FPC Files Opening Brief in Lawsuits Challenging Delaware “Assault Weapon,” Magazine Bans

PHILADELPHIA, PA (July 5, 2023) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an opening brief with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in its Gray v. Jennings and Graham v. Jennings lawsuits, which challenge Delaware’s “assault weapon” and standard capacity magazine bans, respectively. The brief can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“The district court wrongly held that Delaware’s bans, which affect some of the most popular firearms and magazines in the country, could be justified by reference to a pattern of historical regulation targeting a variety of arms, from ‘slung shots’ to machine guns,” argues the brief. “But the State has not put forward, and the district court did not cite, a single law that banned possession or carriage of an arm that was in common use at the time like the Delaware bans do.”

“No matter what the State of Delaware thinks, the guns and magazines it banned are protected by the Second Amendment and thus cannot be prohibited,” said FPC Vice President of Communications Richard Thomson. “We look forward to the Third Circuit getting right what the district court got wrong when it declined to preliminarily enjoin Delaware’s bans.”

FPC is joined in these lawsuits by the Second Amendment Foundation……

Forbes Claims More than 330 ‘Mass Shootings’ This Year Using Misleading Data

Forbes pointed to misleading data and claimed on Monday there had been over 330 “mass shootings” in the United States so far in 2023.

They labeled their report “breaking” news.

Writing at Forbes, Ana Faguy relied on the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a pro-gun-control database which abandoned the long-standing definition of a “mass shooting” as four or more deaths in a single incident by a single gunman and replaced it with  “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.” GVA’s new definition allows drive-by shootings, targeted gang attacks, and other non-mass shootings to be counted as “mass shootings,” thus inflating the number of reported incidents.

For example, on Monday Baltimore WBALTV reported that GVA was still counting the April 15, 2023, Dadeville, Georgia, birthday party attack as a “mass shooting.” GVA is doing this although at least six people have been arrested in connection with the attack.

Yet Faguy quoted GVA numbers, saying, “There have been more than 330 mass shootings so far this year, according to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive.”

Breitbart News noted that The Hill relied on GVA numbers last year and ended up claiming over 600 mass shootings in the United States by Thanksgiving Day 2022.

On July 26, 2021, Breitbart News observed that the GVA is also able to report higher numbers of “mass shootings” because it lists defensive gun uses and officer-involved gun uses against criminals as “gun violence.”

Breitbart News pointed out on May 7, 2023, that GVA’s new definition allows drive-by shootings, targeted gang attacks, and other non-mass shootings to be counted as “mass shootings,” thus increasing the number of reported incidents. While President Joe Biden was claiming there had already been “roughly 200 mass shootings” in America for the year, a database maintained by the Associated Press/USA Today/Northeastern University showed there had actually been 19 such incidents in the United States from January 1, 2023, to May 2, 2023.

Watch These Clips and Tell Me You Really Think Biden Will Make It Through the 2024 Campaign

Joe Biden has faced questions about his physical and mental health for a long time now. He managed to avoid being too accessible to the public in 2020 because of the pandemic, but now he doesn’t have the pandemic as cover for avoiding playing the role of the president daily. The amount of pressure that Joe Biden is under to appear in control is just as high as (if not higher than) the exposure he has. There’s simply no easy way to hide him away, save for clearing his schedule and giving him time to recharge out of sight — and that’s a really bad look.

As president, Ol’ Joe has a lot of public obligations. On Independence Day, the birthday of our nation, he was front and center a lot and was as big a gaffe machine as you’d expect. During a National Education Association event in Washington, D.C., Biden became a garbled mess trying to read his script off the teleprompter.

The White House did what it could to cover for Joe, publishing a cleaned-up version of that mess. “You know, I’ve often say — and you’re tired of hearing me saying it, probably, but — children are the kite strings — they’re not somebody else’s chi- — they’re all our children — are the kite strings that lift our national ambitions aloft, and you hold those strings,” the official transcript reads. “You hold those strings. And our job is to make sure you have what you need to do what you do best.”

