With ‘friends’ like this, we need no enemies.

Cornyn Engages in Damage Control on ATF New Rule

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act wouldn’t have passed without the help of one Sen. John Cornyn.

Cornyn championed the bill in the Senate, getting enough Republicans to sign on in order to get it out of that chamber and onto the House where there was never a chance at stopping it.

Which, honestly, might not have been too big of a deal were it not for this one bit that changed the definition of gun dealer, removing the requirement that someone attempt to make a livelihood out of selling firearms.

It seemed a small thing, but now it’s opening up things for the ATF where they can essentially push through universal background checks without going through Congress.

And Cornyn is now trying to do something about it.

The U.S. Justice Department rolled out a new policy last month requiring background checks for people who informally sell firearms at gun shows or on the internet. The rule, which is set to take effect on May 20, is based on a revised definition of gun dealers put forth in Cornyn’s so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Previously, gun dealers were defined under federal law as those who sell firearms with the “principal objective of livelihood and profit.” Under the revised definition, gun dealers are any people who “predominantly earn a profit” from selling firearms.

“Under this regulation, it will not matter if guns are sold on the internet, at a gun show, or at a brick-and-mortar store: if you sell guns predominantly to earn a profit, you must be licensed, and you must conduct background checks,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said last month. “This regulation is a historic step in the Justice Department’s fight against gun violence. It will save lives.”

Cornyn has vowed to file a congressional resolution of disapproval over the policy, and he said the Biden administration’s efforts to tie it to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is “an outright lie.”

“This rule has long been on Democrats’ wish list, and for the Biden administration to say it’s a result of our school safety and mental health law is a shameless attempt to hide their real goal: to take away the firearms of every law-abiding American,” Cornyn said in a joint statement with North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. “We will fight this unconstitutional rule tooth and nail, and look forward to overturning it in the Senate as soon as possible.”

I’m sorry, but Cornyn doesn’t get to play savior here.

He’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with. Were it not for him crossing the lines for BSCA, the definitions wouldn’t have changed enough for the ATF to even begin to try this. He cajoled and pushed for the precise legislation that opened the door.

Now, he’s trying to engage in damage control, hoping he can keep his job by being aggressive in his rhetoric about the Biden administration’s efforts.

Did he not see this coming? Did he even read the bill?

To be fair, I don’t actually think Cornyn intended for this to happen. I think he just didn’t think through the ramifications of his actions.

Yet let’s also remember that we don’t give people a pass on the results of their actions. How many people are held culpable for the accidents they get into while driving drunk? They don’t intend to hit other cars or pedestrians, but they do, and we hold them accountable.

The Crumbleys didn’t intend for their child to carry out a mass shooting, but the lack of intention didn’t absolve them in the eyes of the court.

Hannah Guiterrez-Reed didn’t intend for a live round to end up in the gun that killed Halyna Hutchins, but she’s going to do time for it just the same.

We hold people accountable for the outcomes of their actions, and in this case, Cornyn’s actions directly led to the ATF’s proposed rule. While we can argue that even with the BSCA’s changes, it’s still overreach, it’s overreach that wouldn’t be remotely possible had Cornyn not bent the knee to Biden on it in the first place.

Lone Wolf Attacks: The Most Likely Form of Terror

The open Southern Border is of utmost concern to anyone who is wise enough to realize that such a situation is unsustainable for the survival of a nation.  Not only does the influx of unmitigated and unregulated ILLEGAL migration strain national resources, but it has also introduced a host of security threats. Hidden among the constant stream of border crossers is human trafficking and narcotics importation.  Perhaps most worrisome of all is the fact that, for the past several years, bad actors in league with foreign entities who intend to commit terror attacks against the United States can literally just walk in.  This situation has resulted in even federal agencies admitting that the threat of terror cells is very real.

