Category: You Can’t Make This Up

A Big Week for SCOTUS and the Second Amendment

On Thursday, the Supreme Court is set to consider whether to accept challenges to “assault weapons” bans in Illinois and Maryland at this week’s conference. But that’s not the only 2A issue coming before the justices this week. A case called Srour v. NYC is also scheduled for consideration in conference this week. That lawsuit is taking on New York City’s “good moral character” standard for residents trying to exercise their right to keep a rifle or shotgun in their home; a statute found unconstitutional by a district court judge, but allowed to remain in effect thanks to an inexplicable decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Attorney Amy Bellantoni first asked SCOTUS to intervene on behalf of her client back in March, but her request for an emergency application to vacate the Second Circuit’s stay was summarily rejected by Justice Sonia Sotomayor on April 4th. The following week, Bellantoni resubmitted her request to Justice Clarence Thomas. Instead of accepting or rejecting the request, Thomas has submitted the question to the full Court.

In her initial request, Bellantoni notes that the district court judge who found New York’s “good moral character” and “good cause to deny” clauses unconstitutional did so after the state failed to come up with a single historical analogue that could justify the broad and vague powers granted to the licensing authorities.

The district court went on to analogizing Respondents’ ‘moral character’requirement to the ‘proper cause’ factor for a concealed carry handgun license thatwas stricken by this Court in Bruen. Both statutes require individuals to “prove”something to a government official before being able to exercise a protected right.

Harkening to Bruen’s discussion contrasting outlier “may issue” regimes likeNew York’s, “under which authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carrylicenses even when the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria,” with “shall issue”regimes, “where authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability,” the district court correctly observed that Respondents’ regulations “land very close to the problematic “may issue” laws criticized in Bruen.”

… The district court concluded that 10-303(a)(2) and (a)(9) “suffer from the verysame constitutional flaws under Bruen.” Observing that Section 10-303 fails to define “good moral character” in further detail, the court held that “without doubt, the very notions of “good moral character” and “good cause” are inherently exceedingly broad and discretionary. Someone may be deemed to have good moral character by one person, yet a very morally flawed character by another. Such unfettered discretion is hard, if not impossible, to reconcile with Bruen.”

The district court then turned to whether Respondents met their burden under the Bruen test, but found they failed to produce any historical analogue for investing officials with the broad discretion to restrict an individual’s Second Amendment rights based on a lack of moral character.

Respondents offered examples of criminal laws, loyalty oath requirements, and surety statutes — laws preventing “dangerous or potentially dangerous” people from possessing firearms, which the district court found are “hardly analogous to denying someone their Second Amendment’s rights based on a City official’s discretionary determination that that person “lacks good moral character”…The latter is far broader and sweeps in significantly more conduct.”

When New York City officials appealed the judge’s order to the Second Circuit, they quickly got the relief they were asking. A three-judge panel stayed the lower court decision and allowed the NYPD to continue to use “good moral character” (or the lack thereof) as a reason to approve or deny permits, pointing to a similar preliminary ruling regarding pistol licenses that are being challenged as part of Antonyuk and other lawsuits taking on the state’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act. But Bellantoni argues that the Second Circuit provided no real analysis before reaching its decision. If it had, Bellantoni believes the panel would have had no real choice but to uphold the district court’s finding.

Had “due consideration” been given, the Second Circuit would have realized that Antonyuk (i) is not binding on the appeal, as it involved review of a preliminary injunction, not a merits-based determination; (ii) its ‘moral character’ analysis is confined to handgun licensing (plaintiffs challenged the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act”); (iii) New York State’s moral character statute for handguns is markedly narrower than NYC Admin.

Code 10-303(a)(2) (still, any amount of discretion conflicts with the plain text); and (iv) contains no analysis of this Nation’s historical traditions of regulating rifles and shotguns, which is decidedly sparse. To be sure, when it comes to long guns, even the New York State Legislature acknowledged in 1965 that there was no ‘National tradition’ of licensing rifles and shotguns, never mind disarming the entire citizenry until a government official feels they possess “good moral character.”

