Category: Scratch a Lib-Find a Tyrant

Nipping gun ownership in the bud: Dept of Education’s outrageous moves

It is the job of the Congress to write airtight, unambiguous legislation that allows no opportunity for Executive or Judicial mischief. That’s a tough task to begin with, but an overambitious Executive or Judicial branch can stretch and mangle those words beyond ridicule to do whatever they want. It doesn’t help that the job keeps getting harder with time as long-agreed upon words are intentionally rejiggered to lose their meaning.

The latest example of Executive Overreach is the “reimagining” of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), a gun control law that was passed by government to compensate for the failure of government and placate the insatiable appetites of abusive gun controllers. Fox News reports (archived links):

Biden admin withholding key funding for schools with hunting, archery programs

EXCLUSIVE: The Biden administration is blocking key federal funding earmarked under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 for schools with hunting and archery programs.

According to federal guidance circulated among hunting education groups and shared with Fox News Digital, the Department of Education determined that, under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed last year, school hunting and archery classes are precluded from receiving federal funding. The interpretation could impact millions of American children enrolled in such programs.

“It’s a negative for children. As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students,” Tommy Floyd, the president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “In many communities, it’s a shooting sport, and the skills from shooting sports, that help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.”[…]

According to Floyd, his organization boasts 1.3 million students from nearly 9,000 schools across 49 states who are enrolled in archery courses. Some of those schools have already canceled plans to include archery or hunting education courses in their curriculum due to the Education Department guidance.

Why oh why would the Federal Department of Education target hunting and archery in schools? It’s perhaps a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a puzzle to some, but it’s obvious to me that the DoE is trying to nip gun ownership in the bud by choking off exposure and interest in the next generation. Gun controllers are playing a long game, and this is a move to advance their disarmament agenda.

The legislation included an amendment to an ESEA subsection listing prohibited uses for federal school funding. That amendment prohibits ESEA funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”

I looked up the text of the law and this is what it says:

Subtitle D–Amendment on ESEA Funding

SEC. 13401. AMENDMENT ON ESEA FUNDING.
Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

(20 U.S.C. 7906) is amended–
(1) in paragraph (5), by striking “or” after the
semicolon;
(2) in paragraph (6), by striking the period at the end and</sp
inserting “; or”; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
“(7) for the provision to any person of a dangerous weapon,
 as defined in section 930(g)(2) of title 18, United States Code, 
 or training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”.

I can see how this amendment could be stretched to construe the prohibition of funding for archery and hunting programs.

However, in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona earlier this month, Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., expressed concern that the agency is misinterpreting the provision which they said was included in the BSCA last year to withhold education funds for programs training school resource officers, not for hunting and archery classes. School resource officer training was funded under a separate provision.

“We were alarmed to learn recently that the Department of Education has misinterpreted the BCSA to require the defending of certain longstanding educational and enrichment programs — specifically, archery and hunter education classes — for thousands of children, who rely on these programs to develop life skills, learn firearm safety and build self-esteem,” Cornyn and Tillis wrote to Cardona.

“The Department mistakenly believes that the BSCA precludes funding these enrichment programs,” they continued. “Such an interpretation contradicts congressional intent and the text of the BSCA.”

Senators Cornyn, Tillis, and every self-proclaimed Second Amendment supporting elected official have some serious explaining to do to their voters. This language slipped under the radar and is now rearing its head. Gun control-supporting apparatchiks at the DoE are taking advantage of it because the text did not explicitly state that such training programs are exempt.

Overall, the ESEA is the primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education across the country, according to the Congressional Research Service. The BSCA earmarked an additional $1 billion for educational activities under the ESEA.

Personally, I want to see a complete and permanent separation of School and State and the Department of Education eliminated. But that’s not happening anytime soon.

With so much money at stake, this was a legislative fumble to put it mildly. Let’s see what the Biden DoE does next.

Christians Arrested For Outdoor Church Service During COVID-19 Win $300,000 Lawsuit.

A primarily liberal college town in Idaho has agreed to pay $300,000 to three Christian churchgoers who sued the city after being imprisoned for failing to wear face masks or maintain social distance measures at an outdoor service during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The city of Moscow, Idaho, announced this week that it would settle the lawsuit with Gabriel Rench and Sean and Rachel Bohnet, who filed a case against city officials in March 2021.

