Category: Enemies Domestic

RYAN BUSSE IS A FEAR MERCHANT AND LIAR, AND NO FIREARM INDUSTRY EXPERT

By Larry Keane

Anytime the media’s favorite former “gun guy” turned-gun control advocate gets invited to speak about gun control, hold on. It’s going to be a wild ride.

Ryan Busse, Senior Advisor for Giffords gun control group, was invited to MSNBC’s “Reidout” to speak with host Joy Reid as she bemoaned that she was afraid to leave her home on Independence Day for celebrations because “America’s awash in guns” and is insane.

Busse jumped right in with gun control talking points regardless of whether they are actually true to feed Reid’s fears, scare her viewers. The conversation went down the road of hairpin turns around the truth and straight off the ledge with outright falsehoods. Busse passes himself off to adoring gun control media as a firearm industry expert but make no mistake he’s nothing of the sort. He dresses in plaid flannel, hunts with expensive shotguns and spends more time dabbling in progressive politics than he does actually concentrating on the facts.

Don’t believe him. He’s nothing more than a modern-day snake-oil salesman hawking gun control as a cure-all elixir.

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I’ll just call it pro-criminal goobermint corruption

Delaware DOJ targets victim of ammo theft, while cutting the perp a break

A 39-year-old felon in Delaware who admitted to stealing more than a half-million rounds of ammunition over the course of a year and selling the pilfered rounds to gang members in Philadelphia and Dover will likely avoid prison time thanks to a sweetheart deal offered by the state, but the retailer who was the victim of the shoplifter is now in the legal crosshairs of the Delaware Department of Justice.

Danielle M. Brookens entered a guilty plea in state court back in April to one count of possession of ammunition by a person prohibited, and in exchange was handed down an awfully light sentence: report to a drug diversion program. Under Delaware law, Brookens could have received as much as eight years in prison, and if her case had been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for federal prosecution she could have been looking at a decade behind bars.

Instead, Brookens will get to avoid prison altogether once a judge signs off on the plea deal, and the Delaware Department of Justice has turned its attention on Cabela’s, the store where Brookens received her five-fingered discount.

The state Department of Justice is demanding to see Cabela’s records, specifically its loss prevention policies. The DOJ also wants to see the records of other Cabela’s and its sister store, Bass Pro Shop, within 100 miles of the Christiana Mall location — this would include at least two in Pennsylvania, one in New Jersey and another in Maryland.

The DOJ came out publicly last month saying it is investigating if Cabela’s violated state laws, including Delaware’s firearms industry public nuisance law, through its hands-off approach to the shoplifting of ammunition from its Christiana location.

“Businesses need to be responsible members of our community; that includes gun dealers taking reasonable steps to prevent gun violence,” Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said after announcing her department’s investigation. “Unfortunately, Cabela’s casual storage, and their stonewalling of this investigation, tell us that they still aren’t taking that responsibility seriously.”

Cabela’s has not responded to a request for comment, but in court filings its parent company, the Great American Outdoors Group, objected to the subpoena, calling it “overbroad” and saying the summons seeks documents containing trade secrets, confidential business or other proprietary information.

The group also objected to the DOJ’s refusal to postpone the subpoena’s already-passed March 17 return date pending a decision on the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s federal lawsuit against Jennings that challenges the constitutionality of a public nuisance law.

The Foundation’s lawsuit claims the public nuisance law “is breathtaking in its scope” as it imposes sweeping liability for any firearms marketing that could later be thought to “contribute to a public nuisance” in Delaware.

Basically, the Delaware DOJ is alleging that Cabela’s should have kept its ammunition under lock and key and inaccessible to customers, and created a public nuisance by failing to do so. Now the agency is going on a fishing expedition to comb through all kinds of documents in the hopes of shutting down the store, or at the very least subjecting them to punitive fines. As you can imagine, that’s not sitting well with some 2A advocates in the state.

We’ve been pretty vocal advocates for the enforcement of the laws on the books,” said Erin Chronister, cofounder and president of Women’s Defense Coalition of Delaware. “The criminals who just keep offending are getting plea deal after plea deal.”

This in turn leaves lawful citizens having to accept when lawmakers pass more gun control laws that make it harder for say, a woman fleeing violence, to purchase a weapon, Chronister said.

“I don’t understand why those who are committing the crimes are continuously getting deals and the lawful citizens who just want them for protection or hunting or sporting are just basically being told suck it up,” she said. “We’re being equated with vigilantes of the wild, wild west because we want tools for self-defense.”

In response to questions about Brookens receiving a light deal, a DOJ spokesperson said the defendant pleaded guilty to the highest-level offense she faced.

