I’d say that’s a pretty good ‘cut’.


Some Missouri police cut ties with ATF as feds assess impact of new gun law

As Missouri officials argue with the Biden administration over the scope of the state’s new gun law, federal law enforcement agencies are quietly assessing whether police departments will cut ties with them in firearm investigations.

The passage of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which blocks Missouri police from enforcing a variety of federal gun laws, has alarmed gun control advocates and sparked concern that it could hamper police efforts to arrest violent criminals or confiscate their guns.

Emails obtained by The Star show federal prosecutors in eastern Missouri have asked at least a dozen police departments whether they will stop participating in federal gun crime investigations. The FBI has also queried a southwest Missouri police department, and is assessing the responses of local police statewide.

At least two departments have pulled officers from assignments with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, spokesmen confirmed.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol has suspended its participation in an ATF task force, to which one trooper was assigned full-time and three part-time, Lt. Eric Brown said.

“With the passage of HB 85, Patrol members can continue to serve on federal task forces except where the task force’s primary focus is on weapons violations,” Brown said.

The O’Fallon Police Department has withdrawn two K9 officers “who were deputized to ATF on an as needed basis,” Operations Division Captain Derek Myers wrote in an email to other police officials.

An ATF spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.

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BLUF:
……expect to see concerted efforts by the Harris-Biden Administration, to implement executive actions, albeit as a “temporary fix” to restrict the possession of semiautomatic weapons. This is being coordinated with efforts by the Democrat-controlled Congress to shoehorn semiautomatic weapons into the NFA, or, perhaps, to enact new stand-alone legislation, or to enact a ban on possession of semiautomatic firearms through obscure means, by placing a gun ban in some larger omnibus bill.

Whatever transpires, the American people should be prepared for a very rocky ride in the months ahead as the economy continues to deteriorate, as social volatility and unrest in society crank up, and as the Second Amendment undergoes an assault in a manner heretofore not seen.

WHY IS IT THAT THE HARRIS-BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS REALLY WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS?

PART ONE

GUN OWNERS; TRUMP SUPPORTERS; ANTI-MARXISTS; ANTI-GLOBALISTS—ARE THESE THE HARRIS-BIDEN “DOMESTIC TERRORISTS?

The propagandists for the Democrat Party-controlled Government are nothing if not expert in the art of subterfuge, deflection, artifice, and duplicity. Turning the Bill of Rights on its head, they claim the Country will be better off once the American people just accept constraints on the exercise of their fundamental rights and liberties.

But for whom would the Country be better off: for the American people or for the Neoliberal Globalists, along with their cousin Marxists, who intend to dismantle a free Constitutional Republic and merge the skeletal remains of the United States into something truly obscene: a transnational new governmental world order akin to the European Union?

Already Biden has made overtures to Brussels, resurrecting the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or “T-TIP,” an arrangement that had stalled under the Trump Administration as did the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP.

The true, if unstated, purpose of the G-7 Summit was to reassure Brussels that the U.S. was back on track to complete the agenda commenced in earnest thirty years ago—an agenda that had been making substantial headway under Obama, and that would continue under Hillary Clinton. But that agenda came to a screeching halt when Trump was elected U.S. President, to the surprise and shock and consternation of Neoliberal Globalists and Marxists both inside the Country and outside it, and no less to the chagrin of China, as well.

But with the mentally debilitated, and easily manipulated Joe Biden firmly ensconced in the Oval Office, the Globalist and Marxist agenda could get back on track. The EU would get what it wants from the U.S.; China would get what it wants from the U.S.; even Russia got what it wanted. And who was left out of the mix? The American people, of course.

But then, the Harris-Biden Administration and their cohorts in the Democrat Party controlled Congress, together with the seditious Press and social media and information technology titans haven’t bothered to ask the American people for their perspective on any of this. They really don’t care. They have effectively shunted Trump aside and they are treating tens of millions of American dissenters as potential “Domestic Terrorists” who refuse to go along with the game plan. The Globalists and Marxists will suffer no dissident thought or action. They are intent on stamping out all dissent. And this portends something serious on the horizon for the well-being of the Country and for the well-being of the American people.

