Category: Goobermint

‘disconnect’ implies some sort of prior connection. Short of the goobermint paychecks he’s been getting for most of his adult life, I say he’s had no more ‘connection’ to the citizenry that that.

BIDEN’S ISLAND ESCAPE SHOWS HIS DISCONNECT

Someone should have told Joe Biden that vacationing in St. Croix was not a good idea.

He could have chosen better.

And leaving the country at this time was bad optics.

The president, seeking warmer climes, appeared to have abandoned the country in the wake of a historic blizzard that buried the U.S., killed scores of people, caused massive blackouts, and stranded thousands of holiday travelers at airports across the country.

While he was aboard Air Force One flying above the country, untold thousands of other Americans were stuck at airports across the country as flights were delayed or canceled due to the harsh weather and Southwest Airlines incompetence.

But the bitter cold weather that swept across the nation did not deter hordes of illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border into the country under Biden’s cruel and criminal open border policy.

Immigrant families, turned away at overcrowded shelters in El Paso, were forced to sleep in the streets under freezing conditions.

“Come to America and sleep in the streets,” seems to be Biden’s message to immigrants from around the world.

But you can’t be too harsh on Biden. He is old and feeble, and he needs the sun to warm his bones.

But the optics of him ignoring domestic programs while vacationing in St. Croix, one of the U.S Virgin Islands, sent the wrong message, especially as fellow Americans struggled with frigid weather and skyrocketing home energy bills.

And this does not even include the foreign problems Biden is facing, like Communist China on the verge of invading Taiwan, Japan rearming, North Korea sending missiles and drones over Japan and South Korea, deadly protest in Iran, the Ukrainians bombing Russian airfields, Vladimir Putin warning of nuclear retaliation, and so on.

But the main problem with Biden’s vacation to St. Croix is the island itself.

Being the woke and progressive president that he is, one would think that he would have enough political awareness and moral sensitivity to vacation elsewhere, and not on an island were Christopher Columbus allegedly brought racism to America.

Biden has made a cottage industry of calling Donald Trump and the millions of Americans who support him racists and neo-fascists.

While St. Croix is a beautiful and lush tropical island in the Caribbean with amazing beaches, warm waters, lush scenery and friendly people, it is also the island where Christopher Columbus — a hero who progressives have turned into an enemy of mankind — landed in 1493.

If there is still a statue of Columbus that progressives and anarchists have not torn down in the United States it would equal the miracle of Columbus’ voyages across the Atlantic. They were voyages that awakened the world.

Columbus “discovered” St. Croix during his second voyage to the New World. Upon arriving he sent a landing party ashore. The Spanish sailors came across a deserted Carib village where a group of competing Taino natives were held captive.

The sailors freed the Tainos. While returning with them to the ship, the group was attacked by a Carib war party. The sailors fought back, and one was killed by an arrow.

The skirmish was the first recorded conflict between Europeans and native Americans in the New World.

Many more were to follow, especially after the Spanish and Portuguese Conquistadors came in search of gold. What they did to the native population of the Americas makes Columbus look like a saint.

Columbus at least freed the Tainos — if only temporarily.

But the question is: if Christopher Columbus is such a bad guy, why is Biden honoring him by vacationing on his island?

Maybe, weather permitting, Biden should have gone back to Nantucket.

Justice Sotomayor Gives NY 1-Week to Respond to Injunction Against New Gun Law

WASHINGTON, D.C. -(Ammoland.com)- Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor has given New York State until next Tuesday to respond to Gun Owners of America’s (GOA) emergency petition to SCOTUS to vacate the stay on a District Court’s preliminary injunction against the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA).

 

2A BREAKING NEWS: U.S. Supreme Court ORDERS New York to “EXPLAIN YOURSELF NOW!”

 

BREAKING: Supreme Court Keeps Immigration Rule Title 42 in Place Indefinitely

The Supreme Court stayed a trial judge’s ruling that would have ended Title 42 and has, for the time being, allowed the rule to remain in place. The court issued an unsigned 5-4 opinion that was a victory for the 19 states that had sued the federal government to keep Title 42 in place.

Title 42 is a 1940s-era rule that limits immigration and asylum seekers during a national health crisis. It was originally put in place by Donald Trump in March 2020 and severely restricted the number of people seeking asylum by expelling all but a fraction of those who showed up at the border.

Joe Biden eased the restrictions, but about 65% of all asylum seekers who showed up at the border were still expelled.

The stay says nothing about the lawsuit by GOP states seeking to keep Title 42 in place.

New York Times:

The court said that it would hear arguments in the case in February and that the stay would remain in place until it issued its ruling. The justices said they would only address the question of whether the 19 mainly Republican-led states that had sought the stay could pursue their challenge to the measure.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

The court’s order was a provisional victory for the 19 states that had sought to keep Title 42 in place, saying it was needed to prevent a surge of border crossings. “The failure to grant a stay will cause a crisis of unprecedented proportions at the border,” lawyers for the states wrote in an emergency application, adding that “daily illegal crossings may more than double.”

“We are deeply disappointed for all the desperate asylum seekers who will continue to suffer because of Title 42, but we will continue fighting to eventually end the policy,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which had been arguing to end Title 42′s use.

