GUN CONTROL 4
8 23
hawaii state scotus ~ clarence alito
Pretti murder 1 26 minne problematic
#1 cause kid death in US? justin 2 24 bump stock
see pjt 21
https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-gun-laws/
note 180 on 2a alex Pretti
01/29/26
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MMA
03/18/26
March 17, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Carl Higbie: Frontline
CARL HIGBIE (HOST): Alright, for more on the SAVE Act, I want to bring in my friend, CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp. Alright, this is huge that it passed this hurdle. But some people are saying that it's just not going to get anywhere because of the filibuster.
MATT SCHLAPP (GUEST): Yeah. So in the old days they used to have real filibusters. Filibuster means talk a bill to death. And you got to love the Senate, they decided that that would be too much work. So you just have to threaten to talk of bill to death. And that kills the bill. And Mike Lee's saying, hey, that shouldn't work anymore.
HIGBIE: Yeah, no, it's just unbelievable to me. And I — look, I think that they should just blow the filibuster and do this whole thing anyway because it's — like, I say all the time, this is why people need guns in this country, because a government is willing to go 80% against the country. It's unbelievable.
//
03/18/26 8:49 AM EDT
03/17/26 11:47 AM EDT
03/17/26
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AN 7 26
A conservative judge on the Ninth Circuit drew rebuke from a colleague after urging the Supreme Court to summarily reverse some of the court’s Second Amendment decisions.
Judge Lawrence VanDyke was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020. He has become known for his combative opinions and remarks. His confrontational language has more than once made him a target for rebukes from other colleagues on the bench.
Such was the case in an appeal of a concealed switchblade law in California, which is a strict ban stopping citizens from "carrying, possessing, or offering to sell or loan a switchblade to another person is a serious crime," explained one criminal law firm.
The law was challenged by knife rights advocates, who argued that it violates the Second Amendment. In the appeal of a lower court's denial, the 9th Circuit panel held the challenge failed because California’s switchblade law had at least one constitutional application: concealed carry.
In VanDyke's view, the decision was wrong. He argued that a concealed-carry prohibition cannot justify a total ban on public carry, and he called for Supreme Court “benchslaps” through summary reversals.
The plaintiffs called for an "en banc" review, and on Thursday, the panel of judges refused. VanDyke penned his own dissent, blasting his colleagues and demanding that the Supreme Court get involved because, for too long, it has allowed Second Amendment laws to remain ambiguous.
"I also write with a modest proposal," said VanDyke. "This case is just the latest chapter in our court’s long and concerning history of refusing to vindicate the Second Amendment. Come hell or high water, Heller or Bruen, our court will find a way to uphold any weapons restriction that a liberal State can dream up. And the Supreme Court’s occasional grant of certiorari [court review request] and reversal has done nothing—and I mean that literally— to change our court’s behavior."
He continued, "In the real world, no boss would tolerate nearly two decades of repeated defiance from a subordinate.
VanDyke's suggestion is that the Supreme Court "should consider summarily reversing some of our wayward Second Amendment decisions" across the 9th Circuit. "To put it more colloquially, it’s time for some benchslaps. Nothing less will give this court any pause before ultimately blessing every arms restriction it reviews."
The demand wasn't ignored. His colleague, Kim McLane Wardlaw, a Bill Clinton appointee, first blasted his dissent, accusing him of going beyond the case and attacking fellow judges, including the late Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
"Neither 'dissental' seriously disputes that California’s prohibition on the concealed carry of switchblade knives is consistent with our Nation’s history and tradition of arms regulation," Wardlaw wrote.
She goes on to explain that even if California can legally ban carrying switchblades hidden on your body, it still can’t use the same law to turn around and ban carrying them openly. It can't be okay in one situation but unconstitutional in the other.
She then turns to VanDyke individually, "Judge VanDyke’s dissent deserves but a brief response. While all agree that the Second Amendment is not 'a second-class right,' ...'constitutional rights . . . come with exceptions,' and, like the First Amendment, 'the Second Amendment is not absolute,'" she wrote, citing both Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
She alleges that VanDyke's dissent issues "attacks on colleagues’ credibility, including those who are deceased, simply because of differing views, is not."
an 2 26
anec but still
A 23 year-old British woman was shot dead by her own father after the two had a heated argument about then-President-elect Donald Trump, according to a new report.
The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Lucy Harrison was fatally shot by her father, Kris, in early 2025 while she was visiting him at his home in Texas. According to the Beast, Kris Harrison moved to Prosper, Texas (a suburb of Dallas) when his daughter was a child. The argument reportedly took place on January 10, 2025, before Trump officially began his second term.
While Prosper police investigated Lucy Harrison's death as a manslaughter case, a grand jury in Collin County, Texas ultimately declined to indict Kris Harrison. Now, Lucy Harrison's death is being investigated by Cheshire Coroner's Court in her home country.
According to reports, Lucy Harrison's boyfriend, Sam Littler, recalled in a recent court hearing that his girlfriend had a "big argument" with her father in the aftermath of Trump's reelection. Lucy Harrison had brought up the multiple allegations of Trump assaulting women, and asked her father of Trump: "How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?"
According to Littler, Kris Harrison responded that because he had two other daughters living in his home, he wouldn't be too distraught if Lucy Harrison was assaulted by Trump. The 23 year-old reportedly became "quite upset" and left the room. Later that day, Kris Harrison took Lucy Harrison by the hand and led her to his bedroom. Just seconds later, Littler said he heard a loud "bang" and then heard Kris Harrison call for his wife.
"I remember running into the room and Lucy was lying on the floor near the entrance to the bathroom and Kris was just screaming, just sort of nonsense," Littler recalled.
Kris Harrison argued that he and Lucy were watching a news segment on gun violence, when he asked her if she would like to see his gun. He then said he led her into his bedroom to show off his Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun. Kris – who is a recovering alcoholic – said he relapsed on the day of his argument with Lucy and drank an entire bottle of white wine.
"As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang," he said. "I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell."
Absolutists At WallBuilders Suddenly Find An Exception After The Latest ICE Shooting
01/26/2026
by
For years, the trio of Christian nationalist pseudo-historians at WallBuilders have been radical Second Amendment absolutists, with founder David Barton asserting over and over again that the Constitution protects not just an individual right to own guns, but that is places absolutely "no limitation" on an individual's right to own "whatever you can get your hands," including tanks, fighter jets, and even nuclear weapons.
"We need the ability to protect and defend ourselves against [the] government," said Barton's son, Tim, in 2018. "We wanted to make sure the people had the same means of defense as a government might have offensive weapons, so we need the same level of weapons to defend ourselves as we're going to be attacked with because we didn't want to disadvantage the people from being able to defend themselves against a tyrannical government."
WallBuilders has dedicated multiple episodes of its radio program to highlighting "the critical role that informed, active citizenship, and the Second Amendment play in protecting our cherished liberties." Those programs featured presentations delivered by WallBuilders co-host Rick Green, who teaches "constitutional defense" courses at his Patriot Academy that provide "physical and intellectual training on the 2nd Amendment ... so that you can better understand the history and importance of the great Right to Self-Defense."
The entire premise of Green's course is that "all Americans" should be carrying weapons everywhere at all times and be trained and prepared to protect themselves and other, especially "from the tyranny of the government."
Given such views, one would expect that Green and the Bartons would be outraged by the killing of Alex Prettiby ICE agents in Minneapolis over the weekend. Pretti, who was filming ICE agents during an operation, was legally carrying a weapon in a holster when he was confronted by multiple ICE agents who shoved him to the ground and attempted to subdue him. During the scrum, one agent removed Pretti's weapon just seconds before another agent fired multiple shots into Pretti's back, killing him.
On their radio program today, Green and the Bartons blamed Pretti for his own death.
"I think we do a pretty good job of being intellectually honest and being consistent," Green said. "You mentioned this thing in Minneapolis. We have always said—whether it was the BLM riots of 2020, whether it was Jan. 6th at the Capitol, whether it was these things in Minneapolis, wherever it is—we have always consistently said, 'You don't fight law enforcement.' You don't go in and physically be violent with law enforcement. You are asking for trouble. You don't resist arrest. You don't climb through a broken window; that's the last line of defense for police officers defending members of Congress from what was literally on that side of the Capitol, a mob. You don't take a gun into a protest situation like this where you could end up in a scuffle with police officers."
"So," Green continued, "we can be intellectually honest and consistent in this. It's not based on our emotions or who the player is in that situation, who's president, who's protesting or not protesting, it's based on the principles. And I just want to point that out because I can't say that about even some of our conservative friends. Sometimes they the position based on who the players are, whereas we take the position—we try to, and I think, again, we're pretty consistent to this—we take the position based on what the principles are."
"You know, this guy that got shot and all about him being the victim; look, when it turns out you don't have any ID on you and you came in with multiple magazines, don't tell me you're a peaceful protester," David Barton replied. "In a court of law, that establishes intent right there. You have no ID; you leave that away so you can't be ID'd, and you carry multiple magazines? Not good."
"All three of us talk openly about the fact we conceal carry all the time," Tim Barton added. "It's going to be very unusual if you find us without having a handgun on us. And Rick, I know for you and me often, we'll carry multiple magazines and pocket knives, sometimes a tourniquet. We carry different things, so it's not crazy that somebody might have a firearm and have multiple magazines. However, when law enforcement is doing an operation and then you go to intervene, as you would call it, or interfere, as they would acknowledge, and then you put hands on an officer?"
"We don't yet have all the information," Tim Barton continued. "We haven't seen it all. So we don't know if in the wrestling, they saw his shirt lifted, they see the gun, or if he actually reached for the gun. We don't know. We know somebody yells 'gun.' We know they discharge their firearms, and we know he goes to stand before Jesus. That's what we know. But the bottom line is even if you are legally carrying, when you put your hands on an officer and it goes to the ground, at that point, you've already messed up so many ways. If you're showing up without ID, it could be because you have intention and motive beyond what maybe the liberal media is pretending like he did. But even if you were an innocent bystander, you don't intervene and put hands on an officer and you go to the ground where there's a firearm and there's multiple officers telling you to stop resisting and you continue to resist."
There are multiple videos documenting the deadly confrontation and none of them show any evidence of Pretti ever "putting hands" on any of the ICE officers or brandishing his weapon. Every video shows Pretti directing traffic while filming ICE officers and then attempting to help another protester who had been shoved by an agent, at which point Pretti was doused with pepper spray and attacked by multiple agents, one of whom fatally shot him moments later.
WallBuilders has spent decades promoting a truly radical interpretation of the Second Amendment while openly encouraging everyone to exercise their Second Amendment rights at all times and in all places in order to fend off "a tyrannical government." But when a protestor documenting government brutality is killed by authorities, WallBuilders rushes to defend the government and blame that protester for legally carrying a firearm while absurdly praising itself for its supposed commitment to principles and intellectual consistency.
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prompted by no kings fail? mamdami?
mma
10/23/2025
by
President Donald Trump has launched a new “Anti Communist Club,” a fundraising gimmick that doubles as a smear campaign against his political opponents, who he calls communists and the “radical left.”
The message sent to Trump supporters makes a mockery of MAGA leaders’ recent disingenuous warnings about the dangers of divisive rhetoric:
After careful consideration, I want to present you with the ANTI-COMMUNIST CLUB Membership! It’s the highest honor I can bestow upon such an important supporter who DESPISES the radical left!
