Why Lawrence VanDyke’s Video Dissent in Duncan is a Real Problem For Anti-Gun Judges

Courts do have a lot of rules for introducing evidence and arguments. The net effect of all of those rules is simple: they tend to entrench the things that the court wants to believe. If your argument benefits from the court’s biases, the rules of evidence will help you. If you’re working against the court’s biases, the rules of evidence can be fatal to your case.

VanDyke is in a unique position here. As a judge rather than a party to the case, he can do pretty much whatever he wants. And he’s using that power to say the majority is using the rule against judges bringing outside facts to cover up their real goal: preventing judges from bringing outside logic. They don’t like standard-capacity magazines. And that’s a personal opinion that people are free to have. But under Bruen, the only way a court could uphold a ban on those magazines is if they prevent people like VanDyke from pointing out the holes not in their facts, but in their basic logic.

Lay people don’t read court rulings, let alone dissents. But video is a much more effective medium, and VanDyke’s video is all over social media right now. That’s a problem for the majority’s logic, but it’s good for logic in general.

— Open Source Defense in Judges on gun knowledge: “That’s for me not to know and for you not to find out”

Hamas Keeps Getting Deader.

One good way to tell if your effort to eliminate your enemy’s leadership is going well is if you blow up their new defacto prime minister before his people have had a chance to learn that the old prime minister had been blown up, too.

True story.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Hamas PM Ismail Barhoum was killed in an Israeli Air Force (IAF) airstrike just five days after his predecessor (pre-deceasor?) Issam al-Da’alis was — you guessed it! — killed in an IAF airstrike. With an almost coy dryness, the Journal headline read, “Israel Is Killing Hamas Leaders in Quick Succession.”

“Israel has killed at least another four senior political figures in a week of strikes, including the deputy ministers of justice and interior, as well as the head of Hamas’s internal security agency,” the paper noted. It almost doesn’t need to be said that Israeli intelligence — not to mention IAF targeting — has been spot-on.

Honestly, Hamas should have just let the hostages go and ended this 18-month-old war already — but where’s the opportunity to murder more Jews in that? When the bad guys decide that martyrdom and murder are preferable to peace, you give them as much of the former as you can while preventing as much of the latter.

Meanwhile, the Gazan propaganda wing continues with its shopworn “We’re the real victims!” schtick.

Don’t fall for the schtick. Times of Israel reported yesterday that Hamas published “a propaganda video showing a sign of life from Israeli hostages Elkana Bohbot and Yosef-Haim Ohana, who were both kidnapped from the Nova festival on October 7 [2023] and are still being held in Gaza. “Hamas has previously issued similar videos of hostages it is holding, in what Israel says is deplorable psychological warfare.”

If at the local level, the Israeli military and intelligence services are performing well, the international scene still falls under “It’s complicated.” At a meeting Sunday in Cairo, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said, “Hamas should have no future role in the governance of the Gaza Strip.” That’s all well and good but Kallas also repeated the usual EU demands for restraint on Israel’s part that would make rooting Hamas out of Gaza virtually impossible.

“Tomorrow I will be in Israel to express concerns about the resumption of hostilities in the Gaza Strip,” Kallas said, adding that “the EU is clear that Hamas must release all hostages, Israel must allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, and negotiations must resume.”

Well, which is it? Does Hamas have a role in Gaza or is the EU going to give up the moral preening long enough for Israel to do what needs to be done?

Israel’s first partner in Cold Peace, Egypt, remains as stubborn as ever. Cairo still refuses to take in 500,000-700,000 displaced Gaza Arabs, despite President Donald Trump’s offer to build them “much better housing” than they had in Gaza. Now the White House might be brandishing a stick to go with the carrot. Egyptian sources told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed this weekend that continued refusal “could mean redirecting economic aid meant for Egypt to other countries.”

Egypt currently receives about $1.5 billion annually in U.S. aid. Cairo’s refusal highlights the historical undesirability of allowing large numbers of Gaza or West Bank Arabs into your country. West Bank and Gaza “refugees” attempted to murder King Hussein of Jordan in 1970 and managed to permanently wreck Lebanon.

