BLUF
….the only person Biden is trying to save with this rhetoric is himself.

Gun Control Is Joe Biden’s Safe Space
With more economic problems looming, the president returns to an old favorite.

When things are going poorly, Joe Biden usually heads out for another gun-control push, issuing executive orders, demanding more legislation, and repeating many of his most preposterous anecdotes and claims. Because Biden’s gun rhetoric offers little more than emotionalism, it doesn’t have to make much sense — which, of course, plays to his greatest strength.

During the spring and summer of 2022, when inflation kept hitting new 40-year highs, Biden gave one cynical speech on gun violence after the next. This week, as the banking system yawned under the weight of his reckless policies, Biden was in Monterey Park, where 11 people were murdered by a 72-year-old lunatic during last year’s Lunar New Year celebration, to demand Congress pass more laws.

Obviously, it’s all meant to be a distraction. But it also needs to be debunked.

Here is CBS News giving the White House the lead it was looking for:

President Biden issued an executive order on Tuesday that aims to increase the number of background checks to buy guns, promote better and more secure firearms storage and ensure U.S. law enforcement agencies are getting the most out of a bipartisan gun control law enacted last summer.

Biden’s executive order will direct U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to increase background checks by “cracking down on gun sellers who don’t perform them when required.” This is already the law, and there’s no evidence of any widespread problem with licensed gun sellers circumventing checks to illegally sell firearms to criminals.

Even if gun dealers were a bunch of disreputable characters, it makes little sense for them to risk their businesses when a healthy market for legal guns exists. But it is true that occasionally, as happened with the Charleston Church shooter, law enforcement doesn’t do its job. So maybe Biden should sign an executive order demanding the FBI try harder.

The attorney general is free to crack down on criminals whenever he pleases. Biden’s executive orders feed the false perception that more background checks would lead to less violence. Biden admits in his speech that goal of his new EO is “moving us as close as we can to universal background checks without new legislation.”

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‘THAT’S A LIE:’ Janet Yellen Faces Grilling Before Senate Finance Committee.

Salient point

Biden’s refusal to work with lawmakers was brought up again by Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) on the issue of protecting the solvency of Social Security. Yellen tried to insist that Biden “cares very deeply” about the program, but couldn’t explain any of his actions to back up that claim. Instead, Yellen insisted Biden “stands ready to work with Congress.”

“That’s a lie,” Cassidy pointed out, as lawmakers have tried to meet with Biden on the subject to no avail.

It’s unsurprising that Biden doesn’t have a plan to address Social Security or negotiate a debt ceiling increase, considering his previous failures. From the Afghanistan withdrawal to declaring “independence” from COVID in 2021, Biden’s plans, when he does have them, don’t end any better.

 

 

18-year-old shot while trying to steal car; stray bullet hits nearby home in Tacony

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — An 18-year-old suspect was shot multiple times while trying to steal a car in Philadelphia’s Tacony section.

It happened around 3:30 p.m. Thursday on the 4400 block of Princeton Avenue.

Police say the 18-year-old and another suspect were in the process of stealing a Toyota Corolla, but the 26-year-old owner came outside.

That’s when a gun battle erupted on the residential street.

“I heard a few gunshots and then I heard more gunshots. And it was close to my window. So I jumped on the ground and then I heard my neighbors screaming,” said one resident.

The 18-year-old was shot four times and tried to run away. He made it to the 7100 block of Cottage Street before collapsing on the pavement.

“They found a handgun that the 18-year-old had in his possession and was firing at the 26-year-old that came out,” police said.

The suspect was taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital and placed in critical condition.

Police say the other suspect was able to take off in the Toyota Corolla but crashed the vehicle into a nearby Jeep during the escape.

The Jeep belongs to the man who lives on the block. His home was hit by stray gunfire during the shootout.

He didn’t want to speak on camera but says the bullet flew past his head as he worked in his office.

Neighbors are shaken up by such a brazen crime right in the middle of the day.

“I just said, we have to police our own neighborhood at this point because no one else is going to do it for us. It’s a shame,” said Stephanie Dina of Tacony.

The car owner who fired the weapon was licensed to carry, police said.

No other injuries were reported. The second suspect was able to get away.

March 17

180 – Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius dies, age 58 at Vindobona, province of Pannonia Superior, modern day Vienna Austria.

