3rd Circuit Denies Rehearing In SAF Pennsylvania Gun Rights Victory.

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition for a rehearing in the Second Amendment Foundation’s victory in a case challenging Pennsylvania statutes that prohibit law-abiding young adults from carrying firearms for self-defense and prevents them from acquiring a state license to carry (LTCF) because of their age. The case is known as Lara v. Evanchick.

The petition for an en banc rehearing had been filed by attorneys representing the Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police. SAF is joined in the case by the Firearms Policy Coalition and three private citizens, including Madison M. Lara, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and John D. Ohlendorf at Cooper & Kirk, Washington, D.C.

Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Kent A. Jordan explained, “The petition for rehearing filed by appellant in the above-entitled case having been submitted to the judges who participated in the decision of this Court and to all the other available circuit judges of the circuit in regular active service, and no judge who concurred in the decision having asked for rehearing, and a majority of the judges of the circuit in regular service not having voted for rehearing, the petition for rehearing by the panel and the Court en banc, is DENIED.”

“We’re satisfied with the court’s decision,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “It’s an important win. The Third Circuit has affirmed that the Second Amendment applies to young adults, and that 1791 is the historical marker for understanding the right to keep and bear arms. Finally, the court has said 18-to-20-year-olds can open carry during a state of emergency in Pennsylvania.”

“We’ve been fighting this battle for more than three years,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, who is a Pennsylvania resident and practicing attorney in the state. “The court’s decision is an important step forward to getting this issue resolved.”

Pete Buttigieg Hates Your Car, but Mostly He Thinks You’re an Idiot.

America’s eminently mockable Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, went on national TV on Tuesday to mock Americans who find that electric cars don’t suit their transportation needs.

“Sometimes, when these debates happen,” the failed former mayor of South Bend, Ind. told Fox News, “I feel like it’s the early 2000s and I’m talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever.”

Spoiler: Nobody was saying that in the early 2000s. Even before the iPhone came out in 2007 and changed phones forever, Americans were snapping up Nokias and Blackberries and wondering if we still needed our landlines at all. As early as 2005, 69% of Americans already owned cell phones, which was pretty much the entire adult population. Six percent of households had even given up their landlines.

But back to SecTrans Buttigieg, who insisted, “Let’s be clear, the automotive sector is moving toward EVs and we can’t pretend otherwise.” This is like telling a death row prisoner that he’s moving towards the electric chair and can’t pretend otherwise. The prisoner might not want to make the “transition” to the next life, but the government has set a date for him — just like the Biden administration is trying to transition the entire country to EVs.

Even though Americans have to be bribed, browbeaten, and mandated into buying EVs, Buttigieg insisted that Big Government knows best — even when that Big Government is the one in Beijing. EVs are “the economically smart play,” he said. “We’ve been working to make sure that advantage comes back on American soil.” China has the opportunity to undercut more established players like Tesla precisely because Washington is trying to force a massive EV market into existence.

Tesla is the most successful electric vehicle company in the West, and its stock was sent plunging on Tuesday after reporting its first-ever year-on-year sales decline last quarter. “Tesla’s deliveries for the quarter fell far below even the most bearish of analysts’ expectations,” CNBC reported.

Overall, EV sales growth has slowed since 2022, despite billions spent on incentives and record-high prices for gas-powered cars.

Presidentish Joe Biden can’t even bribe people into building EV charging stations. Biden’s misnamed Inflation Reduction Act — really the Green New Deal in drag — set aside a massive $7.5 billion in your tax dollars for fulfilling Biden’s dream of building 500,000 new charging stations over the next few years. But just seven have been built in two years.

Seven. Even with all those government billions just waiting to be taken.

Maybe that’s because, while EV sales hit a record 1.2 million in the U.S. last year, they still represented just 7.6% of the vehicle market. While EV sales are expected to take maybe 10% of the market in 2024, there are so many locations, needs, and situations where EVs make no sense at all. Virtually mandating that they make up two-thirds or more of all sales by 2032, as the EPA did last month, is a quasi-religious crusade courtesy of the most anti-religious White House in history.

Still, at least we’ll always have Pete Buttigieg’s smug ignorance to mock.

Americans Disapprove Of Biden On Guns—And Most Other Issues.

If you thought Americans strongly disapproved of the way President Joe Biden’s economy is working out, you ought to see what people think of the way he has handled the gun issue.

According to a recent survey by The Economist and YouGov, a full 52% of Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling economic issues. Breaking it down, 91% of Republicans, 55% of Independents and even 11% percent of Democrats aren’t too fond of the strangling consequences of “Bidenomics.” And by age, a majority of Americans over 30 disapprove of Biden’s economic performance.

