Actually, It Is ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’

One pernicious development of these parlous times has been the rise of various cults that ape the trappings of Christianity while being fundamentally and unalterably opposed to its moral tenets. Case in point, the Marxist Suicide Cult masquerading as heroic do-gooderism that goes by the name of “climate change,” by which these solipsistic lunatics mean “man-made climate change.”

The argument that the climate is changing is prima facie false, because there is no argument. The climate is always changing. An hour in any major art gallery immediately illustrates that. Start with the Dutch paintings from the Little Ice Age, such as Brueghel’s Hunters in the Snow from 1565 if you doubt me. Note also that the old city of Alexandria, in Egypt, which was founded by the Macedonian Greek Alexander the Great c. 331 B.C., and once ruled over by Cleopatra, is now under water. Man had nothing to do with either.

All gone now.

In fact, to say that puny human beings can affect the climate is arrogance of the highest order when one considers the size of the Sun and the vastness of even our little solar system at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. “An ant in the afterbirth,” as Mr. Dolarhyde famously put it.

In the roughly five thousand years of recorded human history, there has been one period in which we have had a real taste of our climate’s potential for moodiness, beginning around the start of the fourteenth century and lasting for hundreds of years. During this epoch, often known as the Little Ice Age, temperatures dropped by as much as two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit…. This was also the period between the end of the Middle Ages and the birth of the modern world.

The effects of the Little Ice Age were global in scale. In China, then as now the most populous country in the world, the Ming dynasty fell in 1644, undermined by, among other things, erratic harvests. In Europe, rivers and lakes and harbors froze, leading to phenomena such as the “frost fairs” on the River Thames—fairgrounds that spread across the river’s London tideway, which went from being a freakish rarity to a semi-regular event. (Virginia Woolf set a scene in “Orlando” at one.) Birds iced up and fell from the sky; men and women died of hypothermia; the King of France’s beard froze solid while he slept… in 1588, the Spanish Armada was destroyed by an unprecedented Arctic hurricane, and a factor in the Great Fire of London, in 1666, was the ultra-dry summer that succeeded the previous, bitter winter.

And then a warming trend began, continuing into our day: high culture flourished, science advanced along with the arts, and a longer growing season helped fuel a rise in population. This, of course, is not good enough for the ninnies, hysterics and bed-wetters who are convinced We’re All Going to Die if we don’t immediately reverse these civilizational advances (which, remarkably, seemed to have passed the entire southern hemisphere by), tear down our offending infrastructure, cease having babies (but import other people’s babies), reduce our mobility, and ban everything that “pollutes” our precious air and water, even at the cost of a grotesque and unnecessary reduction in living standards: 1565, here we come again!

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DeSantis signs permitless carry bill, law takes effect July 1st

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wasted little time signing HB 543 into law after the state legislature gave final approval to the permitless carry legislation last Thursday. On Monday morning DeSantis held a signing ceremony for the bill, putting pen to paper with a small group of Second Amendment supporters in attendance. With DeSantis’s approval, Florida is now the 26th state to adopt a permitless carry measure, and at least one more state is likely to follow suit in the coming weeks.

As of July 1st, Floridians who are eligible to receive a concealed carry license will be able to lawfully carry without acquiring a government-issued permission slip; a big step forward for Second Amendment activists, but not the end of the push to make Florida a true constitutional carry state.

Second Amendment advocates have criticized the bill for not going far enough, saying that without allowing people to openly carry guns in public, the bill isn’t a true “constitutional carry” measure as DeSantis guaranteed and as the Legislature has hailed.

… We think it’s a step in the right direction,” said Luis Valdes, the Florida director of Gun Owners of America. “Permitless concealed carry is a good thing. But it’s not the constitutional carry that we were promised.”

DeSantis has said he supports open carry, but legislative leaders remained firm on continuing Florida’s prohibition against open carry in nearly all circumstances.

House Speaker Paul Rennerpreviously said that he supports open carry but that there was concern among his caucus and in the Senate about it. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo has been more firm in opposition — saying that Florida sheriffs have told her they oppose open carry, and she trusts their judgment.

DeSantis has even suggested he’d be willing to call lawmakers back to Tallahassee for a special session that would include open carry legislation, but only if the legislature itself signals its support. Passidomo’s objections in particular appear to be a major hurdle for gun owners, given her role as the state Senate president and the influence she has within the GOP caucus.

Does she have more influence than DeSantis himself, however? I doubt that, and I’m curious what would happen if the governor decided to twist some arms or make it clear to lawmakers that he considers open carry a top priority for his administration.

