Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

Source.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) -A proposal to remove guns from people in certain high-risk or crisis situations was heard in a state legislative committee Friday.

The CARR (Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention) Act is similar to many red flag laws that allow for the confiscation or temporary removal of firearms from a person who is in crisis mode or is determined to be at risk.

People flocked to Frankfort to hear about the proposal, and it was so crowded in the legislative committee room they spilled out into the hallways and filled up two “overflow” rooms to watch on video screens.

“On that day, I faced something that I can only describe as hell on earth,” said Whitney Austin, who survived being shot 12 times while being trapped in a revolving door during a shooting in Cincinnati. She supports the CARR Act, which backers say protects the Second Amendment while temporarily transferring guns from those determined to be at risk.

“In researching mass shooters over the last three decades, we know 80% of the time they signal their intentions,” said Austin.

The debate drew an emotional response from Senator Karen Berg of Louisville. She said her son killed himself a year ago Friday.

“And if we could do one thing in this state to prevent one parent from having to go through that, it is worth it,” said Berg.

The debate drew a lot of emotion and opinions on both sides of the political aisle. Republican Whitney Westerfield supports the CARR Act, but others in the GOP have a lot of questions.

“I am still trying to figure out how we can stop someone from hurting themself or others in real-time,” said Rep. Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill.

“To me, our common ground is the constitution. We have all sworn to uphold it,” said Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge.

Maddox has long stood her ground in support of firearms issues and vehemently opposes any laws that restrict them. She also said, “94% of mass casualties occur in so-called “gun-free zones,” and places where people are stripped of their constitutional rights.

That isn’t what this law would be used for – threats are already illegal. The law will be used by angry wives, pissed off neighbors, anti-gun nuts and all manner of others for the purposes of disarmament.

It’s all the rage now, apparently even in Kentucky.  Stop it before it grows into a cancer. Excise it.

You’ve heard the news.  Here and here (note that there were no dissents).  I guess the lack of dissents means that there weren’t enough votes and everyone knew it.

Listen to Washington Gun Law where he puts the best spin on bad news.

Then listen to Langley Outdoors Academy where I agree with him.

Here’s my problem with the SCOTUS. They’ll get involved at the flip of a hat to stay a Fifth Circuit knockdown of the ATF, but completely ignore infringement of rights.

Frankly, I just don’t buy the notion that they all want to see a complete record of the case.  It just doesn’t fit the facts.  They get involved all the time where constitutional rights are being infringed.  I guess the second amendment is still a second class right regardless of what the Bruen decision says.

Dave Kopel.

Two weeks ago, I filed an amicus brief in U.S. District Court in Colorado, in Gates v. Polis, a case challenging the Colorado legislature’s 2013 ban on magazines over 15 rounds. The brief was on behalf of Sheriffs and law enforcement training organizations: the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the Colorado Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association, the Western States Sheriffs Association, 10 elected Colorado County Sheriffs, and the Independence Institute (where I work).

Some of the brief explains the practical mechanics of armed self-defense, and why bans on standard magazines do not impair mass shooters, but do endanger ordinary citizens, especially when attacked by multiple criminals. Another part of the brief shows that the key data created by some of the Colorado Attorney General’s expert witnesses is obviously false.

But in this post, I will focus on a more fundamental argument in the brief. The law enforcement amici reject the claim that arms universally recognized as appropriate for ordinary law enforcement officers should be banned for ordinary citizens. The claim is based on the pernicious idea that law enforcement officers are above the people, rather than part of the people. Here are some excerpts from the brief:

The magazine ban attempts to divorce today’s common arms of law-abiding citizens from today’s common arms of law enforcement officers, including sheriffs and their deputies. The divorce, contrary to the wishes of both parties, endangers citizens and officers alike.

The arms of ordinary law enforcement officers are carefully selected for only one purpose: lawful defense of innocents in civil society. Throughout American history, many citizens have looked to law enforcement for guidance in choosing arms for the same purpose. Denying those arms to citizens and to retired law enforcement officers  endangers them for the same reasons that denying these arms to active law enforcement officers would endanger them. The most important reason is the necessity of reserve capacity, as detailed in Part II.