So you can’t really blame Cairo for not wanting to take in half the population of Gaza. But with the Strip in ruins — and bound to get worse before it gets better — it’s a bit like Last Call. They don’t have to go to Egypt but they can’t stay here.

SCOTUS Still Silent on Semi-Auto, Magazine Bans as More 2A Cases Head Its Way

Another Monday has rolled around with the Supreme Court taking no action whatsoever on two cases that have been heard in conference on an almost weekly basis since last December.

Monday mornings are starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day when it comes to Snope and Ocean State Tactical, and I have no idea what’s going on with either of these cases. Both were heard in conference for first time back in December, so even if there’s going to be a denial with a written dissent the justices who are penning their displeasure with the decision not to grant cert have had plenty of time to formalize their objections. The same is true when it comes to a per curium opinion that would find either or both of the challenged laws to be a violation of the right to keep and bear arms.

It’s possible that the justices are still wrestling with the issue of whether or not to accept one or both of these cases, but that strikes me as pretty unlikely as well. The Court has had months to consider granting cert, and while other Second Amendment challenges like Heller and Bruen went through multiple conferences before cert was granted, neither of those cases were kept in limbo nearly as long as Snope and Ocean State Tactical have been.

Meanwhile, there are several other cases dealing with the right to keep and bear arms that are slated to be heard in conference for the first time in the coming days and weeks. This Thursday the justices should take up Antonyuk v. James in their weekly conference. That’s the case that deals with one of the post-Bruen restrictions that New York put in place in defiance of what the Supreme Court had to say about the right to bear arms; the “good moral character” requirement for a concealed carry license that is essentially serves as a replacement for the subjective “justifiable need” gun owners had to demonstrate under the may-issue permitting regime the Court ruled unconstitutional.

The justices are also expected to debate a case called Price v. U.S. this week that deals with whether or not possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number constitutes Second Amendment-protected conduct. That case has yet to be fully briefed and decided on the merits, however, and I suspect that the justices will turn it aside, at least for now.

There are three other cases slated for conference in April as well:

  • Wade v. University of Michigan, which addresses “Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments allow a criminal ordinance that prohibits mere possession of firearms on an entire poorly-delineated university campus, except by permission of a single government official with unfettered discretion, which is granted onlyfor “extraordinary circumstances.”
  • Jacobson v. Worth, which seeks to answer “Does Minnesota’s statute limiting permits for public carry of pistols to those 21 and older comport with the principles underlying the Second Amendment?
  • B & L Productions v. Newsom, a challenge to California’s ban on “sales” of firearms and ammunition on any state-owned property.

The odds of the Court granting cert to every one of these cases is slim. In fact, at this point the odds of the Court taking any of them feels pretty small. I’m still holding out hope for Snope, but at this point it’s anyone’s guess as to what the justices will do with Maryland’s semi-auto ban… other than once again considering the Snope case (and Ocean State Tactical v. Neronha) at this Thursday’s conference.

Attendees at AOC and Bernie Sanders Denver Rally Openly Threaten to Kill President Trump.

Attendees of a recent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders rally in Denver were openly calling for the murder of President Donald Trump. We guess the Democrat Party has abandoned its ‘Joy’ message from the 2024 presidential election.

Have a listen, they’re not bashful. (WATCH – PROFANITY WARNING)

As ambassadors of the far left wing of the Democrat Party, this sentiment is in line with the socialism and Marxism the two advocate.

We’ll be hearing a lot more of this the closer we get to the midterm elections. Commenters say it’s bad for America.

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I have not one doubt, even if I am in agreement with the National Rifle Association, that that kind of record keeping procedure [gun registration] is the first step to eventual confiscation under one administration or another.
—CHARLES MORGAN, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON DC ACLU

BLUF
A decision point is coming. Decisive action by the Chief Justice could save the judicial branch by restoring the judicial modesty that preserves the respect of the other branches. If only we could be confident that John Roberts was wise enough to do it.

The Agony of John Roberts.