Even without an open carry provision the permitless carry law as written represents a major improvement in Florida’s gun laws, as well as a tipping point for the constitutional carry movement overall. More than half the country now recognizes the right to bear arms without having to obtain a license beforehand, and Nebraska could soon become the 27th state to do so, with a constitutional carry bill now set for a third and final vote in the unicameral legislature. So far that vote hasn’t been scheduled, but lawmakers still have almost two months to go before the end of this year’s session, which should be plenty of time for the bill to be heard even with the Democratic minority trying to slow the legislative process to a crawl with filibusters on almost every bill brought to the floor of the Senate.

South Carolina and Louisiana lawmakers are also considering constitutional carry bills, though the South Carolina measure has been stuck in the Senate Judiciary Committee since late February and Louisiana legislators will have to find enough votes to override a veto by Gov. John Bel Edwards if there’s any chance of making the state the 28th to recognize the right to bear arms without a government-issued license.

Today, however, it’s Florida in the spotlight, and gun owners in the Sunshine State should be rightfully proud of the expansion to the state’s carry laws. I know the bill wasn’t perfect, and the fight for open carry in the state is going to be much more difficult than it needs to be given that 47 other states already allow for open carry in some form or fashion, but HB 543 is still a major improvement to the status quo… and the Second Amendment rights of Floridians.

The 2nd Amendment’s Misconstrued ‘Militia’
What so many people get so wrong

America’s latest episode of mass homicide has sparked renewed advocacy for restrictions on gun ownership. Once again, the accompanying debate has many gun control advocates claiming the Second Amendment’s reference to a “well regulated militia” narrows the amendment’s scope if not rendering it altogether moot.

Before we examine those claims, it’s important to ensure readers have a proper general understanding of the Bill of Rights. Contrary to common misperception, these amendments do not bestow privileges upon American citizens. Rather, they are primarily a set of prohibitions against the government infringing on pre-existing human rights all people have.

That’s evident in the language. For example, the First Amendment begins “Congress shall make no law…” This amendment isn’t awarding citizens the rights of religion, speech and assembly — it’s outlawing the government’s thwarting of those innate and universal human rights.

Similarly, the Fourth Amendment asserts that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Again, the authors are not granting those rights, they are protecting them.

When the Bill of Rights was proposed, some feared the enumeration of a handful of rights could be misinterpreted as providing a comprehensive catalogue — and thus empowering the government to infringe on human rights not specified. That’s why they included the Ninth Amendment, asserting that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

“Amendment II. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

With that understanding of the Bill of Rights in mind, we see that, via the Second Amendment, the founders explicitly asserted that there is a “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

What about that reference to “a well regulated militia”? As we set out to scrutinize the phrase, let’s first observe that the Second Amendment contains two distinct components serving two different purposes:

  • An operative clause that sets out a specific prohibition against the government’s infringement on a right: …the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
  • A prefatory clause that announces a purpose: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…

Positioned in the prefatory clause, the “well regulated Militia” reference merely serves to provide a rationale — and not necessarily the only rationale — for the operative clause that follows.

While the Second Amendment stands apart from the others in the Bill of Rights by having a prefatory clause, such clauses were common in state constitutions of the era.

Prefatory clauses were used to help “sell” amendments to those being asked to approve them. In this case, the authors were pointing to the necessity of an armed populace as the well from which militias are drawn — militias seen as a vital safeguard against the federal government they were creating.

In particular, America’s founders were wary of the federal government’s potential to create a standing army that could be used to destroy state sovereignty and individual liberties. Seeking to “sell” the amendment to drafting committees and state ratifying conventions, it made sense for the authors to highlight the link between militias and the people’s right to bear arms.

Given their purpose — that is, to cite one or more of many possible rationales — prefatory clauses don’t rightly constrain operative clauses, particularly one as explicit as the Second Amendment’s, which pointedly recognizes a “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Even if the prefatory clause did have any teeth, those seeking to interpret it as tightly restricting the gun-eligible population run into yet another wall, in that militias are assembled from the citizenry at large.

Indeed, an earlier draft of the Second Amendment drove home this point. It began, “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people…”

Listen to Pennsylvanian Tench Coxe, as he championed the Constitution’s ratification: “The powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty.” Summarizing the Second Amendment, Coxe said, “The people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”

Multiple state constitutional provisions of the era, some of which predate the Bill of Rights, offer additional confirmation that the armed right of self-defense belongs to individuals. As one representative example, consider the language of Vermont’s 1777 Constitution: “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.”