We have no way of knowing which, if any, of the Second Amendment cases that are pending in conference will be granted cert by the Supreme Court, but there’s a strong argument to be made in favor of accepting all three of the legal challenges that will be discussed behind closed doors this week.

The Srour case may be the most limited in terms of impact, given that NYC is an outlier when it comes to its gun licensing laws, but there are still millions of New York City residents who are being subjected to the arbitrary and capricious whims of the NYPD Licensing Bureau before they can exercise a fundamental civil right. All three cases are worthy of the Court’s attention, and the longer the justices delay in hearing them, the worse these deprivations of liberty become.

Day Before Biden Admin Announced It Would Withhold Weapons From Israel, It Issued Sanctions Waiver To Allow Arms Sales to Qatar and Lebanon.

Less than a day before the Biden administration announced its intent to cut off U.S. arms sales to Israel, it issued a sanctions waiver to bypass congressional prohibitions on arms sales to a host of Arab nations that boycott the Jewish state, including Hamas ally Qatar and Iran-controlled Lebanon, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

On Tuesday—just a day before President Joe Biden threatened to withhold key weapons deliveries from Israel if the country moves forward with an incursion in the Gaza Strip’s Rafah neighborhood—the State Department informed Congress that it intends to bypass laws that bar the United States from selling weapons to nations that boycott Israel, according to a copy of the notification obtained by the Free Beacon.

The Biden administration, which has waived these sanctions in the past, said in the notification that it intends to extend the waiver through April 30, 2025, allowing weapons to be sent to a host of nations that work closely with the Hamas terror group and other Iran-backed terror proxies.

While the administration determined that these countries engage in Israel boycotts, a condition that triggers American anti-boycott laws, bypassing these restrictions remains “in the U.S. national interest” to maintain regional stability, according to the waiver. But this justification is drawing scrutiny on Capitol Hill as the Biden administration threatens key arms shipments to Israel in a bid to force it into abandoning its campaign to eradicate Hamas.

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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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NY Judge: The Second Amendment Doesn’t Exist Here

There’s been a case in New York that I should have been following more closely. Dexter Taylor was a hobby gunsmith. He liked the nature of putting together guns from lawfully purchased parts.

However, the state of New York disapproved of this pastime. They arrested Taylor and, on Monday, he was convicted.

My friend Jeff Charles over at our sister site RedState has been covering this case pretty much from the jump, and in his story from Monday about the sentencing, there was something we had to talk about.

You see, the judge in the case has decided that a certain right of interest to Bearing Arms readers doesn’t actually exist in her state.

From the beginning of Taylor’s trial, it was evident that the court would be biased against the defendant, according to [Taylor’s attorney, Vinoo] Varghese, who explained that two judges presided over his case before the current official, Judge Abena Darkeh, took over.

The judge disrupted Varghese’s opening statement multiple times as he tried to set the stage for Taylor’s defense. Even further, she admonished the defense to refrain from mentioning the Second Amendment during the trial. Varghese told RedState:

She told us, ‘Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.’

Varghese said he had filed the appropriate paperwork to “preserve these arguments for appeal” but that the judge “rejected these arguments, and she went out of her way to limit me.”

The Second Amendment doesn’t exist there? Excuse the hell out of me?

“This is New York?”

This just smacks of “the Aloha spirit” nonsense where some parties seem to think that the Constitution doesn’t actually apply because they really, really don’t like it.

Is the judge in this case, Judge Abena Darkeh, suggesting that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply anywhere she doesn’t approve? What other rights don’t exist in New York under Judge Darkeh’s paradigm? Do defendants not have the right to representation? Is free speech non-existent?

Oh, one might make the case that I’m being ridiculous, but I don’t think I am. Not based on Darkeh’s other actions.