1776 – During the Revolutionary War, the British Army evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

1942 – The NAZI death camp near Belzec Poland opens for business. By the time camp is closed in mid 1943 an estimated 500,000 Jews are murdered there.

1945 – 10 days after being taken by troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Division, the Ludendorff Bridge crossing the Rhine river at Remagen, Germany, collapses, killing 28 U.S. Army engineers.

1958 – The U.S. launches Vanguard-1, the first solar powered satellite, which is also the first satellite to achieve a long term orbit, still in orbit to this day.

1960 – President Eisenhower signs a National Security Council directive for an anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

1966 – Off the coast of Palomares, Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds the missing  hydrogen bomb dropped by a B-52 bomber after its midair collision on January 17.

1968 – As a result of open air nerve gas testing at the Dugway Proving Ground in southwest Utah, over 6,000 sheep are killed in Skull Valley, Utah, around 27 miles east of the testing site.

1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.

1985 –  Richard Ramirez, aka the serial killer “Night Stalker”, commits the first 2 murders in his Los Angeles murder spree.

1988 – Colombian airlines Avianca Flight 410A, a Boeing 727, crashes into a mountainside shortly after takeoff from Camilo Daza International Airport in Cúcuta, killing all 143 passengers and crew aboard.

2000 – In Kanungu, Uganda, after the prophesied date of January 1 passes and second revised date of the Apocalypse arrives without it occurring as well, most of the leaders of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God kill themselves and over 500 members of the group by locking themselves in the church building and setting it afire.

The Impact of Liberalized Concealed Carry Laws on Homicide: An Assessment

This paper uses panel data from 1980 to 2018 in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia to examine the relationship between liberalized concealed carry laws, homicide, and firearm homicide…. The relationship between shall-issue and constitutional carry laws and homicide were statistically insignificant at the 1%, 5%, and even 10% level. The results were robust to multiple alternative model specifications. We find no evidence that looser concealed carry laws pose a significant public health or criminological risk.

SSRN-id4368641

Astroturf group pwning themselves

Pistol purchase permit repeal headed to North Carolina governor

When SB 41 is delivered to Gov. Roy Cooper, he’s probably going to send it right back to the legislature, but the chances of a veto override appear to be pretty strong at the moment, at least if the bipartisan coalition that approved the bill sticks together.

SB 41 doesn’t just scrap the state’s pistol purchase permit system, which was put in place back in 1919. It also changes state law to allow licensed concealed carry holders to lawfully bear arms in churches and other religious services held in private or charter school settings. Cooper has vetoed similar bills in the past, but thanks to legislative victories last November Second Amendment supporters should have the votes to turn the bills into law over his objections.

The proposal would make it so sheriffs no longer have to perform evaluations of an applicant’s character and mental wellness before they can purchase a handgun. Supporters of the bill say the permit requirement has become duplicative in light of digitized mental health records and thorough updates to the national background check system. Rep. Jeff McNeely, an Iredell County Republican, said it would streamline the process for law-abiding gun buyers.

“It just allows everybody, every citizen in the state of North Carolina, to have their constitutional right granted to them so that they can protect their self,” McNeely said.

While people who buy from a gun store or a licensed dealer would still be subject to a national background check, Democrats raised alarms again Wednesday that background checks are not required for private exchanges between two individuals. Private sales only require buyers to obtain a sheriff-issued permit, or face a misdemeanor charge.

Rep. Pricey Harrison of Guilford County said the repeal would create a loophole that could enable dangerous individuals and those with mental health issues to more easily obtain weapons.

“The sheriffs know best back home who should and should not be carrying a pistol,” Harrison said during floor debate. “There’s so much more we could be doing about keeping our communities safe. But unleashing and letting access to guns to individuals who absolutely pose a danger to themselves and others is a real problem.”

Violent actors are not strolling in to their local sheriff’s office to apply for permission to purchase a handgun. They’re getting their guns through theft and the illicit market, or perhaps through a straw purchase involving someone who has obtained a permit-to-purchase.

At the same time, folks who want to stay inside the law are forced to satisfy the arbitrary and subjective concerns of their county sheriff before they can exercise a fundamental right. This law has been abused throughout its time on the books, and as Grassroots NC’s Paul Valone has pointed out, while the law may not have been explicitly racist in its language, in practice it has been used to deny many black North Carolinians access to their right to armed self-defense.