This membership is not just for anyone; YOU qualified because your profile showed you HEAVILY DESPISE known Communists like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and AOC!
Trump’s message says that would-be members must “PROVE you’re a TOP MAGA PATRIOT, and not a slimeball communist” by answering a few questions. The questions in Trump’s quiz lay the groundwork for justifying attacks on freedom of speech and academic freedom in pursuit of his “anti communist” mission. In addition to a couple questions about China, the quiz includes these:
Do you AGREE that Communism has NO PLACE in the United States of America?
YES – It’s evil and un-American
NO – I side with the Radical Left (disqualifies membership)
Do you SUPPORT President Trump’s plan to BAN Marxist indoctrination in schools and universities?
YES – Save our children
NO – Let the Left brainwash them
Should anyone caught BURNING the American flag be PUNISHED?
YES – 100%
NO – Free speech for Communists
Do you AGREE that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pushed a SOFT COMMUNIST AGENDA on our country?
Absolutely
Not sure
No – I trusted them (disqualifies membership)
Would you SUPPORT President Trump declaring a National Anti-Communist Day to honor those who fought tyranny?
YES
NO
Which slogan BEST represents YOU?
GOD, GUNS, FREEDOM
COMMUNISM, CHAOS, CONTROL
Donations sent by MAGA supporters who want to join Trump’s new “club” go to Never Surrender Inc., Trump’s leadership PAC, which reported nearly $40 million cash on hand at the end of June.
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MMA
September 3, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Chris Plante: The Right Squad
MERCEDES SCHLAPP (CO-HOST): Not missing the opportunity to turn tragedy into political leverage, Minnesota governor — who's a Democrat — Tim Walz is calling for an emergency legislation session on gun control. "It's time to take serious action at the State Capitol to address gun violence," this was posted on X. Walz doubling down, urging state legislatures at a special session to come together to do something on guns.
...
I don't know how anyone voted for that man. I swear he's such an idiot. But OK, no money for school security, but it's about the guns. I mean, this is the same playbook of the Democrats.
REAGAN REESE (WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY CALLER): I know. It's absolutely unreal. And I think it's going to be up to the Trump administration to really lead the country out of this tragedy. We know that they're investigating all facets of this shooting, including gender ideology. And we've heard President Trump talk about it a lot, or a little bit. He told me he thinks the shooter was very troubled, not sure if gender ideology was at play. But one thing's for sure, I believe the FBI and the DOJ are going to get to the bottom of it.
JAMES KIMMEY (REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST): Yeah, I would just say that the problem isn't too many guns. It's the fact that these criminals don't face consequences. So maybe we should, you know, incentivize, or we need prosecutors who are actually going to enforce the law and put these people behind bars.
CHRIS PLANTE (HOST): I've been arguing for some time now that if you're a registered Democrat, you should be barred from gun ownership.
KIMMEY: That could work, too.
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OMFG
UPI
DOJ permits sale of triggers that allow rifles to fire like machine guns
Allen Cone
:{Sun, May 18, 2025
The U.S. Justice Department said it will allow the sale of devices, including by Rare Breed Firarms that enable standard guns to operate like machine guns. Photo courtesy Rare Breed Firearms/Instagram
May 18 (UPI) -- The federal government will allow the sale of devices that enable standard rifles to operate like machine guns, a move that angered gun control groups.
The Justice Department said Friday it reached a settlement with Rare Breed Triggers. This is in accordance with President Donald Trump's Feb. 17 executive order Protecting Second Amendment Rights and the attorney general's Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force announced on April 8.
Steven King, owner of Metro Shooting Supplies in Bridgeton, Mo., shows off the popular Smith and Wesson AR-15, 556 caliber rifle. File photo by Bill Greenblatt
"This Department of Justice believes that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. "And we are glad to end a needless cycle of litigation with a settlement that will enhance public safety."
There are two ways to speed the firing of bullets. Bump stocks use the recoil of the weapon to repeatedly bump the trigger, while trigger devices are aftermarket items that directly engage the trigger.
During the first Trump administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives banned bump stocks, which mimic rapid trigger pulls to fire rapidly in a way similar to a machine gun. In 2017, the gunman in a mass shooting killed 58 people in Las Vegas while firing from his hotel room window using bump stocks.
In 2022, ATF included specific trigger devices under the National Firearms Act of 1934. The ATF determined that the devices allow a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle to fire as fast as a military M-16 in automatic mode.
In 2023, the Justice Department, as part of the Biden administration, brought a lawsuit in New York against Rare Breed Triggers.
The National Association of Gun Rights filed a separate lawsuit in Texas challenging the ban and a judge there ruled the ban was unlawful.
In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote in Cargill v. Garland, ruled ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule classifying a bump stock as a "machine gun."
The Court's majority found that bump stocks do not meet the definition of a machine gun because they didn't allow for automatic fire with the single pull of a trigger.
The next month, the Northern District of Texas applied the case to a device called a "forced-reset trigger" and concluded that they also cannot be classified as a "machine gun."
DOJ is avoiding additional legal action against Rare Breed Triggers in appeals and related cases concerning the similar issue, Bondi said.
Sneaky New Move By Shameless Republicans Puts Millions Of American Lives In Danger
HuffPost
The settlement with Rare Breed Triggers includes agreed-upon conditions that significantly advance public safety with respect to FRTs, including that Rare Breed will not develop or design them for use in any pistol and will enforce its patents to prevent infringement that could threaten public safety.
Rare Breed also agreed promote the safe and responsible use of its products.
"The cuffs are off. As of May 16, 2025, we're free! Expect the website to be updated on Monday, May 19," the company posted on its website.
The decision was condemned by Vanessa Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Giffords, the national gun violence prevention group led by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011 while meeting with constituents in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz.
"The Trump administration has just effectively legalized machine guns. Lives will be lost because of his actions," Gonzalez said. "This is an incredibly dangerous move that will enable shooters to inflict horrific damage. The only people who benefit from these being on the market are the people who will make money from selling them, everyone else will suffer the consequences."
The national gun control advocacy group Brady United said in a press release that "highly dangerous weapons of war can now be purchased anonymously" and without a background check.
"The Trump Administration's secret settlement with the gun lobby to permit the sale of Forced Reset Triggers will turn already deadly firearms into weapons of mass destruction," Kris Brown, president of Brady United, said in the release.
"Machine guns are weapons of war that have absolutely no place in our communities. This dangerous backroom deal is not only an astonishing abuse of power, but undermines decades of sensible government gun safety policy and puts whole communities at immediate serious risk," he said.
Brady previous was called the National Council to Control Handguns and founded in 1974 by Dr. Mark Borinsky, whose son was shot and killed in 1974.
In 1981, White House Press Secretary Jim "the Bear" Brady suffered a bullet to the head, and the organization now bears his name.
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NOTE KANSAS HAD MASS SHOOTER
AN 2 25
TOPEKA — A pair of House Republicans entertained a hypothetical act of violence toward a former representative Thursday as they acted out a traditional hazing ritual for new legislators.
Wichita Republican Rep. Patrick Penn performed the custom of grilling freshman lawmakers as they present legislation on the House floor for the first time. Rep. Kyler Sweely, a Republican representing Hutchinson who defeated Democratic incumbent Jason Probst in November, was the subject of Penn’s interrogation. Penn and Sweely have a shared history of serving in the U.S. Army in the Middle East and knowledge of the intricacies of combat. During the hazing ritual, with the attention of the full chamber, Penn posed a hypothetical to Sweely. They referred to “that guy from Hutch,” a moniker Probst adopted for his online newsletter.
Penn: “Now when we talk about the commands for firing, what are the components of a firing command?”
Sweeley: “Identifying the target, the direction the target is, the range that the target is, and then the type of ammo that you’re going to use to address the target.”
Penn: “So if I were to come to you and say, I have a firing command, and that command is, ‘Gunner, sabot, that guy from Hutch in the open, fire for effect,’ what would you say?”
Sweeley: “Gunner, sabot, that guy from Hutch.”
Penn: “Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you on his maiden voyage here before you as colleagues, that new guy from Hutch.”
Probst, when reached by phone Thursday, chuckled at the exchange.
“Usually I find when people hate you that much and they talk about you that much, they want to be you,” he said.
He could take two interpretations, he said. One, the legislators were alluding to a violent threat, or two, “they’re very pleased with having won the election very narrowly,” Probst said.
“It’s really rewarding to know that I live rent-free in their heads,” Probst said.
Sweely defeated Probst by 294 votes in the November election.
Neither Penn nor Sweely immediately responded to an inquiry from Kansas Reflector. The House Speaker’s office also did not immediately respond to repeated requests for comment.
House Democrats expressed indignance and disbelief in response, with some calling on Penn to apologize and for the House Speaker’s office to discipline the legislators.
Rep. Alexis Simmons, a Topeka Democrat, said she told House leadership she expects formal action.
“We routinely hear members of the Republican caucus call points of order on Democratic members for benign, perceived slights because their feelings are hurt,” she said in a text message.
Simmons said the comments were “clearly violent in nature,” and said it would be “not only irresponsible but negligent” to allow them to stand.
“Bottom line, it’s just a ridiculous thing to even suggest shooting a political adversary,” she said.
Immediately following the exchange, some House Democrats exchanged looks of disbelief and caused disruption as they scrambled to confirm the question, “Did he say that?” according to Rep. Ford Carr, a Wichita Democrat.
“Had I known the individual that uttered those words,” Carr said, “there would be talk of disciplinary action and nothing less.”
House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard in a statement denounced “the use of inflammatory rhetoric that incites violence in any form, particularly during a time when attacks on public officials are increasing.”
Woodard, a Lenexa Democrat, said political disagreements ought to be addressed at the ballot box. He called the exchange a promotion of political violence.
“This behavior cannot be overlooked,” Woodard said. “Representative Penn must take responsibility for his comments, recognize their inappropriate nature, and offer a sincere apology.”
Penn has served in the House since 2021 and this year is co-sponsoring legislation with more than 60 Republicans to cement the right to own guns, ammunition and firearm accessories in the state constitution.
Penn and Sweely, at different times, were deployed to the Middle East to support Operations Spartan Shield and Inherent Resolve, which included campaigns in Iraq and Syria.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.
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AN 2 25
An executive order issued Friday by President Donald Trump that aims to rollback gun control measures instituted by his predecessor received swift rebuke from critics who said the order should be seen as a giveaway to the profit-hungry gun industry at the expense of a society ruthlessly harmed by gun violence year after year after year.
Trump's order tasks U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi with conducting a sweeping review of the policies and positions of the previous administration and Justice Department as it relates to gun policies, including any executive orders issued by President Joe Biden during his term and the DOJ's positions taken on "all ongoing and potential litigation" related to firearms.
"On the chopping block," reportsThe Trace, "are several high-profile attempts by [Biden] to reduce gun violence, including regulations on ghost guns, expanded background checks on gun sales, and tougher regulatory oversight of lawbreaking gun dealers."
"Trump's priorities couldn't be more clear. Spoiler: it's not protecting kids."