Varghese also tries to take a jury nullification approach. Jury nullification basically means you convince the jury that while a crime might have occurred, the law in question is the real problem. It’s rare, but it’s still a thing. Judges aren’t supposed to encourage it, but they’re not supposed to stop it.

Yet Judge Darkeh did just that. She reportedly warned jurors in such a way as to suggest they could face consequences if they didn’t vote to convict.

So, basically, it feels like Taylor got railroaded and that Darkeh doesn’t actually think people have rights unless she, personally, approves of them.

Yet that’s not how rights work. They exist even if they’re inconvenient. They exist even if you don’t approve of how they’re used.

Varghese says he tried to preserve Darkeh’s comments for appeal and was stymied. However, her comments should still be on the record somewhere. If not, her attitude should be clear from the transcripts.

But either way, Darkeh makes it clear that at least some jurists in New York really don’t think the Second Amendment applies in either their courtroom or the state as a whole.

It’s time they’re disabused of that notion by higher courts.

 

Joe Biden suggests his uncle was eaten by ‘CANNIBALS’ after his plane was shot down over Papua New Guinea during World War Two.

Joe Biden suggested his war hero uncle may have met a grisly end among flesh-eating savages after his plane went down over Papua New Guinea in World War II.

The president said there were ‘a lot of cannibals at the time’ in the area where his uncle Ambrose J. Finnegan’s plane crashed in the 1940s – and his remains were never located.

However, Biden’s account was inconsistent with Pentagon records which showed the plane was not ‘shot down’ as he said.

According to his own Defense Department it was a ‘courier’ flight that suffered engine failure and ditched in the ocean off Papua New Guinea on May 14, 1944. His uncle was a passenger rather than the pilot.

Biden made the ‘cannibal’ comments on a trip to Scranton, Pennsylvania where he visited a war memorial bearing the name of his relative, who was known by the family as ‘Uncle Bosie’.

The president said: ‘(He) got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals at the time. They never recovered his body.

‘But the government went back when I was down there and they checked and found parts of the plane and the like.’

There are no images of Joe Biden’s uncle being shot down. This photograph shows a Douglas A-20 Havoc medium bomber attack aircraft being shot down by anti-aircraft fire during an attack on the Imperial Japanese seaplane base and harbor installations at Sekar Bay on 22nd July 1944 at Kokas in Dutch New Guinea, Dutch East Indies.

Biden went on to tell how ‘Uncle Bosie’ – who he called a ‘hell of a guy’ – had ended up in a jungle populated by cannibalistic tribes.

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These people are absolute nuts

Internal Documents Show FBI is Worried About White Supremacist Teaming Up With Islamic Extremists

In September of 2022, a Gun Owners of America (GOA) lawyer provided documents to AmmoLand News showing the FBI targeting so-called “militant violent extremists” (MVEs) by referencing symbols such as the Betsy Ross flag and a symbol of a minute man. This leak led GOA to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents.

The FBI initially refused to turn over any documents to the gun rights group, leading GOA to file a lawsuit against the FBI demanding that the Bureau turn over the documents. Instead of the court issuing an order compelling the government to release the documents, the FBI relented and gave them up.

Since we initially broke the story, GOA has furnished AmmoLand News with an exclusive look at the documents. The new documents show that the FBI’s targeting of certain groups is not limited to the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers. The FBI is also targeting other groups. Some threats seem credible, while other threats seem like the government is reaching. AmmoLand News will be running a series of articles about what is in the documents. This series will shed light on what the FBI believes to be threats to the homeland.
The first set of documents is the FBI addressing what it calls “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” (RMVEs) and Islamist extremists. This document covers these two ideologies working together for a shared goal. That goal is to bring about the collapse of Western democracies.

The FBI defines RMVEs as “those that advocate for the superiority of the White race.” The document claims that Islamic “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTOs) are likely discouraged from working with RMVEs due to distrust, but the FBI claims that some RMVEs are sympathetic to Islamists and want to pursue alliances with these groups. It seems like the FBI thinks these groups believe in the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy. The FBI states that both RMVEs and FTOs are brought together by their anti-Semitism and their opposition to liberal Western democracy.