Associated Press:

The precise issue before the court is a complicated, largely procedural question of whether the states should be allowed to intervene in the lawsuit, which had pitted advocates for the migrants against the federal government. A similar group of states won a lower court order in a different court district preventing the end of the restrictions after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in April that it was ending use of the policy.

It will be until at least the summer before we get a definitive decision on whether the rule will stay or go. But there are hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers within a couple of hundred miles of the U.S. border, and pressure will build on Biden to find a way to allow them to enter the country.

This was just round one. Round Two promises to be a knockout for one side or the other.

 

OREGON Wants M114 Background Check Now; Judge Says Wait

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The State of Oregon wants the “completed criminal background check” tenet of Measure 114 to take effect now. Harney County Circuit Judge Robert Raschio put the brakes on again, saying he would decide by Jan. 3 whether to continue blocking that part of the measure, according to KGW News.

The requirement that a gun may not be sold or transferred until a background check is completed replaces the long-standing federal time frame of three days. A sale may be completed if a check is not completed within that 72-hour window. But according to KEZI News, ‘That’s how the gunman in a Charleston, South Carolina, mass shooting in 2015 bought his gun and killed nine people at a church.”

“The state requested that the Judge ignore the thousands of people waiting to take possession of the firearms they have already paid for and eliminate the one safeguard they have to obtain them…The Oregon Department of Justice wants to end this safeguard so they can prevent thousands of people from legally acquiring the firearms they have already purchased.”

He said the three-day provision is considered a “loophole” by proponents of the measure.

“Apparently,” Starrett wrote, “any policy that actually allows law-abiding Oregonians to legally obtain firearms is a ‘loophole.’”

According to Oregon Live, attorney Tony Aiello, Jr.—representing Gun Owners of America, which brought the lawsuit now in Raschio’s court—contended the three-day rule is a “relief valve” inserted in the federal gun law “to make sure a gun buyer isn’t waiting indefinitely for their background check to be completed.”

Special Assistant Attorney General Harry B. Wilson argued for the background check mandate to take effect.

Aiello countered, “This is infringement because … they have the ability to slow-walk background checks or to not do them whatsoever,” KGW noted.

Measure 114 is being challenged not only in state court, but by four federal lawsuits which have brought virtually every major gun rights organization onto the playing field. The Second Amendment Foundation filed two of those lawsuits, one challenging the magazine ban portion of the measure and the other targeting the requirement for training and obtaining a permit-to-purchase before an Oregon citizen can legally buy a firearm.

Then came the National Shooting Sports Foundation with a lawsuit, partnering with the Oregon Sport Shooting Association, a state affiliate of the National Rifle Association.

OFF filed the first federal action in November and a federal judge in Portland decided against issuing any kind of injunction or restraining order.

Starrett, who founded OFF some 30 years ago, said the effort to create an open-ended background check is “a potential bar on the purchase of a gun.”

“As many thousands of Oregonians have learned in recent months, the State Police simply cannot fulfill the duties assigned to them by Oregon law,” he said in the OFF update.

Adding to the drama, Oregon.live noted the Oregon State Police currently have “about 37,000 background checks waiting to be reviewed” so staff has been reassigned to assist with the backlog. The report said, “through Dec. 20, the state police have received about 43,000 requests for background checks.”

Starrett posited that putting background checks on delay, and ultimately denying citizens to buy firearms, has been the “ultimate goal” of Measure 114 backers, who call themselves “Lift Every Voice Orgon (LEVO).” He said there have been cases of qualified buyers “sitting in limbo waiting for the state to do its job and complete the ‘instant’ background check” for, in some cases, years.

Aiello contended some Oregon residents, if Measure 114 takes effect, “will have no guarantee that their background checks will be processed in a timely manner.”

Starrett predicted the fight over whether Measure 1145 is constitutional is going to take a while, and in the meantime, “Some of the people who are being prevented from getting the guns they are legally entitled to, and have paid for, are at great risk because LEVO and the State of Oregon have prevented them from having the means to protect themselves.  Any harm these people suffer is on the hands of…LEVO and the state.”

He asserted LEVO has no legal bills to pay because the state is defending the new law.

Judge Raschio said he would decide by Jan. 3, which could mean he will rule earlier, perhaps sometime during the next week.

BLUF
Because these laws are clearly a pretext, they are not a valid regulation of the right to bear arms. If a state wants to change its default rule to prohibit firearms on private property, it can do so. But it must actually change the default rule. Otherwise, a federal court should recognize New York’s and New Jersey’s law for what it is: a shadow ban against most private citizens carrying firearms. These states are overtly defying Bruen, and their laws should meet the same fate as Prince Edward County’s segregated “private” school system.

Pretextually Eliminating the Right to Bear Arms through Gerrymandered Property Rules

Categories: Public Carry, Regulations, Second Amendment, Supreme Court
This is a guest post that is part of a mini-symposium on “Private Property and the Second Amendment,” responding to Jake Charles’ earlier post Bruen, Private Property & the Second Amendment. Stay tuned for additional response posts that will run on the blog in the coming weeks.