Following race riots in East St. Louis in 1917, both Missouri and North Carolina quickly passed handgun “permit to purchase” (P2P) laws. (3) Although North Carolina’s version has changed since passage in 1919, permits were originally issued by Clerks of Superior Court, who were required to satisfy themselves of the “good moral character” of the applicant – a measure which scholar Clayton Cramer suggests may have been “a euphemism to hide something that even in 1919 would have been an embarrassment…”

Cramer goes on to say, “…race has often been at the heart of gun control laws, and while there are no ‘smoking gun’ quotes with respect to P2P, there are some pieces of circumstantial evidence that suggest that the law was intended to be enforced in a racially discriminatory manner.”

Indeed, newspaper clippings from the era suggest about how the P2P law was enforced. Said a December 31, 1930 Durham Sun headline: “Pistol Permits Issued to Many: 450 Citizens Received Permission Since 1919; Mostly Whites” [emphasis added]. It goes on to explain, “A total of 450 permits to purchase pistols have been issued to Durham citizens since 1919, according to records kept in the office of clerk of superior court. Few permits were issued to Negroes, the records show, the issuance being restricted almost entirely to white persons [emphasis added].

An April 1, 1920 piece in the Rockingham Post-Dispatch – just months after the P2P law took effect – published the name and race of people who got permits, such as this one: “July 19 – Alex Wall, colored, age 46” [emphasis added]. Cramer found two clippings from Winston-Salem – one in which 14 of 15 defendants charged with carrying concealed weapons were described as “colored” and another in which 19 of 20 defendants are described as “colored.”

Supporters of the pistol purchase permit have alternately tried to argue that the law was never really a part of Jim Crow, or that if it was racially discriminatory in practice in the past that’s no longer the case today, but research has shown that in Wake County black applicants are still almost three times as likely to be denied a permit than white applicants. That might not be proof of racial discrimination, but it’s definitely cause for concern.

On paper, the votes to override Gov. Cooper’s expected veto are there, but there’ll be enormous pressure on the handful of Democratic lawmakers who supported SB 41 to reverse course and back Cooper’s veto during an override session. North Carolina’s gun owners have done a fantastic job of communicating with legislators and keeping up the pressure to support SB 41 so far, but there’s a little more work to be done before they can be assured of victory.

Altman [former Secretary of the Treasury]: Biden Is Effectively Nationalizing The Deposit Base Of The Entire U.S. Financial System.

“They have guaranteed the entire deposit base of the U.S. financial system,” Roger Altman, who served as deputy treasury secretary in the Carter and Clinton administrations, told CNN on Tuesday morning.

“I didn’t say it has been nationalized. I said they are verging on that because they have guaranteed the entire deposit base,” he clarified.

ROGER ALTMAN: Well, the term “bailout” is, obviously, a loaded one. And it’s in the eye of the beholder. It’s like one person sees something and thinks it is a catastrophe, and another person sees the same thing and thinks it’s a small accident.

But the main point here is that the rescues of 2008 and 2009 which we all remember so vividly became ferociously unpopular, one of the most unpopular things that the federal government has done in 50 or 100 years. Many people think they led to the growth of the Tea Party and the growth of the MAGA movement, and so forth. And therefore, the administration today doesn’t want to get within 100 miles of that term “bailout.”

Now, what the authorities did over the weekend was absolutely profound. They guaranteed the deposits, all of them, at Silicon Valley Bank. And what that really means, and they won’t say it, and I’ll come back to that, what that really means is that they have guaranteed the entire deposit base of the U.S. financial system, the entire deposit base. Why? Because you can’t guarantee all the deposits in Silicon Valley Bank and then the next day say to the depositors, say at First Republic, sorry, yours aren’t guaranteed. Of course, they are.

And so this is a breathtaking step, which effectively nationalizes or federalizes the deposit base of the U.S. financial system. You can call it a bailout, you can call it something else, but it’s really absolutely profound.

Now, the authorities, including the White House, are not going to say that, because what I just said of course implies that they have just nationalized the banking system. And technically speaking, they haven’t. But in a broad sense, they are verging on that.

