Category: Rights

FPC VICTORY: Judge Issues Injunction Against California Gun Owner Data-Sharing Law

SAN DIEGO, CA (October 14, 2022) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that San Diego Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal has issued a preliminary injunction in its lawsuit challenging California Assembly Bill 173, which requires the state’s Department of Justice to share the personal identifying information of millions of gun and ammunition owners with other parties for non-law-enforcement purposes. The ruling in Barba v. Bonta, which was affirmed by the judge in full, can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“Defendant responds plaintiffs cannot establish irreparable harm because the personal identifying information has already been shared with researchers as recently as November of 2021. Yet this does not account for the potential ongoing and future harms that could occur by continuous use of the information,” wrote Judge Bacal in her ruling. “Additionally. . .this does not necessarily mean that future requests for data would not occur in the interim . . .and while this motion has been pending, a massive data breach reportedly occurred that leaked personal identifying information from the firearm databases for concealed carry applicants in or about June of 2022. Accordingly, plaintiffs have shown that the balance of harms weighs in favor of issuing the injunction.”

“The California government has proven time and time again that it can’t be trusted with the private personal information of its residents,” said FPC Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “Today’s ruling reinforces what FPC has been arguing all along; that you needn’t be forced to open your front door to immoral government intrusion in order to exercise your fundamental rights.”

FPC is joined in this lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation, California Gun Rights Foundation, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, Orange County Gun Owners PAC, and Inland Empire Gun Owners PAC.

Individuals who would like to Join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs can sign up at JoinFPC.org. Individuals and organizations wanting to support charitable efforts in support of the restoration of Second Amendment and other natural rights can also make a tax-deductible donation to the FPC Action Foundation. For more on FPC’s lawsuits and other pro-Second Amendment initiatives, visit FPCLegal.org and follow FPC on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.

Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org), a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, exists to create a world of maximal human liberty, defend constitutional rights, advance individual liberty, and restore freedom. FPC’s efforts are focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and adjacent issues including freedom of speech, due process, unlawful searches and seizures, separation of powers, asset forfeitures, privacy, encryption, and limited government. The FPC team are next-generation advocates working to achieve the Organization’s strategic objectives through litigation, research, scholarly publications, amicus briefing, legislative and regulatory action, grassroots activism, education, outreach, and other programs.

FPC Law (FPCLaw.org) is the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space.

Even in Los Angeles………

U.S. Supreme Court aids gun rights yet again

The United States Supreme Court has no troops to enforce its rulings, but the justices are doing what they can to enforce their decision earlier this year in a major Second Amendment case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc., v. Bruen.

Last week the court took a dim view of a Massachusetts law that bars people convicted of gun-related misdemeanors from ever being allowed to buy a handgun again.

In Morin v. Lyver, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Massachusetts law using a two-step balancing test that the Supreme Court forcefully threw out in its New York State Rifle & Pistol decision. The Supreme Court has now vacated the First Circuit’s ruling and sent the case back down to be heard again under the high court’s new standard, which is based not on subjective judicial balancing tests, but on history.

This time Massachusetts will have to prove that its law barring some people from buying guns is similar to restrictions that have traditionally been viewed as consistent with the right to keep and bear arms.

Dr. Alfred Morin was arrested for carrying a gun without a permit while on a trip to Washington, D.C., in 2004. Morin was licensed to carry in Massachusetts and didn’t realize his permit was not valid in D.C. due to the city’s total ban on carrying a gun (later declared unconstitutional). He was arrested after he complied with a no-gun sign at a museum and tried to check his gun with security. He pleaded guilty to carrying a gun without a license and was sentenced to jail time, but never required to serve it.

That misdemeanor conviction now bars Morin from ever again obtaining a permit to buy a handgun. He sued the state, but the U.S. District Court found that the law was constitutional because Morin was not a “law-abiding citizen,” having been convicted of a gun-related misdemeanor warranting imprisonment. The Court of Appeals agreed with that reasoning.

However, under the Supreme Court’s new standard, it’s no longer enough for courts to find that the states have “an interest in preventing crime” and then determine if the law is “reasonably tailored” to meet those needs. The presumption now is that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms. States must prove that any laws restricting that right have traditionally been consistent with Second Amendment rights going all the way back to the early days of the Republic.

Morin v. Lyver is the fifth case the Supreme Court has vacated and sent back down for reconsideration under the new standard. One is a California case, a challenge to the state’s 10-round magazine limit. In addition, a Ninth Circuit en banc panel vacated a decision in McDougall v. Ventura County, involving a challenge to the closure of gun shops early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The case has been sent back to the trial court to be reconsidered in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the New York case.

This is an important course correction. The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not a privilege that governments may arbitrarily withhold or revoke. A written constitution is the consent of the governed, and it places limits on government power. Enforcing those limits is the job of the Supreme Court. Freedom depends on it.

The truth about Michael Bloomberg’s militia fetish

If you don’t control your mind, someone else will. Jim Morrison said that, and it’s as true today as it was when The Doors front man first uttered those prophetic words. When it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, there is no one who wants to control minds more than former New York City mayor and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg, 80, funds a vast array of anti-gun propagandists who operate across multiple digital and print platforms. Some, such as Bloomberg News, are accepted by the mainstream media as a legitimate news source. Others, such as The Trace, masquerade as journalists but are nothing more than well-paid anti-gun activists with access to unlimited print and pixels.