Further disregarding the Second Amendment’s explicit enumeration of “the right of the people to bear arms,” some claim the existence of the National Guard renders the Second Amendment entirely moot, since, via the Guard, each state has a “militia” with its own arsenal of arms.

Recall, however, that the founders viewed militias as a check on the federal government’s power, with fear that the federal government might create a standing army with the potential to tyrannize the states and the people.

Thanks to the National Defense Act of 1916 and amendments in 1933, today’s National Guard is legally a part of the United States Army, with state governments exercising only limited government control. Enlistment oaths have evolved to reflect that, with National Guard soldiers promising to obey the orders of both the president of the United States and the governor.

The Guard’s military training and the selection of its officers are controlled by the federal government. Troops are subject to activation pursuant to any number of federal missions, including — as we’ve seen too often — overseas combat deployments that render them useless to the states where their citizen-soldiers live.

Clearly, under such federal control, the National Guard cannot be seen as a counterbalance against federal power, and thus does not fulfill the Second Amendment’s aspiration to enable “well-regulated militias…necessary to the security of a free state.”

Finally, no tour of the Second Amendment’s language would be complete without addressing “well regulated” as it’s applied to “militia.” Today, people often and understandably assume that descriptor refers to regulation in the modern sense of external government control. However, in the late 1700s, “well regulated” simply meant orderly, trained and disciplined — qualities that militias should aspire to.

To summarize:

  • The Second Amendment explicitly recognizes the existence of “a right of the people” — not just those currently in militias — “to keep and bear arms.”
  • Placed in a prefatory clause, the “militia” reference merely announces one rationale for the Second Amendment. Regardless of how “militia” is interpreted, its presence does not constrain the operative-clause prohibition of government infringement against the right of the people to keep and bears arms.
  • Today’s National Guard is part of the U.S. Army and under heavy federal control. It cannot be used by the peoples of the separate states as a counterbalance to the federal government’s standing army — and thus is not a “militia” in the sense the term is used in the Second Amendment.

Today, April 3

801 – During the early stages of the Reconquista of Spain, King Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, recaptures Barcelona from the Moors after a siege of several months.

1860 – The first successful Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins.

1865 – Union forces occupy Richmond, Virginia.

1882 – In St. Joseph Missouri, Robert Ford assassinates Jesse James.

1885 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his engine design.

1888 – In the Whitechapel section of London, ‘Jack the Ripper’ commits the first of 11 unsolved murders of women.

1936 – In the New Jersey State Penitentiary at Trenton, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed in the electric chair for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the baby son of pilot Charles Lindbergh.

1942 – Under the command of  Lt. General Masaharu Homma IJA,  Japanese forces begin a final assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.

1946 – Lt. General Masaharu Homma IJA, is executed by firing squad in the Philippines for war crimes committed by forces under his command during the Bataan Death March.

1948 – President Harry S. Truman signs the ‘Marshall Plan’ into law, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries in western Europe.

1973 – Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first handheld mobile phone call to his competitor, Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.

1974 – The 1974 Tornado Super Outbreak occurs, the biggest tornado outbreak in recorded history for a 24 hour period until the 2011 Super Outbreak. The 148 tornadoes across the central and southeast U.S. kill 315 people, with nearly 5,500 more injured.

1980 – Congress restores a federal trust relationship with the Shvwits, Kanosh, Koosharem, and the Indian Peaks and Cedar City bands of the Paiute Indian Nation of Utah.

1981 – The  Osborne Computer Corporation, exhibits the first portable computer, the Osborne 1, at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.

1989 – In the case of Mississippi Choctaw Band v. Holyfield, the Supreme Court upholds the jurisdictional rights of tribal courts under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.

1996 – The “Unabomber”,  Theodore Kaczynski, is arrested at his remote  cabin in the wilderness near Lincoln, Montana.

2000 – In the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp, the Supreme Court rules that Microsoft violated U.S. antitrust law by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors.

2004 – Islamic moslem terrorists involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings are trapped by the police in their apartment in Leganés, south of Madrid and commit suicide by blowing themselves up.

2008 – Texas law enforcement cordons off the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint’s  Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas and during a search take 533 women and children into state custody, finally releasing them under a writ of mandamus, on May 29th.

2009 – Jiverly Antares Wong, a former student, opens fire at the American Civic Association immigration center in Binghamton, New York, killing 13 people and wounding 4 before committing suicide.

2010 – Apple Inc. releases the first generation iPad tablet computer.

2016 – The Panama Papers, a leak of legal documents, reveals information on offshore banks, companies and shell corporations used by the wealthy and some public officials for, fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and evading international sanctions.