According to the outlet, which focuses on the nation's gun violence crisis:
While most of Biden’s policies have taken effect, lawsuits against them are ongoing. In his executive order, Trump directed the attorney general to also review the Justice Department’s decision to defend those regulations, as well as all other gun-related litigation in which the government is involved. From age limits on firearm sales to the ban on gun possession by people convicted of felonies, federal gun laws have been under constant threat in the courts since a 2022 Supreme Court decision dramatically expanded gun rights. If the Justice Department declines to defend the current federal laws in court, it would significantly raise the chances of them being ruled unconstitutional.
Gun control advocates widely rebuked the executive order, warning that Trump's reversal of the minimal amount of progress Biden was able to make was an endorsement of more death, pain, and suffering for the American people, including children, who too often find themselves at the deadly end of a gun's barrel.
"Trump's priorities couldn't be more clear. Spoiler: it's not protecting kids," said Natalie Fall, executive director of March For Our Lives. "Gun deaths finally went down last year, and Trump just moved to undo the rules and laws that helped make that happen."
Trump's right-wing MAGA movement, she continued, "loves to rage about 'keeping kids safe' but it’s all a smokescreen. They don’t care about what is actually killing and maiming thousands of American kids every year: gun violence. He is going to get Americans killed in his thirst for vengeance and eagerness to please the gun lobby and rally armed extremists. Remember the next time that a mass shooting happens, Trump did everything in his power to enable it, not prevent it."
Hudson Munoz, executive director of the advocacy group Guns Down America, shared similar sentiments and said the president's latest order "is as reckless as it is predictable."
Not for the first time, he argued, Trump is "proving that he cares more about appeasing the gun industry than protecting the American people. This order is downright dangerous. His incompetence and Attorney General Pam Bondi's blind loyalty to the Trump agenda will lead to more violence while a few shareholders and gun industry executives line their pockets."
Referencing public polls, Munoz said more than 70% of people in the U.S. approve common-sense gun safety laws that Trump and the gun lobby are attempting to destroy.
"Make no mistake, this executive order is about business," he said. "Trump is working to unleash more guns into American public life to boost the profits of gun manufacturers. This order leaves Americans to foot the bill with more gun deaths, more taxpayer dollars spent on emergency responses, and more families shattered by violence—while a handful of businesses cash in."
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huh? rww 12 24
Finally, after the most recent school shooting, Lance Wallnau reacted by insisting that gun control is not the answer, arguing that if someone carried out a terrorist attack via a suicide vest, "you don't ban suicide vests, what you do is you ban the ideology that produces radicals." We're pretty sure that if suicide vests were readily available for sale and being regularly being used to kill masses of people, the government would ban them.
yet another mass shoot xian school 12 24
12/17/24 mma
December 16, 2024, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports
GREG KELLY (HOST): All right, you probably heard about this. Another mass shooting at a school. Three dead, including the shooter. Six injured, I'm told some of those are really, really critical. Bad news, right? And what's going to happen now? What is happening right now? A sick, lame and lazy conversation about gun control.
...
KELLY: Well, whatever it may look like, it's a violation of the Constitution. You want to have that conversation again? Everybody's sick of it. All right? Even the gun control advocates, I think they know deep down inside they don't know what they're talking about. Why can't we talk about psychotropic drugs? Notice it never really comes up. We have millions and millions and millions of kids on lithium, all kinds of — whatever it is.
I mean, there are all kinds of drugs, and those drugs have side effects, right? They tell us in the commercials, you know, watch out for this ideation. Watch out for that. Some of the side effects are pretty intense, really intense.
But we don't — does anybody know that this is actually when it all started? The first school mass shooting — a lot of people consider this the first school mass shooting, when Brenda Ann Spencer shot at a middle school right across the street where she lived. She was 16 years old at the time, and that might have been the first modern day school shooting. What was going on in the 80s? The pills, the pills, and more pills. This country has always been awash in guns. We're a gun culture. We are pioneers. It's not the guns. It's a lot of other things.
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an 12 24
In February 2024, the Hawaii Supreme Court was highly critical of views on the Second Amendment expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court's far-right justices. And two of those justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, expressed their indignation in an opinion released on Monday, December 9.
According to Slate legal expert Mark Joseph Stern, "It now appears the critique has gotten under some justices' skin. In an opinion on Monday, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, railed against the Hawaii Supreme Court's top-to-bottom evisceration of his own gun-rights opinions. But Thomas and Alito protest too much: Their grousing is pure projection, accusing the Hawaii Supreme Court of committing the same sins at the heart of their own Second Amendment rulings."
Stern continues, "Given an opening to defend their Second Amendment views, the conservative justices whiffed — and, in their anger, fabricated a new rule that would make it even easier for law-breaking citizens to challenge gun regulations. It has never been more apparent that, as the Hawaii Supreme Court charged, SCOTUS' gun enthusiasts are making it up as they go along."
In February, the Hawaii Supreme Court described the High Court's right wing as extreme ideologues where the Second Amendment is concerned.
The case that "set off the clash," according to Stern, was Hawaii v. Wilson — which, Stern argues, "should not be a difficult one."
"Christopher Wilson, the defendant, allegedly trespassed on someone else's property while carrying a loaded gun in his waistband," Stern explains. "Hawaii requires residents to obtain a permit to own a handgun; Wilson didn't have one. The state also requires a license for concealed carry; Wilson didn't have that either. Prosecutors charged him with criminal trespass and gun charges stemming from his possession of an illegal firearm and ammunition. Wilson contested the charges, arguing that they violated his rights under the Second Amendment."
Stern adds, "He also claimed that the charges ran afoul of a provision of the Hawaii Constitution that uses the exact same words as the Second Amendment. The Hawaii Supreme Court rejected Wilson’s arguments. It began by refusing to interpret the Hawaii Constitution in line with SCOTUS’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, which prohibits any gun restriction that isn’t rooted in the nation's 'history and tradition.'"
READ MORE:['No guardrails': How Trump could weaponize the DOJ to intimidate Congress and media]
*Mark Joseph Stern's full article for Slate is available at this link.
an 10 24
Police in Tempe, Arizona have arrested a man they believe is responsible for a spate of shootings at a Democratic field office in the pivotal battleground state. The alleged shooter's cache of weapons and ammunition suggests he may have been planning a politically motivated mass shooting.
Phoenix-based ABC affiliate KNXV reported Wednesday that 60 year-old Jeffrey Michael Kelly has been arrested in connection with three different shootings reported at the campaign office since September. Democrats have since closed that office and moved operations to an undisclosed location out of concern for the safety of workers and volunteers.
Kelly has since been charged with unlawful discharge, shooting at a non-residential structure, terrorism and criminal damage. He is also accused of "hanging suspicious bags of white powder from several political signs lined with razor blades," according to KVXN.
READ MORE:**Democrats close field office in swing state that's been shot at 3 times since September**
The Democratic field office was targeted in three separate shootings on September 16, September 23 and October 6. Witnesses reported a silver Toyota Highlander SUV near the scene. No one was in the office at the time of the shootings, and no deaths or injuries were reported in either incident.
According to Phoenix-based outlets KTVK and KPHO, Kelly allegedly used Google Maps to search the location of the field office, and he was also reportedly seen posting "anti-Democratic ideology signs" in several locations near his home.
KVXN further reported that when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms searched Kelly's home, they found a massive arsenal of weapons, including 120 firearms, approximately 250,000 rounds of ammunition and a grenade launcher, in addition to body armor. Maricopa County Deputy County Attorney Nena Bhatia said it's likely Kelly was planning a mass shooting.
"The state and law enforcement believe that this person was preparing to commit an act of mass casualty with the guns he had, and that his progression of violence was escalating," she said.
READ MORE:**Project 2025 partner org publishes hit list of 10 gov't employees referred to as targets**
While the types of guns investigators and caliber of ammunition seized has not yet been disclosed, it's worth noting that an AK-47 in its fully automatic setting is capable of firing 600 rounds a minute**. This means that without even counting for time to reload, it would take approximately seven hours to fire 250,000 rounds of ammunition continuously.
Kelly is currently being held on a $500,000 bond, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. His next court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday, October 29.
Click here to read KVXN's article in full.
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GOP-backed House nominee posted a false claim that Jewish people “gave up their firearms to Hitler,” spurring the Holocaust
Special ProgramsGuns & Public Safety
Written by Eric Hananoki
Published 09/17/24 12:00 PM EDT
Right-wing commentator and U.S. House nominee Lily Tang Williams repeatedly shared a false meme criticizing Jewish people for supposedly giving “up their firearms to Hitler” and suggesting that led to their deaths in the Holocaust. The New Hampshire Republican even doubled down on the meme when apparently shown a fact check.
Williams is a public speaker and commentator who has appeared in conservative media outlets, including Fox News, Newsmax TV, and Tim Pool’s podcast. She won the September 10 Republican primary in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican’s House campaign arm, has backed her campaign. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a top-ranked House Republican, has also endorsed Williams.
As Media Matters previously reported, conservatives have repeatedly promoted a meme on social media claiming that Jewish people “gave up their firearms to Hitler.” The meme reads: “To all the kids that walked out of school to protest guns. These are the shoes of Jews that gave up their firearms to Hitler. They were led into gas chambers, murdered and buried in mass graves. Pick up a history book and you’ll realize what happens when u give up freedoms and why we have them.”
Williams reposted that meme on social media in June 2022 and April 2023. She wrote: “Remember what happened to Jews after they gave up their guns to Hitler. Our #2A exists to prevent tyranny. If you want to reduce mass shootings in schools, repeal gun free zones where the criminals always target our most vulnerable people.”
She also directed the meme toward Parkland, Florida, mass shooting survivor David Hogg, writing: “To the ppl who were in the @AMarch4OurLives, who are demanding for more #guncontrol, research & study history on your own. Don’t rely on schools & media to tell you the truth: what happens when citizens are disarmed by their gov. #lily4congress @davidhogg111.”
The line of attack regarding the Holocaust and gun control has also been employed by right-wing media figures over the years.
The argument is a severe misreading of history. As PolitiFact wrote in 2019, “The message that gun control measures helped cause the deaths of Holocaust victims is wrong. Let's make something clear: The Nazis did deny guns specifically to Jews. But, given the size of their forces and their methods of confiscation and extermination, this is a trivial factor. The notion that it would have made any difference is unreasonable.”
Williams shared and disputed that PolitiFact article, writing: “They need to listen to the survivors of the Holocaust.”
Republican politicians have also drawn criticism for making the argument. In 2015, for instance, right-wing commentator and then-Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson made a similar analogy about the Holocaust and gun control.
In response, Holocaust scholar Alan E. Steinweis wrote: “I can think of no serious work of scholarship on the Nazi dictatorship or on the causes of the Holocaust in which Nazi gun control measures feature as a significant factor.” He added: “If the United States is going to arrive at a workable compromise solution to its gun problem, it will not be accomplished through the use of historical analogies that are false, silly and insulting.”
Media Matters has documented instances over the years of Republicans backing commentators with histories of vitriolic or extremist rhetoric when they run for office.
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'Thought it was a joke': Vending machines in 3 GOP-led states stun consumers
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AMMO ALABAMA TEXAS AND ---
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an 6 24 raw
Supreme Court on Friday ruled in an 8-1 vote that the government had the right to restrict access to firearms for alleged domestic abusers.
However, there was one notable dissent in the ruling: Justice Clarence Thomas.
As flagged by Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, Thomas argued that all regulations of firearms should be deemed in violation of the Second Amendment "unless it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."