By the way, the shareholders in Silicon Valley Bank, obviously, lost all their money. And therefore, if you are a shareholder at First Republic or some of the other banks that you showed on your screen a few minutes ago, you are concerned because you saw that at Silicon Valley Bank the shareholders were wiped out. But the depositors at those institutions have nothing to worry about because they have just been guaranteed.

COLLINS: It is a remarkable statement to hear you say that you believe the U.S. banking system has been nationalized because of this.

ALTMAN: Well, no. I didn’t say it has been nationalized. I said they are verging on that because they have guaranteed the entire deposit base. Usually, the term “nationalization” means that the government takes over the institution and runs it and the government owns it. That would be the type of nationalization we have seen in many other countries around the world. Obviously, that did not happen here. When you guarantee the entire deposit base, you have put the federal government and the taxpayer in a much different place in terms of protection than we were in a week ago.

Critical Defense Skills: There’s more to self-defense than simply carrying a handgun.

Every once in a while, I run Into something that just makes me cringe, and that’s the person who says, “Well, I just bought a gun and a box of bullets, so I’m good to go—after I figure out how to load this thing.”  Whether he or she knows it or not, that person sure is depending on having a lot of good luck when facing bad guys. They may not know that owning a gun doesn’t make them an automatic winner. Developing useful defensive skills is something that we all have to work at, and there are three major areas that require our continual attention.

The first of these is marksmanship, the ability to hit a target. Now, I’m not talking about that once-in-a-while lucky shot that all of us have made at one time or another. I’m talking about the ability to hit what we are shooting at on a regular basis, on demand. It requires the combination of correct sight picture, breath control and trigger press. And, in a defensive situation all of that has to be done in an almighty hurry.

Another thing to remember is that shooting, like all hand-eye coordination movements, is a quickly diminishing skill. If we don’t practice it, we lose it. Under the pressure created by a violent threat, we will most likely not perform as well as we did in practice. What that means is, if we are hitting exactly right 90 percent of the time in practice, we may only do the same in an actual gunfight about 50 to 60 percent of the time. Even a person who is really serious about regular practice can be expected to drop about 10 percent.

The second critical skill to work on is gun handling, which covers a number of abilities, not the least of which is gun safety. Those of us who are your neighbors have the right to demand that you do so. If lightning strikes your handgun in such a way as to make it go off, that is an accident; just about everything else is a negligent discharge. And there is never a good excuse for a negligent discharge.

Gun handling also involves developing the skill to make a smooth, fast pistol presentation—one without any wasted motion. Once the fight starts, that holstered gun isn’t doing anyone any good. When we work for smoothness and lack of wasted motion, speed will eventually come.

Regardless of what kind of gun the armed citizen chooses, he or she should know what the potential malfunctions are and how to deal with them. Different types of guns are subject to different problems.

A failure to feed is different from a double feed, and both are different from a revolver that has a cylinder frozen in place. A person should not only know what to expect and how to correct it, but he or she should also know how to properly maintain their chosen gun(s) so as to minimize the chance of a malfunction.

Another aspect of gun handling is the ability to reload quickly. Although the need to reload rarely occurs in citizen-involved shootings, one would not want to be the exception to the rule. And, it is not just a matter of reloading the gun, but to do it quickly and smoothly while keeping an eye on what is going on. Good training and lots of practice are the keys to developing good gun-handling skills.

The third area of critical defensive skills is making yourself a harder target. It is important to know what is going on around you. None of us are as aware as we should be or could be. If we see the threat way over there, we have a lot of options as to how we will deal with it, including just getting away. On the other hand, if we look up and the threat is right in our face, our options have diminished considerably. Some people look but don’t actually see, and that can cause some really serious problems.

It is also important to educate one’s self about criminals and what they actually do. What actually happens during a home invasion, carjacking or armed robbery?  What are the telltale signs we should be looking for?  It might be a good idea to start using the NRA’s Armed Citizen column (on page 10 of this issue) as a study guide.

Personal defense is a lifestyle, not a hobby. On-the-job training is not a good way to deal with a criminal attack. When we continually work to improve our ability to truly defend ourselves we can better control the stress that comes from a violent criminal attack and have a better idea of how to deal with it. Working on these three skills—what Jeff Cooper called the Combat Triad—is the path to success and safety.