WITH A RADICAL DEMOCRAT PARTY-CONTROLLED GOVERNMENT AND A BELEAGUERED, BESIEGED, WEAK REPUBLICAN CONTINGENT IN CONGRESS, AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN BOXED INTO A CORNER AND MUST TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS TO REGAIN CONTROL OF THEIR COUNTRY?

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Second Amendment will be Nullified if ‘Common Use’ is Restricted to ‘Popularity’

“The Second Amendment protects modern weapons,” Judge Roger T. Benitez observed in his landmark Miller v. Bonta ruling striking down California’s so-called “assault weapons” ban. He was citing Caetano v. Massachusettsa 2016 United States Supreme Court decision vacating a woman’s conviction for carrying a stun gun for self-defense.

“The Court has held that ‘the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,’” the High Court, citing the Heller case, unanimously held. “In this case, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a Massachusetts law prohibiting the possession of stun guns after examining ‘whether a stun gun is the type of weapon contemplated by Congress in 1789 as being protected by the Second Amendment.’”

Aside from the obvious, no-nonsense assertions of Founding-era voices such as Tench Coxe (“every terrible implement of the soldier”) and James Madison (see “militia” observations in Federalist No. 46), it helps to understand another gun-grabber lie, that the Founders only had single-shot muskets and couldn’t have imagined technological advancements leading to more lethal weaponry.

Firearms technology from long before their time included Fourteenth Century multiple-barreled volley guns and a design by Leonardo DaVinci for a rotating triple-barrel breech-loading cannon. The Founding Era had already seen pepperbox revolvers, Kentucky/Pennsylvania rifles, cartridges to combine shot and powder, the British breech-loading Ferguson rifle, the 11-cylinder crank-operated Puckle gun, and the Girandoni air rifle, capable of firing 22 .46 caliber balls and that had actually been used by the Austrian army 11 years before the Bill of Rights was ratified. And the above is by no means an exhaustive list.

The Founders were enlightened men, schooled in classical, political, and legal history, aware of current developments (and in cases like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, innovators and inventors themselves), and visionaries with eyes toward the future, and to “secur[ing] the Blessings of Liberty to … Posterity.”

Oblivious to that, Constitutional and historical illiterates, like the head of the oxymoronically named “Texas Gun Sense,” are getting ink spreading astonishingly ignorant assertions like “There weren’t automatic weapons or 100-round magazine capacities in the guns 100 years ago.” And, like useful idiots, they’re making such moronic pronouncements for Chinese communist propagandists (who want Americans disarmed and live Chairman Mao’s maxim that “Political power grows from the barrel of a gun”).

That’s bad enough, but the grabbers then bring those arguments into court cases and equally corrupt judges then create “settled law.”  As the Brady Center argued in a brief supporting the State of Maryland’s semiauto and magazine ban:

“Suppose, for example, that a new, unregulated and highly lethal weapon were developed before a statute was enacted. When first offered for sale, the weapon would not be protected because it would not be in common use. However, under Plaintiffs’ theory, if sales of the weapon grew explosively over the next year, prior to any legislation, then the weapon would, within that short time frame, become constitutionally protected, even though a ban would have been permissible had the legislature acted just a few months earlier. Such an approach makes little sense.”

That’s the crux—if new developments in weaponry can be denied to We the People, then it’s just a matter of time before the disparity between what the government has and what the people have will be as wide as if we were relegated to Brown Bess muskets and flintlocks against modern infantry. Unless “in common use at the time” is held to mean by soldiers in the field, with real “weapons of war,” as opposed to a sporting arms popularity contest,  the Second Amendment will be nullified as a last-resort defense against foreign and domestic tyranny.

To argue otherwise is to argue the Founders thought sending an outmatched yeomanry to their slaughter was “necessary to the security of a free State.” That’s insane.

