Category: Goobermint

DOJ Subpoenas Targeting Trump Associates Contain Disturbing Demands

News of dozens of subpoenas being sent by the DOJ to Trump supporters broke on Friday and was finally confirmed on Monday. The subpoenas, which were ostensibly tied to investigations surrounding January 6th, targeted over 40 people. Two more phones were seized from Trump associates as well, including his in-house counsel.

It marked another move in what appears to be a highly politicized investigation targeting the political enemies of Joe Biden for nothing more than wrong-speak. RedState obtained and published the subpoena Friday, and Monday night Tucker Carlson, who also obtained some of the subpoenas, highlighted some of the disturbing demands within them.

 

In the clip, Carlson provides an excerpt from the subpoena that purports to define what the current investigation is about. Here’s how that reads.

Any claim that the Vice President and/or the President of the Senate had the authority reject or choose not to count presidential electors.

To put it frankly, it is chilling to think that the DOJ could base an investigation on something that is clearly under the bounds of free speech. And to be clear, it is completely irrelevant whether Mike Pence had the above-mentioned authority or not. Americans are allowed to hold opinions, and they are allowed to discuss those opinions, even if they don’t hold up to factual scrutiny.

It is a violation of the First Amendment for the government to criminally target individuals based simply on what they said unless it is a direct incitement to violence or a threat. Nothing about that passage is either of those things. In other words, the DOJ is firmly in the territory of trying to prosecute thought crimes.

There’s also the issue of precedent here. Carlson brings up the fact that the DOJ did not seek to go after leading Democrats in 2016 that sought to stop the counting of electors for Donald Trump. He’s correct, and it’s a blind spot in all this that is simply being ignored because it’s convenient to ignore. That January 6th occurred at the hands of protesters does not suddenly wipe out the free speech rights of others.

The Fox News host then lists some of the names these subpoenas are targeting, including Stephen Miller and Jenna Ellis, but the most shocking is Boris Epshteyn. That is Trump’s current lawyer. Yet, the DOJ is demanding his communications, many of which are privileged, with a wink and a nod promise to sort through everything. That’s banana republic stuff.

Read the entire subpoena here:

Redacted Subpoena by Jennifer Van Laar on Scribd

I’ll end with something Carlson mentions near the beginning of the clip, which is that there is no accountability or transparency being demanded in the face of all this. Instead, the American press, with few exceptions, is spending its time either ignoring these overreaches or outright supporting them. That’s terrifying because it feels like we’ve reached a place where anything goes as long as seeks to harm Donald Trump, and it won’t stop there. These precedents being set are going to be abused by left-wing officials long into the future. It’s another reason why Republicans must retake the White House in 2024 and that there must be a will to gut these out-of-control agencies.

Senator Cory “Spartacus” Booker introduces bill to limit how gun dealers may dissolve their businesses

Spartacus is at it again. Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey couldn’t sit idle for too long without bringing forward some sort of an anti-gun proposal. In his free time, when he’s not embarrassing Garden Staters with his antics in Congress, or allegedly slipping out of the back door of his Newark home when he was mayor to head to his real home, Booker loves to trample on the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Booker, who fancied himself a people’s mayor of sorts, with his publicity stunt living in a building scheduled for demolition in a high crime area, has no need for firearms when he has security to look after him.

Funny how Booker’s alleged experience did not set off any light bulbs on why the Second Amendment is so important. Had the then mayor and now Senator been paying less attention to allegedly slipping out back doors, and having guests come in through back doors under the cloak of darkness, he would have figured out quickly that a firearm is borderline a necessity in the city he managed to mismanage. On September 8th Senator Sparticus introduced a bill to limit how dealers that lose their licenses shall deal with their inventory.

The bill, S.4812 Fire Sale Loophole Closing Act has explicit instructions on how a dealer that loses their license shall dispose of their goods. The bill is not a new bill, with the first one being introduced by former Congressman Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York in 2010. Every session of Congress since Ackerman’s introduction of this bill has seen a bill of the same title introduced. This is a companion bill to the previously introduced House version, which Representative David Cicilline introduced December 9th of 2021.

What’s the bill intend to do? From the bill text we have:

To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to restrict the ability of a person whose Federal license to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms has been revoked, whose application to renew such a license has been denied, or who has received a license revocation or renewal denial notice, to transfer business inventory firearms, and for other purposes.

Some select highlights from the bill include:

“(aa) (1) (A) It shall be unlawful for a person who has been notified by the Attorney General that the Attorney General has made a determination to revoke a license issued to the person under this chapter to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms, or to deny an application of the person to renew such a license, to—

“(i) transfer a business inventory firearm of the person—
“(I) into a personal collection of the person; or
“(II) to an employee of the person, or to an individual described in section 923(d)(1)(B) with respect to the person; or
“(ii) receive a firearm that was a business inventory firearm of the person as of the date the person received the notice.

Essentially, if a gun dealer loses their license, which is a very easy thing to do today with the ATF revoking FFLs over typos, transcription errors, and clerical errors, a person would be subjected to imprisonment of up to five years if their conduct was considered “willful”, if they do not dispose of inventory “properly”.

The crazy thing about this, why not a personal inventory? What’s the big deal? The loss of an FFL does not make someone a disqualified person, not in a world where the ATF is revoking left and right. Why not an employee of?

If there was ever a time when the relevance of such a measure would be lost, that’d be now. In the past, not that the ATF has a stellar record of doing what they’re supposed to, but in the past if a dealer would lose their license over some sort of an egregious infraction, I can see why we’d want to ensure the inventory would be ushered outside the control of any rogue dealers. But today? I don’t think so. Not how our current administration is dealing with things.

Understand that the requirement that a dealer even need to have an FFL in the first place can be construed as unconstitutional, further forcing said entity to dispose of their property in a manner different than the lawful owner would prefer is too close to the pinko’s dream of no private property.

It’s not likely that this measure gets passed in both chambers and makes its way to the Napper in Chief. It has been introduced and re-introduced every congress for more than a decade. Although, many laws were bills in waiting on the sidelines or advocated for many times over before they became law. We’ll be keeping an eye on the progress of this measure. With the midterms around the corner and the session ending in a few months, this is likely to gain little traction. Booker managed to wrangle in a whopping zero co-sponsors.

If demoncraps and their mainstream media apologists are really caught off guard by this stuff, maybe they shouldn’t be in charge of running things and maybe our mainstream media needs to be replaced by people who know what they’re talking about.

Full-auto switches popping up in gun-controlled Connecticut

Full-auto switches take a regular Glock semi-automatic pistol and converts them into a machine gun. I don’t mean that in the sense that bump stocks supposedly do, where they really just allow you to pull the trigger stupidly fast. No, they actually turn the pistols into full-auto weapons.

As a result, they’re illegal in the US. There’s no state in which they’re OK because they fall under federal law. They shouldn’t, but they do.

Anyway, they’ve been turning up more and more in different places. It seems gun-controlled Connecticut is having an issue with them.