Still, whether or not terror cells activate at some point, which is a real possibility, a consistent threat that has always been with us certainly remains so, and that is the lone wolf terrorist. Lone wolf essentially means that an individual acts of their own accord to commit a mass-casualty or terror event.  The individual may well swear allegiance to a terrorist group or cause, but they are not directly supported by the group.  In terms of Jihadi-type terrorism, some lone wolves have been “radicalized” by fringe religious leaders or groups, but more often than not, the individual simply goes looking for a degenerate cause to latch onto in order to self-justify the terrible violence they wish to commit.  The truth is, all such mass attacks, whether workplace or school shootings, in supposed retaliation for bullying or oppression or attacks, steeped in extremist ideology, are committed by people of a similar mentality, no matter the particulars.  

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Hi. I’m Toshi.

I’m a retired ParaPyroPig, yellowjacket assassin, naturalized Appalachistani, greenhorn farmer, and aspiring author.
I’m voting for the Impotent Party in November, whom I dislike.
Why? I dislike the Impotent Party, but I utterly despise the Utterly Subversive Party.

While as corrupt, the Impotent Party doesn’t want to take my guns, put me into a reeducation camp, turn the USA into the USSR, and destroy western civilization.
Fans of the Impotent Party will call me a commie for not standing for their egomaniacal, megalomaniac, sociopath candidate, and congratulating them for their collective milquetoast mediocrity.

Fans of the Utterly Subversive Party will call me an ammosexual racist nazi islamophobe, and will assault, threaten, doxx, SWAT, and otherwise terrorize my family, for not supporting their babbling, senile dementia candidate.

I loathe politics, and the overwhelming majority of politicians.

Amazon delivery driver shoots, kills person with gun in attempted carjacking

CLEVELAND (Gray News/WOIO) – Authorities in Ohio say an Amazon driver shot and killed an armed carjacker Saturday evening.

WOIO reports the shooting happened near West 48th Street and Franklin Boulevard.

Cleveland police said the Amazon driver was working in the area just after 4 p.m. when he was approached by a person with a gun. The Amazon worker told police that the person held them at gunpoint while trying to steal the vehicle.

According to police, the situation turned into a carjacking with the armed subject crashing the vehicle. Authorities said the Amazon driver ended up shooting the carjacker during the ordeal. That person was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police did not release any further immediate information or identify the parties involved. The situation remains under investigation, Cleveland police said.

Analysis: Judges Show Limited Appetite for Upending Background Check Regimes

Following the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, Second Amendment jurisprudence is more unsettled than it has perhaps ever been. However, judges thus far appear skeptical of disrupting at least one realm of gun law: background check requirements.

Even in novel formats, background check requirements have largely escaped falling victim to the text, history, and tradition-based legal test so many other gun laws have been felled by in the courts. Most recently, the “enhanced” background check requirements for 18-20-year-old gun buyers in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act were upheld as constitutional by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The [Second Amendment’s] plain text covers plaintiffs’ right ‘to keep and bear arms,’” Judge Jerry E. Smith, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote on behalf of a unanimous panel in McRorey v. Garland. “And on its face ‘keep and bear’ does not include purchase—let alone without background check. That is so in either the contemporary or the Founding-era context.”

As a result, there is now precedent in the country’s most conservative circuit blessing a background check scheme that effectively creates a ten day waiting period. And it’s difficult to see gun-rights challengers having better luck elsewhere.

In part, gun-rights litigants have a dicta problem. The language deployed by the Supreme Court to hedge its majority opinions in Heller and Bruen is repeatedly being used to uphold modern gun laws, even those that would seem to lack a historical analogue at first glance.

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‘birdshot’. Worst choice possible, except if it’s the only thing you have.
Of course, Mr. Oliver didn’t need to interject himself into the argument, precipitating all the resulting drama.

Neighbor confronts undocumented couple, leads to shooting at Northwest Side apartments

The shooting happened around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at an apartment complex off Vance Jackson Road near Fredericksburg Road.

Police said an undocumented couple were arguing inside an apartment when a neighbor, identified as William Oliver, 49, told them to calm down. The 21-year-old man allegedly put a gun to Oliver’s head and, while speaking Spanish, threatened to kill him. Oliver then walked backed to his apartment

Oliver told police that he thought the other man was trying to kick in his front door. That’s when he grabbed a shotgun, loaded it with bird shot, and shot the suspect in the hand and foot. A female bystander was also hit in the leg.