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Legislation proposed to make Ky. Second Amendment sanctuary state

FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – Kentucky would become a Second Amendment sanctuary state if legislation being proposed for the 2022 General Assembly is enacted.

The measure, which will be sponsored by Rep. Josh Bray, R-Mt. Vernon, would bar state and local law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal restrictions on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. It would also prohibit local governments and other public agencies from allocating public resources or money in the enforcement of federal firearm bans. It includes firearms themselves, ammunition and firearm accessories.

“President Biden has declared gun control a priority for his administration, and we know that if he doesn’t get what he wants from Congress, he will abuse his executive authority through rulemaking,” said Bray, who represents all of Garrard and Rockcastle counties and a portion of Madison County. “This sends a clear message that Kentucky is a Second Amendment sanctuary and that there is no question we will defend the Second Amendment against any attempt to infringe upon it.”

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Leaked ATF report: Private gunmakers are criminals, terrorists and violent extremists
When it comes to overhyping the next “threat” to the homeland, the ATF seldom disappoints.

If there is any federal agency that can be counted on to create a problem just to justify their own existence it is certainly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

When it comes to overhyping the next “threat” to the homeland – regardless of the facts – the ATF seldom disappoints.

The embattled agency’s latest piece of creative fiction is a warning about “privately made firearms” or PMFs, and it should serve as a warning to gun owners, homebuilders and everyone else who values their civil rights.

An ATF document titled “First Responder Awareness of Privately Made Firearms May Prevent Illicit Activities,” was published last week by the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team (JCAT).

“JCAT is a collaboration by the NCTC, DHS and FBI to improve information sharing among federal, state, local, tribal, territorial governments and private sector partners, in the interest of enhancing public safety,” the document states. “This product is NOT in response to a specific threat against the United States. It provides general awareness of, considerations for, and additional resources related to terrorist tactics, techniques and procedures, whether domestic or overseas.”

To be clear, the ATF and JCAT consider homebuilt firearms “terrorist tactics, techniques and procedures,” even though Americans have been making guns legally in their homes since before there even was a United States of America.

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NAACP concerned about Biden’s gun control plan

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — President Joe Biden recently announced a plan to reduce gun violence and other crimes nationwide, but leaders in the Black community think it could do more harm than good.

“This is an ongoing problem that is occurring not only in Grand Rapids, but in cities all across the country,” said Carlton T. Mayers, II, Esq., national policing reform consultant at Mayers, Strategic Solutions, LLC and policing reform advisor for NAACP Grand Rapids Branch. “It encourages over-policing of Black and brown communities, which ultimately results in the unnecessary harms and deaths of Black and brown people.”

Biden’s plan is suggesting cities use some of their COVID-19 relief funding to get the job done.

Mayers says the community should be involved in the decision before money is allocated.

Last year, leaders with the city of Grand Rapids debated using ShotSpotter technology in high crime neighborhoods. This would use microphones to detect gunshots in certain areas. The plan hasn’t been approved, but Gayle Harvey, the NAACP’s executive officer of external relations, worries this would target Black and brown communities before crimes even take place.

“How is that going to help, how is it going to continue to protect Black and brown people in those communities that it services because to the high end, those are the communities that it will be in,” said Harvey.

These two say getting the community together would be a better plan to brainstorm solutions moving forward.

“That is going to at least put in place a way that community members would have a say on how this technology is used, so that way it’s not used in a discriminatory fashion,” said Mayers.

Harvey says the NAACP has already been in touch with city officials and the police department in hopes of moving forward in a positive direction for everyone.

(Oklahoma State) Senator Dahm files bill to lower ‘constitutional carry’ age to 18

Broken Arrow Senator Nathan Dahm has filed a bill to lower the age for “constitutional carry” to 18 years old.

Dahm said Senate Bill 1093, which was intentionally filed on June 28 to honor Oklahoma’s Second Amendment Day, will “further expand the right of the people of Oklahoma to keep and bear arms.”

