November 26, 2025
Democrats Calling for Mutiny Must Be Punished
By now everyone is aware that six Democrats in Congress created videos in which they openly encourage members of the U.S. military and Intelligence Community to mutiny against the commander in chief. They couched their seditious statements in the pretense that they are interested only in protecting the Constitution, but their message is unmistakable: Resist President Trump’s lawful orders, and we’ll have your backs.
Americans whose minds have not been pickled by leftism are not impressed. The Democrat instigators have been called “TikTok Traitors,” the “Seditious Six,” the “Idiot Six,” and worse. President Trump immediately accused the lawmakers of sedition and demanded that they be arrested and stand trial for their potentially deadly provocations. In response, the Democrat provocateurs have pretended to be outraged that the commander in chief would correctly describe their seditious actions as seditious.
Democrat word games have become so exhausting over the last thirty years. Remember when Bill Clinton lied about his affair with twenty-two-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky by telling a grand jury, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”? No matter how corrupt American politicians were before Clinton’s galling equivocation, it has seemed as if rhetorical obfuscation began exponentially accelerating after that moment.
Fast-forward to 2025, and former CIA director John Brennan is entirely comfortable going on national news shows and telling the world that he and fifty other “intelligence professionals” never lied about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from Hell” being Russian disinformation because the spies clearly stated in their 2020 pre-election op-ed defending the Bidens that the laptop’s treasure trove of criminality had merely “the hallmarks” of a Russian operation. If Americans were confused about their attempt to blame Hunter’s crimes on the Russians, that’s because Americans are poor readers!
Senator Elissa Slotkin — one of the “Seditious Six,” a former CIA analyst, and a protégée of John Brennan — is busy playing the same sick word games as Slick Willy and commie Brennan. She claims that her seditious video is meant only to draw attention to President Trump’s “illegal orders,” but when she is pressed to name one such “illegal order,” she admits that she is “not aware” of any.
If Slotkin can’t identify any of President Trump’s orders as illegal, why is she making videos encouraging rank insubordination among America’s military and intelligence personnel? The Democrats are executing the exact same playbook that they have been using against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. For months, Democrat governors and lawmakers have threatened federal agents with future prosecution for doing nothing more than enforcing existing immigration law and arresting criminal illegal aliens in their states. In order to protect millions of foreign nationals from deportation, Democrats have been obstructing law enforcement operations by promising to punish officers who do their jobs.
Threatening ICE agents with unlawful and malicious prosecutions will inevitably get people killed, because in the real world, hesitation invites disaster. When prominent Democrats encourage military and intelligence personnel to resist orders, the consequences are potentially catastrophic. As one astute commenter notes, “the threat of weaponized lawfare against U.S. troops is seditious psychological warfare. It’s seditious sabotage aimed at breaking the chain of command. It’s a seditious plot to erode trust in leaders and it undermines the oath that keeps the military united and effective.” The Democrat strategy is nefarious and straightforward: Induce service members to question the orders of their commanding officers. Hesitation and delay during combat will not only get Americans killed, but also directly serve enemy interests.
Democrats’ attempts to confuse American service members also encourage our geopolitical adversaries to be more aggressive. As Glenn Beck argues, “if a video like this were aimed at Putin’s military, we’d assume Russia was unstable or nearing a coup.” Therefore, Democrats have severely “weakened America — signaling doubt to allies and opportunity to enemies.” If you were a general in China’s military, would you be less or more willing to invade Taiwan after prominent Democrat officials encouraged division and subversion among America’s rank-and-file troops? Public calls for insubordination make America appear destined for civil war at home and ill-prepared to defend its own interests or those of its allies abroad.
In describing his disgust with Democrats’ efforts to instigate a military rebellion against the Trump administration, Congressman Byron Donalds pulled no punches: “Donald Trump is the commander in chief, not Mr. Crow, not Senator Slotkin. They are not the commander in chief! And like I said before, they would not tolerate any Republican launching any video like that!”
