Oregon’s magazine ban, pistol purchase permitting scheme set for trial
Oregon’s narrowly-approved Measure 114 has been on hold for the past several months thanks to a circuit court judge’s injunction, but a separate federal lawsuit is set to go to trial next week, and gun owners are hoping that the ballot initiative will be struck down entirely by the courts.
U.S. District Judge Karen Immergut declined to issue a temporary restraining order of her own shortly after the law was approved by less than 51% of voters last November, ruling that the magazine ban was presumptively constitutional on the theory that the magazines aren’t likely protected by the Second Amendment in the first place, but even if they are, banning them is okay because its meant to address “unprecedented societal concerns” about mass shootings. Now she’s set to preside over a five-day trial that will delve more deeply into the constitutional questions surrounding Measure 114’s ban on commonly-owned magazines, with the state of Oregon and Measure 114’s defenders arguing that the bans are a life-saving necessity and opponents maintaining that the ban is a violation of our fundamental right to armed self-defense.
Immergut last week denied each side’s motions to rule in their favor without a trial.
“The record contains genuine disputes of material fact, which would benefit from full development through trial,” she wrote.
She said she’ll consider whether large-capacity magazines “constitute a dramatic technological change from earlier firearms capable of firing more than 10 rounds.”
Immergut also noted that she’ll take up the constitutionality of the gun permit requirement under Measure 114, but she likely won’t consider how it will be applied in reaching her opinion.
Measure challengers contend the permits will deprive law-abiding citizens of guns because state police haven’t yet hired sufficient staff to handle the anticipated increase in background checks required to obtain a permit.
“Evidence about future implementation is not ripe for determination in this trial,” Immergut said.
Based on Immergut’s previous ruling, it seems pretty clear that she’s looking for ways to justify the ban, and as Reason’s Jacob Sullum noted shortly after she declined to issue a TRO, she seems willing to twist the words of the Supreme Court in order to do so.
The FPC cites a couple of real-life cases that suggest magazine capacity can be crucial in fending off armed home invaders. More generally, it notes that shots fired in self-defense often miss their target, even when fired by trained police officers. Measure 114’s exemption for police officers recognizes that fact, the FPC says, and “the average Oregon citizen has just as much right as a police officer to defend herself with standard capacity magazines.”
For Immergut, however, the crucial point is that situations where Oregon’s magazine limit would impair self-defense are “exceedingly rare.” In effect, she is suggesting that arms are not covered by the Second Amendment unless the government agrees that they are “necessary”—and not for “lawful purposes” generally but for self-defense in particular.
Immergut even questions whether “large capacity magazines” are “in common use” for “lawful purposes,” which seems undeniable given how many law-abiding Americans own them. “Plaintiffs have not shown that magazines capable of accepting more than ten rounds of ammunition are firearms in ‘”common use” today for self-defense’ and thereby covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment,” she writes.
The Supreme Court has said that the central component of the Second Amendment is self-defense, but nothing in Heller, McDonald, or Bruen suggests that only arms that are in common use for self-defense are protected. If so, that would set up a bizarre standard that would allow for single shot bolt action hunting rifles to be banned, while protecting the handguns that were the primary target of gun control activists for decades.
While self-defense may be at the heart of the Second Amendment, the text plainly (and simply) refers to the right to keep and bear arms. Unless the state of Oregon can come up with longstanding historical analogues to banning commonly-owned arms (which they’ve so far been able to do), the state’s ban should be overturned by Immergut. I’m not all that confident the judge will apply the Bruen test appropriately and fairly, especially given her initial opinion, but unless she’s engaging in some anti-gun activism from the bench it shouldn’t be a close call to find in favor of the plaintiffs when the trial concludes next week.
May 31
1775 – A month after the battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, the Mecklenburg Resolves, annulling and vacating all laws originating from the authority of the British King or Parliament, and ending recognition of the Crown’s power in the colony of North Carolina are adopted by the Mecklenburg County Committee of Safety.
1790 – Congress enacts the first copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790.
1862 – During the Peninsula Campaign; outside Richmond, Virginia, Confederate forces under General Joseph E. Johnston engages Union forces under General George B. McClellan
1864 – During the Overland Campaign; at Cold Harbor, Virginia, the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee engages the Army of the Potomac under General Ulysses S. Grant.
1879 – Gilmore’s Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.
1889 – After several days of heavy rain, the earthen work South Fork Dam of the Little Conemaugh River fails, sending a 60 foot wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania killing over 2,200 people.
1921 – A race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma results in the deaths of an estimated 55 to 300 black people.