According to the FBI, both groups believe in an “international Jewish conspiracy to control government, international finance, and the media. Islamic extremist believes there is a conspiracy among Jews to promote Zionist imperialism. They view Western countries as part of a “Zionist-crusader alliance.” Whereas RMVEs believe that Jews are complicit in White genocide.

The FBI claims that both groups are concerned with social values being pushed by liberal Western democracies. These values include globalism, multiculturalism, and feminism. Both groups view these values as “corrosive” to society. The Islamic extremists seek to “replicate the legal traditions and customs during the time of the Prophet Mohammed.” RMVEs view these values as compromising the integrity of the White race. The FBI claims that RMVEs have sought an alliance with Islamic extremists to speed up the collapse of Western society through violence.

The FBI is also concerned about “ideology hoppers.” Ideology hoppers are based on the concept of “ideology mixers.” These are US-based people that “adopt aspects of, or switch between, FTO-inspired violent extremist and RMVE ideologies.” The FBI does not consider these moves to be a true ideological conversion. The FBI believes that these conversions outnumber actual conversions. The FBI is also worried about these groups sharing tactical strategies. Suicide terrorism is mentioned in the documents.

A separate eyewitness video, verified by Reuters and taken in the aftermath of the incident, shows the man being pinned to the ground by several others, his face obscured. A voice speaks in Arabic and says: “If they didn’t insult my prophet, I wouldn’t have come here. If he didn’t involve himself in my religion, I would not have come here.”
Authorities disclosed no motive for the attack and have not identified the suspect.

Australia church stabbing: bishop wounded, 15-year-old arrested

SYDNEY, April 15 (Reuters) – At least four people were wounded, including a bishop with a global online following, in a knife attack during a service at a church in a suburb of Sydney on Monday, police and witnesses said, triggering clashes between angry residents and police.
Police said they arrested a 15-year-old male at the scene and were forced to hold him at the church in Wakeley, a suburb about 30 km (18 miles) west of downtown Sydney, for his own safety after a crowd gathered outside and demanded the attacker be brought out.

It was the second major stabbing attack in just three days after six people were killed in a knife attack at a beachside mall in the Bondi area.
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church was speaking during an evening service on Monday when a man walked towards him and lunged with a knife, according to video of the event captured from a livestream on the church’s social media page.

Horrified members of the congregation scream as the man stabs the priest several times in the head and chest, the videos show. A separate eyewitness video, verified by Reuters and taken in the aftermath of the incident, shows the man being pinned to the ground by several others, his face obscured. A voice speaks in Arabic and says: “If they didn’t insult my prophet, I wouldn’t have come here. If he didn’t involve himself in my religion, I would not have come here.”

Authorities disclosed no motive for the attack and have not identified the suspect.

Two witnesses told Reuters the crowd threw rocks at police. More than 100 police officers were ultimately called in to deal with the unrest, and two were taken to hospital with injuries, police said. Reuters saw two men pepper sprayed.

 

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Joe Biden Approved Iran’s Assault on Israel ‘Within Certain Limits’.

On Saturday, Iran initiated a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel. Thankfully, most of them were successfully intercepted and caused minimal damage. Of course, in a stunning move, President Biden is pushing Israel not to retaliate. It’s hard to imagine why Biden would do that, except when you consider that Joe Biden has been appeasing Iran since his days as Barack Obama’s vice president.

With that in mind, it’s also not surprising—though it’s still shocking— that Joe Biden not only had prior knowledge of Iran’s assault on Israel but also technically gave it the green light under certain conditions, according to a report from the Jerusalem Post.

Iran informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, a Turkish diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday, adding that Washington had conveyed to Tehran via Ankara that any action it took had to be “within certain limits.”

Turkey, which has denounced Israel for its campaign on Gaza, said earlier on Sunday that it did not want a further escalation of tensions in the region.