“She was cooperative and the state recognized her readiness to take responsibility, as well as other mitigating factors, in our sentencing recommendation,” said Mat Marshall, a DOJ spokesperson.

Cooperative or not, Brookens herself claims to have stolen a half-million rounds of ammunition over the course of a year and then selling the rounds to criminals in at least two different cities. This isn’t Brookens first run-in with the law either. Back in 2012 she was convicted of two felonies for stealing and selling prescription pills in Elkton, Maryland, and she’s also currently facing charges related to theft of ammunition from a Bass Pro Shops near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March of last year, though according to the Delaware Journal she’s scheduled for another plea hearing in that case in August. Will Pennsylvania prosecutors go just as easy on Brookens as their Delaware counterparts? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, but I guess we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to see what kind of deal is on the table.

Having ammo available for customers to pick up and purchase shouldn’t be a criminal or even a civil offense, while stealing ammunition is definitely a crime, but the Delaware Department of Justice has made it clear where its priorities are: cracking down on the retailer that was the victim of Brookens’ criminal actions, while excusing those actions away and offering her a slap on the wrist for what, by her own admission, are serious crimes that helped to fuel the violence in both Philadelphia and Dover.

California Democrats Block Bill Making Trafficking of Minors a Serious Felony

Democrats on the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee have blocked a bill that would make the trafficking of minors a serious felony.

The inexplicable move was met with outrage from human trafficking victims who have been advocating for the bill.

The bill, HB 14, noted that “California consistently ranks number one in the nation in the number of human trafficking cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.”

“Human trafficking is among the world’s fastest-growing criminal enterprises and is estimated to be a $150,000,000,000 a year global industry,” it adds.

The legislation would have made human trafficking of a minor subject to California’s Three Strikes Law.

Under the law, someone convicted twice could be sentenced to life in prison.

The bill had already passed unanimously in the State Senate.

However, not even one of the six Democrats on the committee would vote on the bill.

The only yes votes were cast by two Republicans, Assemblymen Juan Alanis and Tom Lackey.

Los Angeles Democrat Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, the Assembly Public Safety Committee’s chairman, opposed the bill.

GOP state Sen. Shannon Grove, who co-authored the bill, said she had spoken with Democrats on the committee prior to the hearing.

“They all thought it was a good bill and said they would consider it, but there is this issue of rolling the chair, so I don’t think anyone was going to stand up against the chair,” she said.

“You’re horrible!” yelled members of the audience at the meeting.

Translation of Bureaucrapish: He’s sure

Christopher Wray ‘Not Sure’ There Were FBI Assets at Capitol on Jan. 6.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed that he doesn’t know how many assets his agency had on the ground on January 6—or whether there were any at all.

[Watch the full hearing here]

Rep Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) asked Wray, “Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reportedly has asserted that the protest crowd was filled with federal agents. Are you aware of his assertion?”

“I am not,” Wray said.

“Would you agree with him that it was ‘filled with federal agents’ on January 6?” Biggs asked.

“I would really have to see more closely exactly what he said and get the full context to be able to evaluate how many agents, or actually agents or human resources, were present at the Capitol complex and the vicinity on January 6,” Wray said. “It’s gonna get confusing because it depends on when we were deployed and responded to the breach that occurred anywhere under federal agents.”

Biggs called him out for obfuscating: “You and I both know that we’re talking different things here, and please don’t distract here because we’re focusing on those who were there in an undercover capacity on January 6. How many were there?”

Wray played dumb: “Again, I’m not sure that I can give you the number as I sit here. I’m not sure there were undercover agents on the scene.”

“I find that kind of a remarkable statement, Director,” Biggs claimed. “At this point, you don’t know whether there were undercover federal agents, FBI agents, in the crowd or in the Capitol on January 6?”

Wray then changed his tune and claimed he couldn’t say how many there were because of ongoing legal cases.

“I say that because I want to be very careful. There have been a number of court filings related to some of these topics, and I want to make sure that I stick with what’s in them,” he claimed.

“I understand that, but I thought I heard you say you didn’t know whether there were FBI agents or informants or human sources in the Capitol or in the vicinity on January 6. Did I misunderstand you?”

“I referred very specifically to FBI agents,” said Wray.

“And so are you acknowledging then there were undercover agents?” Biggs demanded.

“As I sit here right now, I do not believe there were undercover agents on the scene,” said Wray.

“Did you have any assets present that day?” Biggs shot back.

“In the crowd, when it comes to what you’re calling assets or what we would call confidential human sources, that’s a place where, again, I want to be careful, as I said in response to an earlier question. There are court filings that I think speak to this that I’m happy to make sure we get to you, assuming they’re not under seal, and that can better answer the question,” said Wray.