Can you imagine? After patriotic grandparents and Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans protested the fraudulent 2020 election by walking through the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Democrats (and useful RINO idiots Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger) spent tens of millions of dollars producing a theatrical congressional hearing meant to demonize all MAGA voters as “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists.” If prominent Republicans in Congress had subsequently encouraged members of the military and Intelligence Community to disobey orders coming from installed-president Biden, the backlash against them would have been swift and brutal. Not only would they have been expelled from Congress, but they also would have been arrested in the most publicly humiliating fashion. In contrast, the “Seditious Six” sit for ego-stroking interviews during which they play victim.
This is what Republicans mean when they denounce “Democrat privilege” in the United States. Time and again, Democrats do things with impunity that would land a normal Republican in prison for decades.
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, and their fellow Russia Collusion Hoax co-conspirators will never be held accountable for manipulating intelligence to frame President Trump as a Russian spy. Kamala Harris and other prominent Democrats who bailed out arsonists during the most destructive riots in American history will never be held accountable for putting violent repeat offenders back on the street. Alexander Vindman will never be held accountable for undermining the Trump White House and triggering a farcical impeachment. None of the conspirators who violated state election laws and used fraudulent mail-in ballots to pretend that Sleepy Joe Biden was the most popular presidential candidate in our nation’s history will ever be held accountable for stealing the 2020 election. Anthony Fauci won’t be held accountable for covering up the laboratory origin of COVID or hiding the worst side-effects of the mRNA “vaccines.” Social media companies won’t be held accountable for censoring Americans who protested the stolen 2020 election or the unconstitutional “vaccine” mandates imposed by installed-president Biden’s administration. It appears that neither Jim Comey nor Letitia James will be held accountable for respectively committing perjury and mortgage fraud. Democrat prosecutors and judges will never be held accountable for abusing the criminal justice system to railroad President Trump, his friends, and his voters.
In the United States, two-tiered “justice” protects Democrats and renders Republicans defenseless.
Now we will see whether six Democrats can actually get away with encouraging a military mutiny. If past is prologue, the answer is surely “yes.”
There’s a popular social media meme that succinctly describes our situation: When leftists say “our democracy,” what they mean is “our regime.” Democrats have taken over so much of the permanent bureaucracy that even when they are out of power, they still command much of the American government. They are emboldened to commit sedition and treason because they know that no left-leaning prosecutor, judge, or jury will hold them accountable. This kind of in-your-face double-standard will eventually end the Union.
Let’s hope, for the sake of our country’s future, that guilty Democrats begin to pay a price. Forgive me for not holding my breath.
Our research is available here. After the Newsweek was published on Friday, November 21, 2025, the reporter updated her article on Monday, November 24, 2025.
Devin Hughes, founder and president of gun violence research organization GVPedia, told Newsweek, “The paper is fraud, which I do not use lightly.”
Hughes alleges that the study defines active shooter incidents differently from the FBI.
“Lott’s study then only applies that new definition to cases in which there was a defensive gun use, while deliberately excluding thousands of cases in which a defensive gun use did not occur,” Hughes said. “This deceptive tactic allows Lott to claim that the percentage of active shooter cases stopped by a defensive gun use is vastly higher than it is in reality, regardless of what definition of an active shooting one uses. The end result is blatant statistical malpractice.”
Lott told Newsweek that the FBI’s definition excludes gang violence, drug related violence and shootings in relation to another criminal act.
“The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area,” Lott said. “But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf. Over the period from 2014 to 2024, the FBI includes 14 cases where a legally armed civilian used a gun to stop an active shooting attack. We think that the number is 199. We thought it was useful to fill in the rest of these cases using the exact same definition that excluded ‘gang violence,’ ‘drug related violence,’ and ‘shootings in relation to another criminal act’ to see how police and civilians compared in dealing with these attacks.”
Jenna Sundel, “Study Praising Armed Civilians Sparks Criticism,” Newsweek, November 24, 2025.
Dr. Lott’s response to this point included this.
While I appreciate you making some updates to your article, you make it sound as if it is just our word versus Hughes when you simply write “Lott told Newsweek that the FBI’s definition excludes gang violence, drug related violence, and shootings in relation to another criminal act.” But I have provided you links to the FBI active shooting reports where you can confirm for yourself that the FBI does in fact exclude these types of crimes (see the fourth paragraph on page five in their first report and page 2 in their latest report. It is something that they list out in EVERY report in between these two reports).
