Dean Weingarten has a good find at Ammoland.
Judge Eduardo Ramos, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, has issued an Opinion & Order that a ban on stun guns is constitutional. A New York State law prohibits the private possession of stun guns and tasers; a New York City law prohibits the possession and selling of stun guns. Judge Ramos has ruled these laws do not infringe on rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Let's briefly…… [read more]
As you likely know, Justice Alito has given the federal government until Tuesday, or in other words, extended the stay on Judge’s Reed O’Conner’s vacatur of the new ATF rule to serialize incomplete lower receivers. Of course, we don’t know where this is all headed. The SCOTUS could remand this for decision consistent with Bruen, or sustain the vacatur for parties involved, or they have other options. Since this emergency appeal by the DOJ has been accepted by the SCOTUS, doing nothing is now not possible. They will do something, but we’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out (or perhaps Wednesday).
Below, professor Mark Smith does a service by reviewing the history of firearms serialization in both the U.K and America. There is basically no history of serialization in America, and certainly no history of requiring firearms to be serialized at the time of our founding. In other words, there is no analogue law to which the DOJ and ATF can turn. It isn’t enough to say that firearms loaned to the militia by the government were serialized. That was for a different purpose, i.e., tracking government property. The ATF rule pertains to privately owned firearms.
Watch all of Mark Smith’s presentation. But before you get to that, remember that the founders toted long guns to school with them in order to hunt on the way to and from classes. Those were either purchased from a smith (with no serialization) or self-made (of course, with no serialization). The founders would have opposed such schema.
In 1 Samuel 13:19f, we read this.
Now no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, because the Philistines said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears.”So all Israel went down to the Philistines, each to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, and his hoe.The charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to fix the cattle goads.
This is considered by commentators to be a great evil. Matthew Henry comments, “See how politic the Philistines were when they had power; they not only prevented the people of Israel from making weapons of war, but obliged them to depend upon their enemies, even for instruments of husbandry. How impolitic Saul was, who did not, in the beginning of his reign, set himself to redress this. Want of true sense always accompanies want of grace. Sins which appear to us very little, have dangerous consequences. Miserable is a guilty, defenceless nation; much more those who are destitute of the whole armour of God.” In Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, we read this. “Now there was no smith found throughout … Israel—The country was in the lowest state of depression and degradation. The Philistines, after the great victory over the sons of Eli, had become the virtual masters of the land. Their policy in disarming the natives has been often followed in the East. For repairing any serious damage to their agricultural implements, they had to apply to the neighboring forts.” John Gill remarks “this they did to prevent their having arms, and the use of them, that they might not rebel against them, and fight with them, and overcome them; it was a piece of policy to keep them subject to them.”
The firearms serialization schema is sinful, and points to deeper problems of the soul among those who call for such control over other men. Control over other men never leads to righteous results.
Never compromise with this wickedness. Oppose it at every turn. Take names and hold grudges.
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – Fargo is suing the state of North Dakota over a new law that bans zoning ordinances related to guns and ammunition, continuing a clash over local gun control.
The state’s biggest city has an ordinance that bans people from selling guns and ammunition out of their homes. The Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law this year that limits cities and counties from regulating guns and ammunition. The law, which took effect Tuesday, also voids existing, related ordinances.
The city’s lawsuit says the “stakes are much higher” and gets at whether the Legislature can “strip away” Fargo’s home rule powers. Fargo voters approved a home rule charter in 1970 that gave the city commission certain powers, including the power to zone public and private property.
“As it relates to this present action, the North Dakota legislative assembly is upset that the City of Fargo has exercised its home rule powers to prohibit the residents of the City of Fargo – and no one else – from the home occupation of selling firearms and ammunition and the production of ammunition for sale,” the lawsuit states. “Effectively, the City of Fargo does not want its residents to utilize their homes in residential areas as gun stores.”
The city successfully challenged a similar law two years ago.
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley told The Associated Press his office will evaluate the complaint. Fargo city spokesperson Gregg Schildberger said the City Commission will discuss the lawsuit on Monday during a regular meeting.
Bill sponsor and Republican state Rep. Ben Koppelman told a state Senate panel in April that the issue came to greater attention in 2016 when, because of the ordinance, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives refused to renew the federal firearms licenses of Fargo dtealers who sold out of their homes.