Is that how Biden sounded? Not to those who listened to him.

Oh, but there is more. Later on, Biden proudly highlighted the achievements of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, claiming that it has successfully helped teachers pay off student loan debt. In addition to getting the name of the program wrong, when he attempted to explain to the educators present how to find information about the program, he completely lost track of what he was trying to say.

“And, by the way, the program is still there,” he said. “Go to — anyway, you ought to contact us to make sure you know exactly how to qualify because you deserve that forgiveness.”

It should come as no surprise that Joe didn’t answer any questions, and Jill Biden was on hand to make sure Biden successfully exited the stage without embarrassing himself further.

The 2024 presidential campaign has technically already started, but Election Day is roughly a year and a half away. When you watch these videos, do you think that Joe Biden will make it until then? It’s not looking good.

1 This one will disappear quickly – wrong demographic
2 Another case of the legal system letting a dangerous criminal lose with a slap on the wrist. Just like it’s a plan, not a bug.

Gunman arrested for Philadelphia mass shooting which left 5 dead is BLM activist who wore women’s clothes.

The rifle-wielding suspect who donned a bulletproof vest before allegedly shooting dead five men and injuring two children in Philadelphia has been identified as a Black Lives Matter supporter who shared gun-toting memes on social media.

Kimbrady Carriker, 40, was nabbed shortly after the bloodshed in the city’s Kingsessing neighborhood Monday night, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, citing sources.

Cops haven’t yet publicly disclosed the suspect’s identity.

On his Facebook page, Carriker posted two pictures of himself wearing a bra, a women’s top and earrings with his hair braided long in March, three months before the alleged shooting.

He also regularly posts about supporting Black Lives Matter, including supporting workers who protested in the Strike For Black Lives in July 2020.
Carriker allegedly shot five men dead and injured two children in Philadelphia

Continue reading “”

Defending Your Vehicle: From carjackings to aggressive drivers to violent demonstrations, it’s not all that safe on our streets right now.

A man’s home is his castle, or so the saying goes, but these days, we also tend to look at our cars, trucks or vans as a castle as well. They’re our refuge in the stormy maelstrom of traffic. They provide us with soothing music from the stereo and cool breezes from the air conditioning vents. However, just because our vehicles are comfortable, it doesn’t mean they’re invulnerable, and that’s why something like the Vehicle Defense Class from Go Noisy USA starts to make a lot of sense.

Neil Davis, Go Noisy’s chief instructor, is a veteran with years of service in British Intelligence in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and a number of other locations, working primarily undercover in some of the hottest of the world’s hotspots. These actions required him to work primarily from “civilian” vehicles like passenger cars and trucks, so unlike other vehicle skills classes tailored to law enforcement, Neil’s classes have “real world” application for the armed citizen, as the needs of a teacher driving to work vary from the needs of an Uber driver who regularly has strangers in the car or a law enforcement officer at a traffic stop. The class was four hours in the classroom and four hours on the range and covered three different scenarios:

  • Carjacking
  • Aggressive Motorists
  • Violent Demonstrations

Carjackings

Carjackings, according to Davis come in two different flavors: Opportunistic carjackings, where the crooks are looking for any old car in a storm, and planned or targeted attacks, where the goal is to relieve someone of their expensive car.

shooting from the car

Shooting through your door? Bad idea. Move your pistol up a little higher.

 

For the armed citizen, an opportunistic carjacking will most likely be a “wrong place, wrong time scenario,” something we can help avoid by not being in the wrong places at wrong times. Targeted carjackings, on the hand, are meticulously planned, with copious prior surveillance so the crooks know exactly when and where they are going to strike.

Which brings up an important point. Crooks choose victims based on how they look and act, so anything you can do to deselect yourself as a victim is probably a good thing. One way to do that is what Davis called the “soak.” Simply put, when you arrive at a new location, take a few seconds and “soak in” the environment. Where are the other cars parked? Is there anyone just standing around? If so, how many, and where are they standing? Who is coming and going from your destination, and what do they look like? Taking a few moments to observe your surroundings like this gives you a baseline of what “normal” looks like and allows you to quickly spot what’s changed when you come back out of your destination, helping you spot potential trouble before it becomes a real problem.