Wray is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He claims at once that he doesn’t know the number of agents involved in the Jan. 6 protest, doesn’t believe there were any agents, and that he can’t talk about how many agents were there because of ongoing court cases. Which is it?

It’s absurd to believe that Wray doesn’t know how many agents and confidential human sources were on the ground on January 6. He knows exactly how many there were and how they were deployed, but he doesn’t want the American people to know. Why?

The detention of J6 protesters. The Russia collusion hoax. The arrest at gunpoint of a Catholic father. The monitoring of parents speaking at school board meetings. The failure to investigate attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers. The corruption runs deep at the FBI.

Is the FBI Helping Ukraine’s Secret Service Censor Americans?
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government releases a damning new report, revealing even more speech-smashing misbehavior by the federal government.

I spent much of the weekend combing through the Twitter Files for examples of the “Censorship Enterprise” described by the Attorneys General in the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit. As I was about to publish, a new report was issued by the House Weaponization of Government Committee that takes the Twitter Files theme in several crazy new directions.

A month ago, Aaron Maté of The Grayzone published a new piece about a bizarre finding in the Twitter Files. An FBI agent named Alexander Kozbanets had forwarded to Twitter a list sent to the FBI by Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU. These accounts, Kozbanets said, were “suspected by the SBU of spreading fear and disinformation.” Of the 170-odd account names on the list, most were Russian, but one stood out: Aaron’s! Here he is, along with the popular Russian newspaper “Rush Hour” (Chas-Pik) and a host of Cyrillic names:

The shame of this story wasn’t that the SBU sent this list over, but rather that the FBI collaborated in the effort, even having the gall to forward the name of a respected, award-winning Canadian journalist to Twitter. To its credit, Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth pushed back, noting Aaron’s name and saying, “authentic news outlets and reporters who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules.” Nonetheless, the fact that the FBI even tried this lunatic stunt was damning.

Now, thanks to the Weaponization Committee, we find out this situation with Aaron appears not to have been a one-off incident.

Feds Argue First Amendment Causes ‘Irreparable Harm’ in Bid to Save Censorship Regime
In seeking to stay the injunction against their speech policing in Missouri v. Biden, the government betrays its view that your right to speak is conditional, while its power to censor is absolute

U.S. Government Says Inability to Censor You Causes It ‘Irreparable Harm’

The U.S. government betrayed its total and utter contempt for the First Amendment in a recent filing in the landmark Missouri v. Biden free speech case.

The filing—a motion responding to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s bombshell Independence Day injunction freezing federal government-led speech policing—calls for the judge to permit the federal government to continue its censorship activities while it fights the injunction.

While Judge Doughty has now smacked the federal government down, ruling against its motion for a stay, the feds’ perverse position merits scrutiny, especially given it’s likely to persist in it for as long as this case is litigated, and as high as it will reach, perhaps up to the Supreme Court.

The crux of the government’s argument for staying the injunction was this: Prohibiting federal authorities from abridging speech, directly and by proxy, could lead to “grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes,” thereby causing the government “irreparable harm.”

Another way to read the government’s argument is that if it can’t interfere in elections or engage in rampant viewpoint discrimination, that causes it “irreparable harm.”

Still another way to read the government’s argument is that your right to free speech causes it “irreparable harm.”

I explain why in a new piece at the Epoch Times.
As I conclude in part:

The government’s fight for the right to censor reveals a conception of free speech, and its own authority, that is totally backward.

The government operates as if speech is a privilege over which it holds total power, ceding to us only the ability to talk on heavily circumscribed terms—rather than that we have a natural right to speak freely, and that the government’s ability to regulate our speech is heavily circumscribed.

Government derives its powers from us, and with our consent, not the other way around.

At stake, therefore, in Missouri v. Biden is more than free speech.

At stake—and currently on display—is the very nature of what remains of our republican system of government.

Read the whole thing here.

Nice when PID is provided.

Law professor: ‘Unfortunate’ that Michigan anti-free speech bill likely unconstitutional.

A constitutional law professor at Georgia State University recently said it’s “unfortunate” that the Michigan “pronouns” bill making its way through the state legislature is likely unconstitutional.

Georgia State College of Law Professor Eric Segall told Newsweek this was his “personal view” regarding House Bill 4474, which would criminalize sparking “frightened” feelings in someone in a protected class such as sexual orientation or gender identity.

The proposal “is probably in trouble under American law. I also think that’s unfortunate because my personal view is the law should be constitutional, but I think it’s likely not,” he said.

“In a sane world, which is most free countries on Earth, you just outlaw all threats,” said Segall (pictured). “And if you threaten somebody, you go to jail. It’s much more complicated in America. Guns and free speech. America is crazy about both.”