When the Supreme Court required public school desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education, some Southern jurisdictions resisted through legal chicanery. In Virginia, the Prince Edward County school district “closed” its public schools to avoid integration, while setting up government-funded private schools that were “private” in name only. The Supreme Court was not amused. In Griffin v. School Board, the Court saw the closure for what it was, and it ordered Prince Edward County to reopen its schools on an integrated basis.

A similar game of legal chicanery is playing out in many Democratic states, which have launched massive resistance to the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That decision held that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding citizens to carry arms outside the home for self-defense. Bruen recognized that states may reasonably regulate the right to bear arms using their police powers. But they may not deny that right altogether to law-abiding Americans. On this, Bruen followed the great weight of early American court precedent.

In response to Bruen, some states have tried to engineer de facto bans on public carry. These states have employed many mechanisms, such as requiring permits with high application fees, forcing permit applicants to disclose all their social media accounts, imposing time-consuming and expensive training requirements, and declaring as many places as possible to be “sensitive places” or “gun-free” zones. But the most successful of the resistance measures has been to prohibit permit holders from possessing firearms on all private property unless the person in control of the property has granted express permission to enter with a weapon. New York passed such a law in July, and New Jersey’s legislature passed a statute containing a similar provision this month. California has also considered adopting it, and Maryland might consider it when Democrats take full control of state government in January.

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Petaluma, CA Council Requires Gun Lock-up

The City of Petaluma, California has adopted a requirement that all firearms within the city limits must be disabled with a locking device or placed in a locked container inside the home.

But, is that constitutional under a landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller? On Page 58 of that ruling, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

According to Petaluma360, the ordinance was passed unanimously this week. The story quoted Deputy Police Chief Brian Miller, who asserted, “Ultimately (the ordinance) makes owners of firearms be more responsible and accountable for their weapons.”

However, the story noted skeptics say the ordinance is unenforceable. The quick access for self-defense issue was also raised.

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that Petaluma City Manager Peggy Flynn responded to critics by pointing to a study done by Everytown for Gun Safety. She also asserted that this ordinance will give police “another tool when they respond to domestic violence cases or other situations where PPD enters homes and view a firearm not being properly stored.”

Still, the requirement appears ripe for a court challenge, using language from Heller. There has not been any indication of a challenge.

Petaluma is a city some 38 miles north of San Francisco in Sonoma County.

Biden Administration, State Governments Carried Out Elaborate Hoax On Gun Owners

New York – -(AmmoLand.com)- The “why” of the attack on the armed citizenry is as pressing as the “how”—the strategies employed. It all goes back to Government’s lust for “power” and “control” over the common people. The Globalists and their puppets in Government treat people like random bits of energy that require a firm hand lest common people get “out of hand.” The fear of the Tyrant is always that the common people will revolt against his Tyranny.

The “sticky wicket” for the Globalists is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

It serves, one, as evidence of the sovereignty of the American people over their Government, Federal, State, or local, and serves, two, as a mechanism to thwart the rise of tyranny. The Second Amendment, unlike the First or any other Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Has a tenacity that, when unleashed, a ferocity that scares the dickens of the proponents of a world empire and world domination, as well it should.

In this second half of the Biden Administration regime, we are seeing more and more emphasis placed on reining in the armed citizenry. And State Governments under Democrat Party leadership, like that of New York, are fully on board with this. Expect to see more of this, much more, in the weeks and months ahead.

The argument NY Governor Kathy Hochul makes in support of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) boils down to these two propositions:

  • People are afraid of guns and of average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners who keep and bear them.
  • Average law-abiding, rational, responsible gun owners pose an imminent threat to public safety and order.

Concerning the first, if some Americans happen to fear guns and those who exercise their fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense—indeed, if any American should happen to register such fears—those fears aren’t the product of something innate in a person, but, rather, are the product of an elaborate, concerted well-coordinated, and executed plan.

The question of why such psychologically damaging programs would be initiated by and ceaselessly and vigorously propagated by the Federal Government and many State Governments against the civilian population has nothing to do with a desire on the part of the Government to secure the life, health, safety, and well-being of Americans.

Rather, it has everything to do with carrying out a plot focused on the demise of a free Constitutional Republic, the only one like it in existence, the dissolution of our Constitution, and the subjugation of our people to the dictates of a new order of reality: the rise of a neo-feudalistic global empire.

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If you’ll remember, the ‘joke’ name for Chicago for years has been ‘Chiraq’.
Plus I’m shocked that this unpolitically correct statistic is in the article:
“Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting…”

Seem Bill Whittle was right: “Maybe it’s the people holding the guns.”

Risk of death by gun violence is higher for men in some U.S. areas than in wartime. 

In some parts of the United States, young men face a higher risk of dying from gun violence than if they’d gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, a new study reports.

Young men living in certain high-violence ZIP codes in Chicago and Philadelphia run a greater risk of firearm death than military personnel who served in recent U.S. wars, according to findings published online Dec. 22 in JAMA Network Open.

Young men in Chicago’s most violent ZIP code were more than three times as likely to experience gun-related death compared to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, the researchers found, while those in Philadelphia’s most violent area were nearly twice as likely to be shot to death.

In all ZIP codes studied, young men from minority groups overwhelmingly bear the risk of firearm-related death, the findings showed.