Pity poor John Roberts. No, he’s not corrupt or compromised. He is simply a man who has found himself at a pivotal time and place in a position of great responsibility for which he is utterly unsuited. He’s not a dumb man. He is, in fact, a very smart man – Hugh Hewitt knew him personally in the Reagan administration and testifies to that. I have no doubt it’s true. I know many smart people who have similar flaws. As objectively intelligent as John Roberts is, he is unwise, and he is endangering the institution he wants to preserve because he does not understand human nature or the times he finds himself in.

Frankly, I’ll take wisdom over raw intellect any day of the week.

If he had the capacity to lead that he so manifestly lacks, John Roberts could save his institution with decisive and bold action. But that’s not who he is. Understand what John Roberts wants. He is an institutionalist who has always wanted to protect the judiciary branch. He wants it to be a fully co-equal branch that is respected by all. But the very actions he has chosen to take – or not to take – in response to the current crisis of out-of-control subordinate courts are guaranteeing that it will fall. Continue reading “”

 HUGE: Barack Obama Was Using USAID to Pretend to Send ‘Aid’ Overseas But Was Laundering It to Train ‘Rent-a-Riots’ Instead.

Mike Benz, the founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online, recently joined Joe Rogan on his very popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience with over 19 million subscribers.

** The entire podcast is here.

The podcast was filmed several weeks ago but a clip from this discussion is making the rounds this week on social media.
During their conversation, Mike Benz shared how Barack Obama was using money to USAID to pretend to send “aid” overseas. In actuality, Obama was laundering the taxpayer dollars and using it to train “rent-a-mobs” instead!

This is a huge development but maybe not so surprising considering how Democrats believe they can do anything they please. With other people’s money.

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Never interrupt the enemy when he’s making a mistake.

Chuck Schumer rejects calls to step down as Senate Democratic leader.

WASHINGTON — A defiant Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed that he won’t step aside as the chamber’s top Democrat, rejecting calls from some House colleagues and liberal advocates critical of his move to help pass a Republican funding bill.

“Look, I’m not stepping down,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a taped interview that aired Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

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Panic Hits Democrats As Trump Goes After Their Money and Infrastructure.

President Trump is tearing out the infrastructure of the Democrat party and setting off panic in progressive circles. According to a report in the New York Times, Trump’s attacks on Democrat funding, fundraising, organizing, and legal organizations are presenting the Democrats with a threat that only Republicans have encountered in the past.

The report highlights Trump imposing what amounts to economic sanctions on three major Democrat-affiliated law firms — Perkins Coie, Covington & Burlington, and Paul Weiss — via executive orders; see Trump Strips Security Clearance From Law Firm That Helped Hillary’s Campaign Fund Debunked Steele Dossier – RedState and Trump’s Executive Order Barring Two Democrat Law Firms From Federal Business Rattles ‘Big Law’ – RedState.

One of those firms, Paul Weiss, has made its peace with Trump (‘Big Law’ Firm Admits Wrongdoing, Abandons DEI, and Pays Reparations to Meet Trump’s Demands), while the others are fighting him in court.

Also of concern is the possibility that Trump may seek to review and revoke the non-profit status of some of the blatantly partisan non-profits operated for the benefit of progressive causes and candidates.

Mr. Trump himself appeared to call into question the charitable tax-exempt status of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, a Democratic-aligned watchdog group that has long been among the more aggressive litigants against him and is currently suing to force the release of records related to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting.

“CREW is a charitable organization, and that’s a political thing,” Mr. Trump said on Friday at the Justice Department, singling out Norm Eisen, a former board member, as a “vicious and violent” person who has “been after me for nine years.” (Mr. Eisen’s new group, State Democracy Defenders Fund, has also fought some of the new administration’s actions in court.)

Jordan Libowitz, a CREW spokesman, declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s mention of the group.

CREW is non-partisan in the same way I’m non-partisan. Not mentioned is the article is the odious “Media Matters for America,” which, while a non-profit, functions as the special needs wing of the Democrat non-profit group.