But the author of “Originalism as Faith and Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is not a Court and its Justices are not Judges” emphasized what makes the U.S. rather unique regarding free speech.

“The [Michigan] law basically says you can’t threaten somebody with speech that will discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Segall said. “And here’s the deal. Hate speech and threats aren’t the same thing.”

Segall noted “the fact that I can stand on a street corner and say ‘All Jews should be sent back to Israel’—which I can do in America—does not mean that I can go up to a Jewish person and get in their face and say, ‘You should be sent back to Israel.’”

The U.S. Supreme Court would strike down the Michigan law, Segall added, “both because it protects LGBTQ speech, which this court no longer wants to do at all, and because of their definition of free speech which is way overbroad.”

The College Fix asked Segall via email if he indeed would favor fining or jailing someone who, for example, told a transgender female in a non-threatening manner that she (he) “really is a man.” (Someone violating HB 4474 could face a $10,000 fine and up to five years in jail.)

Segall reiterated that “threats are unprotected speech” and repeated his point about someone saying (peacefully) that Jews should go back to Israel “should probably be protected speech.”

However, he added that such “depends on context” and he “could be talked out of” his current view.

As previously noted by The Fix, Western Michigan University Law Professor William Wagner warned that those in favor of the Michigan legislation will use it “as a weapon capable of destroying conservative expression or viewpoints grounded in the sacred.”

The Michigan Democratic Party’s Andrew Feldman told Newsweek that HB 4474 was being “deliberately misinterpreted to polarize voters and cause outrage among conservatives.”

Remember The Journal News’ online interactive map of gun owners? Everytown just pulled a similar stunt.

Journalism is supposed to inform, not inflame, the public. But that old standard has been functionally dead for a long, long time. And that’s especially true when it comes to reporting on guns and the Second Amendment.

It’s been more than a decade, but I still remember like it was yesterday: in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, a newspaper decided to take it upon itself to exact revenge on average lawful gun owners in New York, specifically in Westchester and Rockland counties, based on the theory that lawful New Yorkers with government-granted pistol permits were somehow responsible for what happened in Newtown, Connecticut.

The newspaper in question was The Journal News. They published an online, interactive map containing the names and home addresses of all pistol permit holders licensed in Westchester and Rockland counties. They were totally reckless in doing so and showed complete disregard for the privacy and safety of those citizens. The paper’s publisher openly admitted that she did so because of what happened in Newtown:

“One of our roles is to report publicly available information on timely issues, even when unpopular. We knew publication of the database (as well as the accompanying article providing context) would be controversial, but we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,” she said.

New York pistol permits record the handguns owned by a permit holder, including the serial numbers of guns. The newspaper also tried to publish those but was rebuffed by the County Clerks because releasing that information would have been illegal.

“We were surprised when we weren’t able to obtain information on what kinds and how many weapons people in our market own,” the newspaper said in a statement.

The Journal News even published the names and home addresses of victims of domestic violence and rape survivors. Such was their pigheaded anger at their fellow citizens for daring to exercise their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

The pistol permit database was public data. Is it prudent though to make an interactive map and broadcast it out to the whole world? The Federal Election Commission’s individual contributor data is also public. But is it ethical to create an interactive map using Trump donors’ home addresses as happened during the 2020 election cycle?

Ideological warriors don’t care about ethics, and that’s especially true of gun controllers. And if you think past public outrage would teach them to pause and introspect before acting, you would be wrong. Last week, Everytown pulled essentially the same stunt as The Journal News. In a typical hyperbolic and deceptive “report,” Everytown Research included an interactive map of all Federal Firearms Licensees in the country. How reckless is that interactive map? Everytown indicates that in its own report:

Over half of all gun dealers are located in residential communities […]. Residential license holders, some in private homes, do not need to notify neighbors or place signage indicating that they can sell or manufacture guns in their homes.

So Everytown knows very well that they are publishing private home addresses in their interactive map. And what else do they know about these FFLs?

There are roughly five incidents per day where firearms go missing from gun dealers through robbery, burglary, larceny, or other loss. Too often these guns are diverted to the illegal market.

So, they know that guns are stolen from gun dealers, that those stolen guns are diverted to the illegal market, that a lot of FFLs are ordinary people doing business out of their homes, and yet they created an interactive map.

It’s obvious that Everytown’s goal is intimidation and harassment. In the style of Saul Alinsky, they’re picking the target, freezing it, personalizing it, and polarizing it.

Everytown’s behavior is directly comparable to that of The Journal News.