They asserted that their rights under the First and Fourth Amendments were violated when they were arrested at an outdoor “psalm sing” led by church leaders in September 2020.

Moscow, Idaho, is a community of around 25,000 inhabitants located approximately 80 miles south of Spokane, Washington. The church named in the lawsuit, Christ Church, is a small congregation of about 1,000 members that is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

At the time of the incident, Officers took Rench’s hymn book before hauling him away in handcuffs to the county jail, where he and others were kept for several hours, according to video of the arrests, which went viral and was blasted at the time on the Twitter platform.

The calm worship service lasted only 20 minutes in front of Moscow City Hall, where local authorities had put little yellow dots six feet apart to guide participants in COVID-19 6-feet-apart social distancing.

Rench and the other two were accused of breaching the city’s periodically amended health law. However, a magistrate court later dropped the city’s case against them.

U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England, Jr., noted that the “plaintiffs should never have been arrested in the first place,

“Somehow, every single city official involved overlooked the exclusionary language [of constitutionally protected behavior] in the Ordinance,” the judge wrote.

Rench said that the situation in Moscow could be described as a sort of “microcosm” of concerns occurring throughout the country and overseas.

“I think it’s no secret that portions of our government and political groups are now starting to target Christians in a way that has never really happened in America or [even] Canada,” he said, referencing the pastors who have been jailed in neighboring Canada recently for holding church services.

“I’m in a conservative state, but I live in a liberal town, and the liberals had no problem arresting me for practicing my religious rights and my Constitutional rights,” Rench said. “But my [Republican] governor also didn’t defend me either. If you look at what’s going on in Canada, I think America’s 10 years, at most 20 years, behind Canada if we don’t make significant changes.”

One thing that Rench said he learned from the whole incident is that “hardened” political leaders cannot be expected to modify their mental processes or political ideals.

“What needs to happen is the people need to change how they vote and disincentivize the targeting of Christians and those who are genuinely trying to defend the Constitution,” he maintained.

“Under the terms of the settlement agreement, ICRMP will pay a total settlement amount of $300,000 and all claims against the City and the named City employees will be dismissed with prejudice along with a release of all liability,” the release said, including that the settlement will “provide(s) closure of a matter related to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and the City’s efforts to protect the public during an exceptionally trying time.”

When the toxic media push enough hysteria, vulnerable individuals will be affected.

BLUF
Refutations of this narrative are easily found, if you know where to look. Not, however, in the pages of the New Yorker. Read Drs. Richard Lindzen and Judith Curry. Read Alex Epstein or Bjorn Lomborg. Read other serious energy experts at (mostly conservative) think tanks and organizations.

That will expose the real rationale for all of this: the desire by some to control resources for all. Those invested in the “green economy” of wind turbines and solar panels and electric vehicles want to justify banning their competitors for long-term profits. Rational answers also expose their cynicism. And they have the added advantage of being true.

Welcome to the ‘Climate’ Nut House.

Like everyone, we at The Pipeline have our moods. So when we stumbled across the recent “Therapy Issue” of New Yorker Magazine we were intrigued enough to see what they had to say about things. After all, given the unhappy realities of America’s elite, liberal culture, and the depression, anxiety, and isolation that has been so widely reported since the Covid lockdowns, maybe they knew something we don’t.

And, indeed, in one particular article we learned that there is a whole new category of mental illness stalking young people in particular, leading to despair, loneliness, and a sense of impending mortality. Its title: “What To Do With Climate Emotions?: “If the goal is to insure [sic] that the planet remains habitable, what is the right degree of panic, and how do you bear it?” It turns out, according to author Jia Tolentino, that the highly ideological “climate change” narrative has taken a serious toll on them, plunging them into a deep depression over the putative impending death of our planet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well This is Ominous: Waiting to Declare the Climate Emergency

From the “Oh, they’d never do that” department we see a couple of emails produced the other night in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Energy Policy Advocates.