A tiny device capable of transforming a handgun into a mini machine gun is showing up in Connecticut, according to police reports.

The device, known colloquially as Glock “switches” or “chips,” can be quickly attached to a handgun, converting the weapon from shooting just one bullet each time the trigger is squeezed to having the capability of firing until the trigger is lifted.

A handful of the devices have been recovered by police in Connecticut in recent years, according to police reports, though it’s unclear how many of the devices are present in the state. Advocates say they pose a danger to the public because they increase the risk of bystanders being shot, and because of the apparent ease criminals are able to obtain them.

Ease criminals are able to obtain these things? Seriously?

Nah, can’t be. Gun control works, we’re told, and these things are seriously illegal. Due to the date of manufacture on these, no one can legally have one except for a handful of exceptions. How can gun-controlled Connecticut have an issue with easy access to one of the most controlled devices out there?

The report goes on to discuss the ease with which these can be obtained, such as from China or via a 3D printer.

Now, there are only a few that have been recovered, but that’s all it takes to create a panic. However, in this case, there are lessons that can be learned despite the limited numbers recovered.

You see, you can’t keep bad guys from doing bad things. If they want full-auto switches, they’ll get them, especially in this day and age.

Thankfully, there’s no mention of Connecticut lawmakers trying to pass laws banning things that are already illegal. Yeah, I know, will wonders never cease and all that, but it’s still worth mentioning.

However, there was this bit I wanted to talk about:

“I’ve heard law enforcement officers in other parts of the country refer to this as … ‘the scariest thing that has hit the streets in a long time,’” said Jeremy Stein, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, a group that supports stronger gun laws.

Stein said the device works by essentially “bypassing” the firearms trigger mechanism, similar to a bump-stock, a device designed to make a semi-automatic weapon mimic a fully automatic rate of fire.

“There’s no legitimate civilian purpose — there is no good reason to have one of these things,” he added.

Well, yeah, there is.

You see, when the bad guys can throw down a whole lot of fire, it might be warranted for law-abiding citizens to have the means to lay down a similar amount of fire.

As it stands, we’re on an unequal footing with our adversaries should we find ourselves up against a criminal armed with a gun possessing a full-auto switch. We simply don’t have the firepower to meet that kind of force.

So having a similar full-auto switch would be a “legitimate civilian purpose.”

Now, with that said, no law-abiding citizen is likely to have one of these. I mean, by definition, if you have one you’re not likely to be law-abiding, now are you?

However, this also shows that what we need isn’t more gun control laws. This is as tightly controlled as they come under the law, and yet for less than the price of a tank of gas–OK, bad example in this day and age, but bear with me–you can get something that will turn your standard Glock into a machine pistol.

Or, you can find the files and make them yourself with a 3D printer.

Look, while I know that Connecticut hasn’t gotten the memo, gun control is dead. It doesn’t work, is unconstitutional, and is just a general waste of time.

If you can’t keep a full-auto switch out of criminal hands, how are you going to keep guns out of them?

And the U.S. goobermint still ran a multiTrillion dollar deficit

Americans Spent More on Taxes Last Year Than on Food, Health Care, Education, and Clothing Combined.

Yikes. New consumer spending data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides some sobering perspective on how much Americans are paying in taxes. The data covers consumer spending across a wide variety of categories in 2021. Overall, taxes accounted for about 25 percent of average consumer spending.

The BLS measures spending per “consumer unit,” which it describes as “either (1) all members of a particular household who are related by blood, marriage, adoption or other legal arrangements; (2) persons living alone or sharing a household with others or living as a roomer in a private home or lodging house or in a permanent living quarters in a hotel or motel, but who is financially independent; or (3) two or more person living together who use their income to make joint expenditure decisions.”

On average, each “consumer unit” paid more than $16,000 in taxes last year. This outpaces average spending on food, clothing, education, and health care combined.

The mean for total spending per unit on health care, food, education, and clothing was $16,721.42. This included an average of $8,289.28 on food, $5,451.61 on health care, $1,226.14 on education, and $1,754.39 on apparel.

The mean for total spending per unit on taxes was $16,729.73. This included $8,561.46 in federal income tax, $2,564.14 in state and local income taxes, $2,475.18 in property taxes, $5,565.45 in Social Security deductions, and $105.21 in other taxes, offset by an average stimulus payment of $2,541.71.

In addition to this disturbing tidbit, the new BLS data contains a wealth of other information on American spending habits and offers an interesting glimpse at recovery—and inflation—during the second year of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Average annual expenditures for all consumer units in 2021 were $66,928, a 9.1-percent increase from 2020,” BLS reports. “During the same period, the Consumer Price Index…rose 4.7 percent, and average income before taxes increased 3.7 percent.”

The highest expenditure category was housing, at an average $22,623.55 per consumer unit (including property taxes). Major spending categories aside from housing, food, health care, education, and clothing included transportation ($10,961.18), utilities/fuels/public services ($4,223.49), entertainment ($3,567.89), household operations ($1,638.42), and personal care products and services ($770.51).

Spending was up last year in all sorts of categories that had been depressed by the pandemic in 2020. For instance, spending on entertainment was up nearly 23 percent over 2020 and up 15.5 percent from 2019.

The average spending per consumer unit on alcohol was $553.77, up 15.9 percent over 2020 (but still below 2019 levels). “The increase was driven by alcohol away from home spending, up 69.4 percent, which was offset by a decrease in alcohol at home spending, down 7.9 percent,” the BLS reports.

Overall, spending was up across all income categories. The highest quintile of earners had the most increase in spending (up 11.6 percent), while the second-lowest quintile had the smallest increase (up 4.6 percent). “In each quintile, the increase in total spending outpaced the increase in income,” notes the BLS. “Overall average annual income before taxes rose 3.7 percent in 2021, while expenditures increased 9.1 percent.”

Income rose between 3 and 4 percent for the top three income groups but just 0.6 percent for the second lowest income group. It decreased 0.4 percent for the bottom quintile.

Lies, Damn Lies and President Joe Biden

If the old chestnut concerning “lies, damn lies and statistics” was referring to a U.S. president, it would almost certainly be current President Joe Biden (D).

That fact was proven, once again, during the president’s late-August campaign-style appearance in Pennsylvania. Speaking to an audience at Wilkes University, Biden made another one of his preposterous statements about the AR-15—a type of semi-automatic rifle that he loves to hate and wants to ban.

“Do you realize the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun?” the president asked those in attendance. Apparently, he received no answer to that somewhat rhetorical question, and the White House press corps hasn’t followed up on the outright lie.

In truth, there are many rifle calibers that fire projectiles at a higher velocity than the roughly 3,000 feet per second (fps) of the .223 or 5.56 mm rounds that an AR-15 is typically chambered in, including the .220 Swift, .257 Weatherby Magnum and the .30/378 Weatherby. In fact, the average bullet out of an AR-15 moves less than three-times faster than a typical 115-grain 9 mm pistol bullet commonly used for home and self-defense. Recall, however, that the president once lied about that round, too, saying, “A 9 mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.”

