Category: Crap For Brains
Petaluma, CA Council Requires Gun Lock-up
The City of Petaluma, California has adopted a requirement that all firearms within the city limits must be disabled with a locking device or placed in a locked container inside the home.
But, is that constitutional under a landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller? On Page 58 of that ruling, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”
According to Petaluma360, the ordinance was passed unanimously this week. The story quoted Deputy Police Chief Brian Miller, who asserted, “Ultimately (the ordinance) makes owners of firearms be more responsible and accountable for their weapons.”
However, the story noted skeptics say the ordinance is unenforceable. The quick access for self-defense issue was also raised.
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that Petaluma City Manager Peggy Flynn responded to critics by pointing to a study done by Everytown for Gun Safety. She also asserted that this ordinance will give police “another tool when they respond to domestic violence cases or other situations where PPD enters homes and view a firearm not being properly stored.”
Still, the requirement appears ripe for a court challenge, using language from Heller. There has not been any indication of a challenge.
Petaluma is a city some 38 miles north of San Francisco in Sonoma County.
Biden’s Stolen Valor rant is no surprise to gun owners
Joe Biden walked onstage in front of a group of veterans Friday and then stole their valor.
Biden told the veterans his Uncle Frank was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge, but somehow never received the Purple Heart. Biden claimed he first learned of the oversight when he was vice president, from his father.
“So, I got him the Purple Heart. He had won it in the Battle of the Bulge. And I remember he came over to the house and I came out and my father said; ‘Present it to him, okay?’ We had the family there,” Biden said at the veterans’ townhall, according to media accounts.
Of course, there are massive factual errors in Biden’s latest tall tale. Biden’s uncle died in 1999. His father died in 2002, but Biden wasn’t elected vice president until 2008, so there is no way he could have presented his uncle the medal while serving as vice president. Also, there’s no documentation that Biden’s uncle ever received or was recommended for a Purple Heart — either before or after his nephew became vice president.
Biden’s latest lie comes as no surprise to gun owners. We’ve been hooting and hollering about his Second Amendment-related lies for years, but no one listened.
In August, during a rambling and often incoherent campaign speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Biden added yet another outlandish fib to his usual list of firearm falsehoods.
“Do you realize the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun?” Biden asked the crowd.
To be clear, the AR round is quick, but it’s certainly not the fastest, and it’s definitely not five-times faster than all other calibers, which would be ballistically impossible.
In April, Biden created another fanciful tale, and like his Stolen Valor rant, he gave himself the starring role.
Biden was in southern Delaware, he claimed, trudging through the woods during hunting season, when he happened upon a hunter in a creek bed. The hunter asked him if he was going to confiscate his rifle, which Biden said he realized held 20 rounds. “You must be a terrible shot to need that many rounds,” Biden claimed he told the hunter in the creek bed. “Do you think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests?”
This tale was the latest version of one of Biden’s favorite quips, which states that anyone who uses a standard-capacity magazine must be a terrible shot, because deer don’t wear Kevlar vests.
Takeaways
Biden’s stolen valor claims are far worse than his previous false tall tales about Corn Pop, blonde leg hair or fictitious prohibitions regarding civilian cannon ownership.
He is the Commander-in-Chief, after all, the very top of the chain-of-command. By definition, every single member of the military is his subordinate. The CINC receives a lot of salutes, but the job also comes with tremendous responsibility, which Biden seems to ignore.
There’s no doubt that among Friday’s crowd were real Purple Heart recipients — men and women who sacrificed parts of their bodies for our freedom. They deserve an immediate apology, although they’ll likely never receive one.
Be it guns or stolen valor, Joe Biden will never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I have inadvertently joined a Major Killing Force™
WHO Labels Unvaccinated People a ‘Major Killing Force Globally’
The World Health Organization (WHO) has labeled unvaccinated people a “major killing force globally” in a new campaign being promoted on social media.
The WHO is promoting a new video that targets “anti-vaccine activism” by blasting those who choose not to be vaccinated for supporting “anti-science aggression.”
The video features pediatrician and vaccine advocate Dr. Peter Hotez who laments the “devastating impact of misinformation and disinformation” regarding Big Pharma’s Covid shots.
Hotez goes on to link the so-called “anti-science aggression” of people who refuse the Covid vaccines to “far-right extremism.”