“What is at issue is whether we want local governments creating gun control or whether we want gun regulations to remain a state-controlled issue,” Koppelman said in April. “Without this bill and in light of the (2021) court opinion, I think local political subdivisions could propose all sorts of local gun control, and based on the anti-gun track record of the City of Fargo Commission, I think we could expect it.”
It’s difficult for me to ascertain where this is for ND and the city of Fargo. I’m not sure if the article is implying a likelihood of success because of prior protocol (lack of a preemption law), or screwed up judges.
In any case, it’s difficult for me to see any option other than ND law overriding Fargo ordinances. Cities seem to always be a hotbed of controllers, Karens and HOA committees who like to tell other people what to do.
I support this preemption law as long as the state of ND honors the rights under the 2A. I oppose any preemption law from a state that strips away rights under the 2A.
I see nothing inconsistent with my position. Always press towards maximum liberty as long as property rights and noise ordinances aren’t infringed.
Virtually every copper bullet we’ve seen tested performed magnificently. They seem to hold together well (they don’t explode in tissue), and they have good expansion. Thus, they appear to be very good hunting bullets.
A federal judge on Thursday rejected a gun rights group’s challenge to an assault weapons ban the state of Connecticut adopted after a gunman in 2012 killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) filed a lawsuit in September, arguing the 2013 ban violated the right to bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, citing a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that expanded gun rights.
That decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, was issued by the court’s 6-3 conservative majority and held the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
The decision also announced a new test to assess the legality of gun restrictions, saying they must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” NAGR said Connecticut’s law failed to meet that standard.
But U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven in a 74-page ruling rejected those claims, saying the group failed to establish that assault weapons and large capacity magazines are commonly bought and used for self-defense.
She got the test wrong. The test is “for lawful purposes.”
Defendants have submitted persuasive evidence that assault weapons and LCMs are more often sought out for their militaristic characteristics than for self-defense, that these characteristics make the weapons disproportionately dangerous to the public based on their increased capacity for lethality, and that assault weapons and LCMs are more often used in crimes and mass shootings than in self-defense. Defendants also show through the submission of historically analogous statutes and expert declarations that when a modern innovation in firearm technology results in a particular type of weapon or method of carrying being utilized for unlawful purposes to terrorize and endanger the public, the Nation has a longstanding history and tradition of regulating those aspects of the weapons or manners of carry that correlate with rising firearm violence.
[ … ]
Heller explained that it was not “permissible to ban the possession of handguns so long as the possession of other firearms (i.e., long guns) is allowed” because the handgun was the “quintessential self-defense weapon,” “possessing characteristics making it well-suited for self-defense.” Id. at 629. “Whatever the reason,” Heller found, “handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.” Id. at 629.
Bruen, perhaps recognizing the shortcomings of a purely statistical inquiry into possession, avoided that pitfall by framing the relevant inquiry as being whether the weapons are “‘in common use’ today for self-defense.” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2134 (emphasis added); see also Heller, 554 U.S. at 594 (discussing the origins of the pre-existing right codified by the Second Amendment as the “right of self-preservation” permitting a citizen to “repel force by force” when “the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury.”)
Now, go see Bruen pages 39 and 43. Her legal clerk got the test wrong. It’s for lawful purposes. She also spends significant time exploring whether, in her opinion, the “unprecedented societal concern” associated with ARs. So she does the balancing test associated with tiers of scrutiny that Bruen specifically disallowed.
And while we’re at it, the very section of Heller she quoted above dealt with handguns because ownership of long guns was already accepted, while handguns were disallowed. The supreme court wasn’t stipulating what firearms may be owned.
Finally, this literally ignorant prose.
Unlike the broader category of handguns at issue in Heller and Bruen, the record developed here demonstrates that assault weapons and LCMs are suboptimal for self-defense.
So the old battle ax is now an expert in self defense!
Well that’s a big flock of chickens. I’m guessing that daddy coming home means feed time. Since these are free range chickens, I’m wondering how he keeps the hawks away unless there’s a few roosters in that flock (but more than one rooster will cause problems).
On Saturday, trying to do the right thing led to Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas being put in handcuffs and briefly detained.
The incident happened at the White Deer Rodeo in the town of White Deer about 40 miles from Amarillo, according to the Texas Tribune.