Thomas then claimed that there is "not a single historical regulation" that "justifes the statute at issue."
Commenting on this, Stern said that Thomas seemed to be arguing that restricting abusers' access to firearms was off-limits because "wife-beating was not generally a crime" at the time of the country's founding in the 18th Century.
Stern was not the only observer to express shock at the logic behind Thomas' ruling.
"And Thomas’s dissent is utterly ridiculous and disingenuous," argued former tennis starMartina Navratilova. He is a disgrace to our highest court. Anita Hill should have been believed!!!"
"Clarence Thomas is the only Supreme Court justice who wants to arm domestic abusers," wrote former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob. "He’s a pox on our society."
Matt Fuller, the cofounder of the centrist think tank Third Way, also had a horrified reaction to the Thomas dissent.
"Three reactions: 1) I can't believe this was even a question 2) Thank God 3) Clarence Thomas is a corrupt lunatic," he wrote.
Fred Guttenberg, a gun safety advocate whose daughter was murdered in the Parkland school shooting, said that Thomas' dissent "is only further proof that he is simply a threat to America."
NOTUS Reports' Matt Fuller, meanwhile, simply posted a description of the brutal assault that respondent Zackey Rahimi allegedly gave to his girlfriend and commented, "Clarence Thomas thinks this person should be allowed to have a gun."
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soto dissent said simple, quack duck vs clarence nerdy trivia
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after a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas and hurt hundreds more using a bump stock to automate his rifle fire into the crowd, then-president Donald Trump banned the devices. The U.S. Supreme Court today lifted that ban, with Justice Clarence Thomas (R—Harlan Crow) saying that firearms with bump stocks do not meet the Federal definition of a machine gun irrespective of their rate of fire.
The 6-3 vote fell on ideological lines, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor voicing her dissent: "When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." In his concurrence with the majority, Justice Samuel Alito conceded that in "practical terms" a weapon equipped with a bump stock is a machine gun but that it was down to Congress to ban them.
The ruling does not lift state bans on bump stocks; eighteen states have done so. The NRA briefly supported the federal ban, sensing public fury at the massacre, but returned to opposing it when no serious political support for gun reform emerged.
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pres Joe Biden is taking action on Thursday that will close the “gun show loophole” by requiring tens of thousands of unlicensed gun dealers to perform background checks. It is an effort to reduce gun violence and mass shootings that lawmakers have attempted for a quarter-century, since the 1999 Columbine, Colorado High School massacre, the deadliest school mass shooting in U.S. history at the time. Next week marks the 25th anniversary of the Columbine massacre, where 12 students and one teacher were murdered.
Last August the Biden administration announced the new proposed rule to add an estimated 23,000 unlicensed gun sellers to the category that already includes approximately 80,000 dealers required to perform background checks, according to CBS News. Politico calls it “the most sweeping expansion of firearms background checks in decades.”
A bipartisan bill passed after the Uvalde, Texas elementary school mass shooting that left 21 people dead, including 19 children and two adults, made the rule change possible, Forbes reported last year.
The rule will become effective in 30 days.
In February, speaking at an NRA-sponsored event in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump vowed if elected in November he will immediately rescind all of President Biden’s efforts to curb gun violence.
“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day,” Trump said, Reuters reported at the time.
READ MORE: Arizona Republicans Block Democrats’ Bills to Repeal 1864 Near-Total Abortion Ban
The American public strongly supports closing the gun show loophole and expanding background checks to include private sellers.
According to PolitiFact, a 2021 Pew poll found more than eight in ten Americans (81%) support expanding background checks to include private gun sellers. Two other polls that year found even stronger majorities (84% and 89%) saying they support background checks for all gun sales.
“I first heard about ‘closing the gun show loophole’ after Columbine. It’s finally been closed a quarter-century later, thanks to the bipartisan gun legislation Biden signed in 2022,” The Bulwark’s Tim Miller noted Thursday.
“Weeks after the Columbine shooting,” the LA Times reported in 2008, Democratic U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg “introduced a proposal to close the gun-show loophole in federal law. It passed the Senate on Vice President Al Gore’s tiebreaking vote, but did not survive the House.”
“President Biden saved lives today,” said former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) on Thursday. “Gabby” Giffords was the victim of a 2011 assassination attempt, and was shot in the head. In that mass shooting, outside a local supermarket during an official public “Congress on Your Corner” event, six people were murdered and 12 others were shot.
“Since 2013, I’ve fought to close this loophole in our background check system,” said Giffords, who now heads the nonprofit “dedicated to saving lives from gun violence,” that bears her name. “Now, more gun dealers will have to conduct background checks and fewer people intent on doing harm will be able to buy guns, no questions asked. Thank you, @POTUS.”
READ MORE: Johnson Moves for Trump Protection Against Greene With Mar-a-Lago Joint Press Conference
President Biden in video announcing this new rule called on Congress to take additional action and pass universal background checks.
Watch below or at this link.
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americans who have purchased firearms since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic are far more willing to engage in political violence against their fellow citizens, according to a new study.
The Guardian recently reported on a study by the University of California-Davis' violence prevention research program dubbed "Firearm Ownership and Support for Political Violence in the United States." Researchers surveyed roughly 13,000 gun owners who bought their weapons over the last four years, and asked if violence was justified in order to accomplish political objectives. 39% of gun owners — a plurality — said yes, while 30% said no.
UC-Davis researchers warned that American gun owners in the survey could potentially be "arming up for anticipated civil conflict."
"Our findings strongly suggest that large numbers of armed individuals who are at least potentially willing to engage in political violence are in public places across the US every day," the study read.
More specifically, 42% of respondents who own AR-15 style assault weapons were in favor of political violence, along with 44% of more recent gun buyers. Additionally, 56% of gun owners who openly carry their firearms in public told researchers they would be willing to carry out political violence.
"Recent purchasers and always- or nearly-always-carriers were more willing to kill to advance political objectives," the study read.
The study was published Tuesday by Jama Network Open, which is a monthly open access medical journal published by the American Medical Association. Its principal author, Garen Wintemute, is a professor of emergency medicine at UC-Davis, and is approaching the problem of American political violence as a public health issue, according to the Guardian.
READ MORE:**Jen Psaki slams Trump over 'embrace of political violence'**
While the political violence that erupted on January 6, 2021 was initially widely criticized by former President Donald Trump (though only hours after his supporters initially breached the US Capitol) and Republican lawmakers, many have since done a one-eighty. Trump himself has promised on multiple occasions to pardon January 6 defendants, particularly those incarcerated in Washington, DC jail.
As New York University's Just Security publication recently reported, many of those defendants are incarcerated specifically for attacking police officers. The former president has reportedly been in contact with Micki Witthoeft, who is the mother of deceased January 6 participant Ashli Babbitt. A US Capitol police officer shot Babbitt after she broke past several police lines and attempted to leap through a broken window at several lawmakers huddling in the speaker's lobby just several feet away.
READ MORE::{**Nearly all J6 defendants Trump wants to pardon assaulted police officers: security experts**}:
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Machine gun conversion devices are seemingly being sold on TikTok Shop | Media Matters for America
an 2 24 common dr
fueled by right-wing politicians and the powerful gun lobby, nearly three-quarters of firearm owners in the United States believe the enduring myth that a gun at the ready will keep them safer—but a new analysis offers the latest hard evidence that guns simply make life more dangerous and deadly for everyone.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) joined gun violence research group GVPedia to release an issue brief debunking the falsehoods pushed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other pro-gun groups, which, looking to "counter the horrors of everyday gun violence in America... masterfully constructed a narrative based on the myth of a 'good guy with a gun' using their weapon defensively to stop an armed assailant before harm can be done."
Listening to former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and the right-wing lawmakers who count on the gun lobby's endorsements, one could hardly be blamed for conjuring an image of a "good guy with a gun"who frequently stops a violent attack from happening—but the analysis shows how faulty research in the 1990s underpinned such claims.
Surveys at the time, including a widely-cited study by Gary Kleck and Matt Gertz, estimated that between 760,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses (DGU) occurred annually.
But the Harvard Injury Control Research Center found two years later that fewer than 550,000 burglaries occurred in gun owners' homes annually, while Kleck and Gertz had estimated that "guns were used for self-defense during burglaries approximately 845,000 times."
"Burglary victims would have needed to use their gun defensively in more than 100% of cases, which is, of course, impossible," the issue brief reads.
Until the myth of the "good guy with the gun" is defeated,said Devin Hughes, founder and president of GVPedia, "Americans will continue buying firearms in the mistaken belief that those guns will make them safer, and gun violence will continue unabated."
"Accurate information is critically important in fighting America’s epidemic of gun violence. Just as important, however, is countering inaccurate information," Hughes added.
CAP also analyzed data on DGU from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which estimated just 70,000 such instances per year.
The group found that nine times as many people report being victimized by a person with a gun than being protected by a firearm. Respondents to two Harvard surveys taken in 1996 and 1999 were three times as likely to report being threatened or victimized with a gun than having used one to protect themselves.
In addition to putting a household at higher risk of an accidental gun injury or death, gun ownership also is not "the safest means of self-protection," CAP found.
NCVS data from 2007-11 showed that of the 14,145 crime incidents in which a victim was present, less than 1% involved DGU.
Eleven percent of victims who did not use a gun defensively reported being injured during the altercation; almost the same amount, 10.9%, reported injuries in cases of the victim using a gun.
More than 38% of victims who used a gun defensively reported property loss, while less than 35% who defended themselves with a different weapon reported that property was stolen during the incident.
"The idea that one is not safe unless they are carrying a gun is perhaps the most personal and insidious myth constructed by the gun lobby," said CAP. "What does improve safety is stronger gun laws, improved clearance rates, and investments in community violence intervention programming."
The brief noted that people who intend to use their guns defensively are more likely to keep them "unlocked, readily accessible, and loaded, substantially increasing the risk of unauthorized access by a minor"—suggesting that a parent with a gun for self-protective purposes is unlikely to successfully use it for self-defense, and is actively endangering family members by having the gun.
"Similar to adult cohabitants, children living in a home with a firearm are at a greater risk for unintentional injury and death, homicide, and suicide," said CAP. "Moreover, their unauthorized access to household firearms can put those outside the home at risk, with more than 74% of firearms used in school shooting incidents obtained from the student's home or from the home of a relative or family friend."
Citing a number of examples of people in states with so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws, which say that gun owners have a right to use their firearms if they believe they are being threatened, CAP and GVPedia showed how, contrary to the narrative about the "good guy with a gun," most DGU cases "are harmful to society" and involve innocent people being killed due to the presence of a firearm.
"Emboldened by a 'shoot first, ask questions later' culture, too many armed individuals have used deadly force as a first response, rather than a last resort," said CAP. "More concerning, gun homicides in which white shooters invoked SYG after killing Black victims were determined justifiable by the legal system five times more often than when the situation was reversed, indicating serious racial disparities in the defensive use of firearm."
The group's research showed how the gun industry and its backers have used "the manipulation of fear, perversion of self-defense, and falsified statistics" to weaken "the public's ability to properly inform themselves of the risks associated with gun ownership," said Allison Jordan, research associate for gun violence prevention at CAP.
"In untangling the myth of defensive gun use, one thing is abundantly clear," said Jordan. "If safety is the goal, guns are not the answer."