1924 – A fire at the Hope Development School in Playa Del Rey, Los Angeles, California, kills 24 people, mostly disabled children.
1951 – Under authority given by the Constitution in Article I, Section 8, which provides that “The Congress shall have Power….To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval forces“, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 United States Code §§ 801–946 takes effect as the legal system of the U.S. Armed Forces.
1955 – The U.S. Supreme Court expands on its Brown v. Board of Education decision by ordering district courts and school districts to enforce educational desegregation “at all deliberate speed.”
1971 – In accordance with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed by Congress in 1968, observation of Memorial Day occurs on the last Monday in May for the first time, rather than on the traditional Memorial Day of May 30.
1973 – The Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Khmer Rouge targets within Cambodia, hastening the end of the Cambodian Civil War.
1977 – The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, running from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska is completed.
1985 – 41 tornadoes strike Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, Canada leaving 76 dead.
2008 – Usain Bolt breaks the world record in the 100m sprint, at 9.72 seconds.
2013 – A record 2.6 mile wide, multiple vortex, EF5 force tornado, strikes El Reno, Oklahoma, killing 8 people, 4 of them ‘storm chasers’ and injuring 151 more.
2019 – A disgruntled city employee commits mass murder at a municipal office building at Virginia Beach, Virginia, shooting and killing 12 people and wounding 4 others before being engaged and killed by Police.
2020 – SpaceX Crew Dragon 2 Endeavour docks with the International Space Station and astronauts Hurley and Behnken transfer over to spend 62 days in space.
BLUF
My hat is off to the commies. They found a weak portion of the nation and convinced them that submission is strength and not cowardice. Your blue-haired, trans-pansexual sister-in-law will proudly move into a pod she shares with an “undocumented” Honduran serial rapist while calling you a bigot for not complying.
The Democrats’ Greatest Achievement: Convincing Idiots That Tyranny Is Virtue
I have to give it to the progressives Marxists–they sure know how to play the long game.
The far lefties have spent decades demonizing conservatives, Republicans, and white Christians as hateful, racist, terrorists, hell-bent on oppressing minorities, and, lately, guilty of taking down our American democracy, while at the same time assuring their minions they are morally superior to these same liberty-embracing crowd.
OPINION-O-RAMA! Many leftists are self-hating cowards who need to feel supreme over a group of people, and those people would be you and I. But what do I know? I’m just a former self-hating coward leftist who used to look down on people like you until a friend — whom I’ll call a true son of liberty — shook the stupid out of me.
Leftists, desperate to feed their cowardice — rather than starve it to death and replace it with courage — eat up their phantom supremacy by swallowing whatever self-righteous balderdash their Democrats masters throw at them, even if that means slowly stripping away their own freedoms.
Those at the top of the Democrat hate pyramid have learned they can thrust tyranny on their myrmidons if they just thinly disguise it with a bogus sense of virtue. The weak are easy prey.
Die-hard leftists will trip over themselves in a desperate attempt to out-virtue signal their Bolshie friends, and if that means cutting off their noses to spite our Constitution-loving faces, so be it.
2 charged in carjacking attempt near Ford City Mall where victim shot suspect
CHICAGO (WLS) — Two people have been charged after an attempted carjacking near Ford City Mall in which the victim shot and wounded one of the suspects, Chicago police said.
The incident occurred Sunday in the 7600-block of South Cicero Avenue.
Police said the 24-year-old victim was approach by the two suspects, one of whom produced a handgun and fired. The victim returned fire and shot one of the suspects in the thigh, police said.
Police said the victim is a valid FOID/CCL holder.
The two suspects were arrested in the 7400-block of South Cicero Avenue and the 2700-block of West 68th Street Sunday night, police said.
Tuesday morning, police said, 21-year-old Anton Cheeks and 18-year-old Travell Quadir Deal, have each been charged with attempted vehicular carjacking and are due in bond court Tuesday.
Armed Women of America National Conference Opens Doors to Public
Names like Lena Miculek, Mike Seeklander, Miyo Strong of SmartDefense, Terry Vaughan, Nikki Burgett, Cheryl Todd of Gun Freedom Radio, Karen Butler of Shoot Like a Girl, Shelley Hill of The Complete Combatant, Vicki Farnam, and more are all bringing some of the best techniques and education to one spot this August.
2023 Armed Women of America National Conference
Covering topics like off-body carrying, staying calm in a crisis, safeguarding life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, self-defense, developing a personal response plan for an active threat, and so much more, the National Conference & Leadership Summit is personal protection education for women at its best.