“These results are an urgent wake-up call for understanding, appreciating and responding to the risks and attendant traumas faced by this demographic of young men,” said study leader Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School in Providence, R.I.

His team examined shooting data from 2020 and 2021 in four large U.S. cities — Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.

The investigators zeroed in on shootings involving nearly 130,000 men between 18 and 29 years of age. They grouped them by ZIP code so U.S. Census data could be used to examine demographics in those neighborhoods.

The researchers also compared the cities’ gun violence data with combat-related deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan — from 2001 to 2014 for Afghanistan and 2003 to 2009 in Iraq.

While young men in Chicago and Philadelphia had a much greater risk of firearm death, those in the most violent parts of Los Angeles and New York had a 70% to 91% lower risk than U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the researchers said.

“We often hear opposing claims about gun violence that fall along partisan lines: One is that big cities are war zones that require a severe crackdown on crime, and the other is that our fears about homicides are greatly exaggerated and don’t require drastic action,” del Pozo said in a university news release.

“We wanted to use data to explore these claims — and it turns out both are wrong,” he continued. “While most city residents are relatively safe from gun violence, the risks are more severe than war for some demographics.”

Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting, according to the report.

The study authors noted that exposure to combat has been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and higher rates of homelessness, alcohol use, mental illness and substance use.

“Our findings — which show that young men in some of the communities we studied were subject to annual firearm homicide and violent injury rates in excess of 3.0% and as high as 5.8% — lend support to the hypothesis that beyond the deaths and injuries of firearm violence, ongoing exposure to these violent events and their risks are a significant contributor to other health problems and risk behaviors in many U.S. communities,” the research team concluded.

The health risks are likely even higher for city dwellers because they have a lifetime “tour of duty,” as opposed to a typical year-long posting to a war zone, del Pozo added.

“The findings suggest that urban health strategies should prioritize violence reduction and take a trauma-informed approach to addressing the health needs of these communities,” he said.

SAF SUES NEW JERSEY OVER NEW CONCEALED CARRY LAW

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today filed a federal lawsuit against the State of New Jersey, challenging the state’s new gun control law prohibiting licensed concealed carry in an expanded list of so-called “sensitive places,” and further criminalizes carrying an operable handgun “while in a vehicle.”

Joining SAF are the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners and the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, along with three private citizens, Nicholas Gaudio, Jeffrey M. Muller and Ronald Koons. Plaintiffs are represented by attorney David D. Jensen, David Jensen PLLC, of Beacon, N.Y.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The case is known as Koons et al v. Reynolds et al.

Named as defendants are Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds, Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. Macaulay, Sussex County Prosecutor Annemarie Taggart, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and State Police Supt. Patrick Callahan, in their official capacities.

Shortly after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed the new legislation on Dec. 22, SAF and its partners quickly filed the lawsuit.

“We are asking for a declaratory judgment against certain tenets of the new legislation,” explained SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We are also seeking a preliminary and/or permanent injunction restraining the defendants and their officers, agents and other employees from enforcing the challenged segments of the law.

“The specific sections of law violate the right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment,” he continued. “There is no established historical tradition that could be used to justify these restrictions. This new legislation literally criminalizes licensed concealed carry just about everywhere, making a mockery of the right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment.”

“New Jersey’s Legislature and Governor have shown that they do not wish to heed the Supreme Court’s guidance as to the bounds of the right to bear arms in Bruen,” said SAF’s Executive Director Adam Kraut.  “Despite clear directives as to a citizens’ right to bear arms, New Jersey continues to thumb its nose at the constitutional rights of its citizens in the name of ‘safety’. Such disregard for the rights of New Jerseyans will not be tolerated. As such, we are seeking to vindicate the rights of our members and the public in an expeditious manner. It is a shame the elected officials of New Jersey have no respect for the enumerated rights of the People and continue to needlessly waste their state’s tax dollars passing unconstitutional laws which render the common person defenseless.”

SloJoe isn’t being negligent about the ‘border crisis’, he and the rest of the demoncraps want this.

The Data Is In: Democrats Embrace ‘Replacement Theory’ in Plot to Displace Republican Votes

In simple terms, “replacement theory” holds that welcoming immigration policies are part of a plan designed to undermine or “replace” the political power of conservatives in the U.S. Make no mistake: replacement theory is real — and the Democrat Party blatantly continues to embrace it at the southern border.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has in the past been all but burned at the stake by the rabid left for daring to discuss replacement theory on his program, including by Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which laughably describes itself as an “anti-hate” group, went after Carlson in early 2021:

In the days following Tucker Carlson’s vitriolic, xenophobic commentary about demographic change, most white supremacist reactions were supportive of the Fox News personality and praised him for railing against “white genocide.” Some suggested that Carlson is finally showing his true colors and fully embracing white nationalism.

Not to be outdone, CNN in April 2021 declared: “Racist ‘replacement theory’ has it all backward.”

White supremacist groups, conservative media personalities, and now Republicans in Congress are trying to inflame nativist feelings among conservative Whites by warning that liberals want immigrants to “replace” native-born Americans in the nation’s culture and the electorate.