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Ben Zeisloft claims that “the Second Amendment is a Christian proposition”: “The right to protect your life from evildoers flows directly from the inalienable right to life you have from your Creator.”
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Indiana Rep. Jim Lucas shows high school students his gun during a conversation Tuesday at the Moms Demand Action Advocacy Day. Video provided by a student who recorded the interaction. See the full 10 minute video and our story at http://TheStatehouseFile.com
During a conversation with a group of high school student advocates against gun violence Wednesday, a state Republican representative thought showing them his gun would discourage their efforts.
IndyStar reports, Rep. Jim Lucas "struck up a conversation with the students, which resulted in a discussion about gun laws and school shootings, according to The Statehouse File."
The video shared to X/Twitter by The Statehouse File shows Lucas flashing his gun holster, then disregarding the concern of one student who said, "nothing about that makes me feel safe." The GOP leader replied, "those are feelings, I’m talking facts."
According to a CBS4Indy report, state Democrats released a statement following the incident, saying, "Indiana Republicans seemingly have enough time to belittle and intimidate high school students in between passing laws defunding the police, expanding child labor, and helping the gun lobby get off in court.
This supermajority puts the interests of the gun lobby over those of our local governments, and even the safety of Hoosier students. It’s wrong, and it’s time to check their power at the ballot box in November. Indiana Republicans say laws can’t stop gun violence. They have no plan to stop gun violence because they do not believe it is possible. We all deserve an Indiana where students – and everyone in our communities – feel safe and gun-owning Hoosiers can do so safely and responsibly."}:
CBS4Indy notes, "The exchange between Lucas and students comes after a bill that would expand the right to carry firearms into the state capitol was passed by the Senate Corrections Committee, and now heads to the House."
Last June, Lucas was arrested for driving under the influence, crashing his truck and ultimately fleeing the scene, according to WRTV. The GOP lawmaker accepted a plea deal to avoid jail time.
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Indiana GOP targets LGBTQ Hoosiers with sweeping rewrite of state laws - Alternet.org
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{{MMA 1 24 ERUPTION?
SCOTUS let feds nat guard cut texas barbed razor wire?
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Jon Stewart torches GOP senator with brutal reality about gun violence - Alternet.org
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WTF dem orig?!
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Judge's ruling on gun serial numbers highlights 'deadly' impact of right-wing Supreme Court
October 15, 2022
Legal experts said Friday that a federal judge's ruling in West Virginia illustrates the danger posed by the U.S. Supreme Court's right wing majority, which ruled this year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that restrictions on firearms must fall within the so-called "historical tradition" of gun laws.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, who was appointed to the Southern District of West Virginia by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, ruledagainst a federal law prohibiting people from possessing firearms with serial numbers that have been "altered, obliterated, or removed."
"Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons."
Serial numbers have been required for guns since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and are intended to prevent the illegal sale of guns and to allowing law enforcement to trace firearms.
But basing his ruling on the majority Supreme Court opinionwritten by Justice Clarence Thomas in June, Goodwin said Wednesday that requiring serial numbers is not part of the "historical tradition of firearm regulation" and therefore runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
In his majority opinion in Bruen, which overturned New York's state law restricting the concealed carry of firearms in public, Thomas wrote that for a gun control law to stand, the federal, state, or local government "must affirmatively prove that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms."
Goodwin's opinion, said Demand Justice, which advocates for Supreme Court reform, demonstrates the far-reaching impact the Bruen ruling could have on gun laws across the country.
"That radical ruling is impacting measures as basic as a requirement that guns have serial numbers," said the group.
The case heard by Goodwin originated with a traffic stop in Charleston, West Virginia during which police found a gun with the serial number removed. The driver, Randy Price, had also been convicted of a felony.
Price argued in court that he had a constitutional right to have the firearm, while lawyers for the federal government said the law regarding serial numbers was a "commercial regulation" that did not violate the Second Amendment.
On Thursday, Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern wrote that while Goodwin's ruling "might sound bizarre... his analysis closely follows Thomas' test" that requires the government to prove a gun regulation had a historical "analogue" in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, or 1868, when it was imposed throughout the U.S.:
The only remaining question is whether the government could find an analogous regulation from 1791 or 1868 that restricted the possession of guns with an altered serial number. It could not, for a fairly obvious reason: Serial numbers only became common following the mass production of firearms, which took off in the decades after the Civil War.
Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons.
When Bruen was handed down in June, Stern called the ruling "a revolution in Second Amendment law" which would ultimately go "so, so far beyond concealed carry."
Goodwin noted in his opinion on Wednesday that firearms that can't be traced using a serial number "are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable," but said that argument "is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering."
Stern suggested that parts of Goodwin's opinion read "as if the judge is desperate to show readers just how dangerous and radical [the Bruen] ruling is."
According to the Supreme Court, Stern wrote, "all that counts is that serial number laws arose over the last century, so they are too modern to comport with the Second Amendment. Goodwin made this point over and over again; it almost sounded like he was quietly protesting the extreme and dangerous results demanded by the Bruen test."
"His decision thus doubled as a warning," he added. "The Supreme Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime."
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anything more than 2 is too complicated? he has oxford degree
. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) met an unexpected answer on Tuesday after pushing a GOP talking point that suggests Democratic-run cities are the most dangerous and Chicago is the most violent.
“Why do you think that Chicago has become America’s largest outdoor shooting range?” Senator Kennedy asked Dr. Megan Ranney, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the intersection of U.S. gun violence and public health, according to C-SPAN. “Do you think it’s because of Chicago citizens who have no criminal record? But who have lawfully a gun in their home for protection, or perhaps for hunting? Or do you think it’s because of a finite group of criminals who have rap sheets as long as King Kong’s arm?”
Dr. Ranney, who is an expert in gun violence and co-founded the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine (AFFIRM) at the Aspen Institute, gave Senator Kennedy an answer he did not appear to appreciate.
“So Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri actually have higher firearm death rates. Obviously, there’s –” Dr. Ranney replied before Kennedy interrupted her.
READ MORE: Pence Bombshell Resurfaces Old Questions About Grassley and January 6
“What about Chicago?” the Senator from Louisiana asked, trying to move back to his focus on the Windy City.
“So I don’t live in Chicago. It’s not my primary area of research,” Ranney replied.
“You don’t have an opinion on that?” Kennedy continued.
“I think there’s easy access to firearms combined with environmental conditions, lack of great education. There have actually been studies showing that when you green vacant lots and repair abandoned buildings in urban neighborhoods, you see decreases in gunshots and violence as well as in stress and depression in the neighborhoods around them,” said Ranney, who has also served as a professor of emergency medicine and as an ER physician.
“No disrespect, doc,” Kennedy replied, not looking at Dr. Ranney, “but that sounds a lot like word salad to me.”
Despite Senator Kennedy’s focus on Chicago, that city doesn’t even make list of the top 15 most dangerous cities in America. According to a report in Forbes, they are (in ranked order):
St. Louis, Missouri
Birmingham, Alabama
Baltimore, Maryland
Memphis, Tennessee
Detroit, Michigan
Cleveland, Ohio
New Orleans, Louisiana
Shreveport, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Little Rock, Arkansas
Oakland, California
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Kansas City, Missouri
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Richmond, Virginia
Forbes also listed the 5 Worst Cities for Mass Shootings in the US. Chicago is not on that list either:
Boulder, Colorado
San Jose, California
Indianapolis, Indiana
Atlanta, Georgia
Colorado Springs, Colorado
“Cities and states run by Republicans do not actually have less crime,” The New York Times reported in August. “Consider DeSantis’s state, Florida. Its homicide rate was roughly 50 percent higher than New York’s in 2021. Florida’s two most populous cities, Jacksonville and Miami, each had a homicide rate more than double New York City’s last year, even though both had Republican mayors.”
Watch Senator Kennedy below or at this link.
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no lnx many
https://www.vox.com/scotus/23841718/edgelord-federal-judiciary-james-ho-fifth-circuit-abortion-guns
The edgelord of the federal judiciary
Imagine a Breitbart comments forum come to life and given immense power over innocent people. That’s Judge James Ho.
By Ian Millhiser Aug 26, 2023,
James Ho sits on a panel speaking as video of him is projected on a screen behind him at the Federalist Society’s 2022 National Lawyers Convention in Washington, DC.
Trump Judge James Ho speaks at a 2022 event hosted by the Federalist Society. Shuran Huang/Washington Post via Getty Images]
Ian Millhiser is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court.
If you could breathe life into 4chan, the dark corner of the Internet where shitposters, edgelords, Groypers, and trolls of all kinds thrive, and then appoint this new lifeform to the federal bench, you would have created Judge James Ho.
Ho, appointed by former president Donald Trump in 2018 to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, recently argued that anti-abortion doctors may seek a court order banning a commonly prescribed abortion medication, because “doctors delight in working with their unborn patients — and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted.”
He’s written that a federal law prohibiting gun possession by people that a court has determined to be a “credible threat to the physical safety of [their] intimate partner” is unconstitutional. Among other things, Ho claimed that this law “should give us pause” because women getting a divorce sometimes seek such court orders as “a tactical leverage device” in their divorce proceedings.
Ho’s very first opinion as a judge, a dissenting opinion in a case he did not even hear, claimed that all laws limiting the amount that wealthy donors may give to political campaigns are unconstitutional.Under Ho’s understanding of the Constitution, nothing prevents Harlan Crow, the billionaire Republican donor famous for lavishing gifts on Justice Clarence Thomas, from funding an entire presidential campaign.
Also, speaking of Harlan Crow, Ho held his official ceremony swearing him in as a federal judge in Crow’s personal library.
Ho’s work, in other words, is often indistinguishable from that of a professional troll. He revels in taking deliberately provocative positions. He often joins a fairly extreme opinion written by a colleague, and then writes separately to take an even more extreme position. His judicial opinions mingle Fox News talking points, men’s rights activism, Federalist Society fantasies, and discredited legal doctrines that are now taught to law students to warn them of the Supreme Court’s worst mistakes.
Ho seems to never miss an opportunity to weigh in on a political controversy. When he’s not writing concurring opinions arguing that the Supreme Court should bring back the Lochner era, an age when conservative justices imposed their own laissez-faire ideology on the rest of the nation, he can often be found lecturing law schools on the evils of “cancel culture.”
(That said, Ho did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this piece.)
When I speak to other judges, I often hear them use a derisive word to describe this kind of behavior: “auditioning.” It’s an increasingly common practice among Republican judges itching for a promotion.
In his final years as a lower court judge, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote several opinions laying out his plans to shift power from federal agencies to the judiciary — a high-priority issue for the Federalist Society, which played a key role in picking Trump’s judges and justices. These opinions reportedly “proved decisive” in the Trump White House’s decision to give Gorsuch a big promotion.
Similarly, in his final year as a lower court judge, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — who previously had a thin record on abortion — went out of his way to convey both in a published opinion and in a speech to a conservative think tank that he opposed Roe v. Wade. Trump picked Kavanaugh for the next seat to open up on the Supreme Court.
The most alarming thing about Judge Ho, in other words, isn’t his penchant for trolling. It is the very real possibility that he will be rewarded for it. No judge in America has auditioned harder for a Supreme Court appointment in a Republican administration. And, if the next president is Donald Trump, Trump has already shown that he prefers judges who go out of their way to show their loyalty to Republican causes.