“The people have a Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms,” Dahm said in a news release. “Just as they have the right to vote starting at 18, they should not have to wait until turning 21 to exercise their right to self-defense.”

He said, since the age for voting in Oklahoma is 18, so should be the age for constitutionally carrying a firearm openly or concealed.

“The primary function and responsibility of government is to protect individual rights,” Dahm said. “This bill will allow people who currently can vote but currently can’t exercise their Second Amendment rights to have both rights protected for them.”

Gov. Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 631 on Apr. 26, 2021, making Oklahoma a Second Amendment sanctuary state.

“Oklahoma has made great gains in advancing our Second Amendment protections,” Dahm said. “That is largely thanks to important local groups like OK2A as well as national groups like NAGR who were both instrumental in getting Constitutional Carry passed. I look forward to continuing to work with each of them and others including the NRA and GOA to advance our rights and access to firearms.”

Oklahoma became the 15th state to approve constitutional carry in 2019.

Director of Communications for the National Association for Gun Rights Chris Stone released the following statement on SB1093:

The National Association for Gun Rights applauds Sen. Nathan Dahm for introducing this rights restoring bill. All law-abiding adults in Oklahoma should be protected under Oklahoma’s Constitutional Carry law. A 20-year-old single mom should not be forced to beg for governments permission to protect herself and her kids, and If you’re old enough to serve in America’s armed forces, you should be able to carry a firearm without first having to pay a tax.

The president of the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association, Don Spencer, also released a statement:

 Senator Dahm, recipient of the OK2A 2021 Minuteman Award, has been a champion for liberty during his tenure in the senate. OK2A will continue to work with Senator Dahm on this bill to return rights back to the citizens and those that are lawfully visiting the great State of Oklahoma.

48 SENATORS TELL ATF TO BACK OFF ON PISTOL BRACES

A group of Republican U.S. Senators last week called on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to withdraw its proposed rule largely banning the use of stabilizing braces on pistols.

Every current GOP senator in Congress, except for Rob Portman of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine, signed the letter, dated June 24, addressed to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and acting ATF Director Marvin Richardson. The letter argues the proposed rulemaking, which would reclassify most of the braced pistols in their current format as short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act of 1934, is bordering on oppression.

“The way the proposed rule is written makes clear that ATF intends to bring the most common uses of the most widely possessed stabilizing braces within the purview of the NFA,” wrote the Senators. “Doing so would turn millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals overnight, and would constitute the largest executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme in American history.”

Estimates by the ATF are that a minimum of 1 million Americans would be impacted by the proposed rule. Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service thinks the true numbers could trend as high as 40 million.

As there is no grandfathering allowed under the rule – even for guns lawfully purchased with braces pre-installed by the manufacturer – owners of such newly-defined SBRs would have to either turn the braced pistol over to Uncle Sam, permanently remove or alter the brace so that it cannot be reattached, remove the short barrel from the firearm and install one at least 16-inches in length, destroy the firearm, or submit a Form 1 and $200 to convert it to a legal, registered SBR.

“This is plain wrong,” continued the senators. “The proposed rule is worse than merely abdicating your responsibility to protect Americans from criminals; you’re threatening to turn law-abiding Americans into criminals by imposing the largest executive branch-initiated gun registration and confiscation program in American history. We urge you to turn back. Correct this mistake and withdraw the proposed rule.”

The letter from the senators joins a similar one signed by 141 Republicans in the House of Representatives. Currently, the open period on the ATF’s proposed rule has some 105,000 comments.

Credit where credit is due. Politifact bears continual watching due to its leftist bent, but this time they got it right.


Joe Biden stated on June 23, 2021 in a White House announcement:

“The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own.”

Joe Biden gets history wrong on the Second Amendment limiting gun ownership

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

  • The Second Amendment limited governmental power, not the right of individuals to own a weapon.
  • Laws at the time that limited firearm ownership were primarily racist, aimed at controlling Black people and Native Americans.
  • The first national gun regulation law in 1934 did not rely on the Second Amendment.