Bloomberg turned to his loyal staffers at Bloomberg News to launch his latest assault on our gun rights, by trying to change how we define a militia.

The former mayor wants the public to believe that the National Guard is the “well regulated militia” mentioned in the Second Amendment, which is “necessary to the security of a free state.” Therefore, if the public accepts that it’s the National Guardsmen whose right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, our individual gun rights can be eliminated, Bloomberg hopes.

This misinterpretation of the Second Amendment, while laughable, is nothing new. We are the true militia the framers had in mind – everyday Americans who possess modern firearms, ammunition and the skills to use them proficiently.

Here are some recent examples of Bloomberg’s attempts to redefine militia:

  • A Bloomberg News story published July 1 states that the New York Governor signed a law extending property tax relief to veterans who served at least 10 years “in the U.S. Armed Forces or in the organized militia of the State of New York.”
  • A Bloomberg News story published June 29 examined a labor dispute involving active-duty Ohio National Guardsmen – those serving an Active Guard and Reserve, or AGR, tour. “The US Supreme Court accepted the Ohio National Guard’s request to consider whether the agency that oversees federal-sector labor relations also has jurisdiction over state militias,” the reporter wrote.
  • A Bloomberg News story published Aug. 17 profiled an Ohio National Guard unit comprised of high-tech computer specialists including several civilians. It was headlined: “Modern-Day Militia Ready for Fight Against US Election Hacking.”

Telegraphing an attack

These confusing headlines and word-salads were not accidental. They were carefully designed, and they betray the propagandists’ true intent: Change the public’s mindset because another attack on our gun rights is coming.

Fortunately, we have case law and several strong Supreme Court decisions that protect an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Therefore, in my humble opinion, Bloomberg’s attack will not be a legal one – at least not yet.

This is propaganda, which is designed to alter public opinion and perception, and Bloomberg’s propagandists have always played the long game. They seek to change minds first, which will make it easier to change laws later.

Keep in mind what we’re dealing with: “I don’t know why people carry guns. Guns kill people,” Bloomberg once said, while surrounded by a heavily armed personal security detail, probably.

His attitude and his billions make him our most formidable anti-rights opponent. At least this time we know something is coming

Anti-gun advocates were formerly able to foist this off on the people because accessing a lot of the original writings had to be done by reading the actual hard copy. “But, thanks to the digitization of old texts on Google Books and Google Scholar, access to second-generation American viewpoints is easier now than ever before.” The internet and its search engines have finally been able to put the lie to this ‘collective right’ BS.

BLUF
The common assertion that the individual-right interpretation of the Second Amendment is a gun-lobby myth invented in the latter half of the 20th century is, to repurpose Justice Brennan’s famous quote, “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have seen in my lifetime.” The historical record shows that 19th-century Americans, whatever other disputes they had about the provision, widely viewed the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right.

Analysis: Historical Texts Show Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms Isn’t an NRA Invention

For anyone who frequently discusses the Second Amendment, there is no avoiding the debate over whether it protects an individual or collective right. The prevailing view accepted by the Supreme Court in 2008 is that the amendment protects every individual’s right to keep and bear arms. But many detractors, especially gun-control advocates, still argue it only covers a collective or militia right.

When the individual right view started to gain ground (or, rather, regain ground) in the late 20th century, a common line of attack was that the pro-gun side was essentially making it all up. And it’s one that’s been repeated even at the highest levels of the legal profession.

“The gun lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have seen in my lifetime,” Former Chief Justice Warren Burger said in a 1991 PBS interview.

Gun-control advocates still use this argument, with The Intercept asserting in a June 2022 article that “no law review article from 1888 (when they were first indexed) through 1959 ever concluded the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to a gun.”

There are three ways to test the claim that the NRA and other gun-rights advocates created the individual-right view in the last several decades: What did the founders say? What did older case law say? And what did prominent second-generation American legal scholars and elected officials say?

The courts and the public writ large have already deeply examined the first two options.

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Local Work By Anti-Gun Radicals Emphasizes Need For Preemption

We usually spend a great deal of time talking about the impact on the Second Amendment made at the federal and state level. But it is important to remember that attacks on our right to keep and bear arms are often made at the local level, and we don’t want these affronts to freedom to slip under anyone’s radar. Statewide preemption statutes that reserve the authority to enact gun-control laws to state legislatures are critical to diminishing these efforts. They help to avoid a patchwork of conflicting laws and regulations throughout a state.

Unfortunately, not every state has a preemption statute, and even with them in place, anti-gun local authorities regularly work to challenge, undermine or circumvent them. Here are a few of the things extremists have tried to do, or actually have done, at the local level to undermine law-abiding gun owners that may not have caught the attention of national news coverage.

Boulder County Adopts Gun Control
In Colorado, the Boulder County Commissioners unanimously voted to pass a gun-control package consisting of five ordinances to infringe on your Second Amendment rights. Commissioner Matt Jones claims these ordinances are “common-sense gun violence laws designed to help keep people safe,” but, apparently, common sense isn’t common. These ordinances are restrictions that attack your constitutional right to bear arms and do nothing to promote public safety.