There’s nothing quite like preparing well in advance to declare a (checks notes) “climate emergency”. Hey, one can never be too prepared!  Even more amusing — in a rather dark, very 2020s way — is the idea of a proposal for a “Climate Emergency Initiative.” And apparently a really good one at that. Odd this didn’t come up in Mr. Goffman’s prolonged, still-inchoate confirmation process…

GAO can only wonder what it’s being held for. What new paper, claim, film release, loss in court, UN Conference of the Parties/political need will necessitate the discovery of a “climate emergency” for which, fear not, we just happened to have an Initiative prepared…

United Nations’ Power Grab: Threatening National Sovereignty and Individual Freedom

Holy threat to national sovereignty, Batman! The United Nations appears to believe that it should be in charge of global responses to various emergencies that impact multiple countries – and, if the reports are correct, our very own President Joe Biden agrees.

The U.N. is gearing up to position itself as the decider of how the international community responds to various calamities that might occur. This means it could even have the power to override America’s national sovereignty and dictate how our government functions in these moments.

This has been a long time coming. It appears that our own government might be willing to sign on to such an agreement. The United Nations is planning to adopt a Pact for the Future during its “Summit of the Future” in September 2024, which includes a proposal for a new “emergency platform.”

This platform would grant the UN significant powers to respond to global shocks like pandemics, and the UN would have authority over public and private sectors worldwide. The Biden administration has expressed support for this proposal, potentially giving the UN unprecedented control and endangering American sovereignty:

In September 2024, less than two months before the next U.S. presidential election, the United Nations will host a landmark “Summit of the Future,” where member nations will adopt a Pact for the Future. The agreement will solidify numerous policy reforms offered by the U.N. over the past two years as part of its sweeping Our Common Agenda platform.

Although there are numerous radical proposals included in the agenda, perhaps none are more important than the U.N. plan for a new “emergency platform,” a stunning proposal to give the U.N. significant powers in the event of future “global shocks,” such as another worldwide pandemic.

According to a message from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, these “global shocks” would require the Emergency Platform to “actively promote and drive an international response that places the principles of equity and solidarity at the centre of its work.” The U.N. would also “ensure that those most vulnerable to a complex, global shock, and those with least capacity to cope with its impacts, receive the necessary support from those with the means to do so.”

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Pritzker compares AR-15s to “missile launchers” while calling for a federal ban

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker seems to be channeling his inner Joe Biden in his defense of the state’s ban on so-called assault weapons and “large capacity” magazines. Biden has famously (and erroneously) proclaimed that while the Second Amendment may protect muskets, it never allowed citizens to own cannons; a statement that’s been thoroughly debunked on multiple occasions yet still emerges from Biden’s mouth on a regular basis.

The thrust of Biden’s argument, factually deficient though it may be, is that the Second Amendment doesn’t protect the right to keep and bear any and all arms, and Pritzker is now piggybacking on the president’s pontifications with a ludicrous comparison of his own.

 “We’ve banned assault weapons. We’ve banned high capacity magazines. We’ve banned switches that turn regular guns into automatic weapons and here in Illinois those are things that will keep people safe and alive, but we need a national ban,” Pritzker said.

The White House Wednesday highlighted Illinois’ law as what the Biden administration would like to see nationwide.…

To the consolidated lawsuit challenging the state’s gun and magazine ban, Pritzker said he’s “heartened” after last week’s hearing in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The governor cited some of the judges’ questions focused on whether the issue is a “popularity contest which guns we’re going to allow.”

“Because the people who were advocating for semi-automatic weapons were saying ‘well gee, everybodies got one now, so you can’t ban them.’ Well that’s ridiculous,” Pritzker said. “If everyone had a missile launcher, we shouldn’t ban missile launchers?”

I confess that I’m not up to speed on the legality of owning missile launchers, but it’s perfectly legal to own a grenade launcher… as long as you’re willing to register it under the NFA and pay a $200 tax stamp. But as long as missile launchers cost millions of dollars, I don’t think Pritzker has to worry about a Patriot missile system being erected by a private citizen in Chicago or Joliet. We’re not talking about exotic weapon systems that will never be in common use for self-defense, we’re talking about commonly-owned rifles lawfully possessed by tens of millions of Americans for hunting, recreation, self-defense, and other lawful activities.

Todd Vandermyde, who’s consulting plaintiffs in the challenge to Illinois’ ban, said more gun control won’t make the streets safer. He said the governor’s other policies are “an abject failure.”