President Joe Biden’s plan to curb rising violence relies on several steps: more aid to local police departments, expanding job programs for young adults, more violence intervention programs, and tougher measures to shut down gun sellers who break federal laws.

“Rogue gun dealers feel like they can get away with selling guns to people who aren’t legally allowed to own them,” Biden said June 23. “There has always been the ability to limit — rationally limit the type of weapon that can be owned and who can own it.”

And, Biden said, that power was rooted in history.

“The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own,” Biden said. “You couldn’t buy a cannon.”

We reached out to the White House and received no comment, but Biden’s statement is not accurate history.

During the campaign, Biden made a similar claim about cannons in the Revolutionary War and who could own them. We rated that False.

This time, on top of that, Biden misrepresents what the Second Amendment says.

Second Amendment places no limits, experts say
The text of the Second Amendment is short: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds said the amendment’s few words speak for themselves.

“The Second Amendment places no limits on individual ownership of cannon, or any other arms,” Reynolds said.

There have been many court cases to resolve whether the amendment confers an individual right to bear arms. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it does.

Setting aside ongoing disagreements over that ruling, Fordham University law professor Nicholas Johnson said, “The amendment limited government action, not people.”

“The first federal gun control law does not appear until the 20th century,” Johnson said.

That law, the National Firearms Act, came in 1934 when machine guns were the weapon of choice of Prohibition Era gangsters. (The law was drafted before Prohibition ended in 1933.) When U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings made the case for the law before the House Ways and Means Committee, he based it on the government’s power to tax and regulate interstate commerce, not the Second Amendment.

“If we made a statute absolutely forbidding any human being to have a machine gun, you might say there is some constitutional question involved,” Cummings said April 16, 1934. “But when you say ‘We will tax the machine gun’ and when you say that ‘the absence of a license showing payment of the tax has been made indicates that a crime has been perpetrated,’ you are easily within the law.”

The debate that framed the Second Amendment

From the way Biden put it, the Second Amendment regulated weapons. The more immediate driver in 1787 was the desire to keep the federal government in check.

The framers of the Constitution agreed that a federal government might need a standing army. But coming out from under one despot, they wanted to avoid creating another. This was something that Federalists and Anti-Federalists could agree on, wrote Valparaiso law professor David Vandercoy.

“Both believed the greatest danger to the new republic was tyrannical government and that the ultimate check on tyranny was an armed population,” Vandercoy wrote in 1994.

Restricting weapons to control perceived threats

There were some state and local laws after the Second Amendment was adopted in 1792 that limited firearms.

The most sweeping ones barred Black people, free or enslaved, from owning them.

A 1792 Virginia law, for example, said, “No Negro or mulatto whatsoever shall keep or carry any gun, powder, shot, club or other weapon whatsoever.”

Historian Saul Cornell at Fordham found other laws aimed at controlling certain groups. Some banned gun ownership by people who backed the British. Others targeted Native Americans.

Cornell also pointed to a 1795 Massachusetts law that mainly targeted rioters but gave local authorities broad latitude to arrest people who carried firearms.

“The (National Rifle Association) will call out Biden, correctly, that there were no modern style gun control laws in the Founding era because there was little interpersonal gun violence among persons of European origin,” Cornell said. “Gun control groups will correctly say that a variety of robust regulations existed at the time of the Second Amendment and that the Founders feared anarchy as much as tyranny.”

Cornell argues that for about the first 50 years after passage of the Second Amendment, gun technology was limited. The issues of crime and safety that drive the modern debate, he said, didn’t begin to emerge until manufacturers began producing reliable, affordable guns in greater volume.

Our ruling

Biden said that from the start, the Second Amendment “limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own.”

The Second Amendment limited government power, not the rights of individuals. Laws at the time that limited firearm ownership were primarily racist, aimed at controlling Black people and Native Americans.

Broadly, gun regulation came decades after passage of the Second Amendment when gun technology changed. The first national gun regulation law did not rely on the Second Amendment.