What does Jim Ho’s version of the Constitution look like?
Lochner v. New York (1905) is one of a handful of decisions that legal scholars refer to as the “anti-canon” — a list of cases taught to law students as examples of how judges must never, ever behave. The list also includes the pro-slavery decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) and the segregationist decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
Ho wants to bring back Lochner.
Lochner stuck down a New York state law that limited, to 60 hours a week, the amount of time worked by bakery workers. At the time, these workers were typically paid by the day or by the week, so the law had prevented these workers from being forced to work extraordinarily long shifts for no extra pay.
Other cases applying Lochner’s reasoning struck down minimum wage laws and stripped workers of their right to unionize.
Lochner was grounded in what it described as the “right of the individual to ... enter into those contracts in relation to labor which may seem to him appropriate or necessary for the support of himself and his family.” The idea was that, if a worker entered into a contract to work long hours for little pay, then the law could not alter this contract — even if the contract was itself the product of exploitation or desperation.
Lochner, in other words, not only stripped the government of much of its power to protect workers, it did so on the dubious ground that, by insisting that workers adhere to whatever exploitative employment contracts their bosses imposed upon them, the Court was actually defending the rights of those workers. The Court ultimately abandoned Lochner in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937).
Ho picked an inauspicious case, Golden Glow Tanning Salon v. City of Columbus, to offer his love letter to Lochner. In it, a Mississippi tanning salon claimed that Covid era lockdowns violated the salon owner’s “right to work,” a common argument made by modern day libertarians who seek to revive Lochner. (A “right to work” is synonymous with Lochner’s so-called right to “enter into those contracts in relation to labor which may seem to him appropriate.”)
Though all three judges who heard Golden Glow agreed that the Supreme Court’s decisions repudiating Lochnerism prevented them from ruling in the tanning salon’s favor, Ho wrote a brief concurring opinion that relied heavily on scholarship by right-wing lawyers arguing that Lochner should be revived. He suggested that the anti-worker right recognized in Lochner has a “better historical grounding than more recent claims of right that have found judicial favor.” And he urged the Supreme Court to take up a pending case seeking to revive Lochner (the justices declined to do so).
Ho’s passion for the sorts of economic “rights” favored by Gilded Age robber barons is matched by his disdain for abortion. He wrote about the “moral tragedy of abortion” in one of his judicial opinions. And he’s urged his Fifth Circuit — which is already the most right-wing federal appeals court in the country, and is typically hostile towards reproductive freedom — to be even more aggressive in quashing abortion rights.
Just last week, for example, a three-judge panel that includes Ho attempted to ban the drug mifepristone, which is used in more than half of all US abortions. That decision will have no effect, because the Supreme Court preemptively blocked it last April — a pretty clear sign that even this very conservative Supreme Court thinks that the legal arguments against mifepristone are weak.
But Ho didn’t just join this attempt to ban the drug, in a case called Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA,he wrote a separate opinion arguing that his colleagues were insufficiently hostile to abortion rights.
Technically, the Fifth Circuit’s majority opinion in Alliance did not purport to ban mifepristone outright, it merely ordered the FDA to reinstate restrictions on the drug that the agency abandoned in 2016. As a practical matter, this order would prevent the drug from being marketed in the United States for at least a few months, because it would take a long time for government regulators and the drug maker to comply with the pre-2016 rules. But Ho would have gone even further, ordering the FDA to rescind its decision to approve the medication way back in 2000.
There are so many errors in Ho’s legal reasoning that it would be tedious to list them all here. One of them is that the statute of limitations to challenge an FDA approval of a drug is six years. While there are legitimate reasons that time period can sometimes be extended, Ho can’t rescue a lawsuit that was filed more than two decades after mifepristone’s approval.
On guns,Ho joined the Fifth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Rahimi (2023), a decision the Supreme Court is likely to reverse in its upcoming term, holding that people who violently abuse their romantic partners or their partner’s child have a Second Amendment right to own a gun — even after a court proceeding determines that the abuser is “a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child.”
Rahimi is another case where Ho joined an alarming decision written by one of his colleagues, and then wrote separately to argue for an even more extreme position.
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Ho argues that one reason his court should be skeptical of a law seeking to disarm people subject to domestic violence restraining orders is that women who are not victims of abuse allegedly obtain these orders to “secure [favorable] rulings on critical issues such as [marital and child] support, exclusion from marital residence and property disposition.”
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As evidence that this is a real problem that actually exists, Ho cites a handful of court decisions — including a 1993 decision by a court in New Jersey that invalidated a restraining order because of a lack of evidence that the man subjected to it was violent, and a 2005 incident where comedian David Letterman was briefly subject to a restraining order before a court tossed that order out.
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The fact that Ho had to rely on decades-old cases in faraway jurisdictions to show that judges sometimes issue domestic violence restraining orders for invalid reasons is a sign that, maybe, this isn’t as big of a problem as Ho makes it out to be. Nevertheless, Ho would potentially arm hundreds of men who have murderous intentions in order to save someone like Letterman from having to go without a firearm for a couple of weeks.
Ho could be the future of the federal judiciary
Ho’s penchant for tacking to the right of his already quite reactionary colleagues marks him as an outlier, even within a conservative federal judiciary. But he’s hardly an extreme outlier, especially on the far-right Fifth Circuit.
In Collins v. Mnuchin (2019), for example, Ho signed onto an opinion by Judge Don Willett that threatened to invalidate every single action taken by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which was created in 2008 to stabilize the US housing market during a historic recession. Had Willett’s approach prevailed in the Supreme Court, it could have potentially collapsed the US housing market and triggered a global economic depression (the Supreme Court voted 8-1 against Willett’s approach).
Notably, however, Ho was one of a total of seven judges who signed onto Willett’s attempt to burn down more than a dozen years of work by a federal agency. There is no shortage of judicial arsonists on the Fifth Circuit.
Similarly, the Supreme Court will hear several cases in its upcoming term in which it is likely to reverse similarly aggressive decisions by the Fifth Circuit. Those most likely include the Alliance case about mifepristone, as well as the Rahimi guns case, and two decisions declaring the entire the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unconstitutional and gutting the federal government’s power to enforce securities law.
The leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination are already signaling that they want to pick justices who are well to the right of the three already very conservative justices Trump placed on the Supreme Court. In his infamous speech before the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Trump said that he is “not happy with the Supreme Court” because they supposedly “love to rule against me.” (When Trump was president, the Court often manipulated its own procedures to rule in Trump’s favor, but the Court rejected his bid to overturn the 2020 election.)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attacked Trump’s justices in June, claiming that “none of those three are at the same level of Justices Thomas and Justice Alito,” two justices who fairly consistently vote like Fifth Circuit judges.
Ho, meanwhile, is auditioning harder than anyone in the judiciary to catch Trump or DeSantis’s eye. And, even if the next Republican president decides to pick someone less flamboyant for the high court, they will have no shortage of candidates who are eager to light decades' worth of settled law — along with entire federal agencies — on fire.
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10 23
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https://www.alternet.org/supreme-court-justices-facilitated-shooting/
an 8 23 no lnx vid
US Supreme Court justices 'facilitated' racially motivated Florida shooting: law professor
Maya BoddieAugust 28, 2023
New York University law professor Melissa Murray suggested conservative United States Supreme Court justices played a role in the killing of three Black people at a Jacksonville, Florida Dollar General Saturday night.
During Sunday night's episode of The Mehdi Hasan Show, hostMehdi Hasansaid, "Melissa, the shooting yesterday occurred during the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, where multiple speakers called out the scourge of gun violence as a threat to all Americans, but particularly Black Americans. What was your reaction, as a Black American, hearing this horrific news out of Florida yesterday, of all days?"
Murray replied, "Well, Mehdi, in that litany of white conservatives who might contribute to this culture of hate through their combination of this kind of violence and rhetoric that underwrites it, you could also have added the six members of the United States Supreme Court, who have also facilitated this through their expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment — the unprecedented expansion of the Second Amendment — that really facilitates the keeping and bearing of arms and allows this kind of violence to happen.
She continued, "Just a few weeks after the Buffalo shooting last year on June 23rd, the court announced its decision in Bruen — a major gun rights case, which expanded the scope of the Second Amendment beyond anything that we have seen in the history of this country. So again, every branch of government is involved in this. Every branch of government has facilitated this, and every branch of government has a role to play in making us more safe and less ideologically terroristic."
According to a League of Women Voters report last year, "On June 23, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision inNew York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, overturning a New York gun safety law.The Court ruled that New York’s law requiring a license to carry concealed weapons in public places is unconstitutional."
The report also notes, "Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for a majority of the Court, expressed concerns about what he saw as the subjective role of New York state officials in deciding whether someone applying for a concealed carry license has met the state’s requirements."
Watch the video below or at this link.
Mehdi Hasan Show: NYU law professor Melissa Murray on Jacksonville shooting
youtu.be
READ MORE: Supreme Court temporarily reinstates ATF 'ghost gun' rules: report
League of Women Voters' full report is available at this link.
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an 8 23 no lnx vid
'Not what democracy looks like': TN GOP lawmakers order police to oust silent protestor from pro-gun hearing
Two protestors holding up signs during Tennessee GOP lawmakers' pro-guns hearing (August 22, 2023), Image via screengrab/News Channel 5 chief Investigative reporter Phil Williams.
David Badashand The New Civil Rights Movement August 22, 2023
Tennessee House Republicans holding a hearing on legislation to allow guns in schools ordered state troopers to physically remove a woman who was silently protesting by holding a small sign. She was among a group of people in the gallery opposing the bill, a few of them were holding signs. Among them was at least one parent of children who attend Nashville’s Covenant Elementary School, where six people including three children were killed in a mass shooting earlier this year.
“And deny our First Amendment rights? I am not leaving,” the protestor, identified as Allison Polidor, said while still seated before she was removed, according to video (below) posted by NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams. “We have rights to hold a sign. If you have to drag me out, so be it.
As state troopers grabbed her and removed her from the room she shouted, “This isn’t what democracy looks like.”
The protestors in the House Judiciary Committee’s Civil Justice subcommittee hearing sat quietly holding signs that read, “1 kid > all the guns,” (one kid is greater than all the guns).
READ MORE: Suspect in Killing of Storeowner Over LGBTQ Flag Was Far-Right Conspiracist Who Promoted Christian Nationalism: Report
Lawmakers had convened for a special session on public safety to respond to the March school mass shooting that left three children and three adults dead.
Before Polidor was removed, off-camera a voice could be heard saying if anyone is holding a sign, “we’ll just clear the whole room.” Ultimately, NewsChannel 5 reports, the entire room was cleared.
Later, Polidor told NewsChannel 5, “It’s an attack on First Amendment rights.”
“I mean, I am here for my kids — everyone’s kids. They are making these laws or lack of laws. I am here representing everyone’s kids. No one should worry if their kids are going to come home from school or not. I feel like you can’t sit by. When we’ve come to the point you can’t hold up a sign, it’s not OK.”
Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose bio reads, “Grounded in faith, fierce advocate for the oppressed, proudCovenant School mama,” through tears told reporters, “I don’t think these people get what this means. We’re here for six people who were killed in our school. We’re just trying to do something.”
