Does Louisiana have term limits?


Gov. Edwards expected to veto constitutional carry bill

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Gov. John Bel Edwards is looking closely at a bill that would allow most people to be able to carry their firearms concealed without taking a training course but the bill’s chances of being signed into law are looking slim-to-none.

“My position on this has not changed,” said Edwards during a recent interview. “A law enforcement officer doesn’t want to discover someone with whom they’re engaging has a firearm for the first time while they are actually searching them and that leads a lot of problems.”

As a self-declared advocate for the Second Amendment, Edwards’s position on legal gun ownership has been firm. But SB 118, which would do away with requiring training, doesn’t appear to be sitting well with him. And with the likelihood of a veto of the bill coming soon, Sen. Jay Morris (R-West Monroe), says the fight will continue until the goal is achieved.

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Homeowner shoots, kills suspect in Enterprise burglary

ENTERPRISE Ala. (WSFA) – A suspect is dead following a weekend burglary in Enterprise.

According to Enterprise police Lt. Billy Haglund, Spencer Hines Layton, 31, was shot and killed during a burglary in the 200 block of Brookshire Drive around 5:30 a.m. Sunday.

Officers were called to the scene after a report of a burglary in progress. Haglund said when officers made it to the home, they found a man, identified as Layton, who’d been fatally shot by the homeowner during the burglary.

No charges have been filed at this time. Police say the investigation into the burglary and fatal shooting is ongoing.


 

Driver arms himself, stops carjacking on St. Charles Ave.

NEW ORLEANS — Authorities say an attempted carjacking was thwarted after a driver armed himself with a gun and reportedly forced the carjacker from his car Sunday evening.

According to the New Orleans Police Department, a driver was driving near the intersection of St. Mary Street and St. Charles Avenue around 5:41 p.m. when 44-year-old Quinn Massey jumped in his passenger seat and implied that he had a weapon.

The police department told the Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate that the driver then grabbed his own gun and forced Massey out of the car. Massey was later arrested.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said Monday that carjackings are on the rise in New Orleans and across the state. Landry, citing New Orleans’ City Council’s crime dashboard, said that carjackings have increased more than 120 percent compared to last year. For the first five months of the year, 120 carjackings were reported in the city – an increase from the 62 reported during the same time in 2020.

“Crime is on the rise and carjackings are plaguing our State,” Landry said. “All drivers here must remain vigilant in protecting our families and personal belongings.”

Biden Gets Lost Reading the Notes Written for Him by Someone Else, Babbles Incoherently to Stall for Time.

Elder abuse.

A curious tic Biden has, which Benny Johnson pointed out: He’s always saying he would “get in trouble” with staffers if he answers a question.

He means his handlers. That’s not my supposition, it’s what he clearly means when he says “I’d get into trouble if I answered another question” or “I’d get in trouble with Jake Sullivan if I answered that.”

He’s upfront admitting he’s being run by other people, that he’s not the real president and that he is at least aware enough to know he’s not the real president.

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The LA Times is Still Denying the Second Amendment

The Los Angeles Times editorial page is less a journalistic enterprise than it is a partisan grievance noticeboard. The editorial board’s descent into trivial activist messaging was on full display in a pair of recent pieces lamenting the federal judiciary’s recognition of the Second Amendment. In both, the editorial board denied the core rulings in the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago that recognized the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. In neither piece did the would-be jurists at the L.A. Times offer evidence or argument as to their incorrect position or why the legal analysis of self-important regime press agents should carry any weight whatsoever.

The first editorial was published on April 26 and titled, “The Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that could mean more guns in public.” The item took issue with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant cert to NRA-backed case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett. The case challenges New York’s concealed carry licensing scheme and could prompt the Court to recognize that the right to keep and bear arms extends outside the home.

Lamenting the Court’s cert decision, the editorial board wrote,

The case the court accepted Monday (New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. Inc. vs. Corlett) follows the court’s controversial 2008 Heller decision, which for the first time enunciated a right to own a firearm in the home for self-protection, breaking with historic perceptions that the right was conferred only to members of state militias. From our perspective, it was an errant reading of the Constitution, but unfortunately the nation is stuck with it.

The second editorial was published June 7 and titled, “The judge is wrong: California’s assault-weapons ban must stand.” This piece complained about the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in Miller v. Bonta. The decision, by Judge Roger Benitez, found that California’s ban on commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms violated the Second Amendment.