2018 – Nasim Najafi Aghdam opens fire at the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California, wounding 3 people before committing suicide.

 

Manhattan parking garage worker grazed in head,  wrestled gun away and shot suspected crook will not be charged by the Manhattan DA…at this time.

After a Midtown Manhattan parking garage attendant shot a would-be thief with the suspect’s own gun during a struggle, cops charged both men with attempted murder — but prosecutors are not pursuing the case against the worker.

Despite the initial charges filed by the NYPD, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is not prosecuting the garage attendant in the bloody Saturday morning clash, pending further investigation, a spokesperson said………….

 

Analysis: A Legal Template for Upholding AR-15 Bans is Emerging

A federal judge upheld Delaware’s “assault weapons” ban this week using reasoning likely to resonate with other courts inclined to reach the same outcome.

On Monday, Federal District Judge Richard G. Andrews, an Obama appointee, found the state’s ban on AR-15s, AK-47s, and similar firearms–along with its ban on magazines that hold more than 17 rounds–is constitutional. He did so despite finding the guns were “in common” use for lawful purposes.

“[I] conclude that the prohibited LCMs, like the prohibited assault long guns, are in common use for self-defense and therefore ‘presumptively protect[ed]’ by the Second Amendment,” Judge Andrews ruled in Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association v. Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

That probably left a lot of people doing a double-take. But Judge Andrews came to his conclusion after arguing AR-15s and the like weren’t common during the founding era and represented a technological advancement that is responsible for a uniquely modern problem: mass shootings. Because of this, he argued Bruen allowed him to look for historical analogues that show a history of regulation instituted for the same purpose and using the same means.
He ruled there was such a tradition.

“I find that the LCM and assault long gun prohibitions of HB 450 and SS 1 for SB 6 are consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” he wrote. “Plaintiffs have therefore failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of their Second Amendment claim.”
He pointed to the proliferation of late 19th Century Bowie knife and Billy club bans, plus later machinegun bans, as evidence governments have previously banned the sale of weapons they believe are associated with especially dangerous criminal behavior. He further argued banning a subset of weapons was a relatively minor burden and one that was similar to his historical examples.

“[B]oth sets of regulations impose a ‘comparable burden,” he wrote. “Indeed, the burden that the challenged regulations impose is slight.”
Judge Andrews isn’t the only, or even the first, one to use this concept to save a ban. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, denied an attempt to block Oregon’s magazine limit under the same basic framework. While she went further and said she didn’t need to do a Bruen analysis at all because ammunition magazines aren’t protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment, she did the analysis anyway, and it came out along the same lines as Judge Andrews’ argument.

It’s likely other courts will adopt this framework as well.
Other courts, namely the Ninth and Fourth Circuits, have previously shown they don’t believe AR-15s or similar guns should be sold to civilians. The old two-step balancing test of the pre-Bruen era was explicitly about whether the argued public safety impact of banning the guns was enough to overcome the infringement on the right of Americans to have them. Any court that upheld an “assault weapons” ban before 2022 essentially said “yes.”

So, given the opportunity to review the law again, it’s fair to think they may want to find a way to reach the same conclusion. That’s especially true if the path to that answer appears to at least plausibly fit within the Supreme Court’s new test.

Of course, Judge Andrews’ reasoning has some serious flaws. For one, it seems to be making the same mistake in the eyes of the Court that the two-step test did: going one step too far.

Reading Heller, McDonald, and Bruen provides the impression that any class of firearms considered to be in “common use” for lawful purposes, such as self-defense, is inherently protected by the Second Amendment and can’t be banned by the government.

“The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-defense,” The Court  wrote in Heller.

“Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment’s operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right[…].”

That Judge Andrews finds AR-15s and the other banned guns in common use for the purpose of self-defense and then proceeds on to further analysis is unlikely to be what The Court had in mind. It seems relatively clear SCOTUS doesn’t believe it is possible to ban any gun that is in common use for lawful purposes. So, the detour into comparing modern “assault weapons” bans to 19th Century Bowie knife or Billy club bans will likely be unpersuasive should it ever make its way up to The High Court.

It also suffers from the lack of a limiting principle. Judge Andrews argues that the self-loading, semi-automatic technology found in AR-15s and the other banned guns didn’t become popular until after the Civil War. And their adoption led to the rise of mass shootings (never mind that semi-automatics were becoming common about 100 years before the onset of modern mass shootings).

But there’s nothing in Judge Andrews’ line of reasoning that wouldn’t prevent the same argument from being applied to all semi-automatic firearms or an ammunition magazine of essentially any size. That includes semi-automatic handguns, which the Supreme Court has already ruled can’t be banned.