Aggressive Motorists

Angry attacks on the road, Davis says, generally aren’t caused by traffic jams by themselves. Rather, traffic is the spark that sets off an emotional reaction to pre-existing frustration, such as a bad day at the work or a previous incident on the road. Because these kinds of incidents are escalations of other events, being able de-escalate the event is critical, as is not escalating things even more.

Getting out of dodge and putting distance between you and your attacker is the fastest and easiest way to avoid becoming a victim of an incident that has the potential for violence, as is knowing your state’s use of force laws so you can respond in an appropriate way if violence cannot be avoided or de-escalated.

Violent Demonstrations

Here’s where things get really tricky. A mob blocking a road can turn ugly and violent in the blink of an eye, and that can change your response just as quickly. It’s one thing to be stuck in traffic surrounded by a crowd of angry, shouting people, and it’s another thing to have Molotov cocktails thrown at the car next to you and a brick come through your windshield.

Your options for what you should do if you’re alone are radically different than if you have people in your car. This is dependent on the situation, of course. If you can use your vehicle to exit the area, make great haste to do so. However, if you can’t get away (which is the optimal solution) because your vehicle has been disabled or blocked in by immovable objects and it’s clearly a situation where things have gotten out of control, staying in your car means staying in one place, making yourself an easy target. If you’re alone and have to use a firearm, Davis recommends exiting the car to engage an attacker as soon as things turn to lethal force because of the shorter draw time when standing and the wider range of options available to you.

However, if there are others in your vehicle and you can’t leave, he recommends having the unarmed passengers assume the “crash position” found on airliner safety cards into order to give themselves a smaller, more defensible position. Either way, the instability of a riot means you’ve got to have a flexible plan. A one-note response of going to lethal force as quickly as possible is probably going to get you and those in your car in a lot of trouble. We are not in control of the people outside our vehicle, and that’s where the problems can happen.

Staying safe when you’re away from home is a complex task that pushes all our self-defense skills to their limits. However, a calm, clear mind and having the tools and ability to respond quickly and appropriately can help us come out on top when everything has gone south.

Almost like it’s not a bug, but a plan.

Suspect in shooting, carjacking spree previously had felon-in-possession charges dropped by DOJ

A 22-year-old man on probation for a knifepoint robbery at a D.C. Metro station is now accused of a carjacking and shooting spree in Prince George’s County, Maryland and the District of Columbia, and the suspect’s previous criminal history raises some major questions about why the Department of Justice chose to dismiss a charge of felon-in-possession just last year.

According to Prince George’s police, 22-year-old Daeyon Ross first carjacked a small SUV in Capitol Heights, Maryland; pointing a gun at the driver before taking off behind wheel, only to crash the stolen vehicle a few blocks away.

Police say Ross then attempted to carjack an Acura ILX in the drive-thru lane of a McDonald’s on Ritchie Road. When the driver, [56-year-old Kurt] Modeste, tried to get away, Ross allegedly shot him multiple times. Modeste managed to drive a short distance before he was pronounced dead.

Ross then carjacked a Toyota Scion, also in the drive-thru, that had three dogs inside. Police said he killed two of the dogs, before driving away in the Scion heading westbound on Central Avenue.

Officers from several agencies followed Ross, as he crossed into D.C. At the intersection of 52nd Street and Sheriff Road NE, he got out of the Scion and carjacked a fourth victim, stealing a GMC Terrain, but got into another crash. When officers approached Ross at the crash scene, an officer with the Capitol Heights Police Department fired shots, but neither the officer nor Ross was injured.

“It’s extremely rare to come across an individual who has such a disregard for life,” said Acting Deputy Chief Zachary O’Lare of the Prince George’s County Police Department.