March 16

1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan tribal Sagamore, makes the first visit to the settlers of Plymouth Colony, surprising them when he greets them using the English he had learned from fishermen that sailed along the coast.

1802 – The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.

1916 – U.S. General John J. Pershing commanding the 7th and 10th US Cavalry regiments, crosses the border into Mexico to command the campaign against Pancho Villa.

1926 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1935 – Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.

1945 – On Iwo Jima, after 23 days of continuous combat, organized Japanese resistance ends, but small pockets of soldiers still fight on for a short time.

1962 – Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a Lockheed Super Constellation, on a charter flight for the U.S. military to the Philippines, disappears in the western Pacific Ocean after a refueling stop on Guam, with all 107 passengers and crew aboard missing and presumed dead.

1966 – Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott, aboard Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first mission to dock with an Agena Target Vehicle, launch from Cape Kennedy, Florida.

1968 – At Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khê hamlets of Sơn Mỹ village in Quảng Ngãi Province, Republic of Vietnam, between 300 and 500 men, women, and children are killed by U.S. troops of the 23rd Infantry Division before being stopped by other U.S. troops.

1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Lebanon, is kidnapped by Hezbollah.

1985 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut.

1988 – U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States as part of the Iran–Contra affair.

1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment which was officially ratified in 1865.

2003 – Pro-Palestinian American activist Rachel Corrie is run over and killed by a bulldozer while trying stop the demolition of a house in Rafah, Gaza Strip, used as a tunnel entrance for terrorists to enter Israel.

2020 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 2,997.10, the single largest point drop in history and the second largest percentage drop ever at 12.93%, an even greater crash than Black Monday of 1929 following the U.S. Federal Reserve announcing that it will cut its target interest rate to 0–0.25%.

2021 – Robert Aaron Long shoots and kills 8 people and wounds another in attacks on 3 different spas in and around Atlanta, Georgia. At trial he pleads guilty and is sentenced to life without parole.

Democratic Senators Want Treasury, DOJ to Push for Gun Store Credit Card Code

Democratic boosters of the effort to attach a unique credit card code to gun stores are seeking new help from the federal government.

On Wednesday, a coalition of fourteen U.S. Senators sent a letter to federal regulators urging them to issue guidance for credit card companies to implement a new merchant category code (MCC) for gun stores. The letter, spearheaded by Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), specifically asked the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to establish procedures for using the MCC to “identify and report potentially illegal gun sales to law enforcement.”

“Financial firms are already obligated to report suspicious transactions connected with a range of illegal activities,” the letter reads. “Implementation of the new MCC code could provide banks with key insight to identify suspicious patterns of firearm and ammunition purchases, which could potentially help law enforcement preempt mass shootings.”

The letter signals that the political fight over gun store MCC codes is far from over. It arrives on the heels of the decision last week by several of the country’s largest credit card processors to “pause” plans to implement a new MCC for gun and ammunition stores. The companies said they were concerned over backlash to the plan, including pending legislation in various states that would discourage or outright ban the use of MCC codes for gun stores.

In a press release unveiling the letter, the senators acknowledged the course reversal of the major credit card companies. They blamed “Republican-led states” for the shift. They said, “credit card companies have a responsibility to push forward, and Treasury and DOJ should provide them, and other financial institutions, with the proper tools for implementation in a timely manner.”

In support of their ongoing efforts, the Senators cited a 2018 New York Times article that found the majority of mass shooters between 2007 and 2018 used credit or debit cards to purchase the guns and ammunition used in their attacks. That article is widely credited with popularizing the theory behind using MCC codes to flag “suspicious” gun purchases for law enforcement.

Critics of the code, including gun-rights advocates and many top Republican lawmakers, have charged that a special gun store MCC would unfairly target gun owners and could raise consumer privacy risks.

Meanwhile, the major credit card companies have poured cold water on the idea of gleaning data from MCC codes that could be used to flag “suspicious” gun purchases. Despite initially agreeing to implement the gun store MCC code, Visa noted that it could not be used to identify the types of products actually purchased in a particular store.

“MCCs do not give Visa or any other payment network visibility into product-level data, also known as ‘SKU-level’ data,” the company said. “When we process a transaction, we have no visibility into what items a consumer is purchasing — this is true irrespective of which MCC applies to a merchant.”