Still, even if the prospects for success on appeal to the Supreme Court are dim for this argument upholding AR bans, it will likely proliferate in some of the most important circuits because it at least attempts to follow the Bruen steps while still maintaining the bans. And, even if the weaknesses are as serious as they appear, pointing them out will only matter if the Supreme Court actually takes up a case involving them. After all, the two-step test The Court excoriated in Bruen was the defacto review standard on gun cases for a decade because of SCOTUS inaction.

Whatever ends up happening, expect to see Judge Andrews’ legal reasoning pop up anytime a gun or magazine ban is upheld.

Banana Time for the Rule of Law.
When agents of the deep state hector you about “the rule of law,” laugh in their faces

The Czech novelist Milan Kundera published The Joke, his first novel, in 1967. It traces the fortunes of Ludvik, a young student, after his politically correct girlfriend shows the Communist authorities a postcard he had written to her as a joke: “Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky! Ludvik.” As a result of this whimsy, Ludvik finds himself expelled from the Communist Party, the university, and is eventually conscripted to work in the mines.

That’s the way things are in totalitarian societies. No jokes allowed, especially not jokes told at the expense of the regime.

Thus it is that North Korea banned sarcasm and irony.

Poor Ludvik suffered for his joke. But he got off easy compared to Douglass Mackey, a social media “influencer” who wrote under the pen name “Ricky Vaughn.”

During the 2016 election cycle, Mackey/Vaughn posted a funny meme urging Hillary voters to “avoid the line and vote from home” by texting “Hillary” to a certain number.

Who would be stupid enough to fall for such a joke? No one. But his satire was effective enough to get him banned from the pre-Elon Musk era Twitter. And the feds thought—or said they thought—that it was part of a “plot to disenfranchise black and women voters.” I guess that shows you what they think of black and women voters.

It sounds stupid. It is stupid. But Mackey was charged with a felony and on Friday was convicted in the Eastern District of New York. He faces up to 10 years in jail for (as an official announcement crows) “his scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.”

Yes, that’s right. A Trump supporter posts a silly (but amusing) meme that mocks Hillary voters and he is tried and convicted of a felony. In the course of that official announcement, an assistant  U.S. attorney for the Eastern District called Breon Peace continues with this stomach churning bit of agitprop:

Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice in the 2016 Presidential Election. . . . Today’s verdict proves that the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality and flatly rejects his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote.

In fact, that verdict proved nothing of the sort. It merely confirmed the corruption and politicization of our judicial system. The real moral of this sorry episode is this: Make a joke, go to jail.

This is Soviet-style intimidation. It has, or had, no place in America. It is the kind of thing that, once upon a time, we would hear about and deplore in distant lands ruled by communist despots. Now we emulate what we once deplored. Increasingly, alas, such totalitarian expedients are business-as-usual in an American regime that is staffed by apparatchiks of both parties who are drunk on power and care not a whit for free speech, individual liberty, or the impartial enforcement of the law. What they care about is the consolidation and perpetuation of their own power, period, full stop.

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Blast from the past: Anti-gunners recycle talking points from the 80s in response to Florida permitless carry

In 1986, Florida passed “shall issue” concealed carry legislation, kicking off a decades-long trend across the country that has continued to this day. At the time, Florida’s adoption of shall-issue language was a very big deal and a huge change to the “may issue” status quo, and gun control advocates did their best to drum up the public’s fears; predicting “Wild West shootouts” over parking spaces and a descent into a dystopian hellscape. As the NYTimes breathlessly reported in 1987 as the “shall issue” law took effect:

Only Florida has a law ”in which a license to carry a concealed gun is given by the state,” said Sarah Brady, vice-chairman of Handgun Control Inc., a Washington-based lobbying group. ”We believe that this kind of decision should be made on a local level where people know one another rather than applying to a state office.”

Attorney General Robert A. Butterworth noted this month that the law, passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in the spring, ”has left the area of unconcealed manual possession of a firearms totally unregulated.”

This gap has created ”the possibility of openly armed youth gangs hanging around street corners and gunmen parading through a shopping mall,” the Attorney General wrote in a letter urging that the law be amended in the current special legislative session.…

”It was about time for Florida to have such a law,” said Richard M. Manning, a National Rifle Association official who pushed for the legislation.