And yet, authorities have come across Ross on several occasions over the past few years. In 2017 Ross was convicted as a juvenile for an armed robbery and according to WUSA-TV served five years in juvenile custody before he was released last year. Shortly after, and while he was still on probation for that earlier crime, D.C. police caught Ross with a pistol, only to see the resulting charges dropped by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

D.C. Superior Court records show Ross was arrested on Aug. 11, 2022 on multiple charges for allegedly carrying a handgun despite his felony conviction. According to an affidavit, Ross allegedly had a “wide-eyed stare” when he saw officers while walking in the 1400 block of Congress Place SE and then took off running while grabbing his waist band. Officers chased him, during which Ross allegedly pulled out a black handgun and threw it on the ground. Ross was taken into custody shortly thereafter and the gun was determined to be a Taurus G3 9mm with 13 rounds of ammunition.

Ross was charged with being a felon in possession, carrying a pistol without a license, possession of an unregistered firearm, possession of unregistered ammunition, altering identification marks of a weapon and possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia dropped all of those charges two months later, however, after Ross’ public defender filed motions challenging the constitutionality of the search under the Fourth Amendment and of the charges under the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which established a new “historical tradition” test for evaluating firearm regulations.

The U.S. Attorney’s office didn’t drop the charges because of the Bruen decision, even if that’s one of the reasons Ross’s public defender gave for why the case against their client should be dismissed. Biden’s DOJ contends that only “law-abiding citizens” have any right to keep and bear arms and have continued prosecuting prohibited persons cases even after the Bruen decision was handed down, so I don’t see how Bruen would have had any impact on the charging decision here.

Instead, as writer Matthew Yglesias recently highlighted, D.C. courts are throwing out a surprising number of prosecutions for firearm-related offenses on Fourth Amendment grounds; an issue that Ross’s public defender also raised last year. Yglesias pointed out a case decided in April called T.W. v. United States that seems to bear a close resemblance to the circumstances of Ross’s arrest. From the decision:

T.W. raised his hands in the air upon seeing the two officers exit the front vehicle. Ewing asked T.W. whether he had a gun on him, and T.W. responded no. Ewing and Gendelman continued approaching T.W. from each side, and Ewing asked “You sure?” to which T.W. replied, “Yeah, I’m positive.” Gendelman then asked, “I can pat you down just to make sure?” T.W. said “Yeah,” and Gendelman responded, “My man,” as he began to pat T.W. down. Gendelman found a gun in T.W.’s waistband. The encounter lasted about ten seconds from when the first officers exited their vehicle to when the pat-down search began, and it took just about another five seconds for the officers to find the gun on T.W. He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license, possession of an unregistered firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and possession of a large-capacity ammunition- feeding device.

Before trial, T.W. moved to suppress the gun, its magazine, and its ammunition. He argued that he was unlawfully seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment when he consented to a pat-down search, and that his consent was the fruit of the illegal seizure. During a hearing on his motion to suppress, T.W. testified that he was “scared and nervous,” never having been arrested before, and did not think he could say “no” to Gendelman’s pat-down request. Asked why not, T.W. responded, “Because of how they came up on me. I felt like I couldn’t walk away.” T.W. further highlighted his youth (21 years old at the time), his “complete lack of experience” with police, “and the fact that he was confronted by multiple officers” who “essentially jumped out on [him] and immediately began asking accusatory questions.”

As Yglesias points out, a jury convicted T.W. at trial, but the D.C. Court of Appeals reversed that conviction on the grounds that the tactics used by police violated T.W.’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Did the USAO believe that was likely going to be the end result of prosecuting Daeyon Ross for being a violent felon in illegal possession of a firearm? If so, it would indicate that this problem has been going on for quite some time in the District, given that Ross’s charges were dropped last year, and T.W.’s case was only reversed a few months ago.

So far the DOJ isn’t talking about why the U.S. Attorney made the decision to drop all of the gun charges Ross was facing last year, but I’m not sure that there’s an answer that’s going to be acceptable. A violent felon was allegedly found in possession of a loaded gun just a short time after being released from custody, and DOJ ultimately took a pass on providing any consequences for that crime. Less than a year later Ross is now charged with first-degree murder, armed carjacking, and even cruelty to animals for shooting two dogs in the second vehicle that he stole at gunpoint.