But that racist “replacement theory” inverts the real consequence of immigration for its target audience of Whites uneasy about social and racial change: Many of the Whites most drawn to the far-right argument that new arrivals are displacing “real Americans” are among those with the most to lose if the nation reduces, much less eliminates, immigration in the decades ahead.

The verdict: Carlson was right, and “shockingly,” the left is lying.

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Shots filed: New Jersey hit with first lawsuits over new carry laws

When he joined me on Cam & Co earlier this week, Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs executive director Scott Bach promised that a lawsuit challenging the state’s new concealed carry restrictions would be filed before the ink was dry on Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature, and the group has delivered; submitting a complaint to the U.S. District Court in New Jersey on behalf of the organization and seven individual plaintiffs that seeks an injunction blocking enforcement of the law.

In fact, the lawsuit was one of at least two that have been filed in the hours since Murphy put pen to paper. A coalition including the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, and three individual plaintiffs have filed their own suit in federal court that also seeks injunctive relief against the new laws.

Interestingly, one of the plaintiffs in the SAF/FPC/CNJFO/NJSAS lawsuit was one of the rare individuals who had been able to obtain a carry license under the state’s previous “may issue” regime. As long as the state could allow broad discretion in choosing who could exercise their right to carry, those blessed by the State to do so enjoyed wide latitude. Now that the Supreme Court has instructed the state that a right of the people means just that, however, New Jersey lawmakers have suddenly declared that guys like 72-year old Jeffrey Mueller are a clear and present danger. From page 17 of the complaint, authored by attorney David Jensen:

Plaintiff Muller is one of the very few New Jersey citizens who was able to obtain a permit to a permit prior to Bruen. In January 2010, an out-of-state gang kidnapped Plaintiff Muller and took him to Missouri, where he was able to escape and summons help. Plaintiff Muller was thereafter a key witness in the kidnappers’ prosecution. Notwithstanding this, Plaintiff Muller obtained a permit only after litigating a judge’s denial of his application, which the New Jersey State Police had approved. One of Plaintiff Muller’s attackers remains in prison in New Jersey, and another was released last month (in November 2022).

After Plaintiff Muller obtained his permit to carry in June 2011, and he began carrying a handgun most of the time. The prosecution against Plaintiff Muller’s attackers was ongoing, and he was particularly concerned about protecting himself. In recent years, as time has passed, Plaintiff Muller has carried a gun less than he did during the years following June 2011, but until just now he has continued to carry a handgun on a regular basis.

Among other places, Plaintiff Muller has often carried a handgun while shopping at stores such as ShopRite, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Company, stopping at gas stations, getting food at delis and restaurants, including restaurants that serve alcohol. Plaintiff Muller has carried a handgun while attending appointments with his physician and dentist. Plaintiff Muller has carried a handgun while walking in parks and while taking his grandchildren to playgrounds. Plaintiff Muller has also carried a handgun while visiting libraries, as well as while attending music shows at public entertainment venues. Finally, Plaintiff Muller has carried a handgun while attending trade shows at casino facilities (i.e. in a conference room, not on the casino floor). While he does not recall carrying a handgun while using public transit, or while visiting a museum or a theater, Plaintiff Muller would want to be able to carry a handgun in any of these places were he to be present there. As a general premise, when Plaintiff Muller carries a handgun, he normally carries it with him throughout the day, unless he is going to a place that prohibits guns, such as a school. Up until now, Plaintiff Mulller has normally carried his handgun in a holster on his person while traveling in car.

All of those actions are now illegal under the New Jersey law signed today, simply because the anti-civil rights Democratic majority in Trenton couldn’t stand the thought of New Jersey residents being able to do the same without having to be kidnapped and taken to another state in order to prove their “need” to carry a firearm.

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BLUF
In a nutshell:
To summarize #TwitterFiles
— FBI knew Hunter’s laptop was real & incriminated Joe Biden
— FBI began seeding gossip of a Russian hack
— FBI used that rumor to orchestrate a vast censorship operation
— After operation concluded & Biden’s elected, agents congratulate each other
During the Trump presidency and the Russia collusion investigation, we heard people in liberal media say “this is worse than Watergate” quite a few times.

In fact, what the FBI and DOJ did with Twitter was worse than Watergate.

#TwitterFiles Part 7 – FBI and DOJ Worked To Discredit Reports of Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business Dealings.

“we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published”

Brian Flood of FOX News provides an overview:

Twitter Files Part 7: FBI, DOJ ‘discredited’ information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings

The lengthy Twitter thread reveals what Shellenberger calls an “influence campaign” by the FBI that eventually “worked” when Twitter censored Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop.

Elon Musk had been vocal about being transparent when it comes to Twitter’s past and present actions curating content on the platform, including censored content. The Twitter owner has enlisted independent journalists to slowly release evidence of these actions in a series dubbed the “Twitter Files” that continue to expose once-secret communications.

“In Twitter Files #7, we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published,” he continued.

 

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The CDC kowtowing to gun control groups is the very definition of political corruption

CDC ISN’T FOLLOWING SCIENCE. IT’S MANIPULATING IT FOR GUN CONTROL

By Joe Bartozzi

Last week’s bombshell report by The Reload showing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) purposefully omitted defensive-use data sets after being lobbied by gun control groups shows serious concerns with the government-funded agency charged with saving lives and protecting people from health threats.