The professor continues by making several unsupported claims that “anti-vaccine activism” now “kills more people” than terrorism, gun violence, and several other crimes.
He then alleges that “anti-science” has become a “political movement.”
The WHO has made this wholesale condemnation of “anti-vaccine activists” despite the emerging risks of the experimental mRNA shots.
As Slay News reported, a Swiss study discovered evidence of heart injury, due to elevated troponin levels, across all vaccinated people, with 2.8 percent showing levels associated with subclinical myocarditis.
Furthermore, a group of scientists recently conducted a risk-benefit analysis which showed that getting a COVID-19 “booster shot” is at least 18 times more dangerous than catching the virus itself for young people under the age of 30, as LifeSite News notes.
However, the WHO’s showcased physician did not acknowledge these facts in his rant.
“We have to recognize that anti-vaccine activism, which I actually call anti-science aggression, has now become a major killing force globally,” Hotez said in the video, using a backdrop of photos of protestors against the Covid shots.
The University Professor of Biology at Baylor College of Medicine claims that “during the Covid pandemic in the United States, 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives because they refused a COVID vaccine, even after vaccines became widely available.”
“And now the anti-vaccine activism is expanding across the world […].”
“It’s a killing force,” Hotez proclaimed.
“Anti-science now kills more people than things like gun violence, global terrorism, nuclear proliferation, or cyber-attacks.”
The scientist did not provide evidence for this dramatic claim.
“And now it’s become a political movement,” he continued.
“In the U.S. it’s linked to far [sic] extremism on the far right, same in Germany.”
“So this is a new face of anti-science aggression.
“And so we need political solutions to address this.”
WATCH:
Neither Hotez nor the WHO provided any evidence to support the claims in the video that opposition to the vaccines is linked to extremism.
Hotez is a pediatrician who works in the field of vaccine research and development and, in addition to his post at Baylor College of Medicine, is the Chair of Tropical Pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Another disingenuous Federal judge.
Federal Judge Denies Injunction Request Against Rhode Island Magazine Confiscation Law
Banning and confiscating commonly-owned ammunition magazines does not run afoul of the Second Amendment.
At least according to U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s reading of the amendment.
On Wednesday, McConnell denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against Rhode Island’s recently passed law banning the sale and possession of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds. He said that so-called Large-Capacity Magazines (LCMs) did not count as “arms” protected by the U.S. Constitution.
“The plaintiffs have failed in their burden to demonstrate that LCMs are ‘Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment’s text,” Judge McConnell, an Obama appointee, wrote in his order. “Moreover, even were they ‘arms,’ the plaintiffs have failed to prove that LCMs are weapons relating to self-defense. There is no Second Amendment violation from the LCM Ban because of those two shortfalls of persuasion.”
Biden Dumbs Down American Citizenship Test
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced changes to the U.S. naturalization test on Wednesday, reducing the difficulty of the English-speaking section and editing the civics section to make the test easier for citizenship applicants, according to an unpublished notice obtained by the DCNF scheduled for publication Thursday.
The changes will lead to the English-speaking section being curated to more daily conversational subjects, as opposed to more formal subjects formerly discussed, with standardized criteria for assessment that reduce the examiner’s discretion to judge the quality of responses. “Applicants will respond to three color photographs randomly selected from a bank of approximately 70 images that directly correspond to an ordinary usage scenario,”
Additionally, the section on civics will be recrafted to become a multiple-choice format with each question having four options, as opposed to the previous “fill-in-the-blank” test where candidates have to answer a question from memory. The multiple-choice format, used on standardized tests for college admissions like the SAT and ACT, increases the probability of a candidate selecting the right answer by 25%, while allowing the candidates to recall the right answer more easily.
“Primarily, this is about responding to suggestions from the wider community that we’ve received over the past couple of years and making it more fair,” a USCIS official told CNN in advance of the notice’s publication. The proposed test will enter a five-month trial period in 2023 before being adopted later in the year, though current citizenship applicants will use the existing test.
The measure is one of several initiated by the Biden administration to streamline the immigration and naturalization process, as well as reverse Trump-era measures that progressives have claimed were barriers to immigrants’ integration. Twelve days after taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing government agencies to “identify [and remove] barriers that impede access to immigration benefits” as well as conduct a “comprehensive review…of the civics and English language tests.”