While Joe Biden is demanding new gun laws aimed at peaceable gun owners his own DOJ is turning down the chance to prosecute repeat offenders; something to keep in mind the next time the president calls for a gun ban, a crackdown on firearms manufacturers, or other infringements on our right to protect ourselves from the violent offenders the Department of Justice are letting go.

Argument over yard work ends in Tulsa shooting death

A homeowner, who police believe was accosted by a neighbor Sunday over yard work, shot [and] killed the aggressor, the Tulsa Police Department said.

Officers were called to the 1200 block of N. Toledo Avenue around 10:30 a.m. about a shooting. Officers arrived to find Blake Williams dead in the back yard of the residence.

Through the investigation and numerous interviews with witnesses and neighbors, officers learned the incident began with the homeowner doing yard work in the front yard. Williams approached him and became aggressive.

According to police, the homeowner asked Williams to leave several times. Williams eventually cornered the homeowner in the garage, began attacking him and cutting him with lawn trimming shears, and a physical fight ensued, TPD said.

At one point, the homeowner managed to get away from Williams, retrieved his gun, and again tried to get Blake Williams to leave, police said. Williams started walking away, then turned and ran at the homeowner, who shot Williams.

Williams died on the scene. TPD detectives questioned the homeowner and he is not under arrest at this time. His identity was not released by police.

July 5

1687 – Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a work in three books written in Latin, stating Newton’s laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics, Newton’s law of universal gravitation; and a derivation of Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.

1775 – The Second Continental Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition, a final attempt by the colonists to avoid going to war with Britain during the American Revolution.

1813 – The British raid Fort Schlosser, Black Rock and Plattsburgh, New York during the War of 1812

1814 – American troops under Major General Jacob Brown defeat British troops under General Phineas Riall at Chippawa, Ontario during the War of 1812

1859 – The U.S. discovers and claims Midway Atoll – ‘midway’ between San Francisco and Tokyo.

1865 – The United States Secret Service begins operation.

1915 – The Liberty Bell leaves Philadelphia en route to the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

1935 – The National Labor Relations Act is signed into law

1937 – Spam® is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

1943 – During World War II, the fleet for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily sails from Tunisia.

1950 –  American forces of Task Force Smith engage North Korean forces during the Korean War.
The Israeli Knesset passes the Law of Return which grants all Jews the right to immigrate to Israel.

1954 – Elvis Presley records his first single, “That’s All Right”, at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.

1971 – The 26th Amendment to the Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years, is ratified

1973 – A boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE) in Kingman, Arizona, following a fire that broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank, kills 11 firefighters.

1984 – In the case of United States v. Leon, the States Supreme Court establishes a ‘good faith’ exception from the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule against use of evidence obtained through defective warrants in criminal trials.

1989 –Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North is sentenced to a 3 year suspended prison term, 2 years probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours community service for his part in the Iran–Contra affair. The conviction is later overturned on appeal

1994 – Jeff Bezos founds Amazon.

1999 – President Clinton imposes trade and economic sanctions against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

2016 – The Nasa space probe, Juno, arrives at Jupiter and begins a 20 month orbital survey of the planet.

 The Geometry of Liberty: The Declaration of Independence Is a Logical Argument Based on Jefferson’s Axioms.

I was thinking about “We hold these truths to be self-evident” and remembered I’d written about it in 2019.

The Declaration as a whole is a logical argument that begins by stating its axioms:

  • That all men (by which Jefferson meant humanity, humankind) are created equal;
  • that by the very fact of their existence they have rights that inhere to them by their nature;
  • that among these right — that is, there are other natural rights that Jefferson doesn’t assert for the purposes of his argument — are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness;
  • that governments exists by the consent of the governed to secure — protect — those rights;
  • that a government’s only reason or justification for existence is to secure those rights;
  • and that a government’s only legitimacy and authority derives from that consent.

In that one sentence, Jefferson changes the world.