The gun-control package includes: banning the sale of firearms to anyone under the age of 21; requiring a waiting period of 10 days to sell or purchase a firearm; prohibiting the carrying of firearms in a number of public places; banning the sale of “assault rifles,” “large” magazines, and trigger activators; and regulating the possession of unfinished gun frames and guns without serial numbers, sometimes referred to as “ghost guns.”

The city council forced this gun-control package through at the beginning of July with no opportunity for public comment. The first public hearing was in early August, which is conveniently when the gun-control package went into effect. Cities in Colorado like Boulder have had the authority to pass a patchwork of confusing and conflicting local laws throughout the state since Colorado repealed its firearms preemption statutes last year. By doing this, Colorado became one of the few states to take away the state legislature’s sole authority to regulate firearms, and the various cities’ gun-control regulations have already begun to create inconsistency and uncertainty statewide.

Pima County Passes Resolution Calling for Repeal of State Preemption Statute
In Arizona, the Pima County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in early August calling for a lawsuit to challenge the state’s preemption statutes, as well as urging the state legislature to repeal them. This resolution falls in line with efforts by both Pima County and Tucson to pass local gun-control ordinances. In 2017, the Arizona State Supreme Court ruled in the State’s favor, causing the City of Tucson to repeal an ordinance that was in violation of the state statute.

The Arizona Legislature enacted the state firearms preemption law in 2000, which has been modified and strengthened over the years, most recently in 2016.

Columbia to Consider More Gun Control
South Carolina’s capital city, Columbia, submitted a draft ordinance to Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office in July, asking if it violates the state’s preemption law. The draft ordinance victimizes gun owners who have suffered the loss or theft of their property if they fail to report a lost or stolen firearm within a certain period of time after discovering it missing. Nearby Virginia passed a similar law in 2020, which has not only been ineffective in hindering criminals, but also has been almost unenforceable, as there have been just three civil penalties in the two years it has been in effect.

Attorney General Wilson has previously stopped Columbia from violating the state’s preemption law, which prevents localities from passing their own gun control. Columbia’s newest effort is just another waste of time and taxpayer resources while doing nothing to hold criminals accountable for their actions, such as stealing firearms, and get them off the streets.

As we went to press for this issue, Attorney General Wilson had not yet responded to Columbia’s request for his opinion.

Surveillance State USA… Biden quietly unleashes spymasters in dramatic Executive Order…

Orwell would be proud. Deliberately buried in the Friday evening news cycle, Biden released an Executive Order with dramatic implications for how signals intelligence is collected on individuals throughout the world.

Specifically, Biden’s directive repeals restrictions on the use of signals intelligence collection (read: spying on you) implemented since the Obama Administration

The Executive Order of October 7, 2022 (Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities), establishes enhanced safeguards for United States signals intelligence activities that supersede the safeguards for personal information collected through signals intelligence established by Presidential Policy Directive 28 of January 17, 2014 (Signals Intelligence Activities) (PPD-28). [White House]

So what was so problematic about the Presidential Policy Directive 28 that Biden Admin had to repeal? We encourage you to read the entire directive, but the following passage strikes us as interesting in light of the fact that Biden just repealed it:

The collection of signals intelligence shall be authorized by statute or Executive Order, proclamation, or other Presidential directive, and undertaken in accordance with the Constitution and applicable statutes, Executive Orders, proclamations, and Presidential directives.

(b) Privacy and civil liberties shall be integral considerations in the planning of U.S. signals intelligence activities. The United States shall not collect signals intelligence for the purpose of suppressing or burdening criticism or dissent, or for disadvantaging persons based on their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. Signals intelligence shall be collected exclusively where there is a foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose to support national and departmental missions and not for any other purposes.

(c) The collection of foreign private commercial information or trade secrets is authorized only to protect the national security of the United States or its partners and allies. It is not an authorized foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose to collect such information to afford a competitive advantage[4] to U.S. companies and U.S. business sectors commercially.

(d) Signals intelligence activities shall be as tailored as feasible. In determining whether to collect signals intelligence, the United States shall consider the availability of other information, including from diplomatic and public sources. Such appropriate and feasible alternatives to signals intelligence should be prioritized.[Obama White House Archives]

What could the Biden Administration be gearing up for? Why would they want to relax restrictions on intelligence collecting? Are they planning escalation in Ukraine, escalation in their Domestic War on American Patriots, or both?

We will cover this story as it develops.

Biden’s move on pot has Second Amendment ramifications

President Joe Biden is no friend of gun owners. What’s more, is that he doesn’t seem interested in even trying to pretend he is, what with his anti-gun rhetoric time and time again.

So if he does something that could potentially benefit the Second Amendment crowd, it’s only by accident.

And that’s likely what’s happening with his latest move, where he announced taking steps toward changing how the government views marijuana.

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced executive actions that would pardon thousands of people with prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession.

Biden then called on governors to follow suit with state offenses for simple marijuana possession, saying that “just as no one should be in a Federal prison solely due to the possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either.”