“They don’t go after the criminals. ‘Oh no, we’re going to give them electric home monitoring. Oh no, we’re going to let them go out for 48 hours. Oh no, we’re not going to require cash bail,’” Vandermyde told The Center Square, referring to the state’s latest changes to the criminal justice system.…

Vandermyde said the case isn’t about missile launchers.

“They just keep jumping to the absurd that if you allow rifles, shotguns and pistols then you have to allow all this other stuff. And nobody is arguing [that], that’s not even before the court in any way,” Vandermyde said.

Vandermyde’s correct in noting that this argument is more useful to politicians than to the attorneys defending the state’s ban, but Attorney General Kwame Raoul is deploying a similar argument that’s equally absurd. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported back in March:

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Thursday filed a brief defending Illinois’ assault weapon ban, arguing the weapons restricted by the newly enacted law aren’t commonly used for self-defense and that large capacity magazines are accessories — not “arms.”

It also argues the country’s founding fathers owned guns that could only fire a single shot before reloading — proving assault weapons and large capacity magazines weren’t in “common use” when the Constitution was ratified.

“The assault weapons restricted by the Act are not commonly used for self-defense; by design and in practice, they exist for offensive infliction of mass casualties,” the brief states.

It also argues the term “arms” refers to weapons and not “accessories,” and that large capacity magazines are therefore not protected under the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

The Supreme Court has already stated that arms that are in common use today are protected by the Second Amendment, not just those arms that were around at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified. In Caetano v. Massachusetts , a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that stun guns and other electronic weapons fall under the scope of the Second Amendment, pointing out that in Heller the justices determined that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

Note that the Supreme Court specifically referred to “bearable arms”, which negates Pritzker’s hamhanded comparison of missile launchers to AR-15s. But if the courts were to accept Raoul’s argument, then what’s stopping them from concluding that all semi-automatic firearms, including handguns, fall outside the Second Amendment’s protections? We may soon find out, because based on the makeup of the Seventh Circuit panel that recently heard oral arguments in the Illinois gun ban cases I’m not all that optimistic that the appeals court will follow Supreme Court precedent and the Bruen test to their logical conclusions; modern sporting rifles are indeed in common use for a variety of lawful purposes, and are therefore covered by the Second Amendment’s guarantee of our right to keep and bear arms.

Gavin Newsom Says Something So Mind-numbingly Stupid, Only a Leftist Could Believe It

With our country more divided than most everyone alive has ever seen it, we’re keenly aware that Leftists seem to live in an entirely separate reality from our own. In their world, it’s perpetually the hottest year evuh, Klansmen rove the streets in gas-guzzling trucks, murdering unarmed black youth, women are both superior and oppressed, and men have babies. So we shouldn’t be too surprised when one of them says something that manifestly isn’t so. Nonetheless, occasionally one of the luminaries of the Left will utter something so extraordinarily stupid that I am compelled to call it out. Today’s honoree is California Governor and 2024 Democrat presidential understudy Gavin Newsom.

Newsom recently posted a video on social media that was filmed while he was in Idaho over the weekend, allegedly stumping for Biden but coincidentally building up his own base. Anyway, the video shows Newsom browsing in a bookstore, while a white text overlay reads, “Visiting a bookstore with banned books in Boise.”

Let’s pause a minute and think this through.

When something is banned, it is removed — like a Republican president can be banned from social media platforms. It becomes illegal and cannot be found or obtained. Yet, here is Governor Nuisance, clowning around in a store full of so-called banned books, prominently displayed for sale. In a dark red state, no less. How is he able to do this?

Because, as with so many other words, “banned” does not mean what the Left says it means. To the Left, a book becomes “banned” if a responsible adult points out that it’s pornographic and not appropriate for minors.

“Book bans are at a record high — there have been over 1,200 challenges in the last year…” tweeted Gov. Tiresome, giving away the game by conflating “banned” with “challenged.”

The rest of the video is similarly idiotic. The text changes to “2022 set a new record…” while the image behind it shows the books The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and a book by Judy Blume. Of course, Toni Morrison has received more awards and honors than I have space to list in this article. Walker and Blume have sold millions of books, been widely read by multiple generations, and have even reached the writers’ pinnacle of having major motion pictures made from their books. But, you know — they’re “banned” or something.