The revelation of twisting data to meet pre-determined conclusions is the antithesis of science. It is nothing short of censorship.  It is, in fact, dangerous that CDC researchers are cherry-picking data to force an outcome. What’s worse, is that these researchers aren’t acting in good faith to determine the outcomes from where the science leads. They are acting as agents of special interest groups. That’s not only scientifically irresponsible, it is also a violation of the law.

Corrupt Science

Researchers at the CDC deleted a reference to a self-defense gun use study after gun control groups complained that including the data would prevent them pressuring Congress to pass more gun control laws, The Reload reported. It was the result of months of political arm-twisting by three different gun control groups – Gun Violence Archive, GVPedia and Newtown Action Alliance.

The groups took issue with a study by Gary Kleck, award-wining Professor Emeritus at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Kleck’s study estimated defensive gun uses (DGU) happen between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the United States. That 2.5 million figure was too much for the gun control groups to accept. Instead of providing refuting evidence, they killed the study and censored the data.

“[T]hat 2.5 Million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” Mark Bryant, one of the attendees who also runs Gun Violence Archive – the source for mainstream media’s “mass shooting” statistics. He wrote to CDC officials after their meeting, according The Reload, complaining of Kleck’s study. “It is highly misleading, is used out of context and I honestly believe it has zero value – even as an outlier point in honest DGU discussions.”

Professor Kleck stood by his research. “CDC is just aligning itself with the gun-control advocacy groups,” Kleck told The Reload. “It’s just saying: ‘we are their tool, and we will do their bidding.’ And that’s not what a government agency should do.”

It’s more than that. That’s what the CDC is forbidden by law from doing.

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 You Knew the Deep State Was Bad. Did You Know It Was This Bad? 

Over the last several years, we’ve been inundated with news showing the overreach and abuses of federal agencies — in particular, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recent revelations in the Twitter Files — exposed by owner Elon Musk and his team of investigative journalists — demonstrate that the FBI, among other things, helped to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, embedded agents within social media companies, and used the platforms to spread state-created propaganda. We’ve also seen, over the last few years, excessive, dangerous raids on pro-life Christians and others who refuse to go along with The Narrative. To make matters worse, the agency has gone woke and even refuses to call out terrorism. And, of course, there was the armed raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

For the last 50 years, we’ve been conditioned by media and Hollywood to believe that the FBI is a heroic institution that is beyond reproach. The FBI has been portrayed in movies, books, and TV series as true-blue Americans who would rather die than compromise their principles. While most FBI agents are likely dedicated law-enforcement agents who get up and go to work every day trying to stop the bad guys, there are many, especially within the bureaucracy (it’s literally in the name!), who have other goals and motives — namely to help Democrats win elections and to oppose those who support traditional American values.

Back in 1994, then-Congressman Ron Paul (L-Texas) — father of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — warned us about the dangers of the police state in a floor speech.

He began by pointing out that “many Americans justifiably feared their own government.”

“This fear has come from the police state mentality that prompted Ruby Ridge, Waco, and many other episodes of an errant federal government,” he said. “Under the Constitution, there was never meant to be a federal police force. Even an FBI limited only to investigations was not accepted until this century, yet today, fueled by the federal government’s misdirected war on drugs, radical environmentalism, and the aggressive behavior of the nanny state, we have witnessed the massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators prowling the states where they have no legal authority.”

Indeed, “The sacrifice of individual responsibility and the concept of local government by the majority of American citizens has permitted the army of bureaucrats to thrive,” Paul explained. “We have depended on government for so much for so long that we as a people have become less vigilant of our liberties.”

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NSSF DENOUNCES U.S. SENATE CONFIRMATION OF OPERATION CHOKE POINT ARCHITECT TO FDIC

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, condemned the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of Martin J. Gruenberg as Chair and Member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Gruenberg led the FDIC from 2011-2018, during which the Obama administration conducted the illegal Operation Choke Point scheme to deny banking services to firearm businesses. NSSF opposed his confirmation in the strongest terms as he has already demonstrated a lack of respect for the law and unparalleled disdain for the Constitutionally-protected firearm and ammunition industry.

“The Senate’s confirmation of Martin Gruenberg is a flagrant disregard for his role in illegally using the levers of government to force discriminatory banking policies on the firearm and ammunition industry,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “His culpability in shepherding this illegal operation was not only previously investigated by Congress but was also highlighted by Senate Banking Committee Republicans. Mr. Gruenberg’s leading role in creating, administering and punishing the firearm industry through illegal means simply because he, President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder found this industry politically-disfavored clearly disqualified him from being reconfirmed to a position of public trust.”

Under the Obama administration, an initiative called “Operation Choke Point” was launched by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop financial institutions from offering services to some regulated industries in an attempt to choke off banking services. This operation, which represented an abuse of the agencies’ statutory authority, was first aimed at non-depository lenders (so-called payday lenders) but expanded to ammunition and firearms sales, tobacco sales and pharmaceutical sales, among other industries.

The goal of the operation was to coerce banks, third-party payment processors and other financial institutions into closing or denying business accounts of clients that the FDIC has classified as “high risk” or as a “reputational risk” for the financial institution. According to a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigation, the FDIC, “equated legitimate and regulated activities such as coin dealers and firearms and ammunition sales with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.”