Included in this action-packed weekend is hands-on shopping with industry brands like Ruger, Glock, Crossbreed Holsters, Gunsite Academy, Laser Ammo, ErgoGrips, Walkers, MantisX, Premier Body Armor, OTIS Smart Gun Care, CoolFire Trainers, Taurus USA, and many more. Topping it all off is plenty of social networking, add-on pre and post-conference workshops, and fun! Where else can you get this much content and connection in one place? Nowhere.
Previously reserved for chapter leadership, the Armed Women of America is opening its annual conference doors to all members, skill levels, and interests. Beyond that, in recognizing the incredible growth in women shooters, they are opening weekend EXPO to the general public. All of this offered for hundreds less than a single ticket to a Taylor Swift concert.
If you’ve not heard of the Armed Women of America (AWA), they are a non-profit organization with chapters across the country where women gather regularly to learn and grow in their abilities to handle firearms safely, responsibly, and competently. They offer a welcoming, non-intimidating place for women to learn more about topics including firearms safety, personal protection, concealed carry, mindset and so much more. The meetings offer classroom and range time, all under the guidance of certified women instructors who volunteer their time. Their vision is that women have the skills, mindset, and training to defend themselves and those in their care.
Nothing nationally newsworthy here is there? /sarc
Chicago shootings: 53 shot, 11 fatally, in Memorial Day weekend gun violence across city
CHICAGO — It’s been a violent and deadly Memorial Day weekend in Chicago with at least 53 shot, 11 fatally, police said.
The shooting victims range in age from 2 to 77 years old, representing every part of the city.
The violence occurred despite a collaborative public safety effort that the new mayor hopes to implement all summer.
[California) SENATE PASSES BILL TO EFFECTIVELY BAN NEW PISTOL SALES IN CALIFORNIA
A measure that greatly expands the mandate for firearms technology that isn’t on the market won easy approval in the California state Senate last week.
California Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s SB 452 passed on a 29-10 vote on May 24 and goes to the state Assembly for further consideration. The Encinitas Democrat argues that the bill “simply puts to use readily available technology to help law enforcement catch criminals” by banning all sales or transfers of any semiautomatic pistol after July 2027 unless it has been verified as having a microstamping-enabled action.
Despite Blakespear’s assertions that microstamping, a process that etches unique identifiers on expended cartridge cases, is available, no such guns are in production.
Anywhere.
In 2013, Kamala Harris, then the California attorney general, put the state’s long-dormant microstamping requirement into effect, requiring new pistols certified for commercial sale be able to mark expended brass with a microscopic array of characters, which identify the make, model, and serial number of the pistol upon firing.
Since then, the state’s roster of approved handguns has shrunk, with only legacy semi-autos – which were grandfathered – and revolvers currently listed. For example, the roster contains no approved Generation 4 or Generation 5 Glock handguns, all of which debuted after 2013. Likewise, the SIG P365, one of the most popular carry pistols in the country, cannot be found on the list.
Larry Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, one of the groups currently challenging the 2013 law, told Guns.com previously that the state is experiencing a “slow motion handgun ban as fewer and fewer models are allowed to be sold in the state. California is to handguns what Cuba is to cars; only old models are available.”
Blakespear’s legislation, backed by anti-gun groups such as Brady and Everytown, would effectively close off access to even these legacy guns by creating a separate and distinct restriction on the sale or transfer of any semi-automatic handgun by a licensed dealer unless it is capable of microstamping.
However, the state has seen its current law in troubled waters, with a case brought against it drawing heat from a federal court earlier this year. That court, in the case of Boland v Bonta, saw the California DOJ hit with a preliminary injunction as the case proceeds.
“The microstamping provision requires handguns to have a particular feature that is simply not commercially available or even feasible to implement on a mass scale,” U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney’s order reads.
Meanwhile, SB 482, which is co-sponsored by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is now in the Assembly, where Dems hold an overwhelming 3/4 (62-18) majority.
May 30
70 – During the Roman empire’s siege of Jerusalem, Titus and his legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall.
1431 – In Rouen, France, Joan of Arc is burned at the stake as a heretic by an English dominated tribunal.
1539 – Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.
1806 – Future President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel over personal insults.
1854 – The Kansas-Nebraska Act, establishing the US territories of Kansas and Nebraska and repealing the Missouri Compromise, is signed into law by President Franklin Pierce.
1868 – Decoration Day, the predecessor of the modern Memorial Day, is observed in the U.S. for the first time after a proclamation by John A. Logan, head of the veterans group, The Grand Army of the Republic.
1883 – A stampede on the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge in New York kills twelve people.
1899 – Pearl Hart, a female outlaw of the Old West, commits one of the last stage coach robberies, about 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.