More fundamentally, the magazine ban violates the principles of our Constitution and of American law enforcement. Policing by consent is the American value, not militarized occupation from above.

Well, that’s of course true (and you can read the rest of what he said at the link), but I think he gets the issue of people depending on LEOs for defense of society all wrong.  As he knows, based on:

Castle Rock v. Gonzalez

Warren v. District of Columbia

DeShaney v. Winnebago County

There is no duty to defend the society or anyone in it, and no expectation for them to do so.  In fact, in society today the police are more likely to harm society than help it.  As I’ve said before, there is no situation so bad and dangerous that it cannot be made worse by the presence of the police.  Furthermore, the modern judicial (and wrong) notion of qualified immunity has made them reckless, and the supreme court telling them that they can lie has made matters even worse.

Folks, the supreme court may have said LEOs can lie with impunity, but it’s still a sin and anyone who willfully lies to someone they have brought in by the power of a badge and gun will face a mighty maker one day and answer for his sins – all of them, including lying to people.  I don’t care what the supreme court said.

But if it’s true that police are part of “the people,” then that goes more to my point that they shouldn’t have qualified immunity, they shouldn’t be allowed machine guns and other NFA items while we’re prohibited from ownership of them, they shouldn’t be allowed to knock down doors and invade homes if I can’t, and they shouldn’t be allowed to muzzle flag innocent people because of “officer safety” when I would be thrown in prison for assault with a deadly weapon for doing the same thing.

I’d like to see Kopel go there in his brief to other cases.

By the way, the comments at this Reason article are as awful and beggarly as they always are at Reason.  Consider this one.

Assuming, he says.  He purports to set up a syllogism, or an immediate inference, and then does nothing of the sort.  The whole thing is a non sequitur.  Stephen Lathop is an idiot, but he is also a communist.  He sees police as the “People’s Special Constraint.”

You need to be constrained, and Stephen says that’s what the police are for.

When you read articles at Reason, just ignore the comments.  You will be dumber for having read them if you take a deep dive into the minds of children who are throwing tantrums and pretending like it means anything.

So here is Mark Smith. He takes a fairly realistic view of things.

Here is Washington Gun Law, where he takes a slightly better view of what’s possible, perhaps too rosy.

Here is Jared in an inexplicably optimistic view of things.

So I set each up with the little preview because I think Jared may miss the point.  This was a case seeking a preliminary injunction, and no final ruling has been made.  I think the other two analyses are a bit closer to the truth.

I think it will be hard to get SCOTUS review of this because they are just that stolid and slow to react – and also because of the chief justice.  To be sure, this was seeking a preliminary injunction, but it must be remembered that the decisions already written on this assesses the probability of success before these courts.

They may delay the final rulings for another two or three years, or more, but there won’t be another outcome than the one you’ve already witnessed.  So even if they don’t, it makes perfect sense for the SCOTUS to take this up now.  One wonders what they’re waiting for – perhaps another supreme court justice to die with a pillow over his face like Scalia?

Judge Frank Easterbrook is a so-called “law and order conservative.”  Let me translate for you.  That’s the same thing as the communists on the alleged other side of the isle.  Just like AG Barr, who argued in defense of Lon Horiuchi.

In America, it’s always easy to detect a communist.  Just look at his position on the second amendment.

I told you that the fourth circuit was as worthless as the gunk between my toes. I meant it.  Now you see why.

I hate the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. I consider them to be about as worthless as the gunk between the toes of my feet.  But occasionally they get it right like a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.

Also from Mark, a state judge in Maryland granted a win for civil rights by striking the sensitive places law.

Of course, the communists in Maryland will continue to enforce the law until told to stop.

I’m glad that Mark got a chance to speak before so many appeals court judges, and several supreme court judges, and several supreme court justices too!

Source.

Los Angeles homeowner Vince Ricci says he was coming home from the gym when two intruders ran up behind him after jumping the fence in his backyard.

“Out of nowhere I felt someone run up behind me, put something to my back, put a pistol to my back and somebody running up,” the man told ABC 7.

“I guess they decided to try to come at me and come in the house but I have a 5-month-old baby and a wife and a nanny in the house and that wasn’t going to happen,” he said.