He is counting the days until the law goes into effect Thursday. So too is Mrs. Brady and other gun control supporters, and they are worried about what will happen in Florida. Widepread weapons possession ”is not the best way to handle the increase of violence,” said Mrs. Brady, whose husband, James S. Brady, the White House press secretary, was shot in an assassination attempt against President Reagan. ”We are the only civilized nation in the world without a good gun law and we are the most violent in the West.”

A funny thing happened after “shall issue” went into effect: crime dropped, and not just by a little bit. Between 1987 and 2019, Florida’s violent crime and homicide rates declined by more than 50%, and the state now has around 2.5-million active concealed carry licenses.

But in the wake of the Florida legislature sending a permitless carry bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis, anti-gunners are dusting off their old arguments and once again deploying them in a campaign of fearmongering. Here’s a portion of Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago’s hyperbolic response to the passage of HB 543 headlined “Permitless carry and gun sanctuary cities. Visit Florida at your own risk – it’s a blast!”

This is a state where people aren’t required to register guns like they do cars or house alarms. There’s no paperwork, no background check involved when gifting or privately selling guns. Only in gun shop and gun show sales do buyers undergo basic scrutiny.

And now, not even first-time gun users will be required to learn how to use a gun, online or in a gun range, to carry a concealed gun around the rest of us.

Their new right puts the rest of us at greater risk of dying as a result of their incompetence.

The permitless carry bill, CS/HB543, now heads to Gov. DeSantis, a fan of even worse, open-carry. He will be all too giddy to sign it into law. He was the bill’s chief proponent, although, hypocritically so — the governor doesn’t want guns at his events.

Remember, he got caught asking the city of Tampa to ban firearms at his election party — and to take the blame for it so he didn’t have to?

DeSantis had nothing to worry about.

“Historic NRA Win: Constitutional Carry Passes in Florida,” the organization boasted in a press release sent, in its own words, “moments” after the vote. They’ll shower DeSantis with funds for his likely presidential run.

But for the safety at major events — like spring break in South Beach — the new law foreshadows new trouble.

Although there’s talk that it could be possible to fence in an event, call it a private party and prohibit guns — like at DeSantis’ election event — “the gun law passed by the Legislature allowing concealed weapons with no permit or training will make 2024 in South Beach a nightmare,” said Stuart Blumberg, a 77-year resident of Miami Beach and founder of the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association.

Agreed, said Michael Grieco, a former Miami Beach commissioner and ex-state Rep. , a criminal defense attorney who carries a concealed weapon: “It’s just going to exacerbate the problem. I’m a Democrat and gun-owner, and this bill passed scares the crap out of me. As a father who drives his kid to school every week,” he said, pausing, “now anyone can just go buy a gun with only some nonsensical, lighthearted background check.”

Umm, that was the case before HB 543 was approved by lawmakers.
The bill doesn’t make any changes to the purchase or sale of firearms. It simply states that those Floridians who would be eligible to obtain a concealed carry license can carry a concealed firearm without the need for a government-issued permission slip. All those prohibited from possessing or carrying a firearm today will still be forbidden from doing so when the law takes effect on July 1st.

To opponents of Florida’s permitless carry bill, it’s the 1980s all over again. But while Florida was at the forefront of the “shall issue” movement almost 40 years ago, it’s far from an early adopter of permitless carry. When DeSantis signs HB 543 into law, Florida will join 25 other states in recognizing the right to bear arms without paying hundreds of dollars in fees and costs to do so. None of the doom-and-gloom predictions from anti-gunners have come to pass in those states, and not one has seen fit to repeal its permitless carry law after deciding it was a mistake.

In fact, I’ve got a story that should put Fabiola’s fears to rest. It comes from the constitutional carry state of Ohio; specifically the city of Toledo, which has not had a firearm-involved homicide since early February, when a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed inside his home. In fact, as of March 31st Toledo has only reported six homicides this year, well below where the city was at this point in 2021 and 2022, before constitutional carry took effect. The true number is likely even lower; one incident involved a man shot and killed by Toledo police, another fatal shooting is probably going to be ruled a justifiable homicide given that it was a burglar who was shot, while the family of the 15-year-old says he was the victim of an accidental shooting and not an intentional act of violence.

I’m not exclusively crediting constitutional carry for the plunge in homicides. Crime is complicated, and there are undoubtably a number of factors at work. But it’s clear that permitless carry, by itself, does not lead to an automatic rise in shootings or gun-involved murders any more than “shall-issue” concealed carry led to more crime in Florida in the decades after it was enshrined into law. Most violent criminals aren’t legally walking around with guns to begin with, so the new law will be of little note or use to them. What’s most important is that law enforcement sticks to the tactics and strategies that are most effective in reducing violent crime; focusing on the most violent and prolific offenders instead of casting a wide net of gun control laws over the general public.