1911 –Ray Harroun driving the Marmon Wasp wins the first Indianapolis 500 motor race, at a blistering average speed of 74.602 miles per hour.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. by former President and then Chief Justice of the United States, William H. Taft.
1943 – Dr. Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Zigeunerfamilienlager -Romani family camp- at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
1948 – A dike along the Columbia River breaks during a flood, obliterating Vanport, Oregon and killing 15 people.
1958 – The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War, are buried along side the Unknown Soldier of World War 1 at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
1971 – The Mariner 9 probe is launched from Cape Canaveral on a mission to map the surface, and to study changes in the atmosphere and surface of Mars.
1972 – In Ben Gurion Airport (at the time, Lod Airport), Israel, 3 members of the Japanese Red Army attack and kill 26 people and injure 78 others before 2 are killed and the last wounded and arrested.
1979 – Downeast Flight 46, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, crashes on approach to Knox County Regional Airport in Rockland, Maine, killing 17 of the 18 passengers and crew aboard.
2020 – The SpaceX Crew Demo-2 Endeavour, the first crewed orbital spacecraft to launch from the United States since 2011, with astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken aboard, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center.
77-year-old Ann Arbor man saves himself from home intruder
ANN ARBOR, MI (WXYZ) — A man in Ann Arbor is safe this morning after scaring off an intruder during a terrifying home invasion. The 77-year-old man says he didn’t let fear keep him from defending his home.
The frightening incident unfolded at a home on Arbordale near West Stadium Boulevard.
“I don’t look for trouble,” Craig said. “It found me.”
Trouble may have found this 77-year-old man from Ann Arbor, but it didn’t stay long.
Craig lives alone so when he heard someone trying to open the screen door, he, “came out to investigate the noise…the guy had come over the kitchen window over the sink and was turned toward me about 15 feet,” he recalls.
Face to face with his intruder, he yelled and then pulled out his pistol.
“I got off one shot at him. I hope I scared him, but I missed him.”
The potential thief got the point and quickly left the same way he got in.
“He went out headfirst,” Craig said.
Thankfully, damage to Craig’s home is minimal. Just a broken window frame and a few dings, And the intruder didn’t get away with anything.
Craig says he has no regrets. “Cause he was younger than me. No doubt stronger than me. I am 77 years old and it was in my house and I defended myself and I’d do it again,” he said.
‘He’s home’: Missing for 73 years, Medal of Honor recipient’s remains return to Georgia
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment made a desperate retreat as North Korean troops closed in around them. A wounded, 18-year-old Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story feared his injuries would slow down his company, so he stayed behind to cover their withdrawal.
Story’s actions in the Korean War on Sept. 1, 1950, would ensure he was remembered. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, which is now displayed alongside his portrait at the National Infantry Museum, an hour’s drive from his hometown of Americus, Georgia.
But Story was never seen alive again, and his resting place long remained a mystery.
“In my family, we always believed that he would never be found,” said Judy Wade, Story’s niece and closest surviving relative.
That changed in April when the U.S. military revealed lab tests had matched DNA from Wade and her late mother to bones of an unidentified American soldier recovered from Korea in October 1950. The remains belonged to Story, a case agent told Wade over the phone. After nearly 73 years, he was coming home.
A Memorial Day burial with military honors was scheduled Monday at the Andersonville National Cemetery. A police escort with flashing lights escorted Story’s casket through the streets of nearby Americus on Wednesday after it arrived in Georgia.
“I don’t have to worry about him anymore,” said Wade, who was born four years after her uncle went missing overseas. “I’m just glad he’s home.”
Among those celebrating Story’s return was former President Jimmy Carter. When Story was a young boy, according to Wade, his family lived and worked in Plains on land owned by Carter’s father, James Earl Carter Sr.
Jimmy Carter, 98, has been under hospice care at his home in Plains since February. Jill Stuckey, superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, said she shared the news about Story with Carter as soon as she heard it.
“Oh, there was a big smile on his face,” Stuckey said. “He was very excited to know that a hero was coming home.”
Story grew up about 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of Atlanta in Sumter County, where his father was a sharecropper. As a young boy, Story, who had a keen sense of humor and liked baseball, joined his parents and older siblings in the fields to help harvest cotton. The work was hard, and it didn’t pay much.
“Momma talked about eating sweet potatoes three times a day,” said Wade, whose mother, Gwendolyn Story Chambliss, was Luther Story’s older sister. “She used to talk about how at night her fingers would be bleeding from picking cotton out of the bolls. Everybody in the family had to do it for them to exist.”