Benitez’s ruling on the California ban was the result of a faithful interpretation of the Heller and McDonald decisions. We can be certain of this because Heller author Justice Antonin Scalia signed onto a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, that stated as much. The dissent noted,

Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.

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More than half of the country is now a Second Amendment sanctuary – The Gun Writer

The growing national trend of preserving the Second Amendment through local and state legislation has been largely ignored by the legacy media

More than 55% of all U.S. counties are now Second Amendment sanctuaries, and the numbers continue to grow at a rapid pace.

A total of 1,753 of the country’s 3,144 counties — or 55.76% — have either declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries or are located in sanctuary states, according to Noah Davis of sanctuarycounties.com and its companion site constitutionalsanctuaries.com

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Man shot and killed inside Douglas County home appears to be self-defense, sheriff’s office says

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. — Authorities said a man shot and killed inside a Douglas County home Saturday evening appears to be an incident of self-defense.

On Sunday, the Douglas County Coroner officially identified the deceased as Stan Collins, 59, of Littleton.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said Collins entered a home in the 9000 block of Fraser River Street in the Sterling Ranch subdivision around 6 p.m.

A 911 caller reported that Collins had entered the residence with a gun. Collins was fatally shot by a person who lives at the address as deputies were en route to the home, the sheriff’s office said.

Collins did not live at the address but was known to the residents of the house, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

The resident involved in the shooting has not been identified. The sheriff’s office said the shooting remains an open investigation. However, charges are not likely to be filed in the case.

 

Pvt. Martin Teahan’s M1 Found 72 Years after D-Day

East Brunswick, NJ USA –  -(Ammoland.com)- If I were to report the facts, I would tell you Private Martin Teahan of HQ Company, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), died on June 6, 1944, near a church in Picauville, Normandy.

While scouting a position, he was shot in the leg, captured, and then killed by a German soldier who thought he was reaching for a weapon.

A few weeks after D-Day, a French farmer in the area found a rifle with the name M. Teahan engraved on the butt of the rifle. No one knew what the farmer did with the rifle for 72 years, until it was discovered this February by a French Army Paratrooper Commander named Colonel Patrick Collet.

Those are the facts, but the story associated with the rifle tugs on something much deeper for me.

You see, Private Martin was my Uncle “Matty.” A poor Irish Immigrant, who’s stories of his bravery resonated with me as I grew up in the same rough Irish neighborhood in the South Bronx. Five days prior to the discovery of the rifle, I visited my roots for the first time since childhood. I stood in grand St Jerome’s Church, and thought of my Uncle Matty as I looked at his name, engraved in the cool stone of the somber building.

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The Second Amendment Isn’t Behind the Rising Crime Rate

In a tumultuous 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic locked down so much of America and the world, one thing that didn’t lock down was the murder rate.

According to the National Commission of COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, which was launched by the left-leaning Council on Criminal Justice, murders across America rose 30% in 2020 when compared to 2019. Based on a survey of 34 cities, they report that: “Homicide rates were higher during every month of 2020 relative to rates from the previous year.”

These gruesome numbers include a 43% rise in New York City in 2020—meaning 131 more murders occurred there than happened in 2019. The numbers were even worse in Chicago, which had a 55% jump (278 more murders) from the previous year.

Not surprisingly, many of those who want the Second Amendment obliterated blame record gun sales for the rise in the murder rate.

“More guns led to more violence,” claimed a story at vox.com. “There’s been a big surge in gun buying this year, seemingly in response to concerns about personal safety during a pandemic. And as the research has shown time and time again, more guns mean more gun violence.”

Of course, most people who follow the Second Amendment debate closely know that, in fact, more guns do not lead to more violence, as researcher John Lott proved back in 1998. Lott, who is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), found that states with the largest increases in gun ownership also tend to have the largest drops in violent-crime rates.

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Remember to keep telling yourself: President Kamala Harris

A Visibly Confused, Tired-Looking Joe Biden Mixes Up Libya, Syria Three Times In Speech On Russia

Feinstein Introduces Federal Extreme Risk Protective Order Bill

The matter of Fourth Amendment protections for firearm owners has yet to fully have its day in court. The promising outcome from Caniglia v. Strom on May 17, 2021 does point to gun owners having protection from firearm seizure when a warrant is absent. The Caniglia case was reported nearly a month ago by Cam Edwards, and in his correct estimation, it can have effects going forward concerning due process for those trapped up in such situations, and how the high court views them:

It’s encouraging to see the Supreme Court unanimously agree that Edward Caniglia’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when his firearms were seized without a warrant, but I suspect that a challenge to a state’s red flag laws would result in a much more divided opinion.