In November 2020, the Trump administration promulgated a new syllabus for the naturalization test, raising the pass threshold to answering 12 out of 20 questions correctly (instead of 10, previously), with a larger question bank of 128 questions. Officials claimed that the test would “provide the applicant with more opportunities to learn about the United States as part of the test preparation process,” per the USCIS website.
The Trump administration’s version of the test contained additional questions about Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, as well as questions about the Civil War, the spread of communism, the 14th Amendment and the War on Terror, among others. The Biden administration promptly rescinded the new test months later when it took office, reverting back to a 2008 version utilized during the George W. Bush administration.
However, the Biden administration is not changing the English reading and writing sections of the naturalization test. “We welcome input from – and the participation of – stakeholders who are familiar with this important process, as we continue to improve and update our naturalization test,” said USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou.
The White House, UnidosUS and the Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
Appeals Court Stays Another Ruling Against New York Gun-Carry Law
New York will once more be able to enforce another section of its sweeping gun-carry restriction bill.
A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay against a district court’s decision blocking a ban on carrying a gun on private property that’s open to the public without express permission. The Monday ruling put a hold on the lower court’s injunction as the appeals court waits to hear the case. It is the third stay issued by the panel as lower court judges pick apart New York’s law, passed in response to the Supreme Court striking down the state’s previous strict gun-carry law.
The stay will allow New York to enforce the first-of-its-kind private property provision and arrest anyone who violates it until the appeals court issues its own ruling. Thanks to the intervention of the Second Circuit in two other cases, the same is true for a wide range of other restrictions–from bans on carrying in church or on the subway to a requirement applicants for permits prove they are of “good moral character” by turning over their social media activity to police. The stays represent a reprieve for New York officials and a setback for the gun-rights groups challenging the law.
Judge John Sinatra of the Western District of New York, a Trump appointee, issued a Temporary Restraining Order against New York’s private property provision late last month. He argued the state’s novel policy, which effectively made most of the state off-limits to legal gun-carry by default, violates the Second Amendment.
“Property owners indeed have the right to exclude,” he wrote. “But the state may not unilaterally exercise that right and, thereby, interfere with the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who seek to carry for self-defense outside of their own homes.”
Sinatra ruled the state defaulting private property that is open to the public, such as retail businesses or restaurants, as off-limits to licensed gun-carriers does not pass the historical test set down by the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The state’s rule is the opposite of how every other state regulates gun-carry on private property. Sinatra said he could not identify any historical analogue for the regulation as required by the Bruen standard.
“The Nation’s historical traditions have not countenanced such an incursion into the right to keep and bear arms across all varieties of private property spread across the land,” he wrote.
He declined to issue a stay requested by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D.). He said a stay would only exacerbate the deprivation of New Yorkers’ rights.
“[L]egislative enactments may not eviscerate the Bill of Rights,” he wrote. “Every day they do is one too many.”
The Second Circuit disagreed. The court did not set a date for when arguments in the appeal would begin. However, it did order an expedited briefing schedule for the case.
If you passed on getting the COVID vaccine, you might be a lot more likely to get into a car crash.
People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study© Getty Images
Or at least those are the findings of a new study published this month in The American Journal of Medicine. During the summer of 2021, Canadian researchers examined the encrypted government-held records of more than 11 million adults, 16% of whom hadn’t received the COVID vaccine.
The excess risk of car crash posed by unvaccinated drivers “exceeds the safety gains from modern automobile engineering advances and also imposes risks on other road users,” the authors wrote.
Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also “neglect basic road safety guidelines.”
Why would they ignore the rules of the road? Distrust of the government, a belief in freedom, misconceptions of daily risks, “faith in natural protection,” “antipathy toward regulation,” poverty, misinformation, a lack of resources, and personal beliefs are potential reasons proposed by the authors.
The findings are significant enough that primary care doctors should consider counseling unvaccinated patients on traffic safety—and insurance companies might base changes to insurance policies on vaccination data, the authors suggest.
First responders may also consider taking precautions to protect themselves from COVID when responding to traffic crashes, the authors added, as it’s more likely that a driver is unvaccinated than vaccinated.
“The findings suggest that unvaccinated adults need to be careful indoors with other people and outside with surrounding traffic,” the authors concluded.