Visa also attempted to distance itself from the idea of keeping tabs on its customers’ shopping habits.

“We do not believe private companies should serve as moral arbiters,” the company added. “Asking private companies to decide what legal products or services can or cannot be bought and from what store sets a dangerous precedent. Further, it would be an invasion of consumers’ privacy for banks and payment networks to know each of our most personal purchasing habits.”

Other senators who signed the letter include Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.).

Biden’s Plan To Unilaterally Expand Background Checks for Gun Buyers Is Legally and Logically Dubious
The president wants to redefine federally licensed gun dealers in service of an ineffective anti-crime strategy.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday issued an executive order that the White House says will move federal regulation of gun sales “as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.” The order relies on a legally contentious redefinition of who qualifies as a gun “dealer” and therefore must obtain a federal license and comply with related rules, including customer background checks.

Federal law defines a gun dealer as someone who is “engaged in the business of selling firearms,” which until last year was defined as “devot[ing] time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms.” The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act excised “with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” and replaced it with “to predominantly earn a profit.”

As the Congressional Research Service explains, that change was “intended to require persons who buy and resell firearms repetitively for profit to be licensed federally as gun dealers, even if they do not do so with ‘the principal objective of livelihood.'” According to the amendment’s supporters, “there was confusion” about whether the definition of “engaged in the business” covered “individuals who bought and resold firearms repetitively for profit, but possibly not as the principal source of their livelihood.” The statutory definition still explicitly excludes “a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.”

Biden’s order does not say exactly how he intends to expand the number of people who are classified as dealers. Instead it instructs Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose department includes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), to “clarify the definition of who is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms.” Garland may do that through “rulemaking, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.”

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Mark Kelly Wastes No Time Revealing Himself to Be a Nightmare

Kelly was able to sneak into a full term by essentially hiding under Kyrsten Sinema’s skirts for the first two years, doing nothing to call attention to himself. Conservatives here knew that there was a gun-grabbing nightmare just waiting to bust out if he was given six years.

Well, his first move wasn’t against the Second Amendment; it was even creepier.

Mr. Green covered it yesterday in his weekly Insanity Wrap:

Red-pilled California activist Michael Shellenberger’s Public substack grabbed an exclusive on Monday about a weekend conference call concerning the SVB bailout. There, Kelly “asked representatives from the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, and the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation (FDIC) if they had a way to censor information on social media to prevent a run on the banks.”

Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie was also on the call and told Public, “I believe he couched it in a concern that foreign actors would be doing this but he didn’t suggest the censorship should be limited to foreigners or to things that were untrue.”

So the way Kelly sees it, Americans sharing facts are a danger. This guy ran as a moderate — and got away with it, too.

Moderately fascist, maybe?

Despite the fact that he’s an astronaut, Kelly never comes off as being terribly bright. Asking something that stupid on a call with that many people would certainly indicate that he doesn’t function at a high level outside of the International Space Station. And, as Massie pointed out, Kelly didn’t even bother to cover his intentions in any nuance.

Stephen mentions that no one really addressed Kelly’s question — most likely because they were so stunned by his audacity and/or stupidity. It would be nice to think that Kelly would learn something from that, but that’s probably not going to happen. Kelly is such an egomaniacal little jerk that he’ll more than likely be emboldened by this.

That means Gun Grabber Kelly is sure to show up sometime soon. That’s not going to work out for him here like he hopes it will. Arizona may have started bleeding purple lately (we’re still pretty red in the House), but this is still a gun state. A fairly bipartisan gun state, in fact. Most of my liberal friends here have guns.

Why Kelly decided to try and become an anti-2A crusader in Arizona is beyond me. He’s a carpetbagger here, he could have done the same thing in a blue gun-hating state.

Again, he’s not that bright. That’s what makes him dangerous.