Apparently not believing the president would simply lie about the easily researched speed of a rifle bullet, the dubious “fact-checking” website, Snopes, looked into the matter. In the end, however, the “fact checkers” treated the asinine statement by the president with kid gloves: “The president’s claim is incorrect, and generalizes the varying speeds of bullets fired from different kinds of guns,” Snopes reported. Rather than sticking to “fact-checking,” Snopes went on to editorialize, “However, the AR-15 is still an especially lethal weapon and has been used to murder hundreds of people in mass shootings in the United States.”

Biden also used the occasion to take yet another shot at those Americans who rightly believe that the Second Amendment was written to ensure citizens could defend themselves against a tyrannical government.

“If you want to fight against a country, you need an F-15,” Biden said sarcastically. “You need something a little more than a gun. No, I’m not joking.”

Having a leader threaten law-abiding gun owners with hi-tech jet fighters seems like something you’d be more likely to hear in an authoritarian state. Hearing Biden make the statement didn’t sit well with freedom-loving citizens.

“While we’re here, let’s also acknowledge that ‘your AR-15 is useless because the government could just carpet bomb you into submission’ isn’t an argument in favor of gun control,” said Amy Swearer, a legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. “It’s actually an argument for a better armed citizenry and against trusting whoever said that.”

Additionally, in the same speech the president once again made his tired, oft-repeated statement about deer and bulletproof vests—a statement so ignorant that it’s hard to believe the so-called “most powerful man in the world” would continue to repeat it.

“And by the way, how many—my dad used to love to hunt in the Poconos when we lived in Scranton,” Biden said. “How many deer or bear are wearing Kevlar vests, huh? Not a joke.”

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting. Somebody should tell Biden that—or at least tell whoever keeps adding that dopey line to his speeches.

Lastly, Biden encouraged attendees to vote based on a candidate’s willingness to curtail Second Amendment rights for all Americans.

“It’s time to hold every elected official’s feet to the fire and ask them: ‘Are you for banning assault weapons? Yes or no?’ Ask them. If the answer is no, vote against them.”

Biden is correct about one thing: It is time to hold every elected official’s feet to the fire and ask them if they are for banning common AR-15-style rifles. If the answer is yes, it’s time to vote them out and replace them with someone who respects the Second Amendment.

Is the ‘Great Reset’ Kaput?

Writing in The Epoch Times, CEO of GnS Economics Tuomas Malinen forecasts the imminent collapse of the European economy. Focusing on the ill-advised sanctions against Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine and the shutting down of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, he reports that “[m]any households and corporations are seeing their energy prices multiply by 10, or more, across the continent.” In the face of a massive spike in energy prices, skyrocketing inflation, the raising of interest rates, the crushing effect on asset markets and the European banking sector, and the explosion of a full-blown debt crisis, Malinen predicts the unraveling of the Eurozone and the possible collapse of the global financial system. The ripple effect would be unstoppable.

If Malinen is right—and his credentials are impeccable—what might the prospects be, in the midst of such carnage, for the Great Reset project, which envisions the corporate seizure of global governance and top-down management of economic affairs? Would the ensuing chaos render the Reset moot since the conditions for a social and economic revolution would be far too unstable for a coherent restructuring of society? Might we finally see the end of the nefarious Klaus Schwab, whose toxic dreams—corporate hegemony, the abolition of private property, and the eclipse of  democratic accountability while civil society becomes little more than window dressing—would have turned to rubble?

As Richard Morrison writes in National Review Capital, “The global regulatory cartel that technocrats such as Schwab envision—a system of supranational policymaking that insulates politicians and CEOs from the demands and expectations of their most important constituents—is exactly the course of action that will end…the amazing growth, health, education and prosperity” that the free-market system has created. Such is the policy that Klaus and his Davos minions would pursue, which the current imbroglio might well put paid to. There would be scarce maneuvering room to set the Schwabian program in place.

Or, on the contrary, would the proponents of the Davos enterprise rejoice in the anarchy and see it as a timely opportunity to impose a socialist interregnum leading to a full-fledged totalitarian upheaval, a leftist takeover of the global community that would meet little resistance?

I suspect that such an eventuality is unlikely. Corporations would be severely weakened by the energy crunch and unable to successfully assert their “stakeholder” dominance. International bodies, nonprofits, and political organizations would be similarly hamstrung. In effect, there would be too little remaining “on the ground” for the Reset to take hold, which in the light of a global cataclysm would be cold comfort indeed. The Great Reset is something that can be opposed; the wreckage of the global economy and the destruction of the institutional structure of society offer no such consolation.

It is obvious that the debacle can only be averted, as Malinen proposes, by the lifting of sanctions and “turning the gas flows from Russia to Europe back on.” Europe and other Western nations would slowly and painfully recover from the abyss they have dug for themselves, enduring a recession but avoiding a depression. The Great Reset would present itself once again, of course, but as a threat that can be fought—a small mercy, but a mercy nonetheless.

THE HOT & COLD ECONOMY

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” George Orwell labeled the ability doublethink or indoctrination. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. I call it the current economy.

There are mixed signals everywhere. Inflation is running hot at an 8.5% annual rate—subtract food and energy and it’s 5.9%. Despite a string of long-overdue Federal Reserve rate hikes, credit is still loose and will be until short-term rates rise above inflation. At 2.25% to 2.5%, we have a way to go.

Prices are popping. Restaurants everywhere seem to have New York prices. Haircuts are more. Same for doctor’s bills, furniture and Uber rides. There’s still $5 rotisserie chicken, and the $1.50 hot-dog special, but it sure feels like Costco added a couple of bucks to every other item.

More heat: The U.S. economy added 315,000 jobs in August, and unemployment is 3.7% as workers are hard to find for the 11.2 million available jobs. Stores are closing or limiting hours owing to a lack of workers. And unionization is back, burdening Amazon, Starbucks and even Google’s cafeteria. A national railroad strike might hit soon.

Once wage hikes start, they are hard to stop. John Deere increased workers’ pay by 10% last November. Lowe’s is giving out $55 million in bonuses this quarter. I expect more pay increases of 10% to 15% over the next year. The new- and used-car market is still tight because of chip shortages, but that’s almost over. Container ships now are idling outside East Coast ports, as I observed flying into New York recently. Hot, hot, hot.

Policy makers keep pouring gasoline on the inflation bonfire. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that would increase fast-food worker wages up to $22 an hour next year from $15. Expect 20% price increases, even for In-N-Out Burger’s “Animal Style” fries. After trillion-dollar spending binges in 2020 and 2021, Congress has piled on spending with the Inflation Reduction Act, a misnomer for a green pork bill, plus the unnecessary Chips+ Act with even more green goodies. And the Biden administration’s wave-of-the-hand student-loan forgiveness will have the same effect as sending out $10,000 and $20,000 stimulus checks. Fire in the hole.