This isn’t the first time that researchers have examined the link between behavior and vaccination status. Among young adults, a 2021 study published in the Journal of Bioeconomics found a correlation between self-reported risky driving and having skipped their flu vaccine. It examined the survey responses of more than 100,000 Canadians.
Well that explains a lot
As Oregon’s Gun Litigation Diverges, a Collision is Inevitable
The legal fight over Oregon’s gun-control ballot initiative is headed in two different directions, but the paths will eventually have to crash back into each other.
In the wake of Measure 114’s adoption last month, gun-rights advocates filed multiple lawsuits against the permit-to-purchase and magazine ban provisions at the state and federal levels. They argued both provisions are unconstitutional under the right to keep and bear arms protections in the United States Constitution and the Oregon Constitution, especially under the standard articulated by the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. But they got different results at each level.
Harney County Judge Robert Raschio issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the entirety of the law. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut delayed implementation of the permit-to-purchase requirement for a month at the request of Oregon officials, who admitted they couldn’t create the system before the deadline but declined to issue a TRO
The judges’ reasoning were in stark contrast to one another. While they both agreed that requiring a permit to buy a gun that was effectively unobtainable violates the right to keep and bear arms, and the requirement would have to be blocked, at least in the short term, they differed on everything else. It’s possible either judge could change their mind, but they both seem pretty convinced of their initial conclusions. It’s more likely higher courts, likely the United States Supreme Court itself, will have to settle the contradictions in their approach–if not in this specific case, at least more generally.
Judge Immergut found Measure 114’s ban on the sale and use of magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds, with limited exceptions, is not unconstitutional. She argued the Second Amendment does not protect the magazines because they are not “necessary to the use of firearms for lawful purposes such as self-defense” since magazines that hold fewer than ten rounds can be used in their place.
“While magazines in general are necessary to the use of firearms for self-defense, Plaintiffs have not shown, at this stage, that magazines specifically capable of accepting more than ten rounds of ammunition are necessary to the use of firearms for self-defense,” Immergut
“As noted above, the ‘corollary… right to possess the magazines necessary to render… firearms operable’ is ‘not unfettered.’ Instead, the right is limited to magazines that are necessary to render firearms operable for self-defense and other lawful purposes.”
The difference between a rifle and a so-called "assault weapon is this piece of plastic used to hold the weapon in ones hand… That's how stupid gun-control really is… pic.twitter.com/85FHV9kjxN
— James (@JamesHeger5) December 6, 2022
White House Reveals Twisted View of Constitution
We wrote earlier about Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch nailed the Colorado Solicitor General for Jack Phillips, the Masterpiece Cakemaker, being forced to undergo “re-education” after refusing to create a custom cake celebrating same-sex marriage because it violated his religious convictions.
Gorsuch made those comments in another case involving a Christian website designer Lorie Smith. Colorado claims that her website design business qualifies as a “public accommodation” so therefore she cannot turn down a request to make a personalized website design advertising a same-sex wedding because it violates her religious beliefs, that she can be compelled to make the website. That amounts to the government’s compelling speech since that’s an expressive message that the designer is creating.
“Mr. Phillips had to go through a reeducation program, did he not?” Gorsuch asked Colorado solicitor general Eric Olson. He retorted that it was actually training to educate him about Colorado law.
“Some would call that a reeducation program,” Gorsuch said.
“I strongly disagree,” the defense attorney replied.
“Isn’t religious belief a protected characteristic?” Gorsuch asked, to which Olson conceded, “yes.”
Phillip’s punishment from the Colorado commission also included a requirement that he submit quarterly reports on his company’s compliance progress.
On Monday, Kristin Waggoner, the Alliance Defending Freedom attorney representing Christian website designer Lorie Smith, noted that because of Colorado’s “aggressive enforcement,” her client’s “speech has been chilled for six years.”
The White House doesn’t have a problem with the government’s compelling speech, as White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained, they think it’s just fine to do it.
KJP: "…we can require businesses…to service people, regardless of their backgrounds, even when that means businesses must, incidentally, engage in speech [with] which they disagree…" pic.twitter.com/G8qsPBgBu3
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 5, 2022
“Courts have recognized that we can recog–that we can require businesses…to service people, regardless of their backgrounds, even when that means businesses must, incidentally, engage in speech which they disagree upon.”