READ MORE: Fox News Tells Viewers ‘They’ Let Tropical Storm Hilary Into the US ‘Because It’s Biden’s America’
“It’s hard to be here,” she continued, noting the presence of the Proud Boys and the Tennessee Firearms Association, according to WKRN.
“And I’m just trying to sit quiet. I already got told I can’t have my sign that says, ‘I’m a Covenant mom.’ That dignity’s been taken away,” she continued. “This is life or death for people.”
WKRN reports Chairman Lowell Russell made the decision to have state troopers remove the protestors holding signs.
Tennessee House Democratic Minority Leader Karen Camper via social media said, “People are at the TN Capitol in 100 degree heat & paying to park to be thrown out of committee rooms for sitting QUIETLY?! What are we doing?! This is not how it works. This is shameful & an abuse of power! No chanting, no yelling: sitting quietly. Give me a break!”
Tennessee Senate Democrats, also Tuesday afternoon, accused Republicans of blocking 20 gun safety bills, refusing to even allow debate.
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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CUN CONTRIL 3 PARTUAL BAK TXT
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gun debate so
https://www.alternet.org/you-cant-be-serious-newsom/
no lnx
'You can’t be serious': Gavin Newsom mocks Mississippi GOP gov for challenging him to a gun 'debate'
Brandon Gage June 08, 2023
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Thursday unveiled his proposal for a constitutional amendment to address gun violence.
"I'm proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to help end our nation's gun violence crisis," Newsom posted on Twitter along with a video address. "The American people are sick of Congress' inaction. The 28th will enshrine 4 widely supported gun safety freedoms -- while leaving the 2nd Amendment intact: 1) Raising the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 2) Universal background checks 3) A reasonable waiting period for gun purchases 4) Banning the civilian purchase of assault weapons."
Newsom said in the two-minute spot:
Every time it's the same. They tell us we can't stop these massacres. They tell us we have to stand by and watch tragedy after tragedy unfold in our communities. They say we can't stop domestic terrorism without violating the Second Amendment, and thoughts and prayers are the best we can do. I'm here to say that's a lie in this country. We do have the power, the power to change things, to reclaim our freedom from fear. Her ability to make a more perfect union is literally written into the Constitution. So today I'm proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to do just that.
The 28th Amendment permanently enshrines four additions to the laws of our land. It raises the minimum age to purchase a firearm from eighteen to twenty-one because we can't buy a beer. You shouldn't be able to buy a gun.
It mandates universal background checks to prevent truly dangerous people from purchasing a gun that can be used in a crime, and institutes reasonable waiting periods for all gun purchases, and it bans civilians from buying assault rifles, those weapons of war our Founding Fathers never foresaw. This will guarantee states as well the ability to enact common sense gun safety laws while leaving the Second Amendment intact and respecting America's gun-owning tradition.
The 28th locks in the common sense constitutional protections that Democrats, Republicans, independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support. And it ensures NRA-owned politicians can never strip those protections away.
This fight won't be easy, and it certainly won't be fast. Convening a constitutional convention requires two-thirds of the states to call for this. California will be the first, but that's just the beginning. Join us by going to campaign for democracy.com and signing the petition to protect our communities and protect our freedom. Support the 28th.
READ MORE: 'Humiliated': Mississippi girl 'forced to miss their graduation' after judge’s anti-trans decision
A few hours later, and although not mentioned personally, Republican Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves challenged Newsom to an exchange of ideas. According to the Violence Policy Center, Mississippi boasts the highest rate of gun deaths per capita of any state.
"Gov. Newsom, I am willing to debate you on this in Mississippi any time. So on your next trip to our state to campaign for my opponent, give me a call," Reeves tweeted on Thursday afternoon.
Newsom fired right back.
"Can't wait for you to defend the fact that Mississippi has the highest gun violence death rate in the nation…. (377% higher than California’s, by the way)," Newsom wrote. "You can't be serious."
READ MORE: Mississippi Gov. slammed for re-election bid launch of 'cosplaying' clip of him 'shooting' people of color
Watch Newsom's announcement below or at this link.
READ MORE: Ex-US attorney explains why this NFL star is a critical piece in the Mississippi welfare investigation
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red flag
https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-republican-taking-dangerous-people/
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ca is officially a devil term/ verb 2nd amend is god term
no lnx twit vid
'So we’re legislating nothing': Texas Democrat stumps GOP sponsor of anti-'tyrannical government' bill
Brandon Gage
May 07, 2023
Texas State Representative Jarvis Johnson [AA] (D-Houston) stumped State Representative Carrie Isaac (R-Dripping Springs) during last Thursday's debate over a proposal that Isaac sponsored to supposedly shield Texans from California's "tyrannical government."
Chron explained on Friday that "House Bill 3137 stops a municipality from instituting regulations surrounding the transfer, possession, wearing, carrying, ownership, storage, transportation, licensing, or registration of firearms, air guns, knives, ammunition, or firearm-related gun supplies or accessories. At the same time, the bill prohibits local governments from requiring gun owners to get liability insurance for damages resulting from negligent or willful acts involving firearms."
The outlet also noted that "according to a February report by Reuters, the San Jose bill passed in January 2022 with an ordinance requiring gun owners to obtain liability insurance to cover negligence or accidents from using firearms. The San Jose bill also requires gun owners to pay a yearly fee to gun violence prevention organizations the city manager picks. Due to pending litigation, the bill hasn't been enforced in the city yet."
READ MORE: 'Now it’s God’s fault': Texas Republican slammed for claiming 'the almighty' controls shootings
Bit by bit, Johnson poked holes in Isaac's assertions.
"What does your bill specifically do?" Johnson asked Isaac.
"It will not allow municipalities to require insurance on firearms," Isaac replied.
"So otherwise, other words, does your bill prohibit mayors, city councils, and county commissioners from legally governing themselves when it comes to guns?" Johnson wondered.
READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene blames Texas mall shooting on 'mental illness' and 'evil forces'
"They do not have this right," Isaac declared.
"They don't have the right to do what?" Johnson followed up.
"To infringe upon our second amendment," Isaac said.
"Who — you mean again, cities, mayors," Johnson clarified.
"Correct," Isaac confirmed.
"Do mayors, city councils, and county commissioners have a right to pass laws that protect the citizens of their community?" Johnson posited.
"As long as it doesn't infringe on our constitutional rights," Isaac responded as her comrades began surrounding her.
"The constitutional right to do what?" Johnson pressed.
"To protect ourselves with our Second Amendment," Isaac proclaimed.
"From what?" Johnson continued.
"From a tyrannical government," Isaac reiterated.
"A tyrannical government. Which government currently is being tyrannical?" Johnson asked.
"Say that again, I'm sorry," Isaac requested.
"Which government is currently being tyrannical?" Johnson repeated.
Isaac struggled to provide a coherent answer.
"Yeah. It would prevent any tyrannical gun, any tyrannical," she said amid whispers from her colleagues.
"Is there a municipality currently that this law is in place?" Johnson asked.
"That's not what this is about," a male voice grumbles.
"Yes, actually there is," Isaac stated.
"Where?" asked Johnson.
"San Jose, California," Isaac said.
"Oh, I, I didn't know we were California. I'm asking in Texas..." Johnson quipped.
"I'm sorry, say that again," Isaac requested again.
"Is there a city in Texas?" Johnson asked more forcefully.
At this point, Isaac was being fed answers.
"Answer every question. Keep saying what you want us say," Isaac was told.
"Um, no, there is not, and that's the, and this still will prevent that from happening here in Texas," Isaac insisted.
"So then that means we're legislating nothing?" Johnson pointed out.
"We're preventing it from happening here in Texas," Isaac shot back.
"So it hasn't happened yet," Johnson said.
"That's correct," Isaac agreed.
"So, again, we're legislating nothing," Johnson added.
"Don't California my Texas," Isaac snapped.
"Are we legislating nothing?" Johnson asked one last time, albeit in vain. "So we're legislating nothing."
Watch below or at this link.
READ MORE: 'Uvalde would like a word': Texas Republican scolded for blaming Friday’s mass shooting on 'the migrants'
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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-right-leaning-pages-lead-discussion-about-home-invasions-right-wing-media-and-nra
mma 4 23
no pix lnx
On Facebook, right-leaning pages lead discussion about home invasions, with right-wing media and the NRA praising homeowners who shoot suspected intruders
Right-leaning Facebook pages earned 65% of total interactions on posts about home invasions, despite sharing only 25% of them
Special PROGRAMS
GUNS & PUBLIC SAFETY
WRITTEN BY NATALIE MATHES
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CARLY EVANS
PUBLISHED 04/26/23
On Facebook in the last year, right-wing media outlets have amplified sensational posts that praise people who have shot, and in some instances killed, alleged home intruders.
In a new study, Media Matters compiled and analyzed Facebook posts about home invasions from news and politics pages in the last year and found that right-leaning pages earned 65% of total interactions on posts about home invasions, despite sharing only 25% of them. Among these right-leaning pages are right-wing media outlets and the National Rifle Association.
A series of recent shootings have refocused the nation’s attention on so-called “castle doctrine” — the idea that a person doesn’t have a “duty to retreat” before using deadly force to defend themselves when in their home — and “stand your ground” laws that apply this idea outside the home, using what critics call a “shoot first, ask questions later” model that allows “anyone who believes their life to be in danger to use lethal force in an act of self-defense, without any duty to retreat.”
On April 13, an elderly man in Kansas City, Missouri, shot teenager Ralph Yarl in the head after Yarl mistakenly rang the home's doorbell while he was trying to pick up his siblings. On April 15, a homeowner in rural New York shot and killed 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis when a car she was riding in pulled into his driveway by accident while searching for a friend’s house. On April 18, a man in Florida shot a 6-year-old girl, her parents, and another neighbor after a basketball accidentally rolled onto his property. The next day, a man in Texas shot two high school cheerleaders who had mistaken his car for their own after a late-night practice.
According to an April 22 report by Insider, gun violence experts say that these recent shootings are “a larger symptom of a distinctly American culture that empowers people to open fire, even when there's no real threat.” This violent culture stems from the NRA’s decades-long campaign pushing “stand your ground” laws across the nation.
Most Americans are not satisfied with existing gun laws, but right-wing media continue to defend the role guns play in America. For example, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed in January that assault weapons “are not a threat to anybody,” and the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said that guns had “nothing to do with” a recent mass shooting in Nashville. Salem Media Group’s Dennis Prager has falsely insisted that “there's no way to stop the ubiquity of guns” in America, and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk has claimed, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
By defending the role guns play in America and working to convince Americans that there is no real possibility of passing stronger gun control measures in the U.S., right-wing media encourage the false belief that the only way to make ourselves safer is to take matters into our own hands and further arm ourselves. This provides cover for politicians who work with the NRA and, conveniently, creates bigger business for gun sellers.
In the last year — from April 20, 2022, through April 20, 2023 — Facebook has enabled the NRA and right-wing media outlets to sensationalize and amplify stories about alleged home invasions across its platform. Several of these stories pushed the narrative that people need to own guns in order to defend their families, and even praised people who shoot and kill alleged home intruders.
In the last year, right-leaning Facebook pages shared only 25% of posts about home invasions but earned 65% of total interactions
In the last year, Facebook pages that regularly post about U.S. news and politics shared at least 8,100 posts about home invasions, earning over 6.5 million total interactions. Right-leaning pages shared only 25% of these posts (about 2,000) but earned 65% of total interactions, amounting to over 4.2 million.