Homeowner shoots and kills would-be burglar in Kendall
Four people trying to break into a Kendall home were met with gunfire Saturday evening, leaving one of the suspects fatally shot by the homeowner, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office officials said.
The attempted burglary happened just before 7 p.m. at a home near Southwest 141st Street and 110th Avenue. Detectives told NBC6 the homeowner was inside the home and opened fire when the four suspects tried to force their way into the home.
“I heard two shots,” said a neighbor who added that he had never seen gun violence in the neighborhood before.
One suspect was shot in the upper extremities, police said. That person later died at the hospital.
The other three people fled the scene and remain on the run.
Deputies are investigating the home invasion.
FYI:
(a)(1) being the applicable subsections.
Like that ‘not a cartel per se’ matters
US labels Maduro-tied Cartel de los Soles as a terror organization. It’s not a cartel per se
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. But the entity that the U.S. government alleges is led by Maduro is not a cartel per se.
The designation, published Monday in the Federal Register, is the latest measure in the Trump administration’s escalating campaign to combat drug trafficking into the U.S. In previewing the step about a week ago, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, of being “responsible for terrorist violence” in the Western Hemisphere.
The move comes as Trump evaluates whether to take military action against Venezuela, which he has not ruled out despite bringing up the possibility of talks with Maduro. Land strikes or other actions would be a major expansion of the monthslong operation that has included a massive military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and striking boats accused of trafficking drugs, killing more than 80 people.
Venezuelans began using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who had grown rich from drug-running. As corruption expanded nationwide, first under the late President Hugo Chávez and then under Maduro, its use loosely expanded to police and government officials as well as activities like illegal mining and fuel trafficking. The “suns” in the name refer to the epaulettes affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking military officers.
The umbrella term was elevated to a Maduro-led drug-trafficking organization in 2020, when the U.S. Justice Department in Trump’s first term announced the indictment of Venezuela’s leader and his inner circle on narcoterrorism and other charges.
“It is not a group,” said Adam Isaacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization. “It’s not like a group that people would ever identify themselves as members. They don’t have regular meetings. They don’t have a hierarchy.”
Maduro’s government in a statement Monday categorically denied the existence of the cartel, describing the Trump administration’s accusation as a “ridiculous fabrication” meant to “justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela.”
Up until this year, the label of foreign terrorist organization had been reserved for groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida that use violence for political ends. The Trump administration applied it in February to eight Latin American criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and other activities.
The administration blames such designated groups for operating the boats it is striking but rarely identifies the organizations and has not provided any evidence. It says the attacks , which began off the coast of Venezuela and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean, are meant to stop narcotics from flowing to American cities.
But many — including Maduro himself — see the military moves as an effort to end the ruling party’s 26-year hold on power.
Since the arrival of U.S. military vessels and troops to the Caribbean months ago, Venezuela’s U.S.-backed political opposition also has reignited its perennial promise of removing Maduro from office, fueling speculation over the purpose of what the Trump administration has called a counterdrug operation.
The difference between a thief and a congressman: When a thief steals your money, he doesn’t expect you to thank him.
– Walter E. Williams
November 25, 2025
Rapper 4 Block Lil Mari got shot by concealed carry holder during botched carjacking, officials say
A south suburban teenager who raps under the name “4 Block Lil Mari” has been jailed after prosecutors accused him of shooting a woman during a botched South Shore carjacking that ended with the victim, a concealed carry holder, shooting him as well.
Kamari Bonslater, 17, of Steger, was already on pretrial release for allegedly possessing a machine gun and a stolen vehicle at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
The charges stem from a failed carjacking on September 7 in the 6700 block of South Cregier. Chicago police initially described the incident as a drive-by shooting that left a 16-year-old boy in critical condition with three gunshot wounds and a 34-year-old woman shot twice in the leg. It now turns out that Bonslater, who has since celebrated his 17th birthday, was the critically wounded teen.