The Journal News let their interactive map stay online for almost a month. As we all know, the Internet is Forever. That data was saved, replicated, and disseminated far and wide. There is a strong indication that The Journal News’ interactive map may have been used to target a gun owner for burglary. Will Everytown’s antics lead to similar burglaries?

In response to The Journal News’ drive-by journalism, the State of New York in its classic effete style, passed a law to let permit holders opt-out of public information disclosures, instead of a default privacy standard with opt-in for those who dare playing fast and loose with unethical journalists.

Other states have gone in a stronger direction and simply nuked carry permits. The very existence of a permit database makes it ripe for accidental disclosure, governmental abuse, theft and unlawful disclosure by hacktivists.

The response to Everytown’s thuggery should be a long-term goal to destroy the FFL regime in its entirety, as more than half the country has done with carry permits. It’s easier said than done, but as long as the FFL regime exists, abuses like this are inevitable.

DOJ Announces Slew Of Charges Against Gal Luft, ‘Missing Witness’ Of Alleged Biden Corruption.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced a slew of charges against the “missing” Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, days after he laid out serious allegations against the Biden family.

Luft was charged with several offenses related to “willfully failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (‘FARA’), arms trafficking, Iranian sanctions violations, and making false statements to federal agents,” according to a press release from the agency.

Earlier in July, the New York Post obtained an exclusive 14-minute recording from Luft in which he claimed he was arrested in Cyprus in February to prevent him from testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee on the Biden family’s alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence. Luft also alleged the Biden family had an FBI mole who gave them the inside scoop on classified information that was then allegedly shared with their Chinese counterparts.

Luft claimed he brought the information to officials in the FBI in 2019 but alleged it was covered up, according to the video.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life,” Luft said in the video.

Luft fled Cyprus after being released on bail, according to the DOJ.

Well, they understand it. They just don’t like it.

What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do leftists not understand?

With nauseating predictability, the usual political hacks clamor to compromise our Second Amendment every time some ghastly crime involving a firearm occurs.  Seldom if ever is attention paid to the workings of the twisted mind that actually caused the horrible event.

A combination of ignorance and the desire to deceive has led to the inherent misnomer of the term “assault weapon.”  Recent nuance has added the suffix “style” to the word “assault” — supposedly to add a hint of honesty to the expression, although a recent nominee to head the BATF was still unable to define what an assault weapon is.  I shall give it a try right here: a common military weapon, being a rifle that has selective fire options of single shot, bursts of three, and full-automatic.  It may also have enhanced magazine capacity and heat displacement.  Oh, and by the way, full-automatic weapons have not been legal for American civilians to possess for about a hundred years — except for people who have a Class Three federal firearms license.

[I’ll let this pass because the vast, vast majority of people have no real idea of how NFA ’34 and Title II of GCA’68 operate]

Assault-style weapons are nothing more than single-shot, semi-automatic rifles that only look like actual military weapons…usually because they have a second grip for the shooter’s other hand.  There may also be a heat shield around the barrel…whoopie!  So what’s the big deal about how they look?  It’s because political demagogues, whose arguments hardly have any substance, have to rely on superficiality to get their points across.

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I wonder how fascinated they’ll be when one, or several, of the kids they mutilated for their sick anti-human religion will figure out they were lied to and decide to visit their own version of fire & brimstone on them.

Not all enemies of the rights of the people are in goobermint.

BLACKROCK CEO THINKING TWICE ON DISCRIMINATORY ‘ESG’ STRATEGY? HARDLY

By Larry Keane

Call it putting lipstick on a pig, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic or whatever else. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink isn’t concerned with the actual discriminatory investment strategy his firm executes. He’s upset the world’s largest investment asset manager is caught up in the growing anti-ESG pushback that’s impacting his bottom line now that Americans are paying more attention to the ruse.

Fink revealed at the Aspen Ideas Festival that he’s “ashamed” to be a part of the ESG “debate.” If you thought he might change direction with BlackRock’s investment strategies, think again. Fink would rather just change the verbiage.

‘Conscientious’ Wordsmithing

BlackRock manages more than $10 trillion in assets for investors. That’s a lot of money and with such a large piggybank under his control, Fink got hip with the ESG movement. That’s the Environmental, Social and Governance investment strategy that started popping up more frequently about 10 or 12 years ago where activist investment managers began sacrificing fiduciary responsibilities to maximize shareholder returns to instead abdicate that role in favor of forcing a left-wing social and political agenda that has failed to succeed legislatively.

Under the Obama administration, an initiative called “Operation Choke Point” was launched by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop financial institutions from offering services to some regulated industries in an attempt to throttle banking services. This operation, which represented an abuse of the agencies’ statutory authority, was first aimed at non-depository lenders (so-called payday lenders) but expanded to ammunition and firearm sales, tobacco sales and pharmaceutical sales, among other industries. President Donald Trump’s administration put an end to the practice, though today ESG strategies have been privatized.