Now, she’s being cagey, a bit, here with the language and the speech in the pending case would not be “incidental” — it’s the very heart of the request. What she’s talking about is the public accommodation law. But no, the government can’t compel speech, that’s why SCOTUS is considering this case now.
How dare the White House talk about the Constitution and then pretend they can compel speech? Or violate religious beliefs? Who are the fascists again? It’s always the Biden team who has no problem violating the Constitution to achieve the purposes they want.
We saw the White House’s duplicitous approach when it came to Twitter as well. When liberals controlled Twitter, as Elon Musk revealed, the Biden team or the DNC could contact them and get things they didn’t like suppressed. When people complained about getting banned, we were told by the liberals that Twitter was a “private business” and it could do what it wanted to users (despite the fact there was this apparent government collusion behind the scenes). But now that Elon Musk is in charge and Twitter has slipped out of their control, they must monitor and investigate it, to make sure that he complies with what they want.
They think they can dictate to us and that’s what this is about — control. Karine Jean-Pierre doesn’t even have any shame about admitting it.
IF that happened, which i highly doubt, tis due to the parent instilling fears over it to her, not the childs understanding or knowledge of such things
— Floplag (@floplag) December 5, 2022
Observation O’ The Day
One of two scenarios is possible:
1) Katherine Clark is lying about her child’s experiences to stoke hysteria around climate change for political gain.
2) She aggressively instilled unjust fear into her child, causing them to lose sleep over a political talking point.
We hope it’s the former for the sake of the child. Sincerely.
Indeed, but door number two is a distinct possibility:
Progressives Against Progress. [from the summer of 2010!]
The rise of environmentalism poisoned liberals’ historical optimism. “Crankery, in short, became respectable. In 1972, Sir John Maddox, editor of the British journal Nature, noted that though it had once been usual to see maniacs wearing sandwich boards that proclaimed the imminent end of the Earth, they had been replaced by a growing number of frenzied activists and politicized scientists making precisely the same claim.
In the years since then, liberalism has seen recurring waves of such end-of-days hysteria. These waves have shared not only a common pattern but often the same cast of characters. Strangely, the promised despoliations are most likely to be presented as imminent when Republicans are in the White House. In each case, liberals have argued that the threat of catastrophe can be averted only through drastic actions in which the ordinary political mechanisms of democracy are suspended and power is turned over to a body of experts and supermen.”
My thoughts exactly. It’s another version of “Baffle them with BS”
BLUF
If the end goal is to chill the lawful commerce of arms, then the more purchases flagged as “suspicious” the better, and despite Gillibrand’s claims that law-abiding citizens have nothing to worry about when it comes to these reporting standards, the skepticism and doubt on the part of many gun owners is well-founded.
Gillibrand demands more action from Biden administration on merchant credit codes for gun stores
The establishment of a new merchant category code for firearm retailers poses all kinds of challenges for both retailers and credit card companies (not to mention privacy concerns for gun buyers). One of the biggest issues; the requirement that credit card companies and financial institutions report all “suspicious” transactions that could involve money laundering, human trafficking, terrorist financing, and other criminal activity to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
With the new merchant category code for firearm retailers, gun control activists and anti-gun politicians want to now expand that reporting requirement to the millions of transactions that take place at FFLs across the country every month. How exactly does a financial institution determine whether a particular transaction is suspicious, particularly when the new merchant credit code for gun stores doesn’t detail what exactly is purchased, only the dollar amount and the location? Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and the head of the anti-gun bank that helped to spearhead the effort to establish the new MCCs were awfully short on specifics when they held a news conference on the matter on Sunday, but the bottom line is that they believe the Biden administration could be doing much more to scrutinize retail sales at gun shops.
Two days after telling a federal judge that Oregonians will be able to apply for a permit to buy a gun by the end of this week, Oregon’s attorney general Sunday night acknowledged the state isn’t ready to have a permitting process in place as required by the voter-approved gun control Measure 114.
In a three-page letter to the court filed at 9:14 p.m. Sunday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Brian Simmonds Marshall conceded that local law enforcement agencies have made it clear that “necessary pieces of the permit to purchase system will not be in place” by this coming Thursday, the date the measure is set to take effect.
The attorney general’s concession echoes what gun rights advocates have argued for the past several weeks and have informed U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut in multiple legal briefs filed in pending lawsuits.