The FDIC included federally licensed firearm retailers and other companies in the firearm and ammunition industry – some of the most heavily regulated businesses in the country – on this list of risky businesses without any evidence or justification. In fact, in its guidance to banks, the agency “justified itself by claiming that the categories had been previously ‘noted by the FDIC.”

Working with the DOJ, the FDIC guidance targeting the law-abiding firearms industry and others was included on DOJ subpoenas. This sent a message to banks that they were to remove those clients from their services or risk a federal investigation.

I’m not the only one who is of the opinion that Goobernor Newsome’s believing this is somehow a ‘win’ for abortion rights is a fantasy. RKBA is a right that is actually addressed in the Bill of Rights. Abortion isn’t. However, as Goobernor Newsome and Attorney General Bonta aren’t likely to appeal this, all fore the good as it will make lawsuits against California’s gun control laws easier .

Federal judge strikes down California’s ‘fee-shifting’ gun control scheme, which echoed Texas abortion law

A federal judge has blocked the state of California from enforcing a gun control scheme that was modeled after a controversial Texas abortion law, delivering Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom the exact outcome he wanted.

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California issued a permanent injunction on Monday against the “fee-shifting” provisions of the state’s gun law – which empowers private citizens to bring lawsuits against manufacturers of illegal guns – declaring it unconstitutional.

“‘It is cynical. ‘It is an abomination.’ ‘It is outrageous and objectionable.’ ‘There is no dispute that it raises serious constitutional questions.’ ‘It is an unprecedented attempt to thwart judicial review,’” Benitez wrote in his opinion, quoting directly from Newsom’s criticisms of the Texas abortion law.

The Texas measure makes abortions illegal after a fetal heartbeat can be detected and permits private citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone else who assists in a woman’s procurement of abortion for $10,000. This fee-shifting mechanism was designed to protect the 2021 law from judicial review to circumvent the Supreme Court’s old abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade. The high court has since overturned that precedent, permitting states to restrict, or liberalize, abortion.

Newsom called on the California legislature to enact a similar law for guns days after the Supreme Court ruled than the Texas heartbeat law could remain in effect following a legal challenge.

California’s gun law also creates a private right-of-action for citizens to sue gun manufactures who make “assault weapons and ghost guns” for $10,000. Newsom described the law as virtually identical to the Texas provisions, but Benitez wrote that “California’s law goes even further.” He observed that the gun control statute denies a prevailing plaintiff attorneys fees. Further, Benitez emphasized that only the California measure “applies to laws affecting a clearly enumerated constitutional right set forth in our nation’s founding documents.”

“Whether these distinctions are enough to save the Texas law fee-shifting provision from judicial scrutiny remains to be seen,” Benitez wrote. “And although it would be tempting to comment on it, the Texas law is not before this Court for determination.”

The judge’s order is likely to set up a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court, which is the outcome Newsom desired. The governor’s office called it “hypocritical” to block the state’s gun law while permitting the Texas abortion measure to stand.

“I want to thank Judge Benitez. We have been saying all along that Texas’ anti-abortion law is outrageous. Judge Benitez just confirmed it is also unconstitutional,” Newsom said in a statement Monday. “The provision in California’s law that he struck down is a replica of what Texas did, and his explanation of why this part of SB 1327 unfairly blocks access to the courts applies equally to Texas’ SB 8. There is no longer any doubt that Texas’ cruel anti-abortion law should also be struck down.”

“No one wants to take your guns”………….

Incrementalism in Action: Anti-Gun Governor Targets Lawfully Registered Firearms for Seizure

There are two absolutes in gun control strategy, and both were on display recently when Gov. Ned Lamont (D-CT) proposed to renege on a promise twice made to the state’s law-abiding gun owners: that they could keep their newly-banned firearms if they registered them with the state.

Connecticut has passed two bans on so-called “assault weapons,” one in 1993 and then an expanded version in 2013.

Each time, the law affected common and popular semi-automatic firearms already owned by law-abiding residents of the state. And each time, the state assured those gun owners that their lawfully-acquired guns would be “grandfathered” under the law if the state were apprised of who owned them and where they were kept.

This led to the sad and ominous spectacle of gun owners who were under no individual suspicion of wrongdoing queing up to report their own identity and constitutionally-protected property to police. As a news report noted, “The application requires information such as the individual’s name, address, telephone number, motor vehicle operator’s license, sex, height, weight and thumbprint, as well as information about the weapon, including the serial number, model and any unique markings.” It was eerily similar, in fact, to the information used when booking someone for a crime.

Meanwhile, some well-meaning but naïve gun owners thought they were simply doing their civic duty by complying with the mandate. “If they were trying to make them illegal, I’d have a real issue, but if they want to just know where they are, that’s fine with me,” one registrant told a local news station.

Readers of this website and other NRA publications knew better, however, as the Association has warned for years of the aforementioned absolutes: that gun control advances incrementally and that firearm registration leads to firearm confiscation.

Following a gubernatorial debate in November, Lamont told reporters: “I think those assault-style weapons that are grandfathered should not be grandfathered.” He continued, “They should not be allowed in the state of Connecticut. I think they’re killers.”