We rate Biden’s claim False.

Can Louisiana’s GOP Override Governor’s Veto Of Constitutional Carry?

Theoretically, it might be possible. When permitless carry was approved by the Louisiana House and Senate, it did draw support from a few Democrats as well as the vast majority of Republicans. If the lawmakers stand firm in their support of the legislation, the votes are there to override Gov. John Bel Edwards’ recent veto of the bill. In order for that to happen, however, lawmakers would have to return to Baton Rouge for a special override session, and that might turn out to be the bigger challenge.

While common in other states, overriding a governor’s veto in Louisiana is rare. It’s only happened twice in the modern history of the state — and only when the lawmakers’ regular session was still underway. Legislators have never in the modern history of the state called themselves back into a veto override session after their regular session has adjourned.

“I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, and an enthusiastic outdoorsman and hunter. But I simply cannot support carrying a concealed firearm without proper education and safety training — and I believe a majority of Louisianans agree with me,” Edwards said in a statement Friday. “Simply put, it is not too much to ask that a person who wishes to carry a concealed weapon in public be required to attend basic marksmanship and safety training so they understand the regulations associated with such an action.”

Senate Bill 118, sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris (R-West Monroe), would have amended Louisiana’s concealed carry permit law, which requires applicants to pass background checks and pass a nine-hour course that includes live-fire training in order to carry a concealed handgun in public spaces. Louisiana residents can already carry a gun openly in public — referred to as “open carry” — without any special permits as long as the firearm is in plain view.

I’m all in favor of anyone who owns a gun getting the training they need to feel comfortable and be proficient with that firearm, but let’s not pretend that a government mandate is the only or best way to make that happen. After all, there are nearly two dozen Constitutional Carry states, and in states like Arizona and Mississippi, which have had the law on the books for several years, there are still plenty of firearms instructors who are busy teaching classes that gun owners are choosing to take.

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It appears that criminals committing crimes doesn’t matter to the goobermint.


ATF’s Behavior Paints Ominous Picture for Biden’s “Crackdown” on FFLs

According to the president and his ever-obliging attorney general, a “crackdown” is coming on America’s federally licensed gun dealers (FFLs), with “zero tolerance” for allegedly illegal behavior. While no decent person – least of all the NRA or its members – supports arming dangerous criminals, a recent case from Texas provides disturbing hints as to what this policy might look like in practice.

Biden announced the new effort last week while finally acknowledging what was already obvious to most Americans: violent crime, particularly in America’s cities, is on the rise.

It came as no surprise, however, that Biden was unwilling to admit the culpability of his own party’s disastrous “defund the police” initiatives, as well as a host of “progressive” criminal justice “reforms” that had the effect of curtailing enforcement and allowing dangerous offenders to roam the streets.

Instead, the administration continued its long string of blood libel by falsely blaming the NRA, America’s law-abiding gun owners, and the industries that serve them for the violence decimating many of the nation’s most vulnerable communities.

Attorney General Merrick Garland disclaimed any intention to intensify efforts to punish those actually pulling the triggers. “[A]rrests and convictions,” he indicated, are not “ends in themselves.”

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Study Finds Moms NOT More Likely To Back Gun Control

“If you were a mom, you’d feel differently. You’d back gun control!”

Have you ever heard this argument? Has someone literally tried to shame you into backing gun control by claiming that if you were a mother, you’d somehow have a completely different view of people’s rights?

I have, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

To be fair, there’s a lot of talk about moms in the gun control ranks. Moms Demand Action, for example–I know, I know, it sounds more like an adult website featuring older women than a gun control group, but it is. They’re not alone either. The Million Mom March, for example.

However, a recent study decided to take a look and see if motherhood actually affects one’s views on gun control.

When it comes to support for gun control policies, mothers are not significantly different than women without children, according to new research published in the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. The findings indicate that parenthood doesn’t have a substantial impact on gun control views in the United States.