Fast forward to today and BlackRock is guilty of ESG strategies, as are numerous major banks and investment institutions as well. Fink was questioned about his firm’s devotion to ESG strategies at the Aspen Ideas Festival and initially told the crowd, “I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation. I’m not going to use the word ESG because it’s been misused by the far left and the far right,” he said.

Fink was later pressed again on being ashamed of his firm’s position. When pushed on his statement, he reversed course. “I never said I was ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”

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Grandstanding for the morons who were stupid enough to elect him.

Chuck Schumer to Undertake Gun Control Push After Shootings Rock Democrat-Run Cities

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pursuing more gun control after shootings rocked Democrat-run cities over the Fourth of July weekend.

The Hill reported weekend shootings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Lansing, Michigan; and Wichita, Kansas. All four cities are Democrat-run.

Breitbart News also noted at least 32 people were shot Friday into Monday morning in Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Chicago. Three of the shooting victims succumbed to their wounds.

President Joe Biden responded to the gun control by calling for his normal litany of gun control laws: an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, universal background checks, the ability to sue gun makers over gun crime, and more.

The Hill pointed out that Schumer wants more gun control as well.

Schumer’s spokesperson, Allison Biasotti, spoke on Schumer’s gun control push, saying:

Leader Schumer was proud to have passed a significant bipartisan gun safety bill through the Senate last summer but more must be done. Schumer continues to work with his caucus to find a path forward that can garner enough Republican support and combat the scourge of gun violence, save lives and bring meaningful change.

Schumer will have to get 60 votes to pass gun control, and the prospects are not high.

Moreover, any gun control that may pass the Senate is likely defeated once it reaches the Republican-controlled House.

One Republican-led city, Fort Worth, also witnessed a shooting over the holiday weekend. Multiple gunmen opened fire in a crowd on Fourth of July eve, killing three people.

Almost like it’s not a bug, but a plan.

Suspect in shooting, carjacking spree previously had felon-in-possession charges dropped by DOJ

A 22-year-old man on probation for a knifepoint robbery at a D.C. Metro station is now accused of a carjacking and shooting spree in Prince George’s County, Maryland and the District of Columbia, and the suspect’s previous criminal history raises some major questions about why the Department of Justice chose to dismiss a charge of felon-in-possession just last year.

According to Prince George’s police, 22-year-old Daeyon Ross first carjacked a small SUV in Capitol Heights, Maryland; pointing a gun at the driver before taking off behind wheel, only to crash the stolen vehicle a few blocks away.

Police say Ross then attempted to carjack an Acura ILX in the drive-thru lane of a McDonald’s on Ritchie Road. When the driver, [56-year-old Kurt] Modeste, tried to get away, Ross allegedly shot him multiple times. Modeste managed to drive a short distance before he was pronounced dead.

Ross then carjacked a Toyota Scion, also in the drive-thru, that had three dogs inside. Police said he killed two of the dogs, before driving away in the Scion heading westbound on Central Avenue.

Officers from several agencies followed Ross, as he crossed into D.C. At the intersection of 52nd Street and Sheriff Road NE, he got out of the Scion and carjacked a fourth victim, stealing a GMC Terrain, but got into another crash. When officers approached Ross at the crash scene, an officer with the Capitol Heights Police Department fired shots, but neither the officer nor Ross was injured.

“It’s extremely rare to come across an individual who has such a disregard for life,” said Acting Deputy Chief Zachary O’Lare of the Prince George’s County Police Department.

And yet, authorities have come across Ross on several occasions over the past few years. In 2017 Ross was convicted as a juvenile for an armed robbery and according to WUSA-TV served five years in juvenile custody before he was released last year. Shortly after, and while he was still on probation for that earlier crime, D.C. police caught Ross with a pistol, only to see the resulting charges dropped by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

D.C. Superior Court records show Ross was arrested on Aug. 11, 2022 on multiple charges for allegedly carrying a handgun despite his felony conviction. According to an affidavit, Ross allegedly had a “wide-eyed stare” when he saw officers while walking in the 1400 block of Congress Place SE and then took off running while grabbing his waist band. Officers chased him, during which Ross allegedly pulled out a black handgun and threw it on the ground. Ross was taken into custody shortly thereafter and the gun was determined to be a Taurus G3 9mm with 13 rounds of ammunition.

Ross was charged with being a felon in possession, carrying a pistol without a license, possession of an unregistered firearm, possession of unregistered ammunition, altering identification marks of a weapon and possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia dropped all of those charges two months later, however, after Ross’ public defender filed motions challenging the constitutionality of the search under the Fourth Amendment and of the charges under the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which established a new “historical tradition” test for evaluating firearm regulations.