The Turkish source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had spoken to both his US  Iranian counterparts in the past week to discuss the planned Iranian operation, adding Ankara had been made aware of possible developments.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Fidan to make clear that escalation in the Middle East was not in anyone’s interest.

“Iran informed us in advance of what would happen. Possible developments also came up during the meeting with Blinken, and they (the US) conveyed to Iran through us that this reaction must be within certain limits,” the source said.

I’ve said before that, despite his public support for Israel, Biden has not been a friend to the Jewish state. And this report proves that. Joe Biden publicly told Iran not to attack Israel. When it was clear they didn’t give a hoot what he said, the Biden administration basically said it was fine to attack Israel as long as the attack was “within certain limits.”

And then Joe went on vacation.

Related: Trump Warned We Were on the Brink of WWIII Under Joe Biden, and He’s Been Proven Right

Considering the size and intensity of the attack, it’s reasonable to question whether Iran heeded that warning, but I would say it’s obvious Iran’s leaders did not.

So, let’s recap the facts here: Joe Biden told Iran’s leaders not to attack Israel, but they ignored him. Then he said they could attack Israel with some restrictions, though they clearly ignored that as well. Now, Biden is telling Israel not to retaliate.

In short, Biden is still appeasing Iran.

Why is Joe Biden still kowtowing to Iran and throwing Israel under the bus? I can’t answer that, but I know that Israel can’t listen to Biden because doing so threatens its existence.

Will the mainstream media report on this interesting development? Not likely. Make no mistake about it: The media will always cover for Joe Biden. They will spin this conflict as Joe Biden displaying leadership and resolve on the world stage. They’ll prop Biden up as a strong and confident leader, hoping it will become true if they repeat the lie often enough, while we’re supposed to pretend that we’re not on the precipice of World War III.

DEI strikes again?

Emergency Landing: Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Forced to Land After Engine Cowling Detaches

Emergency crews and authorities are currently at the scene following an incident involving Southwest Airlines Flight WN3695/SWA3695 departing from Denver International Airport en route to Houston, Texas.

During takeoff, the pilots declared an emergency landing to air traffic control after noticing that a section of the engine cowling had detached and was hanging off.

 

‘Suspect’ and ‘victims’ staged robbery when armed bystander stepped in

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The northwest Houston robbery that preceded a fatal gas station shooting in January was staged, according to police.

The Houston Police Department initially said a bystander witnessed Rasshauud Scott appearing to rob a couple at gunpoint at the gas station on Ella Boulevard near the Beltway on Jan. 27. He shot Scott as he attempted to flee.

However, HPD has now said the couple and Scott were working together to stage a robbery so that the man and woman could file a report with the police and use their crime victim status to apply for a U nonimmigrant status, or “U visa.”

“The person qualifies for a work permit while they’re waiting for a resolution of the case,” immigration attorney Silvia Mintz said.

Police said they obtained text messages from Scott’s phone between him and a man named William Winfrey the night of the shooting.

In one message, Winfrey writes to Scott, “It’s the usual gas station (expletive).”

In another he writes, “When you done run make all the (expletive) to look real.”

Investigators said they also found a selfie from one of the purported victims on Scott’s phone.

Police said Winfrey and Scott staged numerous other similar robberies dating back to 2023 in a bid to help the alleged victims obtain visas.

One took place at a northeast Houston gas station on Jan. 26 in which Scott pretended to rob a cashier at the store.

Mintz said U visas come up a lot during discussions with potential clients.

“They say, ‘OK, what would happen if somebody beat me up? Or if I was a victim of domestic violence?’ And of course, the answer is, ‘I cannot help you,'” Mintz said.

Mintz added the schemes could backfire. If immigration officials learn someone has lied to obtain a U visa, they could be banned from the country permanently.

“People don’t realize the big mess they’re getting into by lying and making things up,” Mintz said.

ABC13 was unable to locate any criminal charges against the people who claimed to be victims in the Jan. 26 and Jan. 27 robberies.