“I’ve always been interested in topics around gender and parenthood in American politics where I think, maybe, how a group or political dynamic is portrayed in the media may not actually reflect the underlying dynamic that well,” said study author Steven Greene (@HankGreene), a professor of political science at North Carolina State University.

“For example, 14 years ago, Laurel Elder and I co-wrote, ‘The Myth of “Security Moms” and “NASCAR Dads”: Parenthood, Political Stereotypes, and the 2004 Election.’ So much media and public attention around gun control has focused on moms (e.g., the Million Mom March) that we were anxious to explore this dynamic to see how much motherhood seemed to explain gun attitudes.…

The researchers had hypothesized that fatherhood would push men towards more conservative attitudes on gun control policies, while motherhood would push women towards more liberal attitudes. But after controlling for sociodemographic variables, there was little evidence that parenthood had much impact.

Mothers held more liberal views on guns control compared to the general population. But this appeared to be unrelated to motherhood. Women were more liberal than men in general on questions related to gun laws and regulations. But there was no evidence that mothers’ opinions on guns were more liberal compared to women without children. In fact, mothers were slightly more likely to support less restrictive gun laws.

However, what does this really change? Not a whole lot. The anti-gunners will continue to pretend they represent mothers in totality and we’ll continue to know better.

What this does, though, is provide an important data point.

See, what anti-gunners love to do–and they’re generally able to with the help of a complicit media–is try to paint a small group with some shared identity as speaking for the group in totality. In this example, moms.

They also do it with March For Our Lives.

Remember how there was all that hype, about how the younger generation was going to step up and save us. However, support for gun control is dropping among those under 30. March For Our Lives doesn’t represent young people, it represents March For Our Lives members.

The same is clearly true with groups like Moms Demand Action and moms across the country.

and on an earlier note:


Governor’s veto of concealed carry increases likelihood of historic veto session

Governor John Bel Edwards vetoes legislation granting the right to conceal carry a firearm without a permit for ages 21 and up. The bill had popular support in both chambers during the session. Edwards said while he supports Second Amendment rights, he believes conceal carry is a large responsibility and one should undergo proper training………

The veto of the concealed carry bill on the heels of a veto to ban transgender females from competing in women’s sports has increased the likelihood of the first-ever veto session to be called.

Morris said he’s optimistic a session will be called and conceal carry will become law in Louisiana.

“We may make a little bit of history here, but we’ll have to see, I don’t know yet but I’m hopeful because I think a lot of the legislation that did get vetoed are things that the citizens of Louisiana really want,” said Morris.

The measure received wide support during the session it passed in the Senate on a 27-9 vote and in the House 73-28.

SIXTH CIRCUITS GRANTS DOJ EN BANC REHEARING IN GOA’S BUMP STOCK CASE

The United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted an en banc rehearing of Gun Owners of America VS. Garland.

The Gun Owners of America (GOA) backed lawsuit deals with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) banning bump stocks through changing the definition of a machine gun. Most bump stock cases primarily focus on the Second Amendment issue. This case’s primary focus is the ATF’s use of Chevron Difference to create new laws through regulation instead of going through Congress. The courts seem keener on tackling Chevron Deference than taking on Second Amendment issues.

Chevron Deference dates to 1984. In Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc, the United States Supreme Court set a legal test to determine whether to grant deference to a government agency’s interpretation of a statute. The test consists of two parts. The first is “whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.” The second is that Congress has not dealt with the exact issue in question.

GOA’s counsel argues Chevron Deference can be applied only to administrative law. They further state that since the definition of a machine gun is criminal law, that distinction means that the ATF cannot use Chevron Deference to redefine a machine to include bump stocks. A three-judge panel agreed with GOA’s reasoning and ordered the district court to enact an injunction against the ATF’s arbitrary ban of the item.

Because the court granted the Department of Justice (DOJ) an en banc rehearing of the case, the panel’s decision is vacated, which means the District Court will not issue an injunction against the bump stock ban until the full bench hears arguments from both GOA’s lawyers and the Government lawyers. For all intents and purposes, it is like the three-judge panel’s decision never happened.