Newsom’s video could not be any more nonsensical or patronizing, but progressives will eat it up and preen:

…and this is the guy they’re probably gonna slip into the race when Biden finally implodes like an experimental submersible that wasn’t designed by boring 50-year-old white guys.

New Jersey Attorney General Platkin whines like a baby about gun owners

Platty-kins, Platty-kins, unconstitutional man.
Execute me a law as fast as you can.
Lie about it, double down on it, and mark it with a “D.”
Keep it on the books for Danielsen and me!

Well there you have it; the Attorney General of New Jersey’s official nursery rhyme. Just when the patriots thought that Matt “Stuart” Platkin couldn’t get any more swampy or whiney, he sends out this whiny little tweet over all his social media channels!

Okay Plattykins, we’re rest assured. Rest assured you and the rest of the swamp creatures are in over their heads. The awful law, allegedly written by Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (I highly doubt Danielsen has the mental capacity to write something like the “carry-killer” bill by himself) has hit a minor speed bump on its journey to be overruled. The AG should be well aware that this is just a procedural thing, and that the stay on the injunction of New Jersey’s law is likely going to be reversed. This really only has to do with the fact the state asked for an emergency stay.

The state’s case is meritless. Attorney Daniel Schmutter mapped out everything that needs to be known about sensitive locations during the preliminary injunction hearing for the consolidated cases challenging this garbage law:

As Your Honor is aware, we so far have only seen one thing that gets you a sensitive place. That’s “governance.” And it’s actually narrower than government functions, because as Your Honor knows, the State claims that libraries and museums and all that stuff is government functions. It’s the function of governance. Legislatures, courthouses, polling places, those are the three Bruen sensitive places.

The policies that Platkin, Murphy, et.al. pushed for have no historical analogues. The insurance mandate, the ban on carry in the car, the fee hikes – all of it baseless and only enacted to make it more difficult on the law-abiding. Platkin is tired of defending himself because his position is indefensible. Why is he whining so much about this all of a sudden? Because he probably realizes he’s losing and has over caffeinated crazed Karens crawling up his two-hole. The guy screaming “I’m not crazy,” as he’s being whisked out of the room, usually is…well you know.

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New laws in Vermont that start July 1: Gun purchases,….

Vermonters will soon see new laws that affect their wallets or their legal choices — and even possibly cut down on the theft of car parts.

Every year, July 1 is the date that many new laws take effect. Some of these laws were recently passed by the Legislature; others were approved a while ago and are just now rolling out.

Here are 11 of the changes you should know about this summer.

Waiting period for gun purchases

Young people in Vermont are less likely than their peers in other states to report feelings of sadness, hopelessness or suicidal thoughts — and yet their rate of suicide deaths is higher than the national average.

Lawmakers have decided that easy access to guns is a significant factor in those deaths. And legislation that goes into effect July 1 will institute a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases. Lawmakers hope that preventing someone in crisis from gaining immediate access to a gun will allow time for suicidal impulses to pass. The vast majority of people who survive a suicide attempt never make an attempt again.

A new law in Vermont creates a criminal penalty for unsafe storage of firearms if those guns are used in a crime.

The law will allow family members to petition courts for an extreme risk protection order, and creates a new criminal penalty for negligent storage of firearms, if that negligence results in commission of a crime.

The 72-hour waiting period provision is almost certain to invite a legal challenge. In a landmark ruling last year, the U.S. Supreme Court established a new precedent for the manner in which courts should assess the constitutionality of restrictions on gun ownership.

Though Gov. Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law, he said he doesn’t think the 72-hour waiting period will survive a constitutional challenge.

[It makes one wonder why the goobernor let it become law then, but scratch a lib, find a tyrant applies]

Doctoral student opines lying gun owners aren’t being reached with ‘responsible’ messaging

There’s no lack of progressive think tanks out there that claim they’re not coming for our guns, they just want to promote “safety.” The New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center is one of those groups that claims to be all about safety, however they never put out any studies, materials, or articles, on the responsible and law-abiding gun owner, nor any material about the corporeal topics of gun use or ownership. A recent study done by a doctoral student at the GVRC has her claiming foul over potential untruthful survey results.