The attorney general has recommended the permit requirement be postponed until February while the measure’s other regulations are allowed to go into effect.
“The State’s position that Measure 114 is constitutional on its face remains the same,” Marshall’s letter said.
The voter-approved measure, which narrowly passed with 50.7% of the vote, will ban the sale, transfer and manufacture of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds; require a permit to purchase a gun; and not allow a gun sale or transfer to occur without a background check completed.
The attorney general’s office admitted in its letter to the court that the firearms safety courses that are required before someone can obtain a permit to buy a gun are not yet available.
Oregonians should be allowed to continue to buy guns without a permit during a ‘‘limited window,’’ until the state has a full permitting process in place, the attorney general’s letter recommends. Meanwhile, the state will continue to work to get a process up and running, Marshall wrote.
“The State’s proposed postponement would mean that, while the permitting system is brought online, Oregonians who lack a permit will be able to purchase and transfer firearms. Meanwhile, the State and local law enforcement would continue to work towards implementing Measure 114′s permit provisions. Moreover, Oregonians would be able to begin the application process. When the Court’s order expires, Measure 114′s permit requirement for purchases would go into effect,” Marshall wrote to the judge.
The attorney general’s office pointed to the court declaration by Jason Myers, a retired Marion County sheriff who is now executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association. Myers estimated it will take at least another month to prepare an operational permit system.
In a press release, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum recommended the permit to buy a gun requirement be postponed until February.
“Postponing the permit requirement by approximately two months should give Oregon law enforcement time to have a fully functional permitting system in place. If Judge Immergut agrees to the postponement, then starting in February anyone who purchases a gun in Oregon will be required to have a permit,” Rosenblum said in the release.
Marshall wrote to the court that the state is “committed to working cooperatively with its partners in local law enforcement.”
For the measure to achieve its goal of enhancing public safety, “it is critical that local law enforcement has adequate time to effectively implement the Measure,” Marshall’s letter said.
Under the measure, anyone applying for a permit to buy a gun must complete a training course that includes instruction on state and federal laws related to purchase, ownership, transfer, use and transportation of guns; safe storage of guns including reporting of lost and stolen firearms; how to prevent the abuse or misuse of firearms, including the impact of homicide and suicide on families, communities and the country; and a demonstration that the applicant knows how to lock, load, unload, fire and store a firearm before an instructor certified by a law enforcement agency.
Myers had informed the judge in writing that the sheriffs’ association was unaware of any firearms safety course in Oregon that currently covers all the training requirements.
Immergut held a two-hour hearing Friday morning on the Oregon Firearms Federation’s motion for a temporary restraining order to block the regulations from going into effect as its lawsuit proceeds, contending the measure impinges on their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Most of the argument Friday, though, focused on the provision banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
When Immergut asked Marshall during the hearing if the regulations will be ready to take effect on Thursday, he pledged that Oregonians will be able to apply for a permit then. State police later in the day issued a news release, saying a permit application would be on the agency’s website on Thursday.
Other suits filed challenging the gun control measure included declarations from the sheriffs’ associations and the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police. They argued that their agencies are unprepared and not staffed or funded to support a permitting program for prospective buyers.
Immergut had said at the end of last week that she would rule by Tuesday on whether to grant a temporary restraining order that would put the voter-approved measure on hold.
The judge has given parties to the pending four federal lawsuits until noon Monday to submit any friend of court briefs in support or against the pending motions for a temporary restraining order.
The Rev. Mark Knutson, one of the chief petitioners behind Measure 114, said Sunday night that the Lift Every Voice Oregon interfaith group that obtained signatures to put the measure to voters “wants the most equitable and just process possible…We want this done right to save lives.”
Kevin Starrett, executive director of the Oregon Firearms Federation, said he’s concerned about the tens of thousands of prospective gun buyers currently waiting to have their background checks completed by state police. “They are not going to clear that backlog quickly,” he said by email.
Since Election Day, gun sales in the state have spiked. As of Friday, state police had 41,160 background checks pending for gun purchases or transfers, Capt. Kyle Kennedy said. On Black Friday, the state police received 6,055 new background check requests, the highest amount since Election Day, he said.
— Maxine Bernstein
Unless he’s going to Massachusetts to campaign for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who isn’t up for election right now.
Or maybe he’s going to Georgia for Warren or Massachusetts for Warnock. And there’s something about a fundraiser.
Maybe we can clear things up by watching the video of Biden himself.
As always, I’m happy to provide for you — at no extra charge — the VodkaPundit Quick & Dirty Transcript.
Also, as always, any errors in the transcription are my own fault, and I apologize in advance. Any sense being made on the part of Biden is purely accidental and should be immediately dismissed.
Transcript:
Reporter: When are you going to Georgia to help Sen. Warnock?
Biden: I’m going to Georgia today to help Sen. Warren. Not to Georgia. I’m going to help Sen. Warren. I’m doing a major fundraiser up in Boston.
Buttigieg: Thank you, Mr. President.
Biden: Today. For, for the, uh, our next and continued Senate candidate and senator.
Biden made it quite clear that he will be traveling to Boston for a major fundraiser. This much is true — I checked his daily calendar. He’ll be attending a reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which I assume involves fundraising.
I’m still trying to suss out what he might have meant by “our next and continued Senate candidate and senator.” My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that Biden had Warnock, who is in a special runoff election campaign, stuck in his brain because that’s who the question was about.
Or maybe he’s forgotten that the midterms are over and believes that Warren is fighting to be the “next and continued Senate candidate and senator.”
Warren was not up for reelection in 2022, and won’t be again until 2024.
So Biden does seem to know where he’s going and what he’s doing; he just doesn’t seem to understand why.
Or maybe he’s clear on all three but just has trouble saying it.
Whatever the case, he looks and sounds like the senescent old man he is, and not like the most powerful man in the world.
DON’T BELIEVE GIVING UP RIGHTS PROVIDES SECURITY
New York Time columnist David Brooks is reminding America why they shouldn’t put faith in opinion writers pontificating from their metropolitan ivory towers.
Brooks recently said America would be a much safer country if Americans would simply give up their freedoms and become more like Europe. If America wouldn’t hold onto the individual right to keep and bear arms spelled out in the Second Amendment, and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, he argues it would be a much safer place.
In his estimation, giving up the ability for self-defense and defense of loved ones would make crime just go away.
“That would take a gigantic culture shift in this country. A revamping of the way we think about privacy, a revamping of the way we think about the role government plays in protecting the common good,” Brooks said during a segment on PBS’ “Newshour.” “I think it would be something. I think it would be good not only to head off shootings, but good to live in a society where we cared more intimately about each other. And I would be willing to give up certain privacies for that to happen.”
That’s certainly out of the mainstream of how the rest of America views lawful firearm ownership. There were over 21 million background checks for the sale of a firearm in 2020, the most ever in a single year. Last year, Americans submitted to 18.5 million background checks. In 2022, background check figures are headed for the third strongest year on record. During the week up to and including Black Friday, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) tallied over 711,000 background checks, with over 192,000 on Black Friday alone. That was the third busiest day for FBI’s NICS ever.
The Plan: Give Up
Just how would America achieve this utopia that Brooks imagines? Just give up, he said. Give up your rights. Give up your freedoms. Submit to an Orwellian state that provides you with all your needs. He admits this wouldn’t be easy.
“But for many Americans that would just be a massive cultural shift to regard our community and regard our common good in more frankly a European style,” Brooks explained. “I think it would benefit our society in a whole range of areas, but it’s hard to see that kind of culture change to a society that’s been pretty individualistic for a long, long time.”
America broke away from European-style rule for a reason. The Founding Fathers rejected the British crown’s demands to give up guns then. Based on background checks for gun sales, America continues to reject calls for strict gun control. A recent Gallup poll found that support for more gun control dropped nine points from 66 percent to 57 percent in an October survey.
Failed Disarmament
The argument that individuals should surrender their gun rights has been tried elsewhere with predictable results. Gun owners that complied with gun seizures find themselves unable to protect themselves while criminals that ignore the law are empowered. A recent report from ABC News in Australia showed that criminals find it easier now to obtain illicit firearms than before the multiple amnesty periods when government officials collected firearms from Australians. New Zealand instituted their own gun confiscation program and crime spiked. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ushered in Draconian gun control, including confiscation, and the country and crime hit new peaks.
The only ones left with guns were the criminals. That’s a lesson that Canada’s grappling with now as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is eyeing his own gun confiscation scheme and banning the transfer of any handguns. Some Canadian provinces are rejecting the heavy-handed measures. Sadly, history is replete with examples of regimes that took away its citizens firearms only to become tyrannical and turn their citizens into defenseless subjects. Those that fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. Our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence expressed their fear of a tyrannical government and enshrined our right to keep and bear arms for self defense in the Bill of Rights for a reason.
Brooks is wrong to think that ridding ourselves of rights and lawful gun ownership would reduce crime. The answer to rampant crime is more law enforcement. The changes needed to safeguard America’s communities don’t begin with turning our backs on freedoms. It starts with holding elected officials in The White House, Congress, state capitols and district attorneys responsible for not enforcing the law and failing to hold criminals accountable.
Brooks’ notion is a devil’s bargain. Americans know it. Surrendering freedom has never resulted in anything less than creating a society of victims.
— Wes Butler (@butlerwesfire) November 29, 2022
We Don’t Need Biden’s Permission To Own A ‘Semi-Automatic’ Gun
“The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” Joe Biden argued on Thanksgiving. “It has no socially redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”
Need it really be pointed out that it is perfectly within our rights to purchase products devoid of all socially redemptive value? Certainly, it is not the state’s business to determine what we “need.” That said, semi-automatic weapons happen to have an obvious redeeming value and there is a strong rationale for owning them. Semi-auto weapons are easy to use, and their effectiveness and reliability bolster the ability of people to protect themselves, their families, their property, and their community from criminality and, should it descend into tyranny, the government. Gun bans are autocratic and unconstitutional, and, thankfully, also largely unfeasible.
It is difficult to pinpoint what percentage of the 400-plus million firearms in civilian hands today are semi-automatic. These weapons, which fire one cartridge with a single trigger squeeze while preparing the gun for the next shot, constitute a substantial percentage of new gun sales over the past few decades. Banning them would prevent homeowners and those who concealed-carry — not only some of the most law-abiding people in the country, but a growing contingent —without the weapon of choice. The actions of a small number of irrational criminal psychopaths should not corrode the rights of those citizens. Not to mention, corroding our rights would do nothing to stop the irrational criminal psychopaths.
Indeed, semi-autos meet every criterion of legality laid out in D.C. v. Heller, the decision that finally codified the clear historical and legal intention of the Second Amendment. Not only are semi-automatic weapons “in common use” by “law-abiding citizens,” they are not “unusual.” The first semi-automatic pistols hit the civilian marketplace in the 1890s.
Now, there is always the not-so-small chance that Biden has confused the real-world mechanical designation of “semi-automatic” with the political concoction of “assault weapons.” I’m skeptical. Anyone who’s involved in the gun debate knows that “semi-automatic” guns, often purposely conflated with the more dangerous “automatic” weapons, are the target of restrictionists. A few years back during that shameful post-Parkland CNN gun “town hall,” the crowd loudly cheered at the suggestion of banning all “semi-automatic” rifles. And, earlier this year, the president suggested that ordinary citizens should be banned from owning popular “high-caliber” 9mm handguns. “So the idea of these high-caliber weapons is of — there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting,” Biden said of the type of gun used by the Secret Service to protect him.
It is, as it always has been in the gun debate, incrementalism. From “no one wants to take your guns” to “we only want to take some of them” and so on. Of course, even if the president really intended to talk about a semi-automatic rifle ban, his goals would still be unconstitutional. Again, the gun meets every standard set by Heller for legality. And if the Senate somehow musters the 60 votes to push through the ban on certain semi-automatic guns recently passed by the House, states should challenge the federal government, and, if need be, ignore it.
Biden, who often imparts dreadful, sometimes illegal, advice on gun ownership, also has a long history of saying completely inane, insane, and historically illiterate things about firearms —whether cringingly noting that deer don’t wear “Kevlar” or claiming cannons were banned during the Revolutionary era as a way to argue that the Second Amendment “like all other rights, is not absolute.”
On the latter, Biden often (fittingly) cites one of the most egregious violations of the First Amendment, Schenck v. United States, which allowed the Woodrow Wilson administration to throw socialists into prison for speech crimes, to make his point. And perhaps that speaks to the crucial distinction at the heart of so many of our debates. Biden, and thus the contemporary left, seems to be under the impression that it’s the state that “allows” us to buy semi-automatic firearms or “allows” us to say certain things. But we don’t need their permission.