While this case didn’t directly involve a Second Amendment challenge, it’s also good to see that even the progressive wing of the Court concluded that the seizure of Caniglia’s legally-owned firearms infringed on his constitutional rights. It may not indicate a sea change from the liberal justices, but at least in this case they declined to treat the Second (and Fourth) Amendment as a second-class right.

While I agree with Edwards’s suspicion that “red flag” laws might yield a more divided opinion, this case will in my opinion have an impact on litigation against all of the unconstitutional seizure policies. In a concurring opinion, Justice Alito conceded the Caniglia case does not address “red flag” laws directly, but I’m sure the case will be cited in case documents filed in lower courts.

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Ghost Guns and the Deeply American Tradition of Gun Privacy.

“Ghost guns” are the modern manifestation of an American tradition of liberty that stretches back to Lexington and Concord.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) introduced the Untraceable Firearms Act, a bill that targets “ghost guns,” or unregistered firearms without serial numbers.

Also called “kit guns” or “80% guns,” most are built at home from manufacturer-produced gun kits. Improvised weapons, also known as “pipe guns,” are another variation, and they’re constructed using 3D-printed parts or salvaged and repurposed materials.

The proposed law would place strict limitations on the obtainment and manufacture of these guns. For example, it would prohibit building or housing a homemade, 3D-printed firearm, as well as trading a kit gun with a friend. Punishments for an initial violation include fines and up to a year in prison. Subsequent violations can incur up to a five-year sentence.

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Why Is Austin Media Refusing to Release Description of At-Large Austin Shooter? Just Kidding. You Know Why.

Early Saturday morning, a gunman shot and injured at least 19 people outside an Austin, Texas, bar. Rick Moran reported:

Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, was crowded with post-Covid revelers on Friday night when a man described as “black” with a thin build and “dreadlocks” opened fire outside a bar. At least 13 people were taken to the hospital. Of the 13 wounded, 11 were in stable condition with two critical.

On Saturday afternoon, the Austin Police Department updated its website to say that one suspect is in custody, while another is still at large. Earlier in the day, police released this description of the suspect:

The suspect(s) remains at-large. It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build. The area will be closed for an extended amount of time to process the crime scene. Investigators are collecting and reviewing camera footage and surveillance video.

That description—black, male, dreadlocks—was not only in an official announcement by the APD, but it was all over social media as well on Saturday. But the city’s flagship newspaper, the Austin-American Statesman, is refusing to release the description of the suspect, a dangerous mass shooter who is still on the run, because—you guessed it—it would be racist to do so. The newspaper explained in an Editor’s Note appended to its main story on the shooting:

Editor’s note: Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes. If more detailed information is released, we will update our reporting.

The description by police was not, by any stretch of the imagination, “vague.” The description, in fact, dramatically reduced the suspect pool in the Austin area, narrowing it down to black males wearing dreadlocks—or 50% of the 15% black population in the city, if you’re doing the math. If you’re a police officer (or a citizen who is on the lookout for an at-large criminal) wouldn’t you want to know that information? Wouldn’t you need that information to make an arrest?

Related:Black Murder Rate Soars Thanks to BLM And Lefty Politicians

And then there’s this bit from the newspaper’s report: “Police said they had zeroed in on two suspects involved in [a] previous dispute and were rapidly working to arrest them.”

In other words, the Statesman knew that the police knew who the suspects were. If police said the suspects were black, why didn’t the newspaper take the APD at its word? I’ll tell you why: the Statesman wants to perpetuate the fictional narrative that dangerous, gun-toting white supremacist rednecks are roaming the city of Austin, hunting black people.

The Statesman would have us believe that everyone in the Austin area was a potential suspect, when, in fact, the newspaper knew that not to be true. (On a related note, the same public safety issues arise when no one knows whether a suspect is a male or a female because assuming someone’s gender might result in hurt feelings.)

Austin is not alone in prioritizing the woke agenda over safety. As PJM’s Kevin Downey Jr. reported last week, San Francisco police released the picture of a suspect who lit a woman on fire on a BART train, but blurred out her face, purportedly to avoid perpetuating racial stereotypes.