The decision to grant an en banc rehearing was not a total surprise, with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the government in Aposhian v. Barr. That case was another case dealing with the bump stock ban. A three-judge panel ruled the ATF had the right to apply Chevron Deference to the definition of a machine gun. Counsel for Aposhian asked for an en banc review, but by a vote of 6-5, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the plaintiffs an en banc rehearing.

Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) doubled down on their commitment to fighting back against the ATF using rulemaking to ban certain items. GOF is GOA’s legal non-profit. The two groups also plan to fight back against the ATF’s attempts to restrict the sale of unfinished frames and receivers and the changing of the classification of pistol stabilizing devices. The ATF is trying to use rulemaking to push a de facto ban on items that Joe Biden does not like.

“Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a brilliantly written opinion on bump stocks,” GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt told AmmoLand News. “But the fight is not over. Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation are committed to combating the lawless ATF at every turn in GOA v. Garland. And as the battle continues, GOA will continue to champion the common-sense decision from the appellate panel that a bump stock is not a machine gun.”

The court has not set a new date for oral arguments but did ask both parties to file briefs as soon as possible.

First Principles: The relevance of District of Columbia v. Heller

June 26 marks 13 years since the Supreme Court delivered its landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, ruling that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual right to bear arms and that the District of Columbia’s absolute ban on the possession of handguns was therefore unconstitutional.

Now more than a decade later, Heller will have a large influence in mounting a challenge to New York’s handgun law in the Supreme Court.

At issue in Heller was whether the Second Amendment guarantees citizens an individual right to own a firearm or rather that this right could only be exercised in regard to service in a militia.

Relying on extensive historical sources and other areas in the text of the Constitution, the court sided with the individual rights argument. The court’s opinion cited the Second Amendment’s operative clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The court noted that the phrase, “the right of the people,” appears three other times in the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution.

As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court’s opinion, “All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not ‘collective’ rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.”

Section 400.00 of the New York Penal Code requires that applicants seeking a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public must have a “proper cause” for wishing to do so, and the determination of whether an applicant has demonstrated proper cause is left to the discretion of the county’s issuing authority.

Previously, this requirement has been unsuccessfully challenged in court. In Klenosky v. N.Y. City Police Dept., the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court ruled that permit applicants must “sufficiently demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

Klenosky’s permit application was denied despite the fact that he was a practicing attorney who had received threats from dissatisfied clients, in addition to having an artificial leg which caused him to walk with a limp.

Last April, the Supreme Court agreed to hear New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett in which two applicants in Rensselaer County were denied permits. One of the plaintiffs applied for a permit and took a firearm safety course after multiple robberies in his neighborhood, yet still had his application denied.

Reflecting on the ordinary use of language reveals that the potential unconstitutionality of New York’s “proper cause” provision is fairly clear. A “right” is something which can be done on one’s own accord, while things which can only be done through the grant of special permission are privileges. Additionally, the most basic definition of “to bear” is “to carry” which would indicate that the Second Amendment protects a citizen’s ability to carry a firearm for legitimate defense.

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A Deep South outlier, Louisiana’s Democratic governor vetoes ‘constitutional carry’ gun law

Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has vetoed a no-permit concealed carry law for guns that he said could endanger the public, leaving the self-described “Sportsman’s Paradise” an outlier in the Deep South where such laws have recently passed in neighboring states.

Mr. Edwards’ veto of the bill, which would have allowed legal gun owners to carry a concealed weapon without obtaining a permit, puts Louisiana in opposition to Texas, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a similar bill two weeks ago. Five states have passed such legislation this year.

The Thursday night decision comes at a time where both sides in the national gun debate feel they are making progress. President Biden has vowed to “defeat” the National Rifle Association, and in New York, where the NRA began in 1871, the gun rights group is headed to trial against the state attorney general who has moved to shut it down.

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