But believe it or not, even more Americans disapprove of the job Biden has done concerning firearms, which 81% of respondents said was an important issue. In total, 54% of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling the gun issue, compared to 28% who approved. That includes a whopping 88% of Republicans and 52% of Independents who gave the president low marks. Disapproval was also very high by race and age: whites, 61% disapproved; Blacks, 35%, Hispanics, 46%; age 18-29, 43%; 30-44, 57%; 45-64, 57%; and 65-plus, 60%.

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Biden Shows Up at Noon — an Hour Late for Event — and Here’s Why People Think He Overslept

Joe Biden hasn’t exactly had a heavy schedule this week. He went to Camp David with Hunter over the weekend so he had yet another vacation.

Then on Monday all he had was the Easter Egg Roll. Not exactly a lot of work or high stress, although Biden managed to create his own problems by slurring and being confused throughout the event. He also told a bizarre story about his grandkids, most of whom are adults jumping in bed with him being his favorite memory of the White House.

On Tuesday, he had nothing at all on his public schedule. But, as I noted, he looked horrible at his healthcare remarks that he had to deliver on Wednesday and lost badly in a fight with the teleprompter.

Turns out there was a backstory.

Biden was late to the event which was supposed to be at 11 a.m. He kept Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the health care advocates who attended the even waiting for an hour before he bothered to appear. He didn’t show up until around 12 p.m. And when he showed up finally, people noticed that he had CPAP strap marks still very evident on his face.

He supposedly sleeps with a CPAP machine helping him because he has sleep apnea.

But if he’s showing up at that time with the straps still evident on his face, then one has to concluded it’s very likely he overslept. Fox’s Jesse Watters made this point.

“If he has a creasy face at noon, he just got out of bed,” Watters surmised. He wasn’t up late or doing anything the day before, yet he’s still so late this morning?

Seriously, we have someone occupying the Oval Office who is oversleeping and not making an event until noon? Is he actually doing any work at all with a schedule like this? Sounds like former President Donald Trump nicknaming him “Sleepy Joe” is right yet again.

Also, the only other thing on the schedule was that Biden was supposed to have the Daily Briefing at 10 a.m., did he just skip that? Does he actually attend that?

If that’s the case, who is truly making the decisions behind the scenes here if this is going on? And how could anyone possibly vote for the mess that’s going on here? I know we can’t expect them to be straight with us, even though we have a right to it and for sure media isn’t pushing hard enough when he does things like this to ask: what the heck is going on here?

Alleged home invasion suspect shot by Bay City resident,

BAY CITY, Mich. – Police say that an alleged home invasion suspect is in serious condition after being shot by a Bay City resident.

Police responded to a shooting in the 200 block of N. Jefferson St. shortly before 5 p.m. on Monday.

Officers found a 33-year-old Bay City man outside of the residence suffering from two gunshot wounds to the torso.

Investigators say the individual that was shot was allegedly armed with a pipe and had broken into the residence.

That is when one of the residents shot the alleged suspect, according to the Bay City Department of Public Safety.

The individual has been hospitalized with serious injuries, but is stable.

Coroner IDs woman shot by Clark County homeowner targeted in scam

A Franklin County woman shot to death outside a Clark County house this week has been identified as Loletha Hall, 61, according to Dr. Kent E. Harshbarger, Montgomery County coroner.

The resident, an 86-year-old Madison Twp. man, had been targeted in a scam, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.

The shooting happened at 11:18 a.m. Monday in the 7000 block of South Charleston-Clifton Road.

Lt. Kristopher Shultz said preliminary investigation revealed the resident had been contacted by telephone by strangers. They told the 86-year-old a relative of his was incarcerated in the Clark County Jail and “a significant amount of money, in cash, was necessary to post bail for this relative,” Shultz said.

The caller provided pertinent information for the case and the posting of bail, “all of which was bogus information,” the lieutenant said.

The caller and the resident, whose identity has not been released, spoke multiple times regarding the situation, Shultz said, “with the resident being hesitant and resistant to complying with the instructions of the caller.”

The investigators said the caller threatened violence toward the 86-year-old man and members of his family.

When Hall went to the man’s house, the resident produced a pistol and shot Hall multiple times.

“The resident then retreated to the interior of his home, secured his firearm, and made contact with the (911) Communication Center,” Shultz said.

Deputies responded as did fire and EMS units from Madison Twp. and Cedarville.

They found the 86-year-old with lacerations to the head and an ear, bleeding profusely. He was transported by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment and later released.

The Franklin County woman was on the ground about 20 feet from her vehicle. After treatment at the scene, Hall was flown to Kettering Health in Kettering, where she died while in surgery.

Shulz said significant evidence has been seized and collected by detectives, with search warrants in process to continue the investigation.

“It was reported that there was an assault on the homeowner here at the residence, it was an elderly male, and that he used a firearm to defend himself in the course of that assault,” Shultz said at the scene Monday.