Austin and other U.S. cities continue to demonstrate that they care more about being woke than protecting the public from dangerous criminals. That’s why, as PJM’s Bryan Preston has documented, police are retiring or fleeing these cities in droves and murder rates are skyrocketed all over the country.

If I were an Austonian right now I’d be putting my house on the market and getting out before it turns into another Chicago gangland.

Yeah, that ‘almost’. They’re still basically nonsensical.


Gun Control Group Almost Talks Actual Gun Sense

The phrase “gun sense” is generally nothing more than a euphemism for gun control. It’s a term that’s been corrupted from what it could have meant to be nothing more than a synonym for a term that has less and less popularity with the American public.

However, a gun-control group has decided to step away from talking about infringing on our Second Amendment rights for a moment to talk about something that almost equates to actual gun sense, more or less.

GunSense Vermont, a non-partisan group that works to keep Vermonters safe from gun violence, is looking to change the conversation around gun violence prevention by focusing on safe storage.

At a panel discussion on Thursday, the group focused their conversation on educating gun owners about their responsibility to safely secure guns in their homes to keep them out of the hands of kids, thieves, and anyone looking to cause harm.

Now, this is actually a non-controversial position we should all be able to rally behind.

Of course, the group also says some pretty ridiculous things, such as:

According to GunSense Vermont, a properly stored firearm is one that is unloaded, separate from the ammunition, and locked in a safe.

Meanwhile, one of the honchos (a deputy director) with the group also says that if you’re worried about needing your firearm in a hurry, you should get a quick-access safe.

Which, of course, would require one not to have the weapon “properly” stored.

Then there’s the very real concern of not being able to access the weapon from the quick-access safe because of a loss of fine motor control during a particularly stressful event. Trust me, trying to grab a gun in the middle of the night can be hard enough if it’s in a nightstand drawer. Accessing a combination safe in the mere seconds provided may well be impossible for some.

Yet I don’t want to be too hard on GunSense Vermont.

While they’re a gun control group, they’re actually trying to reach out and talk about non-legislative solutions to firearm-related violence. This shouldn’t be mocked or dismissed, but encouraged. This is something I’m willing to sit down with them and discuss things like this.

You really can’t claim you’re not about banning guns and then not at least try to find non-legislative ways to reduce deaths by firearms. Many of us agree that weapons should be stored safely away from children and thieves. That’s some common ground we can build from. Who knows, maybe we can build from that and find all kinds of other ways to address violent crime without infringing on gun rights.

Either way, this is a good thing.

However, this shouldn’t be taken as me being remotely open to any of their anti-gun proposals. I’m not and I won’t be. See, I think much of our problems with violent crime and other firearm-related deaths can be solved without infringing on the right to keep and bear arms in the least.

My hope is that GunSense Vermont is starting to see things that way as well. I’m not holding my breath, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

Is Critical Race Theory at a School Near You?

The Legal Insurrection Foundation released an interactive map that allows individuals to track Critical Race Theory training in education.

The resource serves to provide students and parents with more information about the curriculum that is being taught in 200 colleges in all 50 states.

As Campus Reform has reported, Critical Race Theory training has been used by colleges and universities as a form of “diversity” training for students and faculty. Former President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2020 banning these types of training. President Joe Biden reversed this order shortly after being sworn in.

William Jacobson, Professor at Cornell Law School and Founder of Legal Insurrection, spoke with Campus Reform about the project.“

This database is neutral, it simply provides the facts and links to programs and policies. Some people might like a school that has a lot of Critical Race Training mandates and initiatives, others may not like that. We provide the data and information so people can decide on their own,” Jacobson said.

The map does not focus specifically on the term “Critical Race Theory,” Jacobson explained that they “try to focus on programs that go beyond mere diversity initiatives, and cross over into so-called “anti-racism” and “equity” doctrines as well as other aspects of Critical Race Theory, though the lines are not always clear.”

New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California are among the states with the most schools on the map, with 24, 18, 14, and 20 institutions listed, respectively.

Florida Bans Critical Race Theory in Schools.

On Thursday, the Florida Department of Education approved a policy that explicitly bans Marxist critical race theory (CRT) from public schools.

The original rule, proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), did not explicitly condemn critical race theory, but barred teachers from attempting “to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view.”

The final version, however, prohibits “fiction or theory masquerading as facts, such as critical race theory.” By voice vote, the seven-member Board of Education adopted an amendment sponsored by board member Tom Grady. The board then unanimously passed the amended version, Just the News reported.

“Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective, and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence,” the proposed rule read.

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