“There was nothing in my house that was worth dying for. But I was willing to die for my family,” the dad added.

The state of California didn’t exactly see it that way. They’ve suspended Ricci’s concealed carry permit.

Feel Good Friday

Vince Ricci was forced to defend himself & his family in his LA home.

To thank him for his valiant effort, @LAPDHQ presented him with the key to the city…

Sike, they actually took away his gun permit because he yelled at the dumb ass officer. pic.twitter.com/FElHeUHCeG

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) November 17, 2023

Shameful.  But then, California.  Who’s surprised?  And if you’re in California, why?

Source.

In a ruling that seems fated to find its way before the U.S. Supreme Court, a judge in Illinois has recently found that the gun rights of a felon convicted of multiple armed robberies are protected by the Second Amendment.

[ … ]

The finding from U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman was issued on Nov. 2 and stems from a case involving Illinois resident Glen Price. Price, 37, allegedly brandished a gun and robbed someone on a train in September 2021. Police said he stole a cellphone and a train fare card too. When police arrested him, they found a 9 mm gun in his possession, cocaine, ammunition and a stolen credit card.

Price was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm since he already had a criminal record featuring no less than three felony convictions for armed robbery and one conviction for aggravated battery of a police officer.

“Although there are strong policy reasons for doing everything possible to keep guns off our streets and out of our communities, this court can find no such historical analogue,” Gettleman wrote.

Bruen, the judge reasoned, required courts to deem whether a statute dispossessing someone of their right to own a gun posed a “comparable burden” on the right to bear arms itself.

The judge wrote:

“Although the historical record … demonstrates this nation’s tradition of ‘comparably justified’ categorical dispossession statutes, the government has failed to meet its burden of providing evidence of a dispossession statute with a ‘comparable burden’ to § 922(g)(1). Specifically, this court is not persuaded that the government has met its burden to show a ‘distinctly similar or even a relevantly similar’ historical analogue to 922(g)(1)’s permanent prohibition on firearm possession by felons which can only be lifted by expungement, federal pardon or other method of restoring civil rights that lifts the underlying offense from a conviction …”

By failing to provide felons with any means to repair their lost gun rights, there is a “far greater burden on the right to keep and bear arms,” Gettleman found, “than the historical categorical exclusions from the people’s Second Amendment rights.”

“The government has not demonstrated why the modern ubiquity of gun violence, and the heightened lethality of today’s firearm technology compared to the Founding, justify a different result. This nation’s gun violence problem is devastating, but does not change this result under Bruen which this court finds rests on the severity of § 922(g)(1) rather than its categorical prohibition,” he wrote.

I suspect that this is a disingenuous ruling.  That same judge would likely find ownership of semiautomatic rifles unconstitutional.

You see what’s happening, don’t you?  They’re trying to force the SCOTUS to review their Bruen test of historical analogues.  I suspect it won’t work.  I suspect that the supreme court will do is allow confiscation of firearms in cases of violent crimes and disallow confiscation of firearms for non-violent felons, and say that it all comports with Heller and Bruen.

Anyway, if you apply Biblical law, I see no problem whatsoever.  As I’ve said so many times before, I don’t believe in the rehabilitative power or authority of the state.  The Scriptures give no such authority to the state, only to the family and church.  Further, since the Scriptures give no such authority to the state, that implies that the state has no power or tools to effect rehabilitation.

With the Holy Writ, I believe in retribution and restitution.  Retribution for violent crimes against others (the death penalty for murder, rape and kidnapping), and imprisonment to the offended party to repay debts two or three-fold.  If you advocate incarceration of criminals who owe debts to offended parties while they work off their debts for repayment to the offended parties, I’m okay with that.

But no one owes a debt to society or the government writ large.  Debts are always to individuals.

Alas, we don’t follow the Scriptures in America.

In the oral argument he presented from the trial, I’m surprised that, when questioned by the judges, the lawyer didn’t bring up the analogy that if a city, county or state chose to tax firearms or ammunition to the point that poor people couldn’t afford them, that would be a violation of the second amendment.  Likewise, preventing anyone from being able to practice with firearms also violates the second amendment.

It’s our choice how and when to train, and what to train with, as well as what firears to own.