Most of the article is devoted to the attention devoted to ActBlue and an attempt to frame criticism of ActBlue as some fantasy Elon Musk has dreamed up.

“Something stinks about ActBlue,” Mr. Musk wrote March 7 in one of several social media posts about the platform. A day later, he claimed without evidence that ActBlue was funded by Democratic megadonors including Herb Sandler, who died in 2019.

Any time you see a leftist media outlet refer to something as being “without evidence,” you know that what they are talking about is correct.

BACKGROUND:

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Sometimes reasonable people must do unreasonable things.

The title is a paraphrase of something Marv Heemeyer said. If you’re unfamiliar with that name, it’s the guy who built and used the “Killdozer” to go after people who kept screwing him over in Granby, Colorado. The Lore Lodge on YouTube did a great video on some of what’s been missing from the popular narrative you should check out.

In the heart of things, though, you’ve got a guy who wanted to be part of the community; to contribute and be treated fairly as any person has a right to expect. The problem was, he wasn’t. The “good old boy” system there took issue with him because he bought property that someone else, someone connected, wanted and things went downhill from there until Heemeyer engaged in his rampage.

Which hurt no one, by the way. The only fatality was himself.

But the truth is that you can only push people so far before they start pushing back, and if you push them long enough, their pushback won’t be for just one thing, but a long history of abuses. I’ve touched on how the attacks on Christians could go, but it doesn’t stop there.

See, I came across this bit from Hot Air today, and I found something interesting, but not surprising. See, an auto repair shop called Popular Mechanix has a problem. An arsonist who has been arrested numerous times but keeps coming back to cause problems with the shop. And, frankly, enough is enough.

It’s not that the city is doing nothing. They do arrest and charge Perez Perez every few months, it’s just that the city isn’t stopping him or even discouraging him. He’s committing many more crimes than he’s being punished for and the city can’t deal with it. So dealing with Perez Perez has fallen on shop manager DJ Meisner:

“It feels like the Wild West,” said Meisner about the city. “I try not to give into the doom spiral narrative. But they are doing nothing to dissuade me of that notion.”…

In 2022, Meisner said he was putting out blazes weekly and even installed a ladder he bought from a hunting website to get a better vantage point from the fence line. He placed extinguisher devices on the fence, but they have proven useless and have been swallowed up in the fires.

In October, an early morning fire broke out in Popular Mechanix’s backyard, growing into a large blaze that destroyed two of the shop’s cars and scarred surrounding trees. One of the cars exploded because it was full of gasoline.

In January the police recommended charges against Perez Perez for the November arson (the one caught on video). Supposedly the DA reached out to the company this week, but does anyone think it will matter? Perez Perez might go to prison for another six months. Then he’ll be back on the street and Popular Mechanix will be left to do its best to protect itself from him. And of course, he’s not the only agent of chaos in the city.

The shop’s owner, Andrew Gescheidt, says it feels like he’s being pushed toward becoming a vigilante. “I feel like I don’t want to become a vigilante, but the universe is saying you have to do it yourself,” he said. He vowed he wouldn’t go out and hit Perez Perez with a wrench but added, “Bureaucracy is not helping us.”

Again, the police show up, arrest him, he goes to court, gets a sentence, then comes out and does it all over again. There’s a restraining order against him, but that’s just a piece of paper when all else is considered.

What Gescheidt is articulating here is that he, a reasonable man, is starting to feel like he needs to do unreasonable things.

Let’s understand that you cannot use lethal force in a situation that isn’t reasonably perceived as a life-or-death situation. Bottles of urine and rocks should qualify—both can kill people, after all—but California’s prosecutors would likely disagree. That means Gescheidt attacking Perez Perez in any way, even when you and I might believe there was a threat of grievous bodily harm or even death, he’s likely to be the one to go to prison.

But unless something is done, you’re going to see some kind of vigilantism in San Francisco. Writer John Sexton teases that you have to become Batman to live in San Fran, and he’s not entirely wrong to do so.