A statement from Jackson’s office said he was attending the rodeo when he was “summoned by someone in the crowd to assist a 15-year-old girl who was having a medical emergency nearby.”
The statement that Jackson, who was a White House doctor for former President Barack Obama, was informed by a relative that the girl needed help in addition to the assistance being provided because “no uniformed EMS providers on the scene at the time.”
“While assessing the patient in a very loud and chaotic environment, confusion developed with law enforcement on the scene and Dr. Jackson was briefly detained and was actually prevented from further assisting the patient,” the statement continued.
“He was immediately released as soon as law enforcement realized that he, as a medical professional, was tending to the young girl’s medical emergency.”
The statement noted said Jackson was “in the stands during the entire rodeo, in full view of the assembled crowd, and was not drinking.”
It sounds like a boilerplate statement from a chief cop concerning a screwup, yes? Wait. It gets much worse.
In a Facebook post in which she referred to Jackson as “ER DR” (which he is professionally), Linda Dianne Shouse gave her summation of the incident.
“I have never been more disappointed in our Rescue Team!!! I got called to render aide to my 15 year old cousin that was unresponsive at the White Deer Rodeo tonight!! She is not from here and was seen at the ER last night as she was told for dehydration and anemia!! I assessed her and she was NOT dehydrated! She was responsive to my voice but not aware of her surroundings. Respirations in the 40s. As I assessed her I noticed she looked as tho it was hypoglycemic episode,” she wrote.
“My cousin who is a BSN in a trauma hospital, myself and an ER DR were working on her. Had her responsive to her whereabouts! ER Dr agreed with me that she was seizing due to possible hypoglycemia. Sheriff’s department put a blood pressure monitor on her below her waist. I rose it to heart level and as she is awake and respirations are slowing down I placed a small piece of gum in a ball UNDER her tongue to give her some sugar. (Better than nothing).”
“Deputys screamed at me and not listening to any thing US medical Professionals had to say, they punched me in my chest and forced me back with a palm to my face as well causing me to fall backwards!! ER Dr was thrown to the grown and ARRESTED!!! I am beside myself!! Prayers for Bailey!!!!!” she concluded.
They’re all blessed to be alive. It’s a wonder the cops didn’t discharge firearms at everyone around them.
You’re never in more danger than when the cops are around, and no situation is so bad that it cannot be made worse by the presence of the police.
Four cases, affecting three potential controls were sent back to the lower courts; AR bans, Standard Capacity Mag bans, and Conceal Carry considerations. All of these cases have countrywide implications.
An eight-year-old girl was camping with her family at Olympic National Park in Port Angeles, Washington, over the weekend when she was attacked by a cougar, officials said.
The National Park Service said the attack happened at Lake Angeles about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. The cougar fled the area after the girl’s mother screamed at it, FOX Seattle reported.
Park staff quickly responded to the area and treated the girl for minor injuries. She was transported to a local hospital for further evaluation, the service said. The area was also temporarily closed to the public.
“Due to the extreme nature of this incident, we are closing the Lake Angeles area and several trails in the vicinity,” Olympic National Park Wildlife Biologist Tom Kay said in the release. “Out of an abundance of caution, the Lake Angeles Trail, Heather Park Trail, Switchback Trail, and the entire Klahhane Ridge Trail are closed until further notice.”
Wait for it…
If found, the cougar will be euthanized and removed from the park for a necropsy. Officials said this may provide clues for why the attack occurred since cougars are rarely seen and attacks against humans are rare.
Oh, yes, another rare instance of a wild animal attack. These rare instances sure do happen often.
It has been legal to carry firearms in national parks since 2010, though an advisory from the National Park Service notes, “In areas administered by the National Park Service, an individual can possess a firearm if that individual is not otherwise prohibited by law from possessing the firearm and if the possession of the firearm complies with the laws of the state where the park area is located. 54 U.S.C. 104906.”
A supplemental note at the end of the advisory adds, “Visitors should not consider firearms as protection from wildlife.”
That’s the good part. The unfortunate part is that they remanded the case back to district court to determine the scope of relief (to whom this decision applies).
I do like Don Willett’s concurrence. I’ve followed him for quite a while. I wish he had been chosen for supreme court rather than Barrett. Or Kavanaugh.