The U.S. Attorney’s office didn’t drop the charges because of the Bruen decision, even if that’s one of the reasons Ross’s public defender gave for why the case against their client should be dismissed. Biden’s DOJ contends that only “law-abiding citizens” have any right to keep and bear arms and have continued prosecuting prohibited persons cases even after the Bruen decision was handed down, so I don’t see how Bruen would have had any impact on the charging decision here.

Instead, as writer Matthew Yglesias recently highlighted, D.C. courts are throwing out a surprising number of prosecutions for firearm-related offenses on Fourth Amendment grounds; an issue that Ross’s public defender also raised last year. Yglesias pointed out a case decided in April called T.W. v. United States that seems to bear a close resemblance to the circumstances of Ross’s arrest. From the decision:

T.W. raised his hands in the air upon seeing the two officers exit the front vehicle. Ewing asked T.W. whether he had a gun on him, and T.W. responded no. Ewing and Gendelman continued approaching T.W. from each side, and Ewing asked “You sure?” to which T.W. replied, “Yeah, I’m positive.” Gendelman then asked, “I can pat you down just to make sure?” T.W. said “Yeah,” and Gendelman responded, “My man,” as he began to pat T.W. down. Gendelman found a gun in T.W.’s waistband. The encounter lasted about ten seconds from when the first officers exited their vehicle to when the pat-down search began, and it took just about another five seconds for the officers to find the gun on T.W. He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license, possession of an unregistered firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and possession of a large-capacity ammunition- feeding device.

Before trial, T.W. moved to suppress the gun, its magazine, and its ammunition. He argued that he was unlawfully seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment when he consented to a pat-down search, and that his consent was the fruit of the illegal seizure. During a hearing on his motion to suppress, T.W. testified that he was “scared and nervous,” never having been arrested before, and did not think he could say “no” to Gendelman’s pat-down request. Asked why not, T.W. responded, “Because of how they came up on me. I felt like I couldn’t walk away.” T.W. further highlighted his youth (21 years old at the time), his “complete lack of experience” with police, “and the fact that he was confronted by multiple officers” who “essentially jumped out on [him] and immediately began asking accusatory questions.”

As Yglesias points out, a jury convicted T.W. at trial, but the D.C. Court of Appeals reversed that conviction on the grounds that the tactics used by police violated T.W.’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Did the USAO believe that was likely going to be the end result of prosecuting Daeyon Ross for being a violent felon in illegal possession of a firearm? If so, it would indicate that this problem has been going on for quite some time in the District, given that Ross’s charges were dropped last year, and T.W.’s case was only reversed a few months ago.

So far the DOJ isn’t talking about why the U.S. Attorney made the decision to drop all of the gun charges Ross was facing last year, but I’m not sure that there’s an answer that’s going to be acceptable. A violent felon was allegedly found in possession of a loaded gun just a short time after being released from custody, and DOJ ultimately took a pass on providing any consequences for that crime. Less than a year later Ross is now charged with first-degree murder, armed carjacking, and even cruelty to animals for shooting two dogs in the second vehicle that he stole at gunpoint.

While Joe Biden is demanding new gun laws aimed at peaceable gun owners his own DOJ is turning down the chance to prosecute repeat offenders; something to keep in mind the next time the president calls for a gun ban, a crackdown on firearms manufacturers, or other infringements on our right to protect ourselves from the violent offenders the Department of Justice are letting go.

Democrat Rep. Has Psychotic Meltdown – Calls Supreme Court “Illegitimate White Patriarchy”

The separation of the political left from any sort of reasonable governance has been obvious for years now. To put it simply, they see the government as their personal weapon for deconstructing the country so they can rebuild society the way they want. They believe this is their right – The right of the collective to socially engineer

The notion that elements of the government might serve the interests of conservatives and independents is an unthinkable heresy. And, whenever they don’t get exactly what they want from the government (which is rare) they immediately act as if they have been betrayed; that an “insurrection” is afoot to enslave them.

This attitude seems to overlook the fact that every major institution in the US has been catering to the far-left for decades. Even when GOP Republicans have taken a majority in the House, the Senate or put their man in the Oval Office, the general legislative trend has always taken a progressive direction, to the point that America has become increasingly more socialist in its functions. It’s also the reason why America has become economically and socially unstable.

In truth, leftists have been getting what they want from governments and the corporate world for so long they have become utterly entitled, like spoiled children.