According to a detention petition, the episode did not play out the way CPD first believed.
Instead, prosecutors say, the victim, a 34-year-old woman, and a 31-year-old female companion were sitting in the victim’s parked car when “multiple individuals” approached and struck up a “brief conversation.”
Prosecutors said Bonslater tried to yank open the passenger door while pointing a gun at the women. The victim, a licensed concealed carry holder, reached for her own firearm, prompting Bonslater to shoot her in the leg before she returned fire, hitting him multiple times, according to prosecutors. She then sped away from the scene.
The victim’s companion later told police she recognized the gunman as a local rapper and provided his stage name: 4 Block Lil Mari.
Bonslater was found near the scene with multiple gunshot wounds. Surveillance footage shows him standing by the victim’s car at the moment shots were fired and collapsing as the vehicle sped away, prosecutors said.
The video also shows several accomplices carrying him into an alley. Officials said Bonslater and at least two of those accomplices, who remain at large, fired at the fleeing car.
Bonslater, who has the word “Murda” tattooed on his neck, is charged with attempted second-degree murder, attempted vehicular hijacking, and aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon.
Judge Susana Ortiz ordered him detained pending trial.
Bonslater is the 20th person charged with killing or trying to kill someone in Chicago this year while on felony pretrial release. Those crimes involved 38 victims, nine of whom died.
The “not horrible” series
This report continues our coverage of individuals accused of killing, shooting, or trying to kill or shoot others on pretrial release for a felony allegation. CWBChicago began our series of reports in November 2019 after Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans publicly stated, “We haven’t had any horrible incidents occur” under the court’s bond reform initiative.
The actual number of murders and shootings committed by people awaiting trial for felony allegations is undoubtedly much higher than the numbers seen here. Since 2017, CPD has brought charges in less than 5% of non-fatal shootings and 33% of murders, according to the city’s data. You can see all of the “not horrible” stories here.
BLUF
They assume they are exempt from following the law because they believe they are our moral and intellectual superiors.
And so for the next four years, they will once again insist they can ignore or violate with contempt any federal law they please—as the nation is heading toward widespread civil insurrection of the left’s own neo-Confederate making.
Who is the real, or fictional, inspiration for the new insurrectionary wing of the Democrat Party?
The fictitious Hollywood insurrectionist, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “James Mattoon Scott” (Burt Lancaster), who in the 1964 film Seven Days in May attempted to overthrow the presidency?
Or perhaps Jefferson Davis? He ultimately ordered the attack by South Carolina state forces against the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, which ignited the Civil War.
Or is the better inspiration the “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door?” Alabama Governor George Wallace likewise vowed to use his state’s law enforcement to nullify a federal law.
Yet how odd that the left, which had lectured us so often about a January 6th “insurrection”—a charge that not even the Javert-like special counsel Jack Smith ever lodged against Donald Trump—now talks frequently about the proud nullification of our nation’s federal laws.
The New Confederacy
Democrats weirdly boast of the subordination of the Constitution to international statutes. Our governors and mayors in blue states and cities take neo-Confederate vows to oppose the national government’s right to protect its own property, to direct its own employees, and to enforce our shared federal laws.
Over a decade ago, some 600 “sanctuary cities” declared that they were immune from the full enforcement of federal law. They further boasted that they would not hand over illegal aliens, detained by state or local authorities, to federal agents.
These were strange threats. Not long ago, at the 1992 and 1996 Democratic conventions, liberal grandees like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi had vowed to stop all would-be illegal aliens from unlawfully entering the U.S. Apparently, they all flipped to open borders when spiraling numbers turned the undocumented into a new Democratic constituency.
Moreover, being the left, their loud nullificationist vows were, of course, purely political and never principled.
Once, an exasperated Arizona governor, Jan Brewer, had beseeched the Obama administration in vain to enforce its own federal laws at the southern border. In frustration, she finally sought ways to use her own state’s resources to do what Obama refused.
And the reaction of the Obama administration?
It was certainly not gratitude for Brewer’s efforts to enforce federal law. Instead, the Obama crowd sued her. It successfully sought out left-wing judges to stay her state’s efforts.