The president also directed U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland to review how marijuana is classified under federal law as a Schedule I drug, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s most dangerous classification that includes substances like heroin and LSD.

Biden’s executive order to pardon simple possession includes the District of Columbia as well as people convicted in the federal court system.

Now, simple marijuana possession isn’t necessarily something that will preclude anyone from owning a gun. The pardons aren’t likely to make a big difference toward gun ownership.

But the potential reclassification of marijuana is.

As we’ve noted, people who use marijuana in accordance with the laws of their state are still legally prohibited from even owning a gun. It’s what led Florida Ag Commissioner Nikki Fried to file a lawsuit. She’s no friend of gun owners either, but she is very much in the pro-legalization effort, so this ties into that.

Now, understand that what Biden is doing here is a political stunt. Democrats aren’t doing as well in the polls as the president would like, so he’s making a big splash with something that polls pretty well. This is an attempt to garner support for Democrats.

However, that doesn’t mean gun owners won’t benefit.

After all, there’s nothing in the Second Amendment that says gun rights can be removed from someone for getting a prescription. Nothing in that whole “shall not be infringed” thing is followed up with “unless they use this one substance that only makes them a threat to the snack aisle at the nearest curb store.”

Yet federal law actually does. It doesn’t differentiate between heroin or cocaine and marijuana.

Hell, you can still own a gun if you’re prescribed Fentanyl, which is the drug of choice in the whole opioid epidemic, but not pot.

Biden’s move is, for once, welcome.

The problem, however, is that it’s directing people to just look at rescheduling marijuana. It doesn’t actually do anything. Considering how the Department of Justice has tried to defend the prohibition in the Florida lawsuit–which included using blatantly racist laws of the past, it should be noted–I won’t hold out much hope that it will actually happen.

Yet if it does, suddenly an untold number of Americans who would like to own a gun and use the marijuana their doctor prescribed will be able to lawfully do so. They won’t have to worry about being arrested for exercising their Second Amendment rights.

And if Biden is able to deliver this, it’ll be a rare moment of this anti-un White House benefitting gun owners, even if it’s only by accident.

Honestly, considering the way things have gone over the last year at the federal level, I’m willing to take what wins I can get.

How Much are Gun Laws Repressing Exercise of 2A Rights?

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-– The states with the most restrictive gun laws are repressing the exercise of Second Amendment rights.  How much damage are they doing?

In the 2022 Bruen decision, released by the Supreme Court on June 22, the court named six states and the District of Columbia as polities where the governments were violating the rights of their residents to keep and bear arms.

Those states were California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia.

There are reasonably good measures to compare those states to the rest of the country, where laws restricting the sale, ownership, and carry of arms are less burdensome.

The National Instant background Check System (NICS) tracks retail gun sales in all the states. Gun sales are much closer than NICS background checks alone because NICS checks are done for many other things as well.

Gun sales, measured in the NICS system, give us a strong representation of how many guns were purchased in a given year in each state.

Looking at the restrictive states compared to the non-restrictive states will show if the restrictive state laws are repressing the exercise of the right to keep arms by repressing the number of people who purchase firearms.

The number of people who have permits to carry is not as easily obtained. The Crime Prevention Research Center (CRPC) has worked to determine how many carry permits exist in each state. The numbers reported in 2021 will be used for this comparison.

This is a quick, first-order comparison to see if any obvious disparity exists. If no disparity exists, a more sophisticated analysis may or may not show those laws repress the exercise of Second Amendment rights.

Population figures for the states were taken from the 2020 census. Gun sales and carry permits will be expressed as rates so as to make a state-to-state comparison meaningful. The numbers of gun sales are from two years, 2020 and 2021.

2020 is a particularly useful year, as there was both a significant increase in violent crime and political posturing to restrict firearms sales and possession. The motivation to exercise Second Amendment rights should have been high.

2020 recorded all-time records for gun sales.

Gun sales for the restrictive states and the District of Columbia in 2020, as calculated from the NICS data, were 2.05 million. Per capita firearm sales were .024 firearms per person.

In 2021, for the restrictive states and DC, the numbers were: 1.93 million, and .023 firearms sold per person.

Restrictive states gun sales per capita: 2020 – .024; 2021 – .023.

Gun sales for the rest of the USA in 2020 were 18.6 million, and .075 firearms sold per person. In 2021, there were 16.2 million firearms sold, and .065 firearms sold per person.

Less restrictive states, gun sales per capita: 2020 – .075; 2021 – .065.

This is significant evidence of repressing the exercise of Second Amendment rights.  In 2020 and 2021, the sales of firearms in the restrictive states were only one-third as many per capita as in non-repressive states.

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11 anti-abortion protesters face charges in blocking Mount Juliet clinic

Eleven people face federal charges for their role in blocking the entrance of a Mount Juliet reproductive health clinic during an anti-abortion protest in 2021, including a Lebanon man who now faces a separate federal lawsuit for a July 2022 protest at the same clinic.

A federal grand jury indicted the 11 on violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits even temporary interference with reproductive health care services.

The group livestreamed their protest, which they called a “rescue,” outside the doors of the Mount Juliet carafem clinic on March 5, 2021, with several members physically blocking a patient and employee from accessing the clinic, according to court documents.

