun control lobby is making a very different argument.

The brief filed by Baltimore, Maryland; Columbus, Ohio; Harris County, Texas; Everytown for Gun Safety; Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence; and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in support of the BATFE does indeed claim that the Second Amendment only protects those arms that are in common use for self-defense; essentially reversing decades of public statements and policies promoted by the anti-gunners.

Bruen establishes that the “common use” question under the Second Amendment is whether an arm is lawfully “‘in common use’ today for self-defense.” Applying that standard requires consideration of a weapon’s actual use and objective design and features, which establish the uses for which it is suited. Weapons that are commonly used in and suitable for lawful self-defense fall within the scope of the Second Amendment right, but those that are “most useful in military service,” or “ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense,” do not. That limitation follows sensibly from the “‘common use for self-defense’ rationale for the private right to bear arms.”

In Heller, the Supreme Court held that “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess afirearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” That language clearly indicates that self-defense is not the only lawful purposes for keeping and bearing arms, as the gun control advocates (and several federal courts) have asserted.

In their recent amicus brief, the gun control groups and their allies in local government claim that this is a foregone conclusion, which is why “Bruen itself, in analyzing step one, asked specifically whether handguns were ‘in common use’ today for self-defense.’”

That’s too cute by half. The reason why the Supreme Court noted that handguns were in common use today for self-defense is because the case dealt with the licensing of carrying handguns for self-defense. Two of the individual plaintiffs in the case were actually granted New York permits “that allowed them to carry handguns only for purposes of hunting and target shooting,” but they wanted unrestricted licenses that, in the language of the New York statute, would “allow them to carry concealed handguns ‘for personal protection and all lawful purposes.’”

Nowhere in Bruen does the Supreme Court suggest that the only purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the individual right of self-defense. That’s a ludicrous argument, given both the text and history of the amendment and how the right to keep and bear arms has been exercised since 1791. But the next time an anti-gunner tells you that no one needs an AR-15 for deer hunting, ask them if they really believe that a bolt-action rifle is protected by the Second Amendment. They might tell you yes, but Everytown, Brady, and Giffords would beg to disagree.

String of missing or dead scientists ‘too coincidental’ not to be major concern, congressman says — as 11th mystery emerges

A diagram titled "Links between missing and dead officials" showing a network of deceased and missing scientists and officials from NASA, Los Alamos National Lab, and AFRL, along with their roles and connections.
A group of scientists have either mysteriously died or gone missing in the past three years.

 

WASHINGTON — The deaths or disappearances of 11 top US scientists and researchers is a matter of urgent national importance, a member of the House Oversight Committee insisted Friday.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said his office had already been eyeing some of the “too coincidental” disappearances a year before President Trump told reporters Thursday that he had ordered an investigation.

The lawmaker argued the fate of the scientists is almost “certainly” linked to the access some had to classified aerospace, defense and UFO information — and may involve bad actors from China, Russia or Iran.

“This is a rallying call to pay attention to this issue and make sure that our nation’s top scientists are safe and secure,” Burlison told “Fox & Friends.”

“This is too coincidental, and so we have to be investigating this. We need to have our nation’s top investigators, the FBI and every agency looking into this matter.”

Some of the scientists, Burlison noted, “literally just disappeared” without a trace — including Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, who vanished in February after Burlison said he tried to contact him twice about his research into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) — government-speak for UFOs.

Investigators claimed McCasland had experienced “mental fog” before disappearing from his home in Albuquerque, NM.

The retired general had worked in top positions pertaining to space research and acquisition, with his name even appearing in the WikiLeaks dump of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, with former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge claiming to have conversed with him about UAPs.

In many cases, the congressman continued, these scientists “felt some form of threat” and “left all of their devices at home” before they dropped out of sight.

“This is not normal,” Burlison said on Fox. “These are some of the most advanced scientists, researchers in our nation, some of the most important people for national security efforts. And they all just mysteriously disappeared.”

Continue reading “”

Translation translation:
Please don’t shoot me Bro!

Translation:
[President of Iran Masoud] Pezeshkian disavows any responsibilities and says he is “without authority, completely cut off from the leadership structures, and there is no justification for targeting him.”

A political advisor in a Gulf state confirmed that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian informed a number of his counterparts in the Arab Gulf and other countries, including Russia and Turkey, that “in light of the collapse of the constitutional leadership structure in the country and his disconnection from communicating with its components, he absolves himself of responsibility and emphasizes that there is no justification for targeting him.”

Virginia’s Democrat Senate Majority Leader on Why Their ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban and Magazine Capcity Limit Really Isn’t a Big Deal

If you have an assault rifle, you can keep it. If you have an assault pistol, if you have one of these pistols with a silencer on it and a pistol grip in the front. A really big, big pistol…you want to have one with a telescope on it or lasers or whatever else you want, that’s okay. You just can’t buy a new one and you can’t sell it to anybody. If you want to have a magazine with more than 15 bullets, you can keep that, too. You just can’t buy a new one.

— Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell

“blast radius”

D.C. Claims Chaos Will Ensue if Magazine Ban Disappears

Last week a three-judge panel on the D.C. Court of Appeals (which is the highest local court in the District) ruled the District of Columbia’s ban on ammunition magazines that can hold more than ten rounds violates the Second Amendment. These magazines are “arms”, the court concluded, and they are unquestionably in common use for lawful purposes, which means that they’re protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Now the District of Columbia is hoping to reverse that decision through an en banc review, and is asking the Court of Appeals to keep the ruling from taking affect while it appeals.

In its request, the District claims that the panel’s decision “has created uncertainty and chaos” and that the “blast radius of the decision is potentially massive”, arguing that the opinion also impacts “exceedingly common charges governing unlicensed and unregistered firearms.”

I think D.C.’s licensing and registration requirements are equally unsound from a constitutional perspective, but there’s nothing in the panel’s decision that impacts those statutes. The opinion released by the court deals exclusively with the District’s prohibition on commonly owned magazines, and the only uncertainty resulting from the decision is whether or not the ban is still actively being enforced.

The U.S. Attorney’s office has already declined to pursue charges against any legal gun owner caught with a “large capacity” magazine, though the D.C. Attorney General’s office has continued prosecuting possession cases.

The D.C. Court of Appeals hasn’t granted the District’s request, but the opinion will likely remain on hold while the en banc review is being considered. The court has set an expedited briefing schedule that will conclude next Wednesday, and a decision on granting or denying the en banc request could come by the end of next week.

There’s an easy way to ensure there’s no confusion over the panel’s decision: let it stand and take effect.

Continue reading “”