BACKDOOR UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS INCOMING

Despite GOA Warnings, Republicans Helped the Biden Administration Implement Backdoor UBCs

President Biden just announced that he would be mandating backdoor UBCs or “as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.”[i] His claimed “authority” comes from Section 12002 of the Cornyn-Murphy Compromise.[ii] According to the White House:

Specifically, the President is directing the Attorney General to move the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation by clarifying, as appropriate, the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms, as updated by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.[iii]

Unfortunately, Gun Owners of America has been expecting this since the passage of the unconstitutional compromise on gun rights known as Cornyn-Murphy, or the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. GOA warned:

Expanding the definition of FFLs (Federal Firearms Licenses) could require anyone who sells more than one gun to do so through an FFL, resulting in a backdoor mechanism for universal background registration checks—just as the Obama Administration attempted.[iv]

Nevertheless, Congress, including 15 Senate GOP, rushed to “compromise” our gun rights away with hastily-written, secretly-negotiated legislation.[v]

Senator Cornyn’s Definition of “Engaged in the Business” Led Directly to Backdoor Universal Background Checks

Prior to Senate Republicans’ compromise, the legal definition of a Federal Firearms License (FFL) Gun Dealer read as follows:[vi]

The term “dealer” means (A) any person engaged in the business of selling firearms at wholesale or retail, (B) any person engaged in the business[vii] of repairing firearms or of making or fitting special barrels, stocks, or trigger mechanisms to firearms, or (C) any person who is a pawnbroker.

Anyone “engaged in the business” must have a license to deal in firearms, but law-abiding citizen’s private transfers were not included in this 53-year-old definition. The definition of a Federal Firearms License (FFL) was a critical boundary between the mandatory background checks performed during commercial gun sales and law-abiding private transfers and sales that take place daily in more than half of the United States. But Cornyn-Murphy added this foolish clarification, which the Biden Administration now proposes to weaponize:

The term `to predominantly earn a profit’ means that the intent underlying the sale or disposition of firearms is predominantly one of obtaining pecuniary gain, as opposed to other intents, such as improving or liquidating a personal firearms collection

Not only that, but this asinine definition even “Provided, That proof of profit shall not be required” for a violation—making President Biden’s backdoor Universal Background Check scheme even easier! Expanding the statutory definition of FFLs (Federal Firearms Licenses) allowed the Biden Administration a strong excuse to vastly expand federal regulations and require anyone who sells more than one gun to do so through an FFL, resulting in a backdoor mechanism for universal background registration checks—just as the Obama Administration attempted.[viii]

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Remember: ‘Feminists’ did this to themselves
(Makes you wonder who women’s real enemies are)

It’s the End of Women’s Colleges as We Know It, and You Know Why.Cartoon Guy Laughing And Pointing Stock Photo - Image: 31869170

Wellesley College, an all-women’s school that has long prided itself as a place for “women who will make a difference in the world,” has truly lost the plot.  Currently, the school’s policy is that students who were “assigned female at birth who identify as men are not eligible for admission,” but students who were “assigned male at birth who identify as women are eligible for admission.”

So, in reality, Wellesley hasn’t truly been an all-women’s college since 2015, when it last updated its policy to accept applications from biological males who identify as women. But even that policy allowing biological men to attend wasn’t woke enough for the student body, which, on Tuesday, voted in support of a non-binding resolution to allow “trans men and nonbinary people who were assigned male at birth” to be admitted as students.

In addition to advocating for the admission of “nonbinary” and transgender students, the referendum also proposed implementing gender-inclusive language in the college’s communication. This would involve replacing so-called gendered terms such as “women” with gender-neutral alternatives like “students” or “alumni.”

According to a report from The Wellesley News, “The purpose behind a ballot question is to demonstrate how much support it garners among the student body. If a ballot question gains enough support from the student body, it could influence decisions the College Board of Trustees makes.”

But even if you believed that Wellesley was still an all-women’s college when it allowed males “identifying” as women, how can it continue to claim to be such when it will allow women who identify as men, or so-called “nonbinary” students, to attend? If the school abides by radical leftist gender ideology, trans men are men, and if they are men, you can’t claim to be an all-women’s school, can you? On top of that, if the school does allow “trans men” to attend, then why not just drop all pretense of being a single-sex school and allow biological men who don’t identify as transgender to apply to the school? If you’re going to allow men who “identify” as women, and women who “identify” as men to apply, why not include men who don’t suffer from gender dysphoria?

Women’s colleges have a long and rich history of providing education and opportunities for women, who were once excluded from higher education institutions. Sadly, there are only a small number left in the United States, and thanks to the transgender cult, I suspect it won’t be long before all women’s colleges are gone.