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Federal bureaucraps working with foreign operatives to spy on U.S. & Canadian citizens. Well, to be honest, nothing surprising.

Cascade County sheriff breaks up federal investigation at gun show

Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter on Saturday broke up an investigation carried out in apparent coordination between federal and Canadian authorities at a Great Falls gun show, saying those agencies had not contacted his office beforehand.

Although state law does not require federal investigators to obtain approval from local law enforcement to conduct operations, the agents left the fairgrounds “reluctantly” and without issue. Slaughter has positioned himself as a “constitutional sheriff,” which theorizes sheriffs are the ultimate authority in their county — above local, state and federal officials — raising questions in this incident about possible friction between layers of law enforcement.

According to a Sept. 24 report compiled by the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, Slaughter and a deputy responded to a complaint that a man at the Montana Expo Park was acting suspiciously by taking photographs of vehicles. According to the fairgrounds director, the man was driving around the property in a black SUV with Canadian license plates, but never entered the show.

 Download PDFGun show - Cascade County Sheriff's Report

A deputy contacted the man, who identified himself as Richard Kurina, a Canadian police officer with the Lethbridge Police Department working with a Royal Canadian Mounted Police task force. According to the sheriff’s office report, Kurina said the task force was designed to catch Canadians smuggling illegal firearms into Canada and that he was with another officer, Agent Craig Howe with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Asked About Hurricane Ian Looters, Notes ‘You Loot, We Shoot’ Warnings.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has his hands full with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. It pretty much trashed southwest Florida and damaged homes all the way across the central part of the state.

As business owners and residents begin the massive cleanup process, he’s stressing law and order. And when discussing those who would take advantage of the destruction, the Governor noted that property owners had written “You loot, we shoot” on the plywood used to board up their buildings.

Florida Politics covered it . . .

As Florida recovers from Hurricane Ian, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a moral plea against looting that appears to have some firepower behind it.

Speaking near Fort Myers in the leveled community of Matlacha on Friday, the Republican Governor relayed one sight he saw in Punta Gorda in neighboring Charlotte County the day prior.

“They boarded up all the businesses, and there are people that wrote on their plywood, ‘you loot, we shoot,’” DeSantis said. “At the end of the day, we are not going to allow lawlessness to take advantage of this situation. We are a law-and-order state, and this is a law-and-order community, so do not think that you’re going to go take advantage of people who’ve suffered misfortune.”

You don’t hear many Governors mention “you loot, we shoot” these days. But DeSantis isn’t like many governors and given the reality on the ground, there’s no reason to play around with vultures who would take advantage of a mass tragedy.

The story continued . . .

The Governor also commented on the grit and resilience of the community and called for “all hands on deck” regarding the rule of law. However, his dispatch was choppy, making the overall statement unclear.

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said he had spoken at length to Attorney General Ashley Moody, who was also on the scene.

 “We are not going to tolerate — and I mean zero tolerance — when we say anyone that thinks they’re going to thrive on the residents of this county or state when we just took a horrific hit, I can guarantee you that is not going to happen,” Marceno said.

Scam artists will likely not get off easy either, judging from the law-and-order tone from the state officials.

 

The snowflakes writing the story to wrung their hands over DeSantis’ choice of words.

“You loot, we shoot,” isn’t even new in the hurricane context, used when Hurricane Harvey struck Houston and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. But others see the phrase as stoking violence and division.

Violence and division? The only division will be between looters and law-abiding residents and business owners.

Anti-gun politicians aim for private property gun ban

From Hawaii to New Jersey anti-gun officials are scrambling to adopt sweeping restrictions on the right to carry modeled after New York’s latest infringement on our Second Amendment rights. That includes a de-facto ban on concealed carry on all private property, despite language in the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen that made it clear broad and expansive “sensitive places” don’t comport with a general right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.

On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co we’re taking a look at a couple of the latest indigo-blue locales to adopt New York’s model legislation; Hawaii County and the state of New Jersey. Both places have long been hostile to the right to keep and bear arms, and in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the “good cause” requirement that the jurisdictions have used to deny almost every applicant in years past, the goal is to now restrict where folks can carry as much as possible in addition to continuing to impose as many barriers as possible to all those who want to exercise that right.

Hawaii County council member Aaron Chung says Supreme Court “opened the door” for his exhaustive list of places where concealed carry may soon be banned by not explicitly defining the limits of ‘sensitive places”, but he’s ignoring what Justice Clarence Thomas actually had to say about trying to broadly define most places open to the public (including all private property by default) as off-limits to the exercise of our Second Amendment rights; “expanding the category of ‘sensitive places’ simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of “sensitive places” far too broadly. Respondents’ argument would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment and would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense.”

The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self defense.

I don’t know of any other right that’s de-facto forbidden on private property unless it’s explicitly authorized in writing by the property owner either. I’ve never once encountered a sign on a business that said “Freedom of Speech Welcome Here”. Then again, I’ve also never run across a law charging people with a felony for unlawfully uttering their opinion in someone else’s home without prior permission as New York’s de-facto ban on concealed carry on private property does.