Pressed for specifics on how he would go about enforcing his proposal or recovering the 81,849 “assault weapons” registered with the state, Lamont did not provide details. “Start by making them illegal,” he said. “I think that would be a big difference. That is what you start with.”

In other words, without any explanation of how his plan would work or promote public safety, Lamont is proposing to make tens of thousands of state citizens who complied in good faith with the registration requirements into criminals, with their guns summarily declared contraband and subject to seizure. To make matters worse, the authorities would already know who and where those citizens are.

Lamont ludicrously claimed that the grandfathered guns themselves are “killers,” but he provided no evidence that their owners are. He did not cite statistics, or even examples, of lawfully registered “assault weapons” that were later used in crime. Meanwhile, registered or not, semiautomatic long guns of the types banned in Connecticut are rarely used in homicide, as we have noted time and again, including here, here, and here.

Despite these facts, Lamont seems intent on executing his plan to reclassify peaceable Connecticut residents lawfully exercising their constitutional rights as felons. His example illustrates very clearly what the reassurances of gun control advocates are worth and how anyone who thinks its safe to rely on such reassurances will be in for a rude awakening.

Indeed, the month after Lamont announced his intentions, an editorial in the Connecticut Mirror argued that constitutional assurances the right to keep and bear arms will be protected should themselves be repealed. “It is time to talk about repealing the Second Amendment,” the author insisted. But he made it clear that his plan wasn’t necessarily an alternative to incrementalism but a potential aid to it. “[T]he very existence of a loud argument about the larger issue of repeal will make those incremental proposals seem more moderate, and therefore ultimately more achievable,” the editorialist wrote.

Second Amendment advocates are often faulted for opposing supposedly moderate, “common sense gun safety laws” that fall well short of a comprehensive ban on all types of firearms. But the savvy ones know that punishing law-abiding people for exercising their constitutional rights does not stop criminals, and today’s accommodation for the good guys with guns is tomorrow’s “loophole” that will eventually close around their necks. This is even more so when the authorities already know who owns guns and where those guns are kept.

It’s simple: The object of gun control is the outlawing and seizure of firearms from law-abiding citizens.

But don’t just take our word for it.

Ask Gov. Ned Lamont.

The Feds’ ‘Misinformation’ Scam.

The biggest political story of 2022 was not the midterm election. It was the release of the “Twitter Files” by Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter. In the sixth installment published last week on Twitter in a thread by journalist Matt Taibbi, the headline was “Twitter, the FBI Subsidiary.” The FBI had its own channel of communication for tipping off Twitter executives as to authors of tweets who needed to be censored, if not banned, for posting “election misinformation” during the 2020 election season. What was insidious is that some of the offending tweets were satirical in nature and posted by people with relatively few followers.

At least 80 FBI agents were assigned to a social media task force. The Department of Homeland Security had its own operation. Both were inspired by the alleged foreign interference in the 2016 election, known now as the “Russian collusion hoax.” However, it was just days before Election Day for the 2022 midterms that we learned that censorship has been a secret project for over two years of the DHS, the FBI, and “Big Tech.” Apart from Twitter, that included Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media.

The mission creep into attacking political speech, which is entitled to the greatest protection under the First Amendment, was inevitable. During the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election campaign, the New York Post was blocked by Twitter and other Big Tech giants from publicizing its story on the incriminating evidence on the Hunter Biden laptop. It was the smoking gun of influence peddling by Hunter Biden to enrich himself, Joe Biden, and his uncle to the tune of millions of dollars. We now know that the FBI joined in that censorship effort. It worked. A poll in 2022 showed that most Americans believe full coverage of the “laptop from hell” would have cost Biden the election.

To its discredit, most of the mass media joined in suppressing the news. Time magazine even ran a story bragging about how the media “fortified” the election to ensure Donald Trump’s defeat.

The other big free speech story of 2020 was the suppression of the doctors and scientists who refused to get with the program for an experimental mRNA therapy that was sold to the public as a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The subjects targeted for suppression have included the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. Facebook created a restricted access portal to facilitate censorship requests from government bureaucrats.

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Judge Blocks California Fee-Shifting Statute That Targets Gun Lawsuit Plaintiffs (and Lawyers)

From Miller v. Bonta, decided today by Judge Roger Benitez (S.D. Cal.):

“It is cynical.” “It is an abomination.” “It is outrageous and objectionable.” “There is no dispute that it raises serious constitutional questions.” “It is an unprecedented attempt to thwart judicial review.” Such are the Intervenor-Defendant Governor’s expressed views regarding the fee-shifting provisions of a Texas law (S.B. 8) and, at least by implication, of California’s § 1021.11. It is “blatantly unconstitutional,” says Defendant Attorney General Rob Bonta. {To his credit, given the obvious, the Attorney General has refused to defend § 1021.11.} For the reasons that follow, as they may apply to S.B. 8, but apply clearly to § 1021.11, § 1021.11 is declared unconstitutional. Therefore, Defendants are permanently enjoined throughout the state from enforcing or taking any action to seek attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to § 1021.11.

[A.] Texas S.B. 8 (§ 30.022) and California S.B. 1327 (§ 1021.11)

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