That’s the kind of sad energy we now see on display among Democrats in the face of multiple Supreme Court losses, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the blocking of Biden’s student loan relief program and the end of affirmative action on college campuses. All these court decisions really amount to is a reversal of entitlements that never should have existed in the first place. Leftists see such entitlements as “civil rights,” never mind that they exist as a means to take the rights of others.

Democrat Representative Jaamal Bowman echos this ideology, combining it with a tired and psychotic rant about “white patriarchy” being the core function of the Supreme Court.

The message? It’s complicated because it’s unhinged, but at bottom the far-left wants to fundamentally change the very fabric of the government so that it always acts in their favor regardless of who else is trampled in the process. Let’s try to break down Bowman’s claims…

Playing the racism card is the Democrat go-to tactic for a reason. The primary purpose is to incite civil unrest as a tool for control – “Give us what we want or the cities will burn.” The secondary purpose is to declare ownership of minorities. The propaganda acts as if all minorities are a monolith that serves the aims of the political left. The idea that minorities might also be conservative is ignored.

Affirmative action has always been a racist policy; it allows institutions to actively discriminate based on skin color and ethnicity. Interestingly, white people are not the most affected by affirmative action on college campuses; Asian people are the most discriminated against, with double standards in testing and academic excellence designed to keep them out of the classrooms. According to research from Princeton University, students who identify as Asian must score 140 points higher on the SAT than whites and 450 points higher than Blacks to have the same chance of admission to private colleges.

The notion of a constitutional convention has already been cited by other Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom as a means to dismantle the 2nd Amendment, but Bowman seems to be suggesting a convention to completely upend the Supreme Court and the very foundations of the law. Keep in mind that Democrats have avidly defended the court structure when it works in their favor, but since the court is finally operating on a more constitutional framework they argue it is now corrupt and white supremacist.

Student loan debt relief is nothing more than a way for Dems to buy votes – “Put us in office and we will eliminate the debts you accrued getting that degree that was probably useless.” Of course, taxpaying Americans would have to cover the bill for debt forgiveness on college loans, not the Democratic Party. It’s rather brilliant when you think about it – Democrats use your money to buy votes to keep themselves in office so they can continue to erode your constitutional rights. You pay for your own oppression.

People should have to pay for their own debts. Taxpayers should not have to pay their debts for them. It teaches a terrible lesson to the next generation that if they make mistakes the government will make sure they don’t have to learn from those mistakes.

Finally, it’s not surprising that Bowman attacks expanded gun rights in his diatribe on affirmative action, given that the political left cannot maintain power unless the public is eventually disarmed. Leftists believe in majority rule, as long as they are the majority. If they are the minority, they riot. If they are the majority, they demand government suppress their political opponents. In either case, gun rights stand as a major obstacle to them.

It was only a couple years ago that establishment elites and Democrats were pushing for permanent covid mandates, jail time for those who spread information contrary to the government narrative and economic discrimination for anyone who refused to take the vaccines. The political left took the mask off completely and showed who they really are. They cannot be trusted to rewrite or rebuild core government structures.

Their hatred of the Supreme Court is not based on any legitimate grievances, it’s based on how they view power. The court is a center of power that does not always act according to the dictates of social justice Marxism. They see the court as just another “platform” that needs to be co-opted.

Many conservatives and moderates also have concerns about how the Supreme Court makes decisions, but one cannot deny the constitutional logic behind their recent rulings. It’s a shift that should have happened a long time ago, though it is happening in an era in which leftists see ideological deviation as treason. They will use every trick at their disposal to undermine the law and create double standards to their benefit. Bowman essentially admits that this is the plan.

Tell Me This Is Not Retribution!

Michael Cargill is the owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin. He is also the plaintiff in Cargill v. Garland which successfully challenged the BATFE’s ban on bump stocks. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found for Cargill in an en banc appeal in January. The US Justice Department appealed that decision to the Supreme Court and is seeking a writ of certiorari.

With that as a background, I find the following full blown audit of Central Texas Gun Works by BATFE inspectors as rather suspicious.

It would be hard to convince me that this is a normal routine inspection and not an effort at retribution by the Justice Department and their henchmen at BATFE. Given the Biden Administration’s new policy of “zero tolerance”, one is left to wonder if they are not seeking a way – anyway! – to put Cargill out of business. I don’t think two misspellings of the city name “Austin” are worthy of it but one never knows with the BATFE.

As with the IRS raid on a gun store in Montana, I think it is time for publicity by the representatives and senators from Texas. While the representative who covers the district where the store is located, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX-37), is an anti-gun tool in the pockets of the Demanding Moms, Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) need to step up and start asking questions.

If you are a Texan reading this, call Cruz and Cornyn and demand they get answers. Being an out-of-stater they don’t have to listen to me but they sure need to listen to a constituent.