In a study published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, researchers found that based on their answers to a variety of other questions, a group of individuals appeared as though they might be falsely denying firearm ownership when directly asked by researchers.

While some of these individuals resemble what previous research indicated to be a typical American firearm owner (e.g., white, male), others looked quite different (racial or ethnic minority, female, living in urban environments), highlighting that the landscape of firearm ownership in the United States may be shifting.

“Some individuals are falsely denying firearm ownership, resulting in research not accurately capturing the experiences of all firearm owners in the U.S.,” said Allison Bond, lead author of the study and a doctoral student with the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center. “More concerningly, these individuals are not being reached with secure firearm storage messaging and firearm safety resources, which may result in them storing their firearms in an unsecure manner, which in turn increases the risk for firearm injury and death.”

This hiccup that Bond has highlighted is a valuable feature in our evolution in my opinion. Unequivocally, I will personally stand by these statements – until the medical field shows they’re unbiased – I don’t suggest exposing whether or not you’re a gun owner to anyone associated with it, without relevant cause. I salute the people that elected to “falsely deny” their firearm ownership – even though a false denial would be a double negative, but I’m not the PHD student here.

What’s really hubris, troubling, and disgustingly elitist is that Bond has this concern that because “these individuals,” which I’m going to read as meaning “those/these people” – the ones that are “racial or ethnic minority, female, living in urban environments” – who smartly elected to lie to the center, they’re too obtuse to get proper “messaging.” Whatever Bond considers safety resources, it’s rather opinionated to assume those people won’t get them because they don’t trust those conducting the study. Bond is beyond out of touch here.

The Rutgers GVRC has done nothing but put forward an abstinence-only approach to firearms ownership. There’s never any research done on, or paper they put out, that highlights the positive elements of owning guns. Every rabbit hole they go down has a result that has to do with more regulations. Fortunately many of the regulations they’d want to see implemented would be considered unconstitutional if looked at properly with an unbiased approach.

After following the GVRC acutely since anti-gun Governor Phil Murphy instituted them, pumping taxpayer’s dollars into this gibberish, their main objective seems to have an ends in requiring firearms to be stored in a 100% unusable state. That condition goes directly against the Heller decision I might add. This has been my suspicion for a while and this study/reporting on it helps fortify that hunch.

Bond leaves out that every single brand new firearm sold in the United States includes a user manual. Nearly all handguns come with a lock and hard lockable case. In those manuals, there’s general instructions on so-called proper storage. Anyone walking into a gun store to purchase a firearm is approached with plenty of resources in the form of capitalism and altruism. At a shop, there’s generally someone wanting to help new gun owners to be safe, in addition to the fact businesses can only profit by selling more firearm safety devices.

The problem with Bond’s assertion that those people don’t get appropriately schooled on what she considers proper storage and safety rules is that Bond – and her ilk – try to squeeze everything into a one-size-fits-all solution. If we asked Bond or anyone else over at the GVRC about proper storage, they’re going to tell you firearms need to be stored unloaded, in a locked container, and ammunition stored in a separate locked container. I suspect Bond is not going to say that it makes sense to have a loaded firearm in the home for self-defense. The thought of storing a firearm in a night stand loaded, if appropriate for the given household, would be looked at with horror.

To people like Bond and groups like the GVRC, self-defense via firearm use is abhorrent. So keeping a firearm stored in any condition for ease of use would go against their biases. It’s unfortunate these alleged people of science don’t come standard where bias is completely removed. Follow the science – pish posh to that for these purposes.

The rest of the “safety resources” includes what? I’ve never heard the GVRC advocate that gun owners should take an NRA or USCCA training course to learn how to use a firearm. No, safety resources are going to come in the form of their own abstinence-only branded “education.” If groups like the GVRC advocated for people to take such branded training – by name – they’d have some credibility.

There’s an undertone that Bond was making about those people not being exposed to resources because of these “false denials.” Beyond their silly survey, what’s Bond and the GVRC doing to “educate” respondents? Do they offer self-described gun owners these important resources when respondents say they own guns? And in what form are these resources?

The study indicates a percentage of firearm owners may not feel comfortable disclosing their ownership status. Among those identified as potentially falsely denying firearm ownership, many were women living alone in urban environments.