The incident prompted a message from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office to remind residents, especially older citizens, that no law enforcement agency or court will make contact with anyone to solicit cash for bail or other official functions.

“We encourage all citizens to use extreme caution when being contacted unexpectedly by subjects claiming to be relatives incarcerated in a correctional facility, or claiming to have direct knowledge of relatives incarcerated in a correctional facility,” the sheriff’s release said.

Firearms bans threaten our personal safety

A week before my mom passed away, she taught me how to shoot a firearm. As a long-time firearms instructor, she trained thousands of Coloradans and passed on to me the vital importance of gun safety and self-defense. I followed in my mom’s footsteps and opened Elite Firearms & Training. Every day, I work to carry on her legacy, equipping men and women to protect— from harm.

After a decade of serving as a firearms instructor, I am confounded by efforts in my home state of Colorado to ban the sale of majority of semi-automatic firearms, including many popular handguns and shotguns used for self-defense. This isn’t a fight to keep your AR-15s. Legislators want to pass a “assault weapons” ban bill that will ban the smallest of guns like the Beretta 21a, a .22lr, 7 round handgun that’s smaller than my hand to a more common handgun used for concealed carry like the Springfield Hellcat RDP 9mm.

The current bill defines “assault weapons” generally to include many commonly carried pistols and shotguns that are used for self-defense. Clearly, the drafters of this bill do not understand how firearms operate and are making it as broadly encompassing as possible by including largely cosmetic features that are in common use.

Within the bill, it says that if the firearm has a detachable magazine and a foregrip, threaded barrel, barrel shroud, adjustable stock, pistol grip, and many other ridiculous characteristics, the firearm will be banned. None of these features increase lethality. This legislation undermines our basic rights as Americans, threatening our safety and well-being.

While lawmakers at the State Capitol exploit tragedy to advance their political agenda, they fail to mention the simple and undeniable truth that gun bans fail to reduce crime or keep people safe. Following the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms use Protection Act of 1994, in which certain semi-automatic firearms and magazines were banned, the nonpartisan National Institute of Justice concluded that the moratorium, “failed to reduce the average number of victims per gun murder or multiple gunshot wounds.”

Even worse, we’ve seen that violence is often incentivized by the same gun restrictions that Colorado legislators are attempting to pass. According to researchers, five out of six mass shooters choose “Gun Free Zones” to unleash their terror. Colorado’s homicide by firearm rate has surpassed the national rate for the first time in over forty years, while states who have passed constitutional carry are seeing a decrease. This comes after Colorado lawmakers have already enacted gun control measures such as universal and expanded background checks, magazine capacity limits, safe storage, red flag laws, etc. and the state has even created their own Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

The same trend of higher crime with more restrictive gun laws have been proven repeatedly in other states and politicians refuse to recognize that the firearm violence occurring is overwhelmingly not from legal firearm owners.

Beyond the definitive data and research that proves the ineffectiveness of gun bans, is the troubling truth that legislative action to halt the production or possession of semi-automatic firearms ultimately threaten the safety of law-abiding citizens, and more specifically, women like me.

According to a Harvard study, the United States added 8 million new gun owners between 2019 and 2021 with nearly half (48%) of those new gun owners being women (3.84 million). Violent crime continues to ravage our communities, and women are literally taking up arms and fighting back.

These brazen and alarming attempts to disarm — and endanger — citizens in Colorado should be national news. We know that lawmakers across the country use these outrageous bills as blueprints, changing the state names, and implementing them within their respective jurisdiction because they don’t have the votes to do it nationally.

Last year, it was Washington state that passed sweeping legislation to disarm citizens and destroy gun stores. Today, it’s Colorado. We cannot sit on our hands as our rights and safety are eroded. It’s time to fight back.

Almost 50% of Colorado’s population own firearms, so we’re not outnumbered. However, we will be ignored if we don’t speak up. Additionally, elections have consequences and gun owners must elect men and women who will safeguard our rights and freedoms. It’s critical that we bring balance — and common sense — back to the state.

The pro-gun argument isn’t rhetoric — these are proven facts — and I invite anyone who is in favor of Colorado’s “assault weapons” ban to come spend a day with me on the range so I can show you how this ban will only harm law-abiding citizens.

Ava Flanell is a firearms instructor and resident of Colorado Springs.

 

A homeowner killed a 59-year-old man who broke into a residence on the East Side late Saturday, police said.

Arriving officers found the intruder with multiple gunshot wounds in his abdomen and he was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a preliminary report.

San Antonio police said the man forced entry into the home around 9 p.m. in the 3300 block of Martin Luther King Drive and assaulted the owner, a 27-year-old man.

The younger man told officers he shot his assailant out of fear for his life. No charges are expected, police said.