The thing is, though, anyone can be pushed far enough. There’s a point where anyone stops being docile and law-abiding. Sure, you can push them pretty far if you’re gentle about it to start with, but even then, sooner or later, you risk crossing the Rubicon and that person unleashing hell.

In a civilized nation, we expect criminals to be punished. We expect at least some response that looks like justice. Since the system is run by people, we can accept that mistakes are made so long as they’re rectified as quickly as possible, but we still expect meaningful action.

Someone revolving through the jails to return and continue to unleash havoc isn’t justice. It’s not remotely like justice, and if it keeps up, someone will decide justice has to come from somewhere else.

Clearly, the police can’t do it.

But it’s not limited here, either.

Right now, the left is, once again, losing their freaking minds. They’re firebombing Tesla dealerships because they don’t like Elon Musk. They’re acting as if they’ve been pushed too far when no one has pushed them anywhere. They’re the ones doing the pushing.

At some point, someone is going to say enough is enough and take action.

Should that happen, it’s entirely possible it will inspire others to act. Reasonable men and women must do unreasonable things, and it’s usually unreasonable men and women who push them to do them.

Stop being unreasonable and things will settle. Fail to do that, and, well…consider yourself warned.

C-Reason Hana;
IMO … The FBI under the leadership of the Biden Administration was more interested in prosecuting parents at School Board Meetings, arresting people for praying outside of PP centers and classifying Catholics as terrorists … or making up stings to entrap Americans like the one they did with Gov. Whitmer & orchestrating performative raids of Trump supporters & Trump himself.

They wouldn’t arrest violent rioters, people on the most wanted list, nor pedos & traffickers.

We finally have people in office who put America & Americans first, while upholding the law … not making it up as they go.

Latest Anti-Gun Talking Points Seem to Have Dropped, And They’re Shockingly Stupid

Every so often, you’ll see a lot of different accounts suddenly start making identical or nearly identical posts, raising the same points that often aren’t even that impressive. This is usually a case of someone sending them to certain political influencers and then repeating them verbatim. No thought went into this on the part of the influencer, of course, but someone out there thought it was a zinger.

Over the weekend, a new one dropped, apparently, and it’s all that you could have hoped for.

And, of course, there are indications that Tristan here wasn’t the only one who got the memo.

It’s possible this whole thing is just some kind of organic growth, to be sure, but it doesn’t really matter where it originated. It’s ridiculous.

The firebombing and shooting up of Tesla dealerships are domestic terrorism, which involves political motivations, so those are inherently going to be treated differently while being investigated.

But let’s think about how we’re “protecting” Teslas.

Teslas have something called “sentry mode” that monitors the vehicle’s surroundings are records if someone approaches. That’s how we have so many videos of Teslas being keyed or otherwise vandalized.

A lot of this vandalism is probably not even investigated because it’s such a petty crime. If an identity comes up, the cops might go and ask a few questions, but this is probably not very high up on their list of priorities, particularly in cities with high crime. Frankly, I get it.

Now, let’s think about what we do with our school children.

I don’t know about Tristan or Jo, but I personally want every teacher so inclined to have a gun to help protect those kids. I want school resource officers in every school as well, just to help protect those school children.

If someone hurts a school child, they’re hunted by every law enforcement agency with relevant jurisdiction–and the others would love to hunt that party but generally can’t unless the suspect crosses into their jurisdiction.

But let’s go back to protecting schools for a moment, though. Note where I stand on that protection. Many of you agree with either part or all of what I laid out.

Do you know who doesn’t?

That’s right, people like Tristan and Jo, that’s who.

When the subject of armed teachers–hell, even the subject of metal detectors at the door–people like those two lose their minds. They fight such things tooth and nail, screaming about how it creates the wrong environment and how everything will be awful. They rage against school resource officers, screaming about the “school to prison pipeline” and oppose those left and right as well.

Pretty much everything that might actually protect school kids gets shut down by the same people.

And then they have the nerve to push this kind of talking point? It’s insulting, infuriating, and absolutely idiotic.

We know what they want. They’re trying to leverage this into justifying gun control. They think this is a dunk on gun rights.

And it’s even dumber than the talking point on its own because of that.