The current doomcasting over Florida’s permitless carry law is nothing more than a rehash of decades-old arguments that have been proven false time and time again. The attempts to scare the pants off the public will only intensify between now and July 1st, but gun owners should keep calm and look forward to the day when they can carry on their person without having to get a permission slip from the state beforehand.

Store manager, valid FOID holder foils robbery, shoots and kills would-be robber in Calumet Heights

CHICAGO — A man is dead after getting shot while trying to rob an auto parts store in Calumet Heights.

According to the Chicago Police Department, a 30-40-year-old man entered an auto parts store in the 9100 block of South Stony Island Avenue around 2:30 p.m., pulled out a gun, and demanded money from the cash register.

Police said the store manager, who is a valid FOID holder, pulled out a gun and fired shots, hitting the 30-40-year-old man, who was then taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.

April 2

742 – Charlemagne is born, either in Herstal, in modern Belgium, or the nearby town of Aachen in modern Germany.

1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León sights land in what is now the state of Florida.

1792 – The Coinage Act is passed by Congress, establishing the United States Mint, the U.S. Dollar as the standard unit of money, pegging it to the value of the then current Spanish silver Peso – commonly called ‘Pieces of Eight’ from its value of 8 reales – and creating a decimal monetary system.

1865 – The defeat of Confederate forces at the 3rd Battle of Petersburg forces the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate government to abandon Richmond, Virginia.

1900 – Congress passes the Foraker Act, giving Puerto Rico limited self-rule.

1902 – The “Electric Theatre”, the first full time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles.

1912 – The White Star Line Olympic class ocean liner RMS Titanic, begins sea trials.

1917 – President Wilson asks for a special joint session of Congress to  declare war on the German Empire.

1930 – After the death of Empress Zewditu, Ras Tafari Makonnen is proclaimed Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.

1956 – As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiere on CBS. The ‘soap operas’ become the first daytime dramas to debut in the 30 minute format.

1973 – Mead Data Central corporation launches the  computerized legal research service, LexisNexis.

1980 – President Carter signs the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act into law.

1982 – Argentinian forces mount an amphibious invasion on East Falkland Island at Port Stanley with most of the defending British Royal Marine and Navy forces eventually surrendering and evacuated by the end of the day.

1992 – In New York Federal Court, Mafia boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering and is later sentenced to life in prison.

2006 – Over 60 tornadoes break out across several central states,  Tennessee being the hardest hit with 29 people killed.

2012 – A former student opens fire with a handgun at the Korean Christian Oikos University in California, murdering 7 people and wounding 3 more before fleeing and later surrendering to police.

2014 – A soldier opens fire at several places on Fort Hood Texas, murdering 3 people and wounding 16 others before committing suicide.

2021 – A Capitol Police officer is killed and another injured when an American islamist terrorist rams his car into a barricade outside the U.S. Capitol building, then exits the vehicle and attempts to attack other officers with a knife before being shot down, later dying at a hospital

Yes, his opponent is a carpet bagging RINO, but still, Pennsylvanians knew exactly what they were voting for.

Fetterman Does First Post-Depression Interview and Raises a Multitude of Questions

John Fetterman has finally been released from the hospital after suffering from a reported bout of severe depression. The Pennsylvania senator has long been at the center of controversy surrounding his ailing health, largely centering on the massive stroke he had prior to the 2022 election.

Since then, Fetterman has deteriorated in ways that would have led to immediate calls for his resignation were he not a member of the Democratic Party. He can’t speak properly, he can’t understand others properly, and he relies on a closed captioning device to communicate.

It’s good to be a Democrat, though, and the press has been rushing to cover for him since day one. That continued on Friday with an interview with CBS News that did nothing but raise a multitude of questions.

For starters, is this guy a US senator or not? I’m not trying to downplay his condition. Quite the contrary, but the Senate is not a place to battle depression, much less serious health issues that leave one unable to communicate. The question at hand isn’t how brave Fetterman supposedly is. It’s whether he can do his job, and he obviously can’t. That should be the top issue for every single person who interviews him. Instead, they lavish him with praise while helping him hide his actual condition. It’s dystopian.

Past that, a lot of people noticed where Fetterman’s eyes were going during the interview. Not only is reading the questions on some kind of monitor just off-screen (which CBS News is careful to not show), but he’s pretty clearly also reading his answers. His eyes stay glued to the screen the entire time, with only passing glances at the interviewer herself.

There were also 11 different editing cuts in the 45-second clip that CBS News released. Let me say that again. There were 11 cuts in under a minute.