But there are plenty of signs that the economy is weakening, most visibly at gas pumps. To whip inflation, rate hikes are becoming common. Chairman Jerome Powell said last month the Fed would take “forceful and rapid steps to moderate demand,” which might “bring some pain to households and businesses.” Ouch.

Beyond interest-rate bumps, the Fed is sitting on $9 trillion in reserves and running off $95 billion a month in Treasurys and mortgages. You can do the math: It will take five to seven years of quantitative tightening to return to more “normal” reserves. Continuous pain.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is now 5.9%, up from 2.9% a year ago. No wonder housing prices are dropping in many markets. Worse, new housing starts are headed south as mortgage payments become unaffordable for new buyers. This means construction job losses and lower demand for lumber, pipes, etc.

From Walmart to Target to Nordstom, retailers over-ordered and now face a glut of product. They are slashing prices to move it, even renting shipping containers to store their overstuffed inventory.

The pandemic and working from home pumped PC and laptop demand, but that is now cratering. Same for Peloton. Zoom usage is weakening. Chipmaker Nvidia announced a 17% shortfall in its sales outlook. Even Google had an earnings miss. Re/Max, Snap, Netflix, JPMorgan and many others are laying off employees.

Europe is a mess, with 10% or higher inflation in some countries. U.K. pub owners complain that their electricity bills are tripling. The Nord Stream pipeline is shut down, and winter is coming. China may be a bigger mess, with its flat-lining economy. While zero-Covid lockdowns are partly to blame, real estate may be in a death spiral, with Evergrande-like defaults and loss of customer prepayments that could require massive bailouts.

Won’t all these weak economic signs douse the hot economy, killing inflation and allowing the Fed to stop raising interest rates? That mythical “soft landing”? I’m skeptical. Not to be a gloomy Gus, but here’s another scenario: Inflation persists. Rates rise. Credit tightens. Housing values drop. Corporate earnings miss. Recession continues. Earnings multiples contract. Layoffs accelerate. Wages stagnate. Then and only then will the Fed start lowering rates. That could happen in 2023, but it’s more likely to happen closer to the 2024 election.

Maybe understanding the economy’s mixed signals doesn’t require Fitzgeraldian intelligence or Orwellian indoctrination. The signals cause psychological dread, like walking a tightrope across Niagara Falls (slowly I turned . . .). Cognitive dissonance makes decision-making difficult. The stock market might continue to yo-yo up and down thousands of points, maybe for years, as investors hold two competing thoughts, boom or bust, in their heads—until one thought prevails.

GVRed NJ 10-round magazine ban punted back down to U.S. District Court

In what should be a semi open and shut case, the matter of New Jersey’s 10 round magazine capacity limitation case has been remanded further down. The Grant, Vacate, Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States on Association New Jersey Rifle, et al v. Attorney General New Jersey, et al. should have been a solid indicator to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on how to rule. Based on prior arguments and the textual lens on how to view things, which was delivered by NYSRPA v. Bruen, the fact that this isn’t settled already is baffling.

The August 25, 2022 Order decided to “kick”, in the “kick or stick scenario”.

This matter having been remanded for further consideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), and upon consideration of the parties’ positions on whether it should in turn be remanded to the District Court for decision in the first instance under the standard announced in Bruen, it is hereby ORDERED that the matter is so remanded. Judge Matey dissents from this order, as described in the attached opinion.

Had the Third Circuit agreed to rule on or render an opinion on the case, there’s a possibility that Garden Staters could have had standard capacity magazines back before year’s end. However, the battle will continue, but we’re at least not starting at square one.

In a recent interview that aired on August 27th, Dan Schmutter, the attorney litigating the case on behalf of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, discussed the news. During Gun for Hire Radio Episode 588 Schmutter went into detail on that case, as well as other pending pieces of litigation, and topics.

Schmutter: So unfortunately, guys, I have to open with some not great news. We just heard from the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In the magazine case, we were hoping to keep the case up at the Court of Appeals and have…and we have asked The Court of Appeals to decide the case on the merits right now. The State was urging them to send it back down to the trial court, the District Court. And unfortunately, we got a two one ruling today that the Third Circuit decided to send it back down to the District Court. And what that does is it just adds another layer of delay. And cost. And so unfortunately, you know, now we’re back at the District Court, we have to do that all over again. We’ll probably end up back at the Court of Appeals, you know, whichever way it goes, somebody’s not gonna be happy. So, you know, it’s unfortunate. We were urging the court to not give in to the state’s request to add more delay and cost. And it was a two, one decision. We got a very nice dissenting opinion from Judge Paul Matey. And he agreed with us that there was no reason to send it back down to the trial court. The usual…it is very typical for when something comes down from the Supreme Court for the Court of Appeals to send it all the way back down to the trial court. But that’s not unusual. It’s actually quite typical. The problem is, in this case, it’s not necessary. And there’s plenty of precedent for not doing that where it’s not necessary or appropriate. And I think we made a very strong case that it’s not. But, you know, the court did with the court didn’t, so we have to live with it. And so we’ll fight the fight down at the District Court. But it’s disappointing. I mean, they really…our feeling was they should have done the right thing here and just kept it, decided it. And, that’s…that’s life.

The dissent that Schmutter brought up is worthy of a read. Some of the crisper arguments made within include:

The State’s follow-on—that it missed the chance to provide historical evidence— fares no better. Round after round, in both the District Court and this Court, history took center stage. The State joined that discussion, arguing unsuccessfully that laws regulating ammunition capacity were longstanding. It strains credibility for New Jersey to now suggest it simply overlooked the focus on history and practice outlined in Heller, repeatedly applied by this Court, and vigorously advocated in this case. That the State decided not to press those points harder, whether as clever strategy or careless slip, is not relevant. We have been far less forgiving of that sort of waiver by far less sophisticated litigants.

With no new law to apply, and the historical record firm, there would seem no work remaining on remand.3 But what is the harm, some might ask? Why the rush? A question rarely raised when other fundamental rights are at issue and answered, again, by the Supreme Court: bearing arms “is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”…

To avoid further confusion, there simply is no such thing as a “large capacity magazine.” It is a regulatory term created by the State, meaning no more than the maximum amount of ammunition the State has decided may be loaded into any firearm at one time. Sixteen rounds was large yesterday, eleven rounds is large today. The State is welcome to market its policy goals using catchy slogans, but the rights of our Republic are built on sturdier stuff. Stripping away the buzzwords reveals the real question: whether “the Second Amendment’s plain text” protects possession of a firearm magazine, in which case “the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2126. The only avenue around that presumption is proof—presented by the State—that its cap on magazine capacity “is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.”

Remand is unnecessary as both questions have already been answered. First, “[b]ecause magazines feed ammunition into certain guns, and ammunition is necessary for such a gun to function as intended, magazines [fall] within the meaning of the Second Amendment.” N.J. Rifle I, 910 F.3d at 116 (cleaned up). And second, “there is no longstanding history of” magazine capacity regulation. Id. at 116–17. Another four years of proceedings to reach those conclusions again is not needed. Nor can the United States remain “a government of laws . . . if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 163 (1803). I respectfully dissent.