The study indicates a good portion of people that have the right idea. While I’m all in favor of accurate data collection, I cannot support supplying any information about whether or not one is a gun owner to the GVRC or groups like it. Physicians and doctors out there may take exception to my advice here, but too bad. When the authors and groups behind these so-called studies make a good faith effort to not inject their anti-gun conclusion before the study has even concluded, then we can have a chat about being honest. They all claim they’re not about “making policy,” but that’s total and complete malarkey. I’ve chatted with the “I just want to save lives, I’m not about policy making” doctors, and I conclude they’re lying after reading their rhetoric and papers.

One of the other things that’s hinted at when talking about messaging is not said in the piece covering the study. Read into comments made by the GVRC executive director:

“There are several reasons some firearm owners might feel uncomfortable disclosing that they own firearms,” said Michael Anestis, executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and senior author of the study. “These results serve as an important reminder that we should not assume we know everything about who owns firearms and that we should ensure that our efforts to reach firearm owners can resonate with broad audiences we might not realize would benefit from the message.”

Anestis left out one of the newer en vogue buzzwords that all readers need to be aware of. With the narrow exception of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and a few other very limited number of groups, if the phrase “credible messenger” is in the literature, run. While I have read some reporting in NSSF – who makes a good faith effort to protect firearm owners and the industry – literature where credible messenger was used, generally speaking, only grossly anti-gun think tanks use it.

The mechanism for these groups is for them to find the right person, to talk to the right people, using them as a puppet to get their own message out. That’s it. It’s agenda driven and has everything to do with policy and culturally appropriating as many people as possible – to their way of thinking.

To all “those people” out there…the “racial or ethnic minority, female, living in urban environments,” welcome to the fray. There are resources out there, which I”m sure you’re well aware of, should you need any. With Second Amendment supporters, there’s an entire community of people that are more than willing and happy to help each other, including you.

Continue to go with your gut and learn there are trustworthy organizations out there.  Let’s call the other groups those who utilize their alleged academic “achievements” to bend pseudoscience into a conclusion that results in our disarmament. Judging by Bond’s complaints, many of you have already figured this out. Kudos for that.

In 2020, the left got their chance to bring out their inner fascists, and they liked that feeling – a lot:

Do You Remember 2005?

Now that Succession is over, I’ve got something else to binge on. It’s only seven minutes and two seconds long, but it’s arguably less predictable and more dramatic. It’s an interview on The Daily Show—the original one, with Jon Stewart, before it soured into a mess so rancid it can’t even find a permanent host—from July 20, 2005. The guest? Robert F. Kennedy Jr., there to talk about thimerosal, the mercury compound used as a preservative in some vaccines and which Kennedy believes is the likely cause of various neurological disorders as well as the reason for the spike in autism in the U.S.

RFK Jr.’s message is the same one he delivers today. “It’s not all vaccinations,” he told [fellow leftist Jon Stewart on the Daily Show], just the ones that use the substance he deems unsafe. Stewart pushes back, at one point asking why the government would conspire to suppress his arguments, even at the price of public health. RFK, Jr. responds. And so on and so forth. Which is to say: The entire interview is driven by curiosity and good faith and ends with respect: “It’s a remarkable story,” Stewart says. “I wish we had more time, but I appreciate you getting the word out and I know parents of kids with autism truly appreciate it. I know it’s a very difficult thing for them to be dealing with, so I’m sure they appreciate the help and support.”

That was 18 years ago.

Back then, the very same ideas, expressed the very same way, earned RFK Jr. a friendly, measured spot on the nation’s hottest television program. Today, it brings him smug condescension and often vicious contempt, from The New York Times announcement of his run for president informing readers that his campaign would be “built on re-litigating Covid-19 shutdowns and shaking Americans’ faith in science” to the Center for Countering Digital Hate placing him on its “Disinformation Dozen” list and demanding that his social media accounts be blocked.

“He’s a crazy conspiracy theorist,” Times opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo shot back at someone on Twitter who dared to wonder why RFK Jr. might deserve attention, the smear rolling off Manjoo’s keyboard with the ease of someone receiving talking points from the Politburo instead of doing the work of having thoughts of his own.

What changed?

It’s a vitally important question for anyone wishing to understand our current collective lunacy, so let’s take the scientific approach.

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