In 1948, his mother agreed to sign papers allowing Story to enlist in the Army. She listed his birthdate as July 20, 1931. But Wade said she later obtained a copy of her uncle’s birth certificate that showed he was born in 1932 — which would have made him just 16 when he joined.
Story left school during his sophomore year. In the summer of 1950 he deployed with Company A of the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment to Korea around the time the war began.
On Sept. 1, 1950, near the village of Agok on the Naktong River, Story’s unit came under attack by three divisions of North Korean troops that moved to surround the Americans and cut off their escape.
“Realizing that his wounds would hamper his comrades, he refused to retire to the next position but remained to cover the company’s withdrawal,” Story’s award citation said. “When last seen he was firing every weapon available and fighting off another hostile assault.”
Story was presumed dead. He would have been 18 years old, according to the birth certificate Wade obtained.
In 1951, his father received Story’s Medal of Honor at a Pentagon ceremony. Story was also posthumously promoted to corporal.
About a month after Story went missing in Korea, the U.S. military recovered a body in the area where he was last seen fighting. The unidentified remains were buried with other unknown service members at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, more than 7,500 Americans who served in the Korean War remain missing or their remains have not been identified. That’s roughly 20% of the nearly 37,000 U.S. service members who died in the war.
Remains of the unknown soldier recovered near Agok were disinterred in 2021 as part of a broader military effort to determine the identities of several hundred Americans who died in the war. Eventually scientists compared DNA from the bones with samples submitted by Wade and her mother before she died in 2017. They made a successful match.
“Today, we can return him to his family,” Biden said of Story, “and to his rest.”
Most Americans have no clue why we celebrate Memorial Day.
Less than half of Americans know the true meaning behind Memorial Day, according to a survey taken a few years ago.
The survey of 2,000 Americans revealed just 43 percent were aware it’s a holiday honoring those who died in service while in the US Armed Forces.
Twenty-eight percent mistakenly believed Memorial Day was a holiday honoring all military veterans who have served in the US Armed Forces — which is actually Veterans Day.
It was revealed to be a common mistake: A third of respondents (36 percent) admitted to being unsure of the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of University of Phoenix, the survey tested Americans on their knowledge of the holiday.
“For many Americans, Memorial Day is a much-needed day off to relax and enjoy their family. It is important to understand that it is also a solemn day of remembrance. For me, as a combat veteran and for military members and their families, this day holds great significance. Not everyone I served with was fortunate enough to return home,” said Brian Ishmael, senior director, University of Phoenix Office of Military and Veteran Affairs and former US Army sergeant.
Even though there’s some confusion about the holiday, 83 percent of Americans believe it’s important to do something to commemorate Memorial Day.
May 29
1108 – During the Reconquista, an allied army of Castile and León under the command of Prince Sancho Alfónsez is defeated by an Almoravid force under the command of Tamim ibn Yusuf near Uclés, just south of the river Tagus, that retake Cuenca, Huete, Ocaña, and Uclés
1453 – Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a 53 day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.
1780 – British forces under the command of Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton continue attacking Continental troops under the command of Colonel Abraham Buford at the Battle of Waxhaws in South Carolina, even after they had already surrendered and laid down their arms, killing 113 troops and critically wounding all but 53.
1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last state to ratify the U.S. Constitution
1848 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.
1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola in The Atlanta Journal.
1919 – Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin conduct tests of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity by making coordinated observations of a total solar eclipse on the west African island of Príncipe, and at the town of Sobral in Brazil.
1931 – Michele Schirru, a U.S. citizen, is executed by Italian military firing squad for attempting to assassinate Benito Mussolini.
1932 – World War I veterans begin to assemble in Washington, D.C., to request early disbursement of cash bonuses promised to be paid to them in 1945.
1947 – United Airlines Flight 521, a Douglas DC-4, crashes while attempting to take off at LaGuardia Airport, killing 43 of the 48 passengers and crew aboard, at the time, the worst commercial aviation disaster in U.S. history
1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return.
1988 – President Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union, arriving in Moscow for a summit meeting with the Mikhail Gorbachev.
1999 – On STS-96, U.S. Navy Captain Kent V. Rominger and a crew of 6 aboard Shuttle Discovery makes the first docking of a shuttle with the International Space Station.
2001 – In the case of PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, the Supreme Court rules that the disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments.
2004 – The National World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. by President Bush
2015 – One World Observatory at One World Trade Center opens.
2021 – A privately owned Cessna Citation I/SP crashes into Percy Priest Lake in Tennessee shortly after takeoff from Smyrna Airport, killing all 7 people on board, including actor Joe Lara and his wife Gwen Shamblin Lara.