Judge Matey clearly points out what Schmutter and most of us already know, the State of New Jersey is going to have one heck of a time making the case that it’s okay to arbitrarily limit how much ammunition one is allowed to possess in an ammunition feeding device. The history has not changed since prior arguments, but the context in which thou shall look at a Second Amendment related case has. Is this remand stall tactics or a function of making sure the topic gets its due review? With the court situated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, once a bastion of freedom and liberty, including New Jersey and Delaware, ironically flanking the Keystone State, we can leave the motives up to the readers to decide. History, text, and tradition would say something different about that region than how it’s currently represented.

The section concerning the magazine capacity limitation case in the Gun for Hire Radio Schmutter interview ended with host Anthony Colandro asking about the process.

Colandro: Now, what do we face at the District Court? Is it one judge? Is it a panel?

Schmutter: Yeah it’s one judge, the original trial judge that heard it the first time. He gets it back, but he gets it back under a new set of rules. He gets it back now under the rules from the Bruen decision. And so you know, in a sense, he’s not starting from scratch because there is a record. It’s not like we’re starting with a blank slate here. There is a record and there is a favorable record. So, in the sense that we think that some of the findings that the court made the first time around are very, very helpful to us. So, you know the court is presumably gonna reach out to us at some point soon to…we’ll probably have a conference. The court will probably want to know how the parties think the case should proceed, and we’ll go from there. And we’ll develop our strategy as to what the right way to move this forward is. And we’ll move it forward. It’s just disappointing that we’re going to be doing this in a court where we really shouldn’t have to be. But you know, as you know, we know, this is a slog, it’s a marathon, and we’re going to continue fighting. I mean, it’s…there’s no question or option we’re gonna keep this moving. And, we like our chances. We think that…we’ve talked about this quite a few times now, about how we think Bruen gives us some very, very good tools. And we’re going to bring those to bear in the District Court on this case. We’ll see what happens. When there’s a development, you’ll certainly…I hope you’ll have me back to talk about it. And we’ll see what. We’ll go from there.

The quick answer to “What does this all mean?” is that matter’s been punted back down, again. This does not mean we’re starting from square one, as Schmutter pointed out. Will NJ’s subjects see 15 rounders again in New Jersey? Will they see them by year’s end? Will inhabitants of the land of 1000 diners see magazines larger than 15 rounds in NJ one day? All great questions, but it’s hard to read how this is going to go down. As far as the NYSRPA v. Bruen decision goes, it’s clear that putting restrictions on standard capacity magazines would be unconstitutional, as such limitations would not have been acceptable at the time of our founding. Whatever outcome may come in the District Court, we can almost bet money on the fact that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals will see this one again.

Bombshell DHS Oversight Report: Biden Resettled ‘Not Fully Vetted’ Afghans in U.S. Who May ‘Pose Risk’ to Americans

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) has issued a bombshell report that accuses President Joe Biden’s administration of resettling Afghan nationals “who were not fully vetted” across the United States.

Following the U.S. Armed Forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Biden opened a “humanitarian parole” pipeline that has resettled more than 86,000 Afghans in American communities, many of whom were not screened or interviewed in person.

Now, a bombshell DHS IG report reveals that the Biden administration “admitted or paroled” thousands of Afghans “who were not fully vetted” before their arrival in the United States and may “pose a risk to national security” as a result.

The report states:

We determined some information used to vet evacuees through U.S. Government databases, such as name, date of birth, identification number, and travel document data, was inaccurate, incomplete, or missing. We also determined CBP admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States. [Emphasis added]

We attribute DHS’ challenges to not having: (1) a list of Afghan evacuees who were unable to provide sufficient identification documents; (2) a contingency plan to support similar emergency situations; and (3) standardized policies. As a result, DHS may have admitted or paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities. [Emphasis added]…

In January 2022, we issued DHS a Notice of Findings and Recommendations document notifying the Department of the urgent need to take action to address security risks of evacuees from Afghanistan who were admitted or paroled into the United States without sufficient identification documents to ensure proper screening and vetting. [Emphasis added]

According to DHS IG investigators, Biden’s DHS “did not always have critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect Afghan evacuees arriving as part” of the massive Afghan resettlement operation.

Specifically, the report details that information in federal databases used to vet Afghans “such as name, DOB, identification number, and travel document data, was inaccurate, incomplete, or missing.”

Two Afghans, in particular, were resettled in American communities by the Biden administration who were later found to be national security threats with ties to terrorism. One of those Afghans has already been deported, while DHS officials said the other is in deportation proceedings.

Across Biden’s DHS, officials were allowed to bring Afghans to the U.S. without providing proper IDs if they were found to have “no derogatory information” connected to their purported identities, the report states. The agency also did not keep a record of Afghans who failed to provide proper IDs but were admitted to the United States anyway.

“According to internal DHS reports, CBP admitted or paroled dozens of evacuees with derogatory information into the country,” the report states.

Although DHS IG Joseph V. Cuffari suggested two remedies to clean up the agency’s vetting procedures, the report states that Biden’s DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “did not concur” with either suggestion and has defended his department’s improper vetting of Afghans.

The bombshell report comes after a number of alarms have been raised about the Biden administration’s failure to properly vet tens of thousands of Afghans now living in the United States.

In February, a Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General report revealed that Biden’s agencies failed to properly vet Afghans arriving in the United States, and that about 50 Afghans were flagged for “significant security concerns” after their resettlement.

Most of the unvetted Afghans flagged for possible terrorism ties, the report states, have since disappeared into American communities. The report noted that as of September 17, 2021, only three of 31 Afghans flagged with specific “derogatory information” could be located.

Likewise, a recent Project Veritas report alleges that the Biden administration resettled Afghans listed on the federal government’s “Terrorism Watch List” in communities across America.

In August, a federal whistleblower came forward to allege that the Biden administration resettled nearly 400 Afghans in American communities who are listed in federal databases as “potential threats to national security.”

In terms of vetting, the Biden administration has loosened requirements for entry to the United States. In June, DHS announced that Afghans who “provided … limited material support” to terrorist organizations would still qualify for resettlement in American communities.

Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.

9/11 and Biden’s Destruction of America’s Soul

When I think back to 9/11, the memories are very clear. It was the beginning of my senior year of college. It’s difficult to picture the United States responding differently than we did. A nation that was bitterly divided over a prolonged presidential election less than a year earlier united against a common enemy.

“A terrorist attack designed to tear us apart has instead bound us together as a nation,” President George W. Bush observed in his radio address days after the attack.

For a little while, anyway.