How strange that our current “principled” district judges once ruled that states could not interfere with federal border policing—even in cases where the federal government was illegally refusing to enforce its own laws.
DOJ Official Says Congress, Not Courts, Should Address NFA Taxes, Registration
Despite ongoing objections from Second Amendment groups and a letter from Rep. Andrew Clyde and more than two dozen other members of Congress urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to recognize congressional intent and stop defending the National Firearms Act’s taxes and registration requirements for National Firearms Act items, the DOJ’s latest brief in an NFA case offers a full-throated defense of those measures.
The brief, filed in Silencer Shop, et al v. BATFE, not only argues that the Constitution empowers Congress to adopt the challenged NFA requirements and that the $200 tax and registry of who has paid it remain a valid exercise of Congress’s taxing power, but that the tax and registration mandates “comport with the Second Amendment” as well.
… the NFA’s regulation of short-barreled shotguns and rifles, suppressors, and AOWs is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” As the Supreme Court has consistently observed, American legislatures have long “prohibited the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” Laws dating back to theFounding Era targeted, through outright bans or lesser regulation, particularly dangerous weapons that were uniquely susceptible to criminal misuse. Similarly, many states have long regulated the size of firearms. The NFA fits within that historical tradition by targeting particularly dangerous weapons that “could be used readily and efficiently by criminals,” though its requirements are much more modest than the categorical bans of the past. That alone demonstrates that the NFA comports with the Second Amendment.
Gun Owners of America, among others, has objected to the DOJ’s continued defense of the NFA, which led to a rebuke of the 2A organization from a DOJ official.
Hey guys! As you’ve previously pointed out, Congress is the issue here, not DOJ. Registration requirements may be a bad idea, but it’s a worse idea to have courts overturn the rule of Congress unilaterally.
You guys know that AG Bondi is a staunch 2A advocate, but that doesn’t… https://t.co/PXkHdXXqVQ pic.twitter.com/3PS2r70Hey
— Gates McGavick (@GatesMcgavick) November 22, 2025
McGavick’s argument is an odd one, given that the Supreme Court does have the power to declare laws unconstitutional. And in the case of the NFA’s taxation and registration schemes, it’s clear that the intent of Congress was to repeal those provisions. The $200 tax has been zeroed out as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but though the Senate also removed the accompanying requirement that those who pay the tax have to register that payment with the federal government, the Senate parliamentarian objected to that provision, so the registry remains.
The DOJ could have taken the position that, since the registration is actually a registry of all those who’ve paid the tax, and the tax has no been zeroed out, the registration requirement is moot. It could also, of course, have taken the position that the NFA does violate the Second Amendment, despite what the Court has said in cases like Miller and Heller.
No, it is well within the courts’ power to overturn unconstitutional laws (like much of the NFA).
If your point is that DOJ should not be picking and choosing which laws to defend in court, I can understand that, to an extent. Some laws are obviously unconstitutional and should… https://t.co/P4TYMC4ZHU
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) November 22, 2025
Part of the DOJ’s problem is that it has previously admitted in the Peterson case that challenges the NFA’s restrictions on suppressors that those items are, in fact, protected by the Second Amendment. Still, the DOJ took the position that the $200 tax and registration requirements are only “modest burdens” on the right to keep and bear arms, at least as they apply to those items.
The Supreme Court has never suggested that there are various levels of protection for arms that fall under the Second Amendment’s umbrella, so the DOJ’s position arguably leaves the door open for similar requirements on all arms protected by the Second Amendment. If the DOJ is going to to defend the National Firearms Act, it might have been better for the agency to argue that NFA items aren’t protected at all instead of coming up with a convoluted theory about tiers of protection and what kind of restrictions might be allowed for some arms. That still wouldn’t satisfy groups like GOA, FPC, and NRA, but it also wouldn’t allow gun control groups and anti-gun polticians to adopt the DOJ’s language and apply it to handguns or semi-automatic long guns in the future.