The glaring constitutional issues with this language isn’t worrisome to anti-gun politicians like New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, however. He’s still hellbent on criminalizing the right to carry in almost all circumstances by adopting the New York model.

Murphy issued an executive order shortly after the court ruling, requiring state agencies to review their statutes and regulations and determine whether they could designate gun-free zones. But so far, no legislation barring guns from public spaces in New Jersey has been introduced.

On Tuesday, Murphy said churches, entertainment venues and even private property “unless you the homeowner explicitly says otherwise” would be designated as gun-free areas under a proposed bill.

We need that now based on the actions of this very right-wing U.S. Supreme Court,” he said.

He said action hasn’t come more quickly for “mostly benign reasons here” — due to other legislative activity and because the Legislature only recently came back into session.

“I don’t want to speak for [the Legislature], but I’m confident this ball will be rolling, and God willing, will get something sooner than later,” he said.

God willing, the courts will have shut down the expansive list of “sensitive places” by the time New Jersey’s legislature gets to work on its own list of gun-free zones. If that doesn’t happen, then the state will be facing another lawsuit just like New York; one I’m confident it will ultimately lose. We still have plenty of challenges ahead of us, but these anti-gun politicians are on the wrong side of history and the Constitution and we aren’t going to rest until we’ve secured our right to keep and bear arms from their authoritarian power grabs.

Analysis: Federal Judge Charts Path to Upholding Felon Gun Bans

We now have a new framework for how the federal prohibition on felons owning guns could be constitutional.

District Judge David Counts of Western Texas upheld the conviction ban this week. That’s despite the fact that he struck down the federal ban on people indicted for felonies receiving firearms just a few days beforehand. And he did it under the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard, making him among the first to apply it to federal law.

His logic will sound familiar to anyone who followed his opinion in the indictment case. After calling into question the constitutionality of the indictment ban under Bruen’s text-and-tradition standard, he did the same for the conviction ban.

“Whether this Nation has a history of disarming felons is arguably unclear—it certainly isn’t clearly ‘longstanding,’” Counts said in that ruling, dismissing a claim made in the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision.

However, he also outlined how he believed the conviction ban could be constitutional under the Bruen test even without a historical gun law as an analogue. Instead of relying on gun laws, Counts argued, it is better to look at how groups have been excluded from the political rights afforded to “the people.” Those historical examples provide a better guide, he said.

And now, just a few days after laying out his hypothetical test for the convicted felon prohibition, he has applied it in practice. He relied on the fact that governments in the early days of the republic prohibited people from voting if they had been convicted of certain crimes and those inciting people to violence could be prohibited from assembling in public.

“Indeed, there was a ‘longstanding’ historical tradition from the time of ratification that those convicted of a crime could be excluded from the right to vote,” Counts wrote. “For example, one year after the Second Amendment’s ratification, Kentucky’s Constitution stated, ‘[l]aws shall be made to exclude from… suffrage those who thereafter be convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.’ Vermont’s Constitution followed one year later, authorizing the removal of voting rights from those engaged in bribery or corruption during elections. As of 2022, only two states and the District of Columbia do not restrict felons’ voting rights.”

This framework is similar in some respects to one used by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in Kanter v. Barr. Barrett argued in her dissent that those convicted of felonies could be prohibited from owning guns (though only if they committed violent felonies) because there was a tradition of barring dangerous groups from gun ownership as evidenced by early republic bans on Native Americans and Catholics owning guns. New York has sought to use the same argument to defend its gun laws in court.

Of course, the main problem with the Barrett approach is it relies exclusively on bigoted gun bans and attempts to generalize and sterilize them as applying to those early Americans considered “dangerous.” But it is highly questionable why the bans presented as evidence for this theory only fell along racial and religious lines. It seems dangerousness was playing a secondary role in those particular bans.

The Counts approach is not as susceptible to that pitfall. Clearly blacks, other minorities, and women were also excluded from protections afforded to “the people” in the founding era. Certainly, they were denied the right to vote in nearly all circumstances, and blacks in particular were denied all of their rights.

In fact, people in the founding era were as likely to be excluded from protections afforded to “the people” as they were to be included in them. So, relying on that approach for justifying modern gun bans has the potential to result in a fairly broad reading of what’s permissible under the Second Amendment.

Still, the Counts approach does at least provide some examples of longstanding rights restrictions that are based on a person’s criminal actions rather than their race or creed. So, it has a bit more to stand on.

Although, there are other weaknesses too. The number of crimes covered under modern felony laws dwarfs the number in the founding era. While the analogue of felons being prohibited from voting seems to fit fairly well with felons being barred from owning guns, the ban on inciting speech isn’t really the same since it isn’t a permanent ban on protesting for the offender.

It’s likely federal courts will refine the Counts approach if they do adopt it as a framework moving forward. His framework isn’t without its problems, and it’s among the first attempt at reconciling federal gun prohibitions with the Bruen standard. But it has the potential to become very influential among Counts’ piers moving forward.

DEMONIZING GUN ADS IS A MISGUIDED WITCH HUNT

Gun control advocates are ready to start grabbing pitchforks and torches in their attempt to drive out firearm manufacturer advertisements. They fear that today’s advertising is running to a tipping point where they need to rally the villagers to chase the monster pieced together by mad gun advertisers out of town.