Disagreements over the Iraq War and the 2004 election quickly tore the country apart again, and they continued to worsen. Barack Obama’s presidency saw unprecedented partisan bitterness. Despite campaigning as a uniter, Obama shunned Republicans during the global recession, passing an expensive and ineffective stimulus plan and a national healthcare plan without Republican support. After losing one-party control, Obama unconstitutionally legislated via executive order instead of making any attempt to work with Republicans on any compromise legislation. He would then go on to use a weaponized government to target conservative individuals and groups and eventually spy on Donald Trump’s campaign and frame him over bogus allegations of Russian collusion. Adding insult to injury, Democrats would go on to shamelessly blame Trump for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Is national unity possible ever again? For over twenty years, I’ve held onto the hope that it could be, and that it wouldn’t take another deadly terrorist attack to do it.

But that dream is over.

In the past month, we’ve seen an unprecedented raid on Donald Trump’s home over a presidential records dispute and Joe Biden’s recent primetime speech, in which he declared half the country enemies of the Republic. Despite all the bitter division that plagued us before, that speech felt like the point of no return. Joe Biden destroyed the soul of America, and it’s impossible to see how we can ever recover from that. Where Al Qaeda failed to tear this nation apart, Joe Biden succeeded.

Related: White House: Trump Supporters Are an ‘Extreme Threat to Our Democracy’

America no longer stands united. We are two different countries repeatedly proving we can’t coexist peacefully.

On this 21st anniversary of 9/11, we remember the bravery of the first responders at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and of those who took down Flight 93 before it reached its intended target. Many will reflect on the attack on our nation and remember those we lost, and some will offer platitudes about American resolve.

When I look back on 9/11, what I remember most is the way Americans were able to put aside their differences and treat each other as neighbors and fellow citizens. And now I mourn that such national solidarity will never happen again.

Democrats Are Hoping We Forget They Brought Us Record Levels of Murders, Overdose Deaths, and Teen Suicides.

Democrats have this foolish belief that arresting Steve Bannon, tossing Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and ostracizing people in MAGA hats will make voters forget about the carnage the commies have wrought upon our country when We the People step into a voting booth in 60 days, 10 hours, 14 minutes and 12 seconds. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.

People are killing other people or themselves in record numbers. Thousands more are dying from overdoses on drugs, many of which are trotted over our southern border. All of these tragedies are happening because of Democrats and their clownish policies.

MURDERS

By now, you’ve heard about this week’s murder-fest in Memphis, committed by people who should have been in jail. Our own master-blaster Paula Bolyard wrote about it earlier.

Thanks to inane no-bail laws, a 20-year-old woman, arrested seven times for crimes involving a machete or another weapon, recently slashed an 82-year-old man’s face in New York City.

I have examples for days of legacy criminals attacking and killing innocent people. Criminals who should have been in the hoosegow but, thanks to the apparatchik-Americans in the Democrat party, are redrumming America with seeming impunity.

FACT-O-RAMA!  Your liberal sister-in-law and her non-binary, pansexual, femme-demi boi?friend believe that allowing black criminals (who further victimize innocent people, most of whom are black) out of jail  is somehow a sign of “open-mindedness” and not what it really is: a callous indifference to the suffering of others so that they can virtue-signal their “wokeness” to their friends as well as feel a sense of superiorty.

The nation is seeing record murder rates, thanks to bolshie policies that victimize criminals. This is the work of “woke” Democrats, and it’s happening in our large blue cities. It’s one thing to simply say “crime is on the rise,” but it’s actually worse than most people realize. You don’t always hear about violent crimes because they occur so often that reporting on all of them would become dull.

LEFTY LABOR DAY WEEKEND THUGGERY YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T HEAR ABOUT!  

  • There were 17 mass shootings in the U.S., leaving 20 dead and 64 wounded, and most of them took place in Democrat-run cities.
  • Philly had over 20 shoot-em-ups, leaving 10 people dead and 23 wounded.
  • Chicago’s annual Labor Day Weekend Festival of Lead saw 55 people shot, 11 fatally, for a total of 2,516 people shot thus far in 2022.

But Joe “allegedly showered with his daughter” Biden thinks you are the problem, rather than the insane, thug-hugging Democrats who allow created this crime blitz.

SUICIDES

When “15 days to slow the curve” turned into a draconian lockdown, I mused that this was a dress rehearsal for communism. Democrat leaders couldn’t wait to see just how much tyranny Americans would take. Embarrassingly, we accepted a lot, and now our kids are paying the price.

FACT-O-RAMA! Historically, people have accepted tyranny when it is served in small, ever-increasing doses.

Boys aged 12-17 tried to kill themselves during the pandemic at a rate that was 3.7 times higher than in 2019, which was a record-level year for kids attempting suicide. The attempted suicide rate of girls in the same age range skyrocketed by a terrifying 50.6%, in large part because Democrats couldn’t wait to take away our freedoms for as long as possible.

Related: Reasons Never to Vote Democrat Again, Vol. II: The Big, Blue Crime Wave

Children are also suffering from a “devastating” learning loss. Check out this misleading headline, which is repeated again in the opening sentence, “Significant learning loss due to COVID-19 is impacting children across America.”

No, learning losses and exploding child suicide attempt rates are not rising due to the Hong Kong Fluey; they are the result of the Democrats’ responses to it. Nice try, pinkos!

FACT-O-RAMA! Closing schools over a virus that rarely affects kids was about as stupid as closing gyms and basketball courts for the same virus that feasts on obese people. Democrats did these things.

OVERDOSES

The Democrats pretend the southern border is secure even as their own lickspittles in the Pravda media are reporting that the highest number of illegal immigrants in history are sauntering into our country, many of whom are drug mules for Mexican drug cartels and their business partners in China.

Drug overdose deaths are topping out at over 100,000 per year. More people aged 18-45 died of fentanyl ODs in 2021 than any other cause, yet Vice President Kamala Harris, placed in charge of the border, has done nothing. Black people are more likely to die from a fentanyl overdose than any other race, while black teen fentanyl deaths have surged fivefold.

HYPOTHESIS-O-RAMA! Hunter Biden’s laptop showed us that the Biden family has corrupt dealings in China. China is making billions of dollars from fentanyl sales in the U.S. Most of the fentanyl comes over the southern border, which Joe Biden refuses to secure. I’m not suggesting that Biden is keeping the border open so that his puppet masters in China can make mad stacks from drug sales but I’m not not suggesting it either.

WOKENESS

“Wokeness” is the excuse the liberal toilet people are using to bring communism to the U.S. The Democrats pretend that letting criminals out of jail and keeping them out with no-bail laws is a sign of virtue. They mislead their voters into believing that allowing illegal immigrants with pockets full of deadly fentanyl to cross the border is somehow a sign of morality. Both of these policies have brought horrendous results. And here is the real punchline: the Democrats are torching the country on purpose.

The Democrats especially like to pretend that they care about black people, but the number of murders and drug deaths directly related to liberal policies paints a different picture.

Remember to bring up these hard, ugly facts when your liberal sister-in-law shows up to borrow money while wearing her “Vote Blue in 2022” t-shirt.

You Can’t Make This Up #5,937,259

Get the Word Out About Kyle’s Law

A prosecutor who uses his or her authority to virtue signal to the public to advance his or her political career is more dangerous to society than all but the most violent criminals.