When Rep. Clyde joined me on Bearing Arms Cam & Company to discuss the letter to Bondi, he indicated that if the DOJ didn’t fall in line behind Congress’s intent he might re-open the letter to gather more signatures before submitting its rebuke into the official congressional record. Clyde says he’s also working on an appropriations bill that would remove the registration requirements, which would be fantastic if it comes to pass, but that action in the legislative branch still doesn’t mean that the executive branch’s hands are tied when it comes to the NFA and its infringements on our right to keep and bear arms.
The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.
— William Rawle, A View of the Constitution, 1829
November 24, 2025
Constitutional Originalism, the Second Amendment, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689
Modern gun control proponents argue as though we live under the English Constitution, instead of the Second Amendment. Looking at the history of both Bill of Rights repudiates arguments that support gun control.
The English Constitution includes a right to keep and bear arms. However, it is written so that attempting to seize arms from the English Colonists in April, 1775 arguably was not violated.
Many of the delegates to our Constitutional Convention were versed in British law, with over two thirds of them having legal training, even if they did not make their livelihood from being lawyers. That would have been training in British law, because U.S. law was in its infancy, and the U.S. Constitution was not written when they were trained. This is an important fact to keep in mind when looking at the founding of the United States and the drafting of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The U.S. has a Constitution and amendments as a single document. England and the United Kingdom’s Constitution, on the other hand, is not a single document. Instead it is a variety of documents and precedent going back centuries ( the Magna Carta, for example, was written in 1215). It is not uncommon for the U.K.’s Constitution to contain precedents that contradict each other.
At one point the English threw out the monarchy, though eventually it was restored. When it was restored one of the key documents established that the monarchy had to accept the authority of Parliament and the rights of their subjects. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 (EBR) codified those rights. It was signed by King William III and Queen Mary II as a condition of restoring the monarchy, and it is still considered part of the Constitution of many of the Commonwealth nations.
There are many parallels with the U.S. Bill of Rights, and many of the grievances the colonists had with the Crown were for violating English Bill of Rights. For example it includes freedom of speech, freedom from excessive fines and bail, no taxation without approval of the representatives in Parliament, freedom from cruel and unusual punishments, free elections, a right to keep arms, and other enumerated rights.
However, the right to keep arms is limited in such a way that it has allowed the U.K. to severely limit gun ownership.
The specific clause of the English Bill of Rights of 1689 is:
That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;
For reference the text of the Second Amendment is:
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.
Let’s look at each section in comparison:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the free State” – this reminds the government that it was established by the efforts of the armed population, and they continue to be necessary for the security of the nation. Militia at the time meant the able bodied men who could be called on to defend the community, state, and country from bandits, form bucket brigades to fight fires, protect the nation from invaders, etc. Well regulated at the time essentially meant competent; well trained, well organized, well equipped, and well disciplined. Justifications for their rights are covered earlier in the EBR.
The next sections have more direct correlations. The EBR says, “That the subjects which are Protestants” where the Second Amendment says, “the right of the people.”
The colonists included many groups that the Church of England considered to not be Protestants. This includes the Pilgrims who were separatists from the Church of England, Roman Catholics who had fled England, and others. As such the colonists who were not specifically Church of England, did not have a right. The Second Amendment uses the people, extending to all of the colonists who were considered citizens.
The EBR says, “may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions” while the Second Amendment says, “to keep and bear Arms.”
The words “may” and “might” gives room for limitations, and limits it to arms for their defense. It also does not mention anything about being able to bear or carry them. The limits in the EBR allowed Parliament and King George III to justify the seizure of rifles and other arms the British government determined were not suitable.
The Founders didn’t want to provide our government with that same leeway. Further, many of the Founding Fathers had some experience in reading on history. They knew the massive technological shift that had been made in arms in just a few centuries. Some of them were likely aware of such firearms as the Cookson Repeater that was advertised in the Boston Gazette in 1756. Thomas Jefferson had obtained a Girardoni Air Rifle at some point, and later loaned it to the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
The point is, the Framers did not limit the language of the Second Amendment to firearms used or suited only for defense. We see echoes of this section and this argument in court filings supporting gun control currently when gun control proponents argue in support of “assault weapon” bans. Their argument can be summed up as the Second Amendment only protects arms the government deems suitable for self defense.