Both the victim and bystander were taken to the hospital in stable condition.

So far, Oliver is facing no charges.

BLUF:
From what I can gather, the problem in cities is usually not that the police department itself is unwilling to assist, but that they are under orders from the mayor, afraid of upsetting far left constituents, to stand down.

Well, of course that’s what’s going on. Police usually do exactly what their city’s management tells them to do. Geez……

DAVID BERNSTEIN

Hans Bader on Selective Law Enforcement
Police in some major cities are refusing to enforce the law against protest “encampments”
I have been increasingly aware of, and disturbed by, instances of local police declining the requests of universities to help the universities–which generally do not have law enforcement officers capable of dealing with hundreds of people resisting arrest–arrest  protestors and remove their protest encampments. I was preparing to write a blog post about this, but Hans Bader beat me to it. So rather than reinvent the wheel, with permission, below is a shortened version of Hans’ post:

You have a right to free speech, but that doesn’t give you a First Amendment right to camp out on my lawn with protest signs. That’s trespassing. But government officials sometimes allow trespassing when they sympathize with the trespasser’s viewpoint. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC have refused to remove progressive anti-Israel protesters camping out at private universities — Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania, and George Washington University.

Law professor David Bernstein notes that “Baltimore police will not assist in removing illegal encampment at Johns Hopkins University. Worse, they actually praise the illegal encampment as a valid exercise of First Amendment rights, which is complete nonsense. It’s especially nonsensical because most of the protesters are trespassers with no connection to the university.”

“The City of Baltimore strongly stands with every person’s First Amendment rights. Barring any credible threat of violence or similarly high threshold to protect public safety, BPD currently has no plans to engage solely to shut down this valid protest or remove protesters,” said the Baltimore police department in a statement apparently dictated by the mayor’s office.

Contrary to what this statement claims, there is no “First Amendment” right to camp out on public property, much less private property like the campus of Johns Hopkins University, which can tell trespassers to leave regardless of whether they are engaged in First Amendment activity. Camping out on someone else’s property is not a “valid protest,” even if the protesters have not yet made any “threat of violence.” The Supreme Court ruled that protesters do not have a right to camp out even on public property devoted to public use, like national parks, in Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984).

Yet Neetu Arnold of the National Association of Scholars notes that Philadelphia is similarly refusing to clear out a protest camp at the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League university: “Philadelphia Police ignores Penn’s request to disband unauthorized encampment. The university has to provide proof that the encampment poses an imminent danger. Penn students have received multiple warnings to avoid the immediate area.” The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that the “Philadelphia Police Department declines to disband encampment after Penn requests immediate help.”

As a University of Pennsylvania alumnus notes, these illegal protests are only being allowed by progressive officials because of the viewpoint they are expressing. If the protesters were “white nationalists waving nazi flags and telling black people they should go back to Africa I’m sure [police] would be out there pretty quickly” to remove them.

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Week in Review: Gun Owners Targeted

The wannabe gun-grabbers on the Pima County, Ariz., Board of Supervisors have been looking to pick a fight over the state’s firearm statutes.

They picked the wrong one. Now, the Goldwater Institute is suing the county on behalf of Air Force veteran Chris King over an illegal mandate that slaps $1,000 fines on residents who fail to report a lost or stolen firearm to the government within two days.

Arizona law prohibits cities, counties, and other local government entities from passing almost any type of firearm-related regulation. But public records obtained by the Institute reveal the board has been gearing up for this fight for years, coordinating with left-wing activist groups, attorneys, and other elected officials to undermine Arizona’s broad protections for the rights to keep and bear arms.

They’ve bitten off more than they can chew—and now, they’ll have to defend their illegal ordinance in state court.

“We’re a nation of laws,” Chris says. “Why do Pima County officials think they’re above the law?”

The Goldwater Institute will always defend constitutional rights and keep rogue government entities in check when they thumb their nose at the law.

Read more here.