Insurance will cover many forms of property crimes, and you can legally use deadly force against somebody who menaces you with death or serious bodily injury.

A prosecutor, though, can bankrupt most people by filing unfounded criminal charges against them, ruin their lives with prison time and criminal records. Unless the case is particularly egregious like that of Mike Nifong (D-NC), or with crooked judges like Mark Ciavarella (D-PA, a.k.a., federal inmate #15008-067) or Mike Conahan (D-PA, home arrest), there is little or no recourse against these “jurists.”

To put this in perspective, Pennsylvania attorney Frank Fina was suspended from the practice of law for his role in convicting Penn State President Graham Spanier of putting children at risk. Pennsylvania’s current Attorney General, and gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro (D-PA), worked hard to reinstate Spanier’s conviction while tweeting that Spanier had been told that Jerry Sandusky was sexually assaulting children on the Penn State campus. The witness, Mike McQueary, testified, however, under oath, that he did not see Sandusky do anything he deemed reportable to police while his father and a family friend, both of whom are mandated by law to report abuse, did not encourage him to report to child protective authorities whatever he thought he might have possibly heard.

I believe that Shapiro, like Scott Harshbarger (D-MA) and Martha Coakley (D-MA) who ruined the lives of the Amiraults, used his position to “virtue signal” his concern for the children prior to the election. The latter is my perception of Shapiro, Harshbarger, and Coakley rather than a statement of fact because I cannot read their minds.

Kyle’s Law

Attorney Andrew Branca, whose opinions often appear on William Jacobson’s blog Legal Insurrection, has proposed what he calls Kyle’s Law due to what he and I both regard as a politically motivated prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse for what was obviously self-defense.

“Too often, rogue prosecutors bring felony criminal charges against people who were clearly doing nothing more than defending themselves, their families, or others from violent criminal attack. …The only motivation of the prosecutor is personal aggrandizement and political capital.” Kyle’s Law would sanction not only the jurisdiction but also the prosecutor who brings a junk case, to be defined as one in which the prosecutor lacks even preponderance of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did anything wrong.

The American Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct state meanwhile, “A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous…” and also “The prosecutor in a criminal case shall: (a) refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause…” and probable cause requires a “reasonable belief” that the defendant has committed a crime.

If, for example, a video of a self-defense shooting shows clearly that the person who was shot initiated a deadly confrontation, perpetuated it by not allowing the subject of their attack to retreat in complete safety, and menaced the shooter with immediate deadly force, as did all three of Rittenhouse’s assailants, that’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt in favor of the shooter that the shooting was justified. If we look within the four corners of the charges against Rittenhouse, the prosecutors did not contest this version of the events.  Joseph Rosenbaum initiated a confrontation in which he attempted to strong-arm rob Rittenhouse (a violent felony by itself) of a firearm he could have turned against Rittenhouse on the spot and also one which, as a convicted felon, it was unlawful for Rosenbaum to handle. Anthony Huber the domestic abuser was a member of a mob (which constitutes disparity of force and therefore deadly force) that pursued Rittenhouse while yelling violent threats, thus putting Rittenhouse in reasonable fear for his life and denying him the opportunity to retreat in complete safety. He then menaced and struck Rittenhouse with a deadly contact weapon when Rittenhouse was on the ground. The third man, Gaige Grosskreutz, pursued Rittenhouse with a drawn handgun, which again constituted an implied threat, along with the immediate means of carrying it out.

Another example would be, for example, if a politically ambitious prosecutor had tried to show his “woke” credentials by charging the officer who shot Hakim Littleton even though the latter was on bodycam video firing a handgun at the head of another officer at roughly three paces. It was fortunate that Littleton was a bad shot or it would have been “end of watch” for that officer or, as Black Lives Matter and Antifa would put it, he would have “oinked his last.” This did not, however, happen because the local prosecutors saw the open and shut case of self-defense.

Poster Children for Kyle’s Law

  • The Amiraults were convicted on the basis of “evidence” that included, among other things, accusations that one of them sexually assaulted a boy with a butcher knife that somehow left no injuries, along with a “secret room” and a “magic room” that were never found.
  • Police officer Grant Snowden was railroaded to prison on the watch of Janet Reno (D-FL).
  • Police officer Garrett Rolfe was charged with murder for shooting Rayshard Brooks after Brooks took an officer’s Taser, which the prosecutor stipulated is a deadly weapon under Georgia law, and discharged it at the officers. The charges were finally dropped but should have never been filed.
  • Nikolas Fernandez was charged with felony assault for shooting Daniel Gregory, who reached through the window of Fernandez’s car to punch him. Gregory even admitted openly, “I catch him, I punch him in the face.” He claims that he was trying to stop Fernandez from running over “demonstrators” but the video shows clearly that Fernandez had come to almost a complete stop by the time Gregory reached into his car. Note also the barrier that another “demonstrator” shoves in front of the car which a reasonable person would construe as a prelude to a carjacking or Reginald Denny-style beating.
  • Here is a long list of wrongful convictions in the United States, some of which involved willful prosecutorial misconduct and/or misconduct by rogue police officers eager to get convictions no matter what.
  • Prosecutors should not be afraid to do their jobs just as police officers should not be afraid to do their jobs. Kneeling on a helpless suspect’s neck as Derek Chauvin was convicted of doing is not, however, a police officer’s job, and Chauvin is now in prison as a result. Junk prosecutions whose sole identifiable purpose, at least from the perspective of a reasonable person, noting that nobody can read the prosecutor’s mind, is to advance a prosecutor’s legal and/or political career, should similarly bring the consequences recommended in Kyle’s Law and maybe professional disciplinary action as well.

5 questions about New York’s new social media requirements for gun applicants

New gun laws in New York for those seeking a concealed carry license, including a review of social media accounts by law enforcement, was cleared to go into effect by a federal judge last week, but questions about how the state will enforce it and future legal challenges remain.

The new rules, part of the state’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act, followed a Supreme Court ruling in June that prohibits states from requiring residents seeking a gun license to prove a special need to carry a handgun outside the home.

The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, challenged a provision of New York’s 109-year-old concealed carry law that required applicants to have “proper cause” for the permit — a special need for self-defense. Five other states had similar laws.

New York responded with a number of changes, including requiring concealed carry applicants to share “a list of former and current social media accounts” from the past three years to assess the applicant’s “character and conduct.” The rule comes in the aftermath of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, where the gunmen reportedly posted warnings about their violence online.

The new state laws, which also require more classroom and in-person training for concealed carry licenses and the creation of “sensitive places” where guns are not permitted, have already been met with lawsuits. Judge Glenn Suddaby declined to put the law on hold a day before it took effect, saying the New York resident and three gun rights organizations who filed lawsuits didn’t have standing to bring the legal action. But he indicated he believed some parts of the laws were unconstitutional, and legal experts expect other challenges in the future.

While written testimonies are common for gun permits across the country, requiring social media records is an added layer that has not been implemented in other places for the purposes of gun permitting.

“I refuse to surrender my right as Governor to protect New Yorkers from gun violence or any other form of harm. In New York State, we will continue leading the way forward and implementing common sense gun safety legislation,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said of the conceal carry changes in a statement last week.

The social media requirement has raised questions about privacy and what states can request in the permitting process.

Max Markham, vice president of policy and community engagement at the Center for Policing Equity, said he believes the laws as a whole are a “strong legislative package” when it comes to curbing gun violence. But he said the social media requirement is unclear in its scope and implementation, and will need to be better defined in the near future. He added that he expects conservative groups, in particular, will fight the law on constitutional grounds.

Markham said the law includes a process to appeal if a person’s application for a concealed carry permit is rejected, which he believes can help increase accountability and provide space “for individuals who may feel like they’ve been judged incorrectly.”

“I think seeing how it is enforced and ensuring that there is some degree of equity will be really key,” he said.

What is the scope of the law?

The wording of the requirement suggests applicants only need to share their public content with officials, and that the purpose of the search is to corroborate written testimony from character witnesses, according to David Greene, civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Greene believes the social media rules are intended to look for stated intent to commit crimes with a gun. But Greene said there’s a host of information unrelated to a search for criminality that can be gleaned from accessing someone’s social media history.

“[It] can say a lot about someone’s political affiliations, about the community organizations they belong to, about religious groups they’re active in … and their familial relationships,” he said.

Greene said that context – which is hard to gather from a quick social media scan – is relevant to what people share on the platforms, and it can be difficult to get that from a profile alone .

While New York’s new gun law includes welcome changes, such as requiring more firearm training, the social media requirements are a “poor” part and have “serious” privacy concerns, said Adam Scott Wandt, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“I question whether or not that part of the law will subject the state to lawsuits that will eventually find the law unconstitutional. And I also have serious privacy concerns with the state requiring somebody to submit social media accounts for review based upon unclear criteria as to what constitutes ‘good character’ and moral and what doesn’t. It’s messy,” Wandt said.

The New York City Bar Association Committee on Technology, Privacy and Cyber, which Wandt co-chairs, did not have time to offer input or feedback on the laws, either, he said..

Hochul’s office did not answer a question from the PBS NewsHour about outside expert review on the new set of laws.

Is social media monitoring for licenses used elsewhere in government?

Social media monitoring to get an official government license is a rare official policy but at least one other agency has adopted the practice.

Greene said visa applicants have been required to share their social media accounts since 2019. The requirements, originally created under the Trump administration, have been continued by Joe Biden. Users are required to provide social media accounts used in the last five years from a list of 20 platforms. Applicants do have the option to select “none” if they have not used any of the social media sites.

According to the State Department, the collection and review of social media information is intended to “enhance the screening and vetting of applications for visas and other immigraiton benefits, so as to increase the safety and security of the American people.”

Wandt said that he is also concerned about social media reporting requirements being expanded to other professional licensing administered by the government, potentially forcing some people seeking these licenses to sacrifice privacy for their work, he said.

Wandt said there were also questions about how he social media information gleaned from firearm applications will be used or stored by law enforcement.

“Do these things go into a database when the NYPD pulls me over? Is there a database now that they’ll be able to look at and see my social media because I applied for a handgun? I think there are more questions than answers at this point,” he said.

Hochul’s office did not respond to a question from the NewsHour about what happens to the records of an applicant’s social media account after a permit is processed.

Which law enforcement agencies will conduct these searches?

Who will grant gun licenses in New York under the new law is dependent on the jurisdiction. In New York City, the NY Police Department issues gun licenses and will check social media accounts. Across the state, there may be some sheriff’s departments who conduct the checks, but in many cases, a county authority, such as a judge, issues the license. However, in those cases, responsibility for ensuring requirements for a gun license are met will still fall to the sheriffs.

“Troopers remain committed to this mission, and we are dedicated to stopping the criminals who traffic illegal guns and endanger our communities,” State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen said in a statement.

NY Sheriff’s Association Executive Director Peter Kehoe said there is worry by sheriffs that the task of searching through social media accounts would be too difficult. He said there is a risk that law enforcement will miss something in the social media account of someone issued with a gun license who then goes on to commit a crime, putting that responsibility and accountability on the sheriffs.

READ MORE: Gun applicants in NY will have to hand over social media accounts

“It falls on the sheriff because he missed something when he was given an impossible task,” he said.

Kehoe adds that the definition of “character and conduct” under the new statute is too vague.

“The statute says that they have to give us social media accounts and we have to use those to determine whether or not the individual has the right temperament and judgment to be entrusted with a weapon,” Kehoe said.

“What we think shows good judgment might not be the next guy’s estimate of good judgment and it’s all gonna be based on the eyes and ears of the person who’s reviewing it,” Kehoe said.

However, Kehoe denied that political biases would play a role in vetting.

“They’re going to be looking at these accounts. And if they see something concerning, they’re gonna put that in their background report to the judge then it’s gonna be up to the judge to decide, I guess, whether or not that particular concern is disqualifying for the person to have a license.”

In a statement to the NewsHour, Hochul’s office said the law doesn’t change the nature of licensing, it simply adds a new requirement for applicants.

“Local law enforcement and licensing officials have always been responsible for evaluating information provided by prospective applicants to determine whether a permit should be issued. The law doesn’t change that,” the statement said.

“It simply requires them to consider social media activity and other new information as part of their review process for concealed carry applications.”

Is there any training being provided for those doing this vetting?

The section of the law that requires applicants to disclose their social media accounts does not detail what training is required for those doing the vetting. Kehoe said law enforcement has not been given additional funding to do training for law enforcement, or to conduct checks of social media accounts. Kehoe expects “millions” of applicants under New York’s new gun licensing rules, many of whom will have more than one social media account.

“Just on a very practical level, we don’t think we can do this.”

Applicants will only be required to provide social media accounts used in the past three years, however, Kehoe said law enforcement may be required to look farther back into those accounts.

“The statute didn’t provide any resources for us to do this and it’s just not going to be possible to get it done without additional manpower,” Kehoe said.

Markham hopes the state will provide bias training for officials combing through social media, reflecting a wider push for law enforcement agencies to minimize possible unequal treatment of minority communities.

Hochul’s office did not respond to a question about whether additional training or resources would be provided to law enforcement in support of the new requirements.

Can monitoring social media work?

The social media search may catch some people who shouldn’t have access to firearms but many more, including those who might be most dangerous and inhabit the darkest parts of the internet, will slip through the cracks, Wandt said.

“Putting all the constitutional and moral issues aside, I stand by my experience and research that shows me that the truly dangerous, disturbed people have multiple social media accounts, usually not under their real name, and I highly doubt that they will be reported on a application for a carry permit,” Wandt said.

Greene said asking whether it will work is the wrong question, since he believes such policies can be inherently harmful, especially if other government institutions, such as general law enforcement, adopt similar policies.

“I do think there’s something dangerous about institutionalizing and normalizing having people provide their social media accounts to the government,” he said.