Those edits weren’t just made for promotional purposes. They were cuts all made during a single question. Why? Because Fetterman takes time to read his monitor and often loses his train of thought. CBS News, instead of being honest with its audience, is trying to hide that fact.

Does that sound like something an honest press would do? If this were a Republican, would they be bending over backward to cover up just how bad things are? We all know the answer to that. Fetterman is not fit to be a US senator. It was easy for anyone to see during the campaign, and he’s even worse off now. Truly, there is nothing the Democratic Party won’t do to hold onto power.

Ultra-ultra crap-for-brains o’ the day

Op-ed claims Founding Fathers would want gun control

I’m a big believer in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. It’s why I’m a Second Amendment advocate. The way I see it, our Founding Fathers put together a document that did a pretty good job of limiting the government and securing our rights.

Too bad it’s ignored, such as the push for gun control.

But with frightening regularity, there comes someone who seems to act like they held a séance with the Founding Fathers and knows that their past words in support of the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms would go out the window.

People such as this:

The tragic shootings in Nashville, with children and staff at the Covenant School being killed, demands action from Congress. But so many times we have seen Congress do nothing after gun violence.

If America’s Founding Fathers could have traveled in time to today, they would be horrified to see these mass shootings in our schools and communities. They would also be shocked that the Congress has done so little to stop these tragedies.

The Founding Fathers, if they could have foreseen the terror of today, would surely have revised the Second Amendment. They would urge us to implement gun control today.

There must be some limitations on the right to bear arms of the Second Amendment. There must be gun control including banning assault weapons. As the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”

First, while I respect the late Justice Scalia, he wasn’t a Founding Father. Injecting his comment, one often taken drastically out of context, isn’t making the case.

The author here, like so many others, claims the Founding Fathers wouldn’t have supported the right they literally fought and bled for if they could see the bad things happening today.

Yet they offer no evidence for such a claim. Nothing in their writings of the time suggested they were in favor of forfeiting the right to keep and bear arms simply because people could do bad things.

In fact, that claim flies directly in the face of something one of our Founding Fathers said explicitly. Thomas Jefferson said, “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” That tells me that yes, he’d look at what we see today, and while he would mourn those lost lives, there’s little reason to believe he’d suddenly want to restrict people’s rights.

The Buckeye Firearms Association has a very handy list of other pro-gun quotes from our Founding Fathers, none of which suggest even a hint of support for the idea of gun control.

See, what the author has done is convince himself of a fiction, that the Founding Fathers are whatever he wants to believe them to be. Further, since so many of us look to them for guidance on matters of policy, he somehow hopes he’ll suddenly be the one to trick us into supporting gun control.

That’s really not how it works. You can’t just say, “They’d support me,” then just expect people to shrug and accept it.

Let’s also remember that in the time of the founding, private parties owned artillery and equipped their own private warships–letters of marque were a thing, after all–which could lay waste to people in numbers even the much vilified AR-15 couldn’t.

If they were willing to trust the American people with that, then just why would you assume they’d suddenly support gun control? The fact that you just really, really want them to isn’t enough.

Yet this is what passes for reasoning, apparently.

And they kept that blasted crossbolt safety…….Lawyers.

Ruger Reintroduces the Marlin Model 336 Classic Lever-Action Rifle

  • Model #: 70504
  • Caliber: 30-30 Win
  • Capacity: 6+1
  • Stock: American Black Walnut
  • Material: Alloy Steel
  • Finish: Satin Blued
  • Front Sight: Brass Bead with Hood
  • Rear Sight: Semi-Buckhorn
  • Weight: 7.5 lb.
  • Overall Length: 38.625″
  • Length of Pull: 13.38″
  • Barrel Length: 20.25″
  • Barrel: Cold Hammer-Forged Alloy Steel
  • Twist: 1:12″ RH
  • Grooves: 6
  • UPC: 7-36676-70504-7
  • Suggested Retail: $1,239.00
  • Instruction Manual:  Model 336 Classic

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Colorado: Assault Weapon Ban Pulled from Committee Agenda

Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee pulled House Bill 23-1230 (“HB 23-1230”) from the agenda thanks to the strong opposition of NRA members and Second Amendment supporters. The committee received thousands of messages opposing HB 23-1230, a bill that bans the manufacturing, importing, purchasing, selling, offering to sell, or transferring ownership of what the drafters have defined as an “assault weapon.”  No hearing is scheduled at this time, but the fight is not over yet. They are still likely to take action on this bill at some point this session, so we must remain vigilant!