Today’s gun ads, they claim, are a horrific menagerie of “toxic masculinity,” fearmongering and anti-government militancy. Except none of that is true. Gun control’s efforts are more like a witch hunt, and more like Monty Python’s version of one depicted in the cult classic, “The Holy Grail.”

They’re too busy clanging alarm bells to roust of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to realize that the monster they’re chasing doesn’t exist. The real monsters are the criminals, not the law-abiding gun owners who are lawfully purchasing firearms for self-defense, recreational shooting and hunting.

They want to muzzle and silence our industry so the American heritage and tradition of hunting and the shooting sports is not passed on to the next generation.

Defining Acceptable Ads

Adweek was the latest to weigh in. The advertising trade publication, which regularly highlights efforts by various gun control groups to demonize lawful gun ownership, posted a feature claiming that today’s gun ads are turning America’s children into “extremists.”

The article focuses on an effort by lawmakers to pressure the FTC to abandon their neutrality and deny gun manufacturers the ability to advertise. They say the ads of yesteryear of plaid-clad hunters unwrapping a rifle under the tree are acceptable, but today’s advertising that draws on patriotism and self-reliance is a bridge too far. They want the FTC to burn gun manufacturers at the metaphorical stake and cut out their tongues.

That is a pretty big leap to suggest that Americans – even youth – exposed to firearm ads will poison their minds. Guns have been advertised for decades, even guns offered in youth models. Mechanix Illustrated ran an ad in 1954 for a Remington .22-caliber rifle, featuring a youth holding a rifle he received as a Christmas present. Sears Roebuck listed firearms in their catalog in 1897, featuring a shotgun for $7.95 and would even deliver a revolver to a mailing address.

Clearly, government regulations restricted that years ago. Even toy guns, like Mattel’s #2 M-16 were featured in 1967 with “braap, brra-a-a-a-ap, brap, brap,” sounds were advertised. None of that turned America’s youth into murderers. In fact, recreational shooting, including the scholastic shooting sports, ranks among the safest sporting activities. Golf, walking and tennis report more injuries than hunting and trap and skeet shooting reports just 0.1 percent of injuries.

Intellectually Dishonest

That is because the shooting sports are heavily supervised. Basic foundational safety rules are a must and are drilled into every gun owner. Children are admonished to only handle firearms under the direct supervision of a responsible adult.

Critics of lawful firearm ownership are being intellectually dishonest when they say it is advertising that is causing out-of-control crime rates or horrific murders. They know this is not true. It is not as if these are individuals who are not academically accomplished. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was once a professor at Harvard University. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) was Yale Law School graduate who also served as Connecticut’s attorney general. They are not uneducated. They are just being dishonest.

They do not want to admit that the soft-on-crime policies they espouse are not making our communities safer. They would rather latch onto every gun control notion they can and mispresent to America that the societal ills are the fault of the firearm industry that they have made a career demonizing. It plays well to their voters when they do not have to admit their policies are failing. It is easier to cast blame and malign an industry, tell America that murderers are not individuals with craven hearts who couldn’t care less about the law, much less the value of human life. It is easier to ignore that the responsible firearm industry offers Real Solutions® than admit law-abiding gun owners are invested in safe and responsible ownership.

Do not believe their false and misleading claims that the firearm industry is evil. They are the ones selling pitchforks and torches.

The pagans can’t allow anything that might keep them from giving offerings to their god.

FBI, Justice Department Twist Federal Law to Arrest, Charge Pro-Life Activist

In an early morning raid Friday in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, about two dozen FBI agents with weapons drawn pounded on the door of Mark Houck’s home, where he lives with his wife and seven children.

The FBI agents arrested Houck based on a federal indictment. Sounds serious, right? Is Houck a domestic terrorist, an American jihadist, a dangerous militia member, a violent felon, or someone with a prior history of violence toward law enforcement who would require such an overwhelming show of force?

Not even close.

Houck is a pro-life activist and president of The King’s Men, a Catholic ministry. He has no prior criminal record. He was arrested Friday morning for an alleged violation of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the FACE Act.

Again, sounds potentially serious. But given the Obama-Biden administration’s prior abuse of the FACE Act, as well as what we know already about the facts, we have serious reasons to doubt that this is a legitimate case and prudent use of federal law enforcement resources. More likely, it is a politically motivated abuse of federal law by both the FBI and the Justice Department.

It is not a coincidence, we suspect, that this takedown of someone who, at best, committed a misdemeanor assault came almost exactly three months after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand in America. The FBI’s raid of Houck’s home was designed to send a warning to pro-life activists engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment.

The FACE Act (18 U.S.C. § 248) forbids physically obstructing, injuring, intimidating, or interfering with anyone “obtaining or providing reproductive health services.” But Congress specified that the FACE Act doesn’t “prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibitions by the First Amendment to the Constitution,” including the “free speech or free exercise clauses,” occurring “outside a facility.”

Houck apparently would regularly drive two hours from his home to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia to pray and speak outside the facility, often taking his 12-year-old son with him.