The Second Amendment does not only protect having or possessing arms, it includes the right to keep or bear them. It is not prefaced by “may”, which leads to the next section.
The next section illustrates the Founding Fathers really meant it when they wrote, “shall not be infringed.” The EBR says, “as allowed by law.” This leaves potential limits on the right to possess arms if Parliament passes a law. As we have seen in the 336 years since the EBR was signed, the U.K. and Commonwealth countries have severely limited the right by disallowing various arms by law, and adding other requirements. Those infringements include everything from gun registrations, strict licensing laws, storage mandates, and even outright confiscations.
The Founding Fathers had just lived through, and in many cases, directly participated, in a successful revolution where private arms played a significant part, and was essentially sparked by an attempt to seize arms from civilians who had organized themselves for their common defense. Therefore it says, “shall not be infringed” as a direct counter to attempts to limit the right or seize arms from citizens.
Gun controllers, including the various gun control groups, and the anti-gun attorneys general in deep-blue states like my own native California, often argue like we still live under the English Bill of Rights of 1689. While it is part of the common law that U.S. law is based on, the experience of the American Revolution and the text of the Second Amendment repudiate their arguments.
The Heller decision states the interest balancing that gun controllers are trying to use in support of gun control laws was already done by the Second Amendment. In my opinion, it was done by refuting the language of the English Bill of Rights that placed government interests over the right of some of the U.K’s citizens to keep and bear arms.
Source documents:
Yale Law School’s Avalon Project publishes the text of the English Bill of Rights of 1689 as part of their Constitutional documents project – https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp
University of Houston provides a summary of the Constitution Delegates – https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/constitution/constitution_overview_delegates.cfm
Heller decision comments about Interest Balancing – Heller, 554 U. S., at 635. Pp. 15–17. – https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep554/usrep554570/usrep554570.pdf
BLUF
Foreign entities are gaming the system to try to diminish American exceptionalism and influence. For now, they find trashing Israel and Jews as a convenient dividing line, but this is really about destroying Western civilization and ushering in Islamization. Don’t be the sucker who falls for it.
WHOA: Major Foreign Propagandists Utterly Exposed After X Glitch Reveals Account Locations.
A temporary glitch on X led to a credibility bloodbath for a variety of foreign propaganda accounts that were either posing as Americans or lying about their locations in other ways.
Days prior, Head of Product Nikita Brier had announced a new feature revealing the origin and current location of users. When it rolled out, though, only account owners could view it. That all changed on Friday night, though. In what is assumed to have been a mistake, everyone’s origins and current locations were made public for about an hour before disappearing.
In one instance, it was revealed that one of Hamas’ biggest simps has been lying about being in Gaza.
The above was posted when it was 65 degrees at night (and 80 during the day), just to give you an idea of the kind of propaganda being spewed. For years, the above account has claimed to be reporting from the ground in Gaza. He’s made hundreds of posts pushing fake claims about genocide, famine, and his own supposed hardships. In reality, his account was created in the United Kingdom, and he’s currently residing in Poland.
U.N. Climate Conference Rejects EU Demands to Commit to Fossil Fuel Phase-Out
(AFP) — Nations clinched a deal at the UN’s COP30 climate summit in the Amazon Saturday without a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels as demanded by the European Union and other countries.
Nearly 200 countries approved the deal by consensus after two weeks of fraught negotiations in the Brazilian city of Belem, with the notable absence of the United States as President Donald Trump shunned the event.
Applause rang out in the plenary session after COP30 president and Brazilian diplomat Andre Correa do Lago slammed a gavel signalling its approval.
The EU and other nations had pushed for a deal that would call for a “roadmap” to phase out fossil fuels, but the words do not appear in the text.
Instead, the agreement calls on countries to “voluntarily” accelerate their climate action and recalls the consensus reached at COP28 in Dubai. That 2023 deal called for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
The EU, which had warned that the summit could end without a deal if fossil fuels were not addressed, accepted the watered-down language.
“We’re not going to hide the fact that we would have preferred to have more, to have more ambition on everything,” EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters.