Gun Control Epiphanies

May 10, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Freedom

I periodically highlight folks on the left who are sensible on the issue of gun control, either because they realize it is a bad idea or because they at least recognize that it is an impractical idea.

 

I’ve also written about leftists who have epiphanies on the issue, which means something has happened that causes them to become much more sympathetic to gun rights

Which is the focus of today’s column.

It seems that some people in California (though not the governor) are waking up on the issue.

Here are some excerpts from an article in the Los Angeles Times by James Queally.

Gun ownership has boomed in the U.S. over the last several years, including in California. Among those first-time gun owners are L.A. liberals, and more and more, those rookie shooters seek out Nguyen, who started teaching basic pistol courses in 2020 under the banner “L.A. Progressive Shooters.”

…Nguyen says he’s also trying to dispel the inherent disgust some left-leaning friends have for firearms. …Nguyen did not invent the left-leaning gun group. The Pink Pistols, John Brown Gun Club and the Socialist Rifle Assn. have existed for decades. …Nguyen more occupies the role of the lefty gun instructor next door. …He’s neither surprised nor bothered when a student breaks down in tears the first time they pick up a gun. …

Nguyen posted footage of their range visits to Instagram. …Nguyen received…a request for a lesson. The potential student was a musician who had just bought a gun for home defense following the at times violent street protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

“He grew up in Venice in the ’90s. Drive-by shootings. He absolutely hates guns. But he’s like: ‘Yo, I’m married now. Even though I don’t like ’em, I don’t wanna be the only one not to have one,’” Nguyen says…….Shrieves said she got serious about learning about firearms in 2020… “I want to know how to protect myself, to protect the community I live in,” she said.

“I know [the police] are not out there to protect me or my community.” …Quezada said, adding that she enjoys “shattering the illusion” that all leftists are latte-sipping, gun-fearing academics. …“I’m a short, brown Latina who owns a gun, and I like making it known that there are people like me out there,” she said.

Interestingly, the author of the column is among those who now realize it is a bad idea to be vulnerable

I was among those new gun owners. In 2021 — after watching colleagues hide from the violent mob on Jan. 6 and remembering I have a habit of writing about angry men with access to weapons — I walked into a Burbank gun store to pick up my first handgun. …My foray into gun ownership is part of a larger trend. Last year, a national NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed 52% of registered voters said someone in their household owned a gun, up from 46% in 2019. The share of Democrats who answered “yes” rose from 33% to 41%.

I’ll close with the observation that statism does not always win.

Whether looking at the issue from a political perspective or a constitutional perspective, gun rights are in a far stronger position today than at any other point in my life.

P.S. Feel free to add your voice to my questionnaire on gun control.

Rights Are Not Grantings To Be Given or Taken Away!

By Rich Kozlovich 

This is an unending issue with the left, and I've written about this before but so much is in the news that obfuscates the truth I felt compelled to write about it again. If we want understanding we must first have clarity, and history is the clarifying agent.  On April 4th 2013 Ben Shapiro wrote an article titled, Obama: Constitution 'Constrains' Me. 

“In his pursuit of overarching gun control legislation in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, President Barack Obama has been dogged. He's been relentless. He's been demagogic, too, whether flanking himself with schoolchildren (the implication being that his political opponents don't care about dead kids) or suggesting that if just one life can be saved by his legislation, we ought to buy into it wholeheartedly (a proposition that would justify almost any sort of government overreach).” He continues by saying; “on Wednesday, President Obama took his gun control push a step further: He admitted that only the Constitution stands between him and full gun confiscation”

He further points out that:

“Government is not us. Government is a group of people elected by us, who then use their own judgment”, however he points out, “the founders stated that rights descend not from government — not from "us," as Obama would have it — but from God or nature.” Quite frankly it seems a worthwhile effort, considering the wider ramifications of this kind of thinking, to lay some historical foundation regarding gun ownership rights in America in order to understand this argument properly. First of all; the Second Amendment is what it says, nothing more and nothing less, yet at one point Attorney General Holder claimed "We have no right to possess guns!"………

So what does a person who believes that we shouldn’t “need” guns to do? Well, that depends if that person believes that we shouldn’t “have” guns or not. There is a substantial difference between “having” and “needing”, but in this case the "having" is based on the "needing". 

The fact of the matter is we live in a dangerous world, and when the general population is armed the world is substantially less dangerous because crime goes down when gun ownership goes up. Clearly that, at the very least, is the "need" to justify the "having".

Most importantly we really do need to understand that America's founding fathers didn't trust government so the second amendment was deliberately inserted in the Constitution for two reasons. One, to make sure you can defend yourself, your loved ones and your property, and two, to give the citizenry the ability defend the Constitution against a government gone wild and is based on English natural law as codified in the English Bill of Rights.

The English Bill of Rights became law after a politically difficult time (actually it was more religious than political…or if you will…. the religious issues generated the political issues) in English history where the common people overthrew King James and forced he and his successors, William III and Mary II in to accepting the English Bill of Rights. This was done as a result of a fight over the authority or the King to govern without consent of Parliament, and the King’s (who was Catholic) desire to disarm his Protestant subjects and maintain a “permanent standing army”, against the wishes of Parliament; clearly and attempt to keep them in line with no way to defend themselves.

It might be noted that this wasn’t a new right being demanded by Parliament from the ruling authorities. This was merely codifying what was always considered a ‘the natural right’ of all Englishmen, and the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) agreed by saying this regarding the English Bill of Rights "clearly an individual right, having nothing whatsoever to do with service in the militia". Furthermore, this was not a “granting of a new right”, but codifying forevermore a right they held without permission of the King, nor did the King have the right to disarm them.

The Second Amendment says; 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.

So, who does everyone think this "well regulated militia" is made up of? The general population! The term “well regulated” merely defines the difference between legal and criminal behavior. Otherwise they would be a mob bent of murder, mayhem, destruction. When the Constitution was written a militia was not anything but the general population fighting as a civilian army, organized to their own likings and purposes. 

And they could go back to their regular lives and take their arms with them because they might be called upon to stand up to defend their community once again. And from where did this right originate? If this is a natural right then it didn’t originate with the King in England and it isn’t a “granting” to be given or to be taken away by the Government of the United States.

This isn’t about gun rights. It is about the definition of rights. This is a foundational issue with ramifications so deep and so profound it is now incumbent upon us to start understanding the foundational thinking that created the most incredible political document in human history. The United States Constitution!

I do wish that more people would read the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution, and at the very least read the commentaries regarding the Federalist Papers. These are foundational!

I have written about this before but so much is in the news that obfuscates the truth I felt compelled to write about it again.  If we want understanding we must first have clarity.  History is the clarifying agent. 

• Second Amendment: It Is What It Says....Nothing More and Nothing Less

The Definition of Rights is the Real Issue!

By Rich Kozlovich

Recently Senator John Kennedy grilled a Biden judicial nominee, Nancy L. Maldonado, about a position she took on what's being commonly called,  "assault weapon bans", a position paper to the court that she signed off on, and it became clear she had no idea what she was taking about and ended up saying, "I'm not a gun expert".   Well, perhaps we need a little clarity.

Recently I wrote the article about gun control titled, Rights Are Not Grantings To Be Given or Taken Away!, explaining that this issue of gun rights isn’t really about guns at all, and even those who don’t own guns, don’t like guns, and don’t want guns in their homes have to understand the foundational issue.  It about the definition of rights – not about guns.  That makes this "gun rights" issue so much deeper and more profound. 

Today I received an e-mail from a friend outlining the consequences of "gun control" and what rights are left when “gun  control” leads to “government control”.  After that there will be no need to be able to define “rights” because they will cease to exist.   

I don’t know who Mark Lucas is, but it appears that he is the originator of the information in this e-mail.  Here is most of what was said:

The main topic of discussion these days is gun control.  Liberal progressive politicians are trying hard to convince people to give up their guns in order to stop violence. You know the mantra: Guns are bad and hurt people, so give up your guns while we all sing Kumbaya. Without guns it will be a safer world for everyone.

But there is a problem with this mantra: Do you really think criminals will give up their guns? Each gun law seems to just give birth to yet more gun laws. When the citizens guns are gone and only the government has guns, what then? We will be at the mercy and control of the prevailing regime of the time, with no means to resist. When this happens, the government is no longer the servant, but the master. It will then enact even more laws for “your protection” and the sheeple will have no choice but to fall in lock step and obey.

Consider the following historical facts:

1929,  the USSR established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, approximately
20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

1928, Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill and others who were unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

1935, China established gun control. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

1956, Cambodia established gun control. From 1975 to 1977 one million “educated” people, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

1964, Guatemala established gun control. From 1964 to 1981, one hundred thousand Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated

1970, Uganda established gun control. From 1971 to 1979 three hundred thousand Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated

The body count is not yet in on the number of Serbs who were unable to defend themselves and were exterminated, but the television images should still be fresh in your mind. Adding the victims of genocide in Barundi, Darfur, and Iraq brings the total number of victims who lost their lives because of gun control to approximately 100 million people in the last century. These are cold, hard facts.

Every time gun registration has been enacted “for the safety of citizens,” it has led to gun confiscation.  We should learn from the mistakes of the past: the next time someone speaks out in favor of gun control, ask which group of citizens they want to see exterminated.

Rights are lost in small, insidious increments that seem inconsequential at the time, but they are never regained. Compare the erosion of rights to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon was not formed in one fell swoop, but little by little, day by day, grain of sand by grain of sand until finally there was a gaping chasm. Rights that were paid for in blood are now being frittered away by a generation that has never had to sacrifices (with the exception of the few and the proud who voluntarily join the military). How many of these individuals has ever stood graveside to accept a folded flag “behalf of a grateful nation”?

If you make a lie big enough and repeat it often enough, people will believe it and the myth becomes reality. Gun control is NOT for the “good of the people”, gun control is about one thing and one thing only, government control, and the ability to impose tyranny on people incapable of doing anything about it. 

Michiganders Beware: New Gun Laws Are in Effect

A look at the latest in gun control folly from the Great Lakes State.

by James Fite | Feb 13, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News Tags: Articles, Opinion, Second Amendment

Brace yourselves Michigan firearm owners: A bevy of new gun laws just took effect. From so-called safe storage requirements – which make home defense much more problematic – to the ineffective background checks and extreme risk protection orders that could see law abiding citizens disarmed without due process, it’s high time for a close look at the latest in gun control folly that makes the Great Lakes State a much more dangerous and less free place than it was just a day ago.

Safe Storage: Safer Only in Theory

  Michigan residents are henceforth required to keep all firearms being stored or left unattended unloaded and locked away if it is “reasonably known” that a minor might be present. If a minor “possesses or exhibits” a firearm in a public place or in the presence of another person in a “careless, reckless or threatening manner,” the owner of the weapon is guilty of a misdemeanor criminal charge punishable by no more than 93 days in jail, a fine of up to $500, or both.

Should said minor then fire the weapon and injure themselves or someone else, that misdemeanor becomes a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $5,000 – ten years and $7,500 if the injury is “severe.” If the wounded person dies, the punishment for the gun owner – not the minor who pulled the trigger – goes up to a potential 15 years in prison and as much as a $10,000 fine.

The real life-and-death issue here is in home defense. In theory, an adult with children living in the home could usually remain in compliance with this law and be ready to fend off a home invasion simply by keeping a firearm on their person even at home and locking any others away. That would work most of the time – taking a shower, changing clothes, or sleeping raises some issues, of course, as does playing with the kids while wearing a deadly weapon. But imagine all firearms but the gun-owner’s everyday carry piece are locked away unloaded where the kids don’t have access to them.

Now imagine the armed adult is away from the house while an older child is home, and a home invasion occurs. Even if the eldest has permission and access to where the weapons are stored, there’s the problem of retrieving that weapon from its locked location, loading it, and using it in self-defense before anyone with violent intent can act.

Michigan, at least, does address the issue of home defense by negating all this should the minor be acting in self-defense. Not all states do.

Virginia State Delegate Nicholas Freitas, the Republican representing Old Dominion’s 62nd district, asked that very same question just last month in the debate over Virginia’s own safe storage bill, HB183. In a short video posted to YouTube on Jan. 31, he explained the issue. Here is his own hypothetical question – and the insane answer to it:

“I said, ‘Look, I get what you’re trying to do here. You’re trying to make things a little bit safer.’ I said, ‘However, I live in the country, where the police are generally at least 15 minutes away on a good day. So, if my 16-year-old daughter, who has been taught to handle and use firearms responsibly since she was five years old, if she’s home alone and somebody – oh, I don’t know, maybe that you let out on parole, because you do a lot of that around here – is kicking in our door in order to harm my daughter and she uses one of my firearms in order to protect herself, am I now a criminal?’ And after a very, very lengthy, lawyerly explanation, the answer was, ‘yep, you sure are.’ Make it make sense.”

But the core issue remains: An unloaded firearm locked in a box is useless. That’s fine for hunting and sporting guns, but a home defense weapon must be reachable and usable by whoever is going to defend the home. The trick to this situation – as just about any rural gun owner with kids can tell you – isn’t to hide the weapons from the children, but to train the children in the responsible handling and use of the weapons.

Will the New Laws Work as Intended?

Safe storage requirements with both misdemeanor and felony penalties aren’t the only new Michigan gun laws that create crimes where none existed before or increase the potential for death by unintended consequences. One such law requires anyone who isn’t a federally licensed firearm dealer (FFL) to “complete a record in triplicate on a form provided by the department of state police” that includes either the buyer’s concealed weapon license number or, if they aren’t licensed, the dealer license number of the FFL who did the background check.

In short, all purchases – even between private individuals – must now go through an FFL for the sake of having a background check and a record of the sale.

The problem is that universal background checks don’t work. If a criminal is looking to acquire a gun for the commission of a crime, he already most likely plans to steal it or buy it from someone without going through an FFL – regardless of whether he can pass a background check or not. All this does is make a crime where no crime existed before. Those who plan to commit murder or robbery at gunpoint won’t be deterred. Don’t believe that? Just look at California’s atrocious record.

Then there’s the extreme risk protection order – or so-called red flag law – that just took effect. As is the case in most states with similar regulations, it is now possible for a judge to issue an order for police to confiscate weapons from a Michigan resident who has no idea that he or she has been ordered disarmed.

What’s worse – again, as is the case in most of these states – Michigan allows no-knock warrants and pre-dawn raids. It shouldn’t take too much imagination to see how this could go horribly awry and cost the lives of law enforcement officers, residents who have committed no crime, or both. What reason in the world would an armed law-abiding citizen in Detroit have to believe that the gunmen knocking down their door at 3 a.m. without announcing their identity are police?

Foolish Gun Laws, Unintended Consequences

Another new Michigan law prevents people who have been convicted of domestic violence from buying, owning, or transporting a firearm for eight years after sentencing. This one may well save more lives than the others – but it also renders the convict, as all such “prohibited persons” laws do, unable to adequately defend themselves or their families. And of all the crimes for which people are falsely accused and convicted, domestic abuse ranks high, meaning there’s a much higher chance of disarming an innocent person than in most other situations.

The more astute reader has likely noticed the pattern here: Whether these gun laws achieve their stated goals or not, they all come with unintended consequences that could cost people who aren’t otherwise criminals their lives or their status as free Americans. As is so often the case, gun laws devised by gun-control advocates supposedly seek to make the world a safer place by disarming only the people who follow the rules.

 

Read More From James Fite

A Simple Lesson about Gun Control

February 10, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Because of moral, constitutional, and cost-benefit reasons, I’m not a fan of gun control.

 So I don’t like proposals to restrict the right to keep and bear arms.

That being said, some anti-gun initiatives are dumber than others. The most foolish (and the easiest to mock) is the notion of “gun-free zones.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, a bad person who is thinking of committing a crime with a gun surely isn’t going to care that the government has posted a sign prohibiting guns.

I’ve already cited some examples of this. Today, let’s look at another.

With considerable publicity, New York City decided to make Times Square a gun-free zone. They even spent taxpayer money to post signs.

How did that work out? Did the criminals obey the signage?  According to an Associated Press report from Jake Offenhartz and Michael Sisak, the signs are ineffective.

A 15-year-old accused of shooting a Brazilian tourist in the leg in Times Square Thursday night, then firing at a police officer while fleeing, was arrested just outside of New York City on Friday, police officials said. The teenager was taken into custody at a residential house that police believe may be linked to a family member in Yonkers nearly 24 hours after the shooting that began in a sporting goods store and spilled out onto the bustling streets of Midtown Manhattan. …police identified the suspect as a resident of a migrant shelter in Manhattan… He is also considered a suspect in an armed robbery in the Bronx and a separate shooting in Times Square last month, police said.

To be fair, it’s possible that the suspect does not understands English, so he may have not have been able to read the signs about Times Square being a gun-free zone.

However, does anybody think that he would have been deterred if there were Spanish signs?

Consider that question as an another version of my gun-control IQ test.

P.S. Criminals, like taxpayers, respond to incentives. So if you actually want to reduce crime, increase the chance of getting caught and/or increase the severity of punishment.

P.P.S. It also would be a good idea to lower crime by ending the War on Drugs.

Jews and Private Gun Ownership

December 17, 2023 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I shared some gun control satire a few days ago.

Today, it’s time for a serious column about the right of private gun ownership.

I wrote a few years ago about how European Jews should have the right of gun ownership.

Especially since anti-Semitic terrorists never seem to have any trouble getting access to weapons.

And I included a very appropriate poster from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership to emphasize how gun control often has been a go-to policy for the world’s most despicable tyrants.

What’s now happening in Israel underscores that message.

In a report from the Washington Post, Claire Parker, Jon Gerberg, Judith Sudilovsky, and John Hudson explain that October 7 was a wake-up calls for both lawmakers and citizens.

Since Hamas rampaged through Israeli communities on Oct. 7, the government here has promoted a simple message: Guns save lives. Using rhetoric redolent of gun rights advocates in the United States, hard-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir has pushed to loosen strict firearm licensing requirements and create more civilian “standby teams” to harden communities against a repeat of the deadly surprise attack.

…Under an expedited processing system, Ben Gvir’s ministry in the past two months has received more than 256,000 applications to carry private firearms… Jewish Israeli volunteers across Israel and West Bank settlers are arming themselves, training and forming groups to patrol the streets… Private gun ownership was rising before the war. But since Oct. 7, interest has exploded…

Before the war, to be considered for a gun license civilians had to live or work in an area deemed to be under heightened security risk, be interviewed in person, submit a health declaration signed by a physician, undergo training and demonstrate they knew how to use a gun safely. The license limited bearers to one gun and 50 bullets. Now residents of more cities have been made eligible. They can be interviewed by telephone. It’s easier to renew licenses that have lapsed. And licensees are permitted 100 bullets.

The article also notes that armed Jews saved many lives on October 7.

The army took hours to respond, leaving men, women and children largely defenseless against the militants. In the aftermath, accounts emerged of volunteer security teams in some kibbutzim fending off Hamas attackers and saving lives. The teams, known in Israel as “kitat konenut,” have long been active in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in Israeli communities near the Gazan border, where they act as first responders to security threats. For advocates of wider access to gun ownership, the accounts served as vindication of their cause — and helped build support for lowering barriers to firearms access.

In the New York Times, Aaron Boxerman and Talya Minsberg wrote about the expansion of private gun ownership in Israel.

…in the aftermath of Oct. 7, Israelis have submitted at least 256,000 applications for gun licenses, including many who had never before considered owning a weapon. Israel’s current far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has long pushed for an expansion of gun ownership, and in mid-October, lawmakers signed off on eased gun ownership regulations promulgated by his office.

Young adults with assault rifles slung over their shoulders are a common sight in Israel, where hundreds of thousands are soldiers on active duty or reservists with weapons stashed at home. But despite decades of insecurity, private gun ownership never approached the levels seen in the United States, where surveys show about one-third of adults own firearms. …national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has long pushed for an expansion of gun ownership…told a meeting…“If there had been more guns in the Gaza border area, more emergency response teams, more lives could have been saved.”

This passage is especially relevant.

Maayan Rosenberg-Schatz, said that like so many other Israelis, she no longer believed the Israeli military — which took hours to arrive at some embattled communities on Oct. 7 — would reach them in time in a crisis…said Ms. Rosenberg-Schatz, 42, who applied for a gun license along with her husband. “But in the end, there’s no replacement for having a weapon.”

P.S. Some American Jews also understand this issue. In a column for the Daily Wire, written nearly four years before the October 7 Hamas attack, Josh Hammer wrote about gun ownership among American Jews.

A Jew who is trained, armed, and proficient in the use of firearms is necessarily a Jew who the anti-Semites fear the most — which makes this Jew the very best kind of Jew. This is a Jew who is ready, willing, and able, if need be, to heed the Talmudic principle that one must rise to take the life of someone who is trying to take his/her own life. …

This is a Jew who is physically capable and emotionally prepared to take down an active shooter, if need be. …I live in Texas, and it is hardly the least bit unusual for Jews here to pack heat while attending synagogue or attending any other kind of Jewish-themed event. …Why on Earth would Jews, the most systemically persecuted group of humans to have ever lived, delegate responsibility for their own lives to third-party actors?

The bottom line is that Jews should be more like Texans.

Corporate Media Conspicuously Quiet After Memphis Man Kills Four in Multi-Location Rampage

There isn't currently even a mention of the murders on the front pages of any major news outlet other than two. 

J. D. Rucker Nov 19  (Cartoon added by me. RK)

Mavis Christian Jr murdered four female relatives, including a teen, and critically injured another. He then killed himself. It's a gun-grabber narrative that one would expect to make national news, but there is currently radio silence. The murderer was a Black man with a rap sheet that dates back to 1996. Laws, if enforced, would have prevented him from owning the firearm he used to shoot women and girls. Therefore, it's not a story that most in corporate media will want to cover. According to News Nation: 

A suspect in Tennessee died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while on the run Sunday after a series of shootings that killed four of his female relatives and seriously injured a fifth person, police said. Officers found the body of Mavis Christian Jr., 52, in his car during a manhunt following shootings at three locations in Memphis that left three women and a teenage girl dead and a teenage girl critically wounded, the Memphis Police Department said.

Police said Christian was related to the victims but could not immediately specify how they were related. The names of the victims have not yet been released. 

 There are two types of "mass shootings" in the eyes of corporate media. Those that advance their gun-grabbing agenda get massive amounts of coverage that includes "expert" commentaries, biased analysis, and emotion-driven calls for action. Those that do not advance their gun-grabbing agenda get buried...............To Read More.....

SHOCKING: Western media let Hamas author their ‘news’ stories - November 19, 2023 By Andrea Widburg - In past conflicts, one side has successfully managed to push through propaganda that changes how civilians on the other side view military action. However, we have never before seen a situation in which the world’s media simply hand over to one of the combatants the entire responsibility for reporting on the war. That’s what’s happening across the West, though, including in America, as rising antisemitism is fueled by “news” reports direct from Hamas central.  One of the most powerful stories out of WWII was the claim that the Allies engaged in malevolent overkill when they bombed Dresden in 1945, murdering over 100,000 people (or, as the Nazis claimed, over 200,000) without any clear military objective..................

Another Instance Of Our Non-political Expert Regulators In Action

November 03, 2023/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

In the Progressive utopia championed by Woodrow Wilson and his successors, government will iron out the imperfections in human affairs through the use of regulatory agencies run by non-political experts. Such people, being experts and completely non-political, would pose no reason for concern about abuse of power, because of course they would never seek go outside their proper regulatory portfolio to use their authority to stamp out the freedoms and speech of their political opponents on important topics of the day.

In the real world government regulators since the creation of their agencies have inevitably used their powers to disadvantage and silence political opposition. The last few years have seen this phenomenon taken to new levels of blatancy and aggressiveness. In one of the most notable examples, the case of Missouri v. Biden, covered several times on this blog (for example here and here), has brought to light an entire “censorship industrial complex” of federal regulators during the Biden presidency pressuring social media companies to suppress the speech of those opposing official government narratives on topics including Covid-19 origins, lockdowns, vaccine efficacy and side effects, climate change, and much more. Missouri v. Biden (now under the name Murthy v. Missouri) is currently before the Supreme Court, which is considering whether to sustain an injunction against the government’s conduct issued by a district court in Louisiana and mostly affirmed by the Fifth Circuit.

Today comes news that another case raising similar issues has just been accepted by the Supreme Court. This one goes by the name National Rifle Association v. Vullo. The report that the case has been accepted by the Supremes comes from Eugene Volokh on his blog the Volokh Conspiracy. Mr. Volokh is one of the lawyers for the NRA in the Supreme Court. All the relevant documents in NRA v. Vullo, including the opinion below from the Second Circuit and the Cert Petition itself, can be found at the Supreme Court’s website.

NRA v. Vullo illustrates the extent to which regulators today, particularly in blue states or under Democratic administrations, feel themselves completely unconstrained to use their powers to suppress political opponents without the slightest concern about statutory or constitutional limits. New York is going particularly over the top in this regard, and this case unsurprisingly comes out of New York. It involves efforts of the Department of Financial Services and its then-head Maria Vullo, with the active support of then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, to attempt to put the NRA out of business.

You might ask, what regulatory authority does New York’s Department of Financial Services have over the NRA? The answer is, none. But it does have regulatory authority over banks and insurance companies. So it adopted a program of regulatory announcements, threats, “guidance,” press releases, and so forth to coerce/force/shame the banks and insurance companies under its authority to cease to do business with the NRA.

The procedural history so far is that a district judge in upstate New York (Thomas McAvoy) denied the State’s and Ms. Vullo’s motion to dismiss in substantial part, allowing the case to proceed; but the Second Circuit reversed. Under the Second Circuit’s decision, the allegations of the conduct of Ms. Vullo and the DFS were held insufficient to state any claim or justify any relief.

NRA’s Cert Petition cites numerous allegations from the Complaint in the case setting forth what Ms. Vullo did in her campaign to use her regulatory powers over banks and insurance companies to destroy the NRA. Here are a few examples (from Cert Petition pages 9-11):

• Vullo launched an investigation that ostensibly focused on Carry Guard [an insurer that marketed an affinity product with NRA] but quickly expanded to target all the so-called “affinity” insurance products marketed to NRA members—including policies marketed identically to non-NRA affinity groups. . . . Vullo’s investigation targeted no self-defense insurance products except ones endorsed by the NRA.
• Vullo threatened regulated institutions with costly investigations, increased regulatory scrutiny, and penalties should they fail to discontinue their arrangements with the NRA. These exhortations were not limited to Carry Guard, as she indicated that any business relationship with the NRA would invite adverse action.
• Beginning in February 2018, Vullo held several meetings with the executives of institutions subject to her regulatory power. At those meetings, she made back-channel threats that they cease providing services to the NRA in connection with affinity-insurance programs that the NRA endorsed. . . . Although Vullo discussed many technical regulatory infractions plaguing the affinity-insurance marketplace, she made clear that her real interest lay in causing the companies to stop providing insurance to the NRA.
• On April 19, 2018, Vullo had DFS issue official regulatory guidance . . . directed at all banks and insurance companies doing business in New York. . . . In the Guidance Documents, DFS favorably cited groups that had “severed their ties with the NRA” as examples of “corporate social responsibility,” and warned regulated institutions of the “reputational risk” of further “dealings with the NRA” in light of the “social backlash” against the group for its Second Amendment advocacy.

And it goes on from there. Under the Second Circuit’s opinion, all of this kind of conduct against political opponents is perfectly OK, and provides no ground for a court challenge. Here’s more on the Complaint in the case from a blog post by Mr. Volokh at the time of the filing of the Cert Petition back in February:

Among other things, the Complaint states that Superintendent Maria Vullo: 

(1) warned regulated institutions that doing business with Second Amendment advocacy groups posed "reputational risk" of concern to DFS; 

(2) secretly offered leniency to insurers for unrelated infractions if they dropped the NRA; and (3) extracted highly-publicized and over-reaching consent orders, and multi-million dollar penalties, from firms that formerly served the NRA. Citing private telephone calls, internal insurer documents, and statements by an anonymous banking executive to industry press, the Complaint alleges that numerous financial institutions perceived Vullo's actions as threatening and, therefore, ceased business arrangements with the NRA or refused new ones.

Among the precedents that Mr. Volokh cites in support of the Cert Petition is Bantam Books v. Sullivan, described in the Cert Petition as follows:

Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963) held that a state commission with no formal regulatory power violated the First Amendment when it "deliberately set out to achieve the suppression of publications" through "informal sanctions," including the "threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion, persuasion, and intimidation."

The more you learn about what regulators are up to, the more you realize that the essence of the job is abuse of power.

 

The Lives of Our Family and Neighbors Depends Upon Our Ability To Defend Them

October 4, 2023by Robert Socha @ Daily Rant

Everyone who values life and liberty should carry a gun.

The ethnic violence in major cities run by Leftist governments in these United States is far past time to take serious notice and prepare to defend yourself, your family, and your property. One of the surest deterrents is to carry a gun and have the skill to use it when necessary.

The Second Amendment is paramount in encouraging this defense. The wisdom contained in this verse reveals a stark poison in the unredeemed, unrepentant human nature that requires vigilance to overcome.

Bastiat stated in The Law that if the punishment for the crime is inadequate, the populace will continue to act criminally until the law is stringent enough to bring a deterrent. There is no deterrent in our once beautiful cities, and crime is rampant. Horrifically, the trend where black thugs are indiscriminately targeting white people has manifested in multiple murders and mayhem. And the targeting and looting of stores is seriously being cast as a form of reparations and excused behavior from our elected officials. This ungodly cohort has delegitimized our laws and made a mockery of justice.

Another tragedy is that since my ancestry comes mainly from Poland, Spain, and Italy, I feel tremendous angst bringing this subject to light because popular culture has declared my voice cancerous and I have severe misgivings about writing this piece because of the ethnic tensions fueled and manufactured by our Leftist politicians, the media, and wealthy influencers. After all, I dare to expose this present darkness. I write, nevertheless.

I will not provide links to the plethora of shocking video evidence proving this assertion. I do not intend to add any fuel to either side of this terrible divide. I am simply bringing attention to its pervasiveness and the necessity of preparation.

This preparedness includes being aware of your surroundings and constantly vigilant to protect yourself and your property. For example, our family SUV has key-fobs that automatically unlock the doors when you are in close proximity to the vehicle. Unfortunately, this model creates a vulnerability, especially at a gas station or in a parking lot, for an unknown person could open the passenger side doors and do any number of illegal activities. I have disabled this feature. Now we have the first-world pain of taking the key fob out of our pocket and pressing the unlock key, once for the driver’s door only and twice for all doors, which affords additional protection.

How have we allowed ourselves to descend into this social anarchy and self-deprecation? Because we have abandoned the former ways. We have chosen to worship light and transient causes. We have called evil good and good evil. We have made excuses for deplorable behavior. We have allowed certain classes to go unpunished. We have erred terribly, bringing on such corruption that most Americans are in unseen chains, forcing us to build a kingdom whose foundation is falsehood and pillars are depravity and shame.

We must recognize the times and understand them with knowledge of what we should do[i]. We should stringently advocate to bring back the rule of law and punishment for crime, especially social unrest and plunder. We should encourage our governments, from the local municipalities to the state and federal levels, to give law enforcement teeth again to arrest and detain shoplifters, muggers, and other violent criminals. We must boldly insist that the infestation of mind-altering substances must be culled and discouraged through stringent enforcement. No longer should it be acceptable for fentanyl-high people to litter our streets. It is immoral to take one man’s wealth through taxation or theft and give it to another. Additionally, acting violently on behalf of a cause or indiscriminately targeting violence, especially assault, should be condemned at the highest levels and justly adjudicated.

 Tags: Gun Ownership  Political, Christian and Conservative Issues

[i] 1 Chronicles 12:32

About the Author: Robert Socha  (so-ha), was born in southern California. He served 5 years 3 months active duty in the United States Air Force; honorably. After his service he took an Associate’s Degree in Practical Theology, where, through his studies, developed a deep love of God and Country and sincere appreciation of the value of Liberty. Robert and his beloved wife of 21-plus years are raising 4 beautiful Texan children. They moved to Hillsdale, Michigan, in 2013, to put their children in Hillsdale Academy. Robert is a sales professional. He and his wife consider Michigan a hidden gem, and absolutely love this city and state (current political environment notwithstanding) they’ve adopted.

Biden’s Big Gun Control Office and the Fall of CA’s Magazine Ban

From the White House to the courthouse, Friday was a mixed bag for gun owners.

By James Fite

September 23, 2023 @ Liberty Nation News

Will September 22, 2023, be celebrated by gun control activists as a turning point in the “epidemic of gun violence”? Will Second Amendment advocates mark it as the beginning of the end for unconstitutional restrictions on magazine size – and perhaps even bans on so-called “assault weapons”? Regardless of whether the day lives on in infamy or as a fond memory for either side of the debate, big moves were made on Friday to advance both causes.

When President Joe Biden announced his new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, he probably did hope it would join other historic milestones in the erosion of the Second Amendment like the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968. But US District Judge Roger Benitez had other plans. Not long after the president spoke, the federal judge ruled that California’s high-capacity magazine ban is unconstitutional.

Gun Control by Executive Order: The Biden Way

After a few days of media hype, President Biden held a gathering in the Rose Garden to announce the new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The office will be overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris and directed by Stefanie Feldman, a gun control advocate who served Biden as a policy advisor on gun violence and climate change.

What will the new office actually do? That’s hard to say. Its stated purpose is to “drive and coordinate the government in a nationwide effort to reduce gun violence in America.” But how? The executive branch is limited in its ability to change the rules it’s entrusted to enforce – and for good reason. That said, Biden has a history of stretching that power and reaching for more. The president has signed more than 20 executive orders since taking office targeted specifically at ending what he calls the epidemic of gun violence, and among those were directives leading the ATF to change how it defines pistol braces and even firearms in general.

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Biden offered four ways the office can achieve its goals, from expediting the implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to supporting survivors, identifying new executive actions, and expanding the “coalition of partners” working on gun violence. It’s all vague enough to be simple platitudes, which, along with the so-called facts the president presented regarding gun deaths, the people he appointed to run the office, and his promises to bring back an assault weapon ban, could well mean it’s little more than a campaign stunt – an office of anti-gun propaganda and pandering to progressive voters more than anything else. Still, there is potential for so much more, if the administration is willing to bend the rules a bit.

Judge Benitez Rains on Biden’s Parade

President Biden wasn’t the only one with big news for gun owners on Friday. For those who keep up with the Golden State’s attempts to disarm the people, Roger Benitez may be a familiar name. The US district judge struck down California’s ban on magazines declared by the state to be “high capacity” back in 2017. Of course, the Ninth Circuit then overturned his ruling. The case was appealed to the US Supreme Court, and that is where it remained until New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen was decided, changing the way gun control laws must be examined. The High Court vacated the earlier ruling and sent the case back to the lower court to be redecided in light of Bruen. On Friday, not long after Biden announced his new office, Judge Benitez once again ruled the magazine restriction unconstitutional.

“Removable firearm magazines of all sizes are necessary components of Semiautomatic firearms. Therefore, magazines come within the text of the constitutional declaration that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” he wrote. “Because millions of removable firearm magazines able to hold between 10 and 30 rounds are commonly owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, including self-defense, and because they are reasonably related to service in the militia, the magazines are presumptively within the protection of the Second Amendment.”

To restate the point in fewer words, the magazines are necessary to the function of the gun and therefore also protected by the Second Amendment. Will the Ninth Circuit once again overturn his ruling? Perhaps – but it seems unlikely that would stand at the Supreme Court.

If California’s magazine restriction is unconstitutional, then any federal law doing the same would be as well. What’s more, the judge’s ruling that magazines are protected because they’re necessary for semiautomatic weapons implies the type of firearms that use them are also protected. What does that mean for the state’s assault weapon prohibition – or Biden’s dream of a permanent federal ban? While gun control advocates may remember the date as a great day for their cause, those who prefer their freedom can, too. Like Bruen and DC v. Heller back in 2008, this decision could rock the foundations of strict gun control in America.

From the National Firearms Act of 1934 to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 and the two dozen or so anti-gun executive orders signed by Biden so far, the Second Amendment has weathered many attacks over the years. But from Heller to Bruen, the courts have, at times, pushed back and held the line. Biden’s new White House office and Benitez’s ruling are just the latest salvos fired in the decades-long war. The important question is who gained more ground this time – and which cause will ultimately prevail – gun control or liberty?

Read More From James Fite

Non-Law Enforcement Agencies Like IRS and EPA Spend Billions on Guns and Ammo, Watchdog Says

Adam Kredo May 2, 2023

Federal agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency have spent nearly $4 billion in taxpayer funds on guns, ammunition, and other "military-style equipment," a watchdog group found.  Since 2006, "76 rank-and-file agencies" outside "traditional law enforcement entities" or the Department of Defense spent $3.7 billion on "guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment," according to watchdog group Open the Books's summary of its report. These agencies include the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Small Business Administration, among others that historically have played little to no role in law enforcement activities. ............To Read More.....

Democrat Governor Violating Constitutional Rights by Robert Socha

September 13, 2023 By Robert Socha @ Daily Rant

In the shadow of the 22nd anniversary of the three towers’ destruction, plunging the United States into moral ambiguity, the traitors who adhere to the principles of the modern Democratic party have once again raised their sword to destroy the remnants of Constitutional Law. New Mexico’s governor made a horrific error in judgment when she ignorantly declared the authority to suspend constitutional rights for what she decided is a public health emergency, specifically, the right to keep and bear arms as defined in the Second Amendment because at least three children horrific murders this year and gun violence appears to be growing.

The preposterous declaration has been rightly decried, denounced, and defied. Even the county sheriff is correctly refusing to enforce such blatant overreach and offers a scathing rebuke.  And the governor dares to double down and stand by her erroneous claim to authoritarianism.

Her assertion is such a blatant insult to Constitutional Law that Democratic operatives are crying foul and distancing themselves from her effrontery. The public’s response to inundate the affected no gun zone armed is classic American retribution. This specific episode is not what concerns me.

What concerns me is the Left’s ability to massage and cajole this message until it saturates the culture and people stop opposing it so vehemently. Consider politically correct speech and its assent to the frontal lobe of public conscientiousness. The term’s introduction in the late 1970s made its Marxist roots well-known and un-American. But, over time, weak-willed men allowed for its postulation and curbing dissent from the media’s positions. Decades of communist politically correct indoctrination have culminated in the indictment of President Trump for daring to speak against the outcome of an election and the arrest of men like Owen Shroyer, receiving a 60-day jail sentence for “stoking the flames” of resistance on January 6th. Waterboarding the Proud Boys with ridiculously inflated penalties for manufactured charges is another travesty of justice enacted by a weaponized judiciary.

These are terrible injustices taking place on the world’s stage and have our enemies delighted; as Vladimir Putin recently said, “As for the prosecution of Trump, for us, what is happening in today’s conditions, in my opinion, is good. Because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy. Everything that is happening with Trump is the persecution of a political rival for political reasons. That is what it is. And this is being done in front of the U.S. public and the whole world. They simply exposed their internal problems.”

He is correct. Benjamin Franklin warned us that the people will become so corrupt they will require a despotic government. The culling of dissent and free speech, cowing the masses, the threats of taking our guns, civil unrest and plunder, unenforced law, and unabated ethnic crimes, the continual rhetoric to these ends is a constant reminder that there is a battle to America’s destruction, without firing a shot. For the puppet masters sowing the seeds of animosity, their end appears to be the annihilation of the free state and catastrophic population reduction. For what narcissistic purpose the Soros of the world purports the destruction of Americanism is beyond my comprehension other than to know these things must happen for the Biblically prophesized end to come.