The federal indictment claims that almost a year ago, Houck “verbally confronted” and “shoved” an escort for an abortion patient “to the ground” and “intentionally injured, intimidated and interfered” with the escort.

What the indictment fails to mention, say Houck’s wife and a family spokesman, is that on multiple occasions this pro-abortion escort said “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things” to the Houcks’ son, such as “your dad’s a fag” and other vulgar slurs.

Houck kept telling the escort to stop harassing his son, they say, but the escort refused to stop and when the foul-mouthed vulgarian got too close to his son, Houck protected him by shoving the escort away.

The escort fell down, but, according to Houck’s family, the only injury he suffered required “a Band-Aid on his finger.”

The incident occurred Oct. 21, 2021. The assault claim against Houck is so weak that not only did Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Soros-backed rogue prosecutor, refuse to file any misdemeanor charges against Houck, but, the family says, a civil lawsuit filed by the escort was thrown out of court.

Now, almost a year later, the FBI shows up at Houck’s home in force and the Justice Department charges him with two felonies for an injury that required a Band-Aid. His conviction could result, according to the Justice Department, in a maximum penalty of “11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000.”

No doubt, Houck’s defense attorney will explore any and all defenses, starting with whether the man shoved by Houck even falls within the “obtaining or providing” requirement of the federal statute. It also may be a clear case of self-defense, since Houck apparently was defending his 12-year-old son from an adult who was harassing and intimidating a minor.

The fact is that the Justice Department, under Democratic administrations, has a history of misusing the FACE Act to go after abortion opponents.

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GOA IMMEDIATELY SUES PHILADELPHIA OVER UNCONSTITUTIONAL EXECUTIVE ORDER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 28, 2022

Philadelphia, PA – Yesterday, lame-duck Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order prohibiting individuals from lawful carry at all City of Philadelphia recreational facilities. The mayor’s actions are in clear violation of Pennsylvania law prohibiting these types of local gun restrictions. Within hours of Mayor Kenney’s signing ceremony, Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a lawsuit to enjoin enforcement of this illegal gun regulation.

“Mayor Kenney knows this executive order is pointless: law abiding gun owners aren’t the people committing the violent crime and murder in Philadelphia,”  said Dr. Val Finnell, Pennsylvania Director for GOA. “Instead, Mayor Kenney is trying to deflect attention from his failing policies and failing City by enacting more ‘feel good’ regulations that scapegoat guns for the crisis of crime in Philadelphia. Rather than take responsibility for city policies that created two years of record homicides, Kenney is attempting to capitalize on the tragic deaths of Philadelphia residents to disarm more people and create more victim-only, ‘gun-free’ zones. All this executive order does is put a bullseye on the back of every person at Philadelphia recreational facilities, because they know that Mayor Kenney won’t let you defend yourself there.”

“The lack of respect for taxpayer money is appalling,” said Andrew Austin, attorney for GOA and the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. “Pennsylvania law is clear here: Philly is not allowed to make gun regulations. Every appellate court in Pennsylvania has made this clear multiple times. Yet, they continue to waste taxpayer money by attempting to enact these illegal laws.”

Gun Owners of America will be seeking to enjoin enforcement of Mayor Kenney’s Executive Order in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. In addition, GOA has previously filed several other lawsuits in Philadelphia in the last two years in pursuit of Second Amendment rights, and will continue to fight as long as necessary to ensure every citizen has the ability to defend themselves, particularly in lawless cities such as Mayor Kenney’s Philadelphia.

Dr. Val Finnell, or another GOA spokesperson is available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists. For more information, visit GOA’s Press Center.

-GOA-

US V. Quiroz – §922 (N) Held Unconstitutional

Jose Gomez Quiroz was indicted in a Texas state court for burglary and later indicted for jumping bail. Both are felonies under Texas state law. While on the lam, Quiroz sought to buy a .22LR pistol from a dealer and answered “no” on the Form 4473 when asked if he was under indictment for a felony. He got a delayed (but not denied) response and subsequently took possession a week later. Then, the NICS System notified the BATFE of Quiroz’s transaction. He was charged with lying on the Form 4473 (18 USC §922(a)(6)) and illegal receipt of a firearm by a person under indictment (18 USC §922(n)). A Federal jury found him guilty on both charges. A week later, Quiroz moved to set aside the conviction under Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and asked the court to reconsider in light of Bruen.

US District Court Judge David Counts of the Western District of Texas issued his decision yesterday and found §922(n) facially unconstitutional. Moreover, since §922(n) was found unconstitutional, Quiroz’s lie on the Form 4473 was immaterial. The US Attorney is already appealing the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The media is making a big deal over the fact that Judge Counts was appointed by President Trump. What they fail to say is that Counts was originally nominated for the position by President Barack Obama and that the clock ran out before he could be confirmed by the Senate. Prior to the nomination by President Obama, Counts served as a Magistrate Judge in the Western District and was the State Judge Advocate for the Texas National Guard where he was a Colonel.

The expansion of civil rights has often come in cases with less than desirable defendants. Witness the expansion of rights thanks to Clarence Earl Gideon, a drifter, and Ernesto Miranda, a kidnapper and rapist, whose cases established the right to counsel and the right to a warning against self-incrimination respectively.

Now it is time to examine the decision in detail.

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