Several of these posts praised elderly homeowners in particular for shooting, and in some instances killing, alleged home intruders, with Rumble’s Steven Crowder captioning one such post “nice shot.” Others celebrated instances when it was revealed that homeowners would not be charged for shooting and killing people who trespassed on their property.
Home invasion Facebook posts praising elderly
Home invasion Facebook posts celebrating no charges
Ideologically nonaligned Facebook pages shared 72% of posts (nearly 6,000), but earned only 30% of total interactions (nearly 2 million). Left-leaning pages shared only 3% of posts (about 200) and earned 5% of total interactions, amounting to 294,000.
Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020. For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here. The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages. Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts about home invasions from the pages
The NRA earned 17% of total interactions on Facebook posts about home invasions in the last year, despite sharing just 0.1% of them
The NRA's official Facebook page earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions during the time frame studied. The page earned over 1.1 million total interactions on just 9 such posts, meaning the NRA shared just 0.1% of Facebook posts about home invasions from U.S. news and politics pages over the last year, but earned 17% of total interactions.
After the NRA, the 6 Facebook pages that earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions were pages for right-wing outlets, organizations, and personalities. In order, they include Blue Lives Matter, Fox News, Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, Colion Noir, and TheBlaze.
home invasion other top 6 collage
The top 6 posts that earned the most total interactions were from the NRA, and all featured headlines praising homeowners for shooting alleged intruders.
NRA Facebook posts about home invasions
The NRA has also run at least 115 ads on Meta platforms over the last year on an additional Facebook page. These ads endorsed midterm candidates it claimed would defend your “right to protect your home and family” and attacked candidates it claimed would “leave your family defenseless.” Facebook earned at least $500,000 on these ads, which reached an estimated audience of up to 60.9 million users.
NRA Meta Ads home invasion
Networks of Facebook pages operated by right-wing outlets amplified numerous stories praising homeowners for shooting, and in some instances killing, alleged home intruders
Facebook has a history of profiting from networks of right-wing pages that exploit its platform to amplify various right-wing talking points — including conservative narratives around gun ownership.
The Western Journal shared nearly 350 posts about home invasions in the last year across 19 Facebook pages, collectively earning nearly 160,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article praising a resident for sending suspects “running for their lives,” while others claimed, “You know what they say — real gun control means hitting your target. And this homeowner did just that.”
Western Journal home invasion collage
TheBlaze shared 195 posts about home invasions in the last year across 10 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 300,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article claiming that “armed home invaders wearing ski masks” shot a homeowner, but that homeowner also had a gun and shot “both crooks dead.” Others featured an article headlined, “Video: It’s all smiles before crooks invade home; seconds later it’s all backsides as they run for their lives from homeowner firing ‘AK-47-style’ gun at them.”
TheBlaze collage of home invasion posts
The Daily Wire’s network shared 160 posts about home invasions in the last year across 7 Facebook pages, collectively earning at least 285,000 total interactions on these posts — some of which cited “castle doctrine” as protecting a woman in Texas who fatally shot an alleged home invader.
The Daily Wire home invasion collage
Fox News shared 24 posts about home invasions in the last year across 3 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 200,000 total interactions. Some of these posts praised elderly homeowners for turning the tables on suspected home invaders.
Fox News home invasion collage
Methodology...
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pence booed at nra in indiana?!
https://www.alternet.org/our-hearts-go-out-but/ kid at door etc shot
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xmas card w assault weapons common?!
https://www.alternet.org/insensitive-creepy-and-ghoulish-republicans-are-doing-gunowners-more-harm-than-good-conservative/
an 4 23
no linx
daily Beast opinion columnist and Never Trump conservative Matt Lewis has his share of disagreements with liberals and progressives where gun control is concerned. Lewis considers himself staunchly pro-2nd Amendment, and he isn't shy about saying that he grew up around a "gun culture."
But in a scathing column published on April 17, Lewis takes issue with the "insensitive, creepy, and ghoulish" way in which many "Republican politicians" address the gun control issue. And he believes that the theatrics of Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and other MAGA Republicans are doing the 2nd Amendment more harm than good.
"When I was around ten," Lewis recalls, "my grandfather gave me a real shotgun. My dad intervened to make sure that I did not have unfettered access to it, and that I could only shoot it with his direct supervision. My dad was a prison guard and an avid hunter. He took gun ownership seriously. All this to say, I'm not a gun-grabbing city slicker — though I do think there are common sense reforms we should consider, including red flag laws and background checks."
READ MORE: Guns don't kill Americans, Republicans do
Lewis continues, "I’m not offended by law-abiding Americans who have guns for hunting and protection. What I am offended by are weirdos who want to go out of their way to constantly remind you that they are armed to the teeth."
The conservative columnist has no problem with conservatives debating liberals and progressives vigorously on gun control; what he objects to are the "bizarre" and "weird" theatrics — especially when they follow a mass shooting.
"In the wake of all the violence we have seen in recent decades," Lewis laments, "I would expect 2nd Amendment advocates to go out of their way to demonstrate responsible gun ownership. Remember the Party of Personal Responsibility? Instead, it seems like Republican politicians are going out of their way to fetishize guns. They are more than just for protection or sport. They are a way of life, a religion, a culture."
Even Republicans with strong pro-2nd Amendment voting records, Lewis argues, risk being attacked as "squishy RINOs" by MAGA Republicans if they aren't "performative" enough.
READ MORE: How the gun-loving South dominates these United States
"Clearly, what we are seeing is some sort of vice signaling, presumably because the demand to be perceived as a performatively tough Second Amendment advocate is so intense that mere words and past votes are no longer persuasive enough," Lewis observes. "In addition to supporting the right to bear arms, you now also have to demonstrate that you are a gun fanatic."
READ MORE: Students across the country walk out of school to protest gun violence
Read Matt Lewis' full Daily Beast column at this link (subscription required).
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new rep
no lnx
Every Republican running or rumored to be running for president is speaking to the National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, beginning on Friday. The convention is taking place on the anniversary of one of the deadliest mass shootings in the city’s history and follows two major mass shootings in the last month.
On March 27, a shooter killed three children and three adults at a private Christian grade school in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooting spurred thousands of residents to protest for days on end in support of gun safety measures and the Democratic lawmakers who were expelled for joining their protests. Two weeks later, on April 10, a shooter killed five people and left another eight injured in Louisville, Kentucky. These are just two of the more than 150 mass shootings in America this year.
Saturday, April 15 also marks two years since one of the deadliest mass shootings in state history, when a shooter killed nine people and injured another seven at a FedEx facility in the same city where the NRA is hosting its weekend convention.
Meanwhile, every Republican likely vying to lead this country is openly dishonoring the people killed, their families and friends, and every single person in America frustrated by government inaction on gun violence.
By video, the NRA convention will warmly welcome Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. Donald Trump, Mike Pence, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy will all be appearing in person, alongside other shameless Republicans.
It’s not a matter of whether it’s surprising that Republicans are tripping over themselves to satisfy the NRA. Sometimes the most stirring and instructive conclusions can be found in simplicity: Every single potential presidential candidate of a major political party is bowing down to the NRA in the wake of yet another pair of devastating mass shootings.
To call it depraved would be generous. The subservience that the Republican Party has to a group that insists upon making it as easy as possible for anyone to access tools used for killing is unworldly. The phrase “dodging a bullet” is becoming less a plain colloquial metaphor, and more guiding advice for anyone trying to do anything in public in the United States.
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some progress post nashville (2 in 1 hour 2 mi apart) mayor had been grazed yr before?
assault ban WA? red flag sev states try?
rubber glue projection
sometimes retaliation FAILs even backfires
// tucker
an 4 23
no lnx vid etc
'The worst case of blackface': Matt Walsh's racist attack on Justin Pearson
Brandon Gage April 12, 2023
Right-wing Daily Wire host Matt Walsh called Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson (D-86th District) a "gutless fraud" and accused Pearson of "doing blackface" as Nashville officials were voting to reinstate him to his office on Wednesday afternoon.
Pearson and State Representative Justin Jones (D-52nd District) – both of whom are Black – were expelled from the chamber last week by Republicans because they protested the GOP's lack of action to prevent gun violence following the deadly mass shooting at the Covenant School in late March.
A third legislator, State Representative Gloria Johnson (D-90th District), who is white, was spared. Jones was reinstated on Tuesday.
READ MORE: 'Miscarriage of justice': Metro Nashville council reappoints Justin Jones
On Easter Sunday, Pearson delivered a Resurrection-themed sermon at the Church of the River in Memphis in which he blasted his right-wing colleagues for their unprecedented assault on the democratic process.
"The Republican-led supermajority of the Tennessee assembly sought to have a political lynching of three of its members because we spoke out of turn against the status quo of the government after the tragic deaths of six people at the Covenant school in Nashville," Pearson said. "The movement for democracy lives or dies in Memphis. The movement to end gun violence lives or dies in Memphis. We’ve seen those who want to kill the movement in the Republican-led supermajority."
Pearson compared Governor Bill Lee to Pontius Pilate, the biblical Roman official who condemned Jesus Christ to crucifixion.
"Because we walked to the well of the house out of turn, resolutions were unjustly and undemocratically filed against us on these trumped-up charges," Pearson stated. "Because we spoke out against the empire of the NRA of the gun lobbyists; because we demanded an end to gun violence, an end to the proliferation of weapons on our streets, an end to the funerals we attend day after day and week after week and month after month and year after year — because we did that, the Republican-led General Assembly with the support of folks even in this district like Mark White, from our own community, thought it better to get rid of our democratic representation in District 86 than to actually solve the problem."
READ MORE: Tennessee lawmaker: 'Partisan' GOP efforts to oust him were a 'gross miscalculation'
Pearson also penned a blistering CNN editorial on Wednesday in which he admonished Republicans for their "gross miscalculation" in having him removed.
"The spectacle was a gross miscalculation by Republicans in the chamber," Pearson argued. "It turns out that most Americans care deeply about democracy. Most people care about equality and progress. And over two-thirds of Americans — including four out of 10 Republicans — support the kind of common-sense gun safety laws that Rep. Jones, Rep. Johnson and I were protesting in favor of, in the wake of the senseless March 27 Covenant School massacre."
Pearson's powerful oratory triggered a vengeful reaction from Walsh, who launched a racist attack against Pearson:
You know, he doesn't, he, he doesn't really sound like a 1960s civil rights figure, which is what he is trying to sound like and look like. Uh, he sounds like he's doing a parody of one. You know, this is, this is the worst case of blackface that we've seen since Justin Trudeau, except that Pearson's actually Black and he's still doing blackface. Nevertheless, he, he is performing and we know he is performing because now we know what he sounded like before the performance. It's not at all a convincing performance, of course, in fact, I didn't think I'd see a performance less convincing than Bill and Mulvaney's portrayal of womanhood until Pearson came along. Pearson's really given him a run for his money. This is what the left promotes and encourages – empty performance taken to comical, almost surreal extremes. You know, they give us heroes and leaders who are cartoons. Who are hollow and paper thin, who are, it always turns out conniving, cowards, gutless frauds, and self-aggrandizing performance artists.
Watch below or at this link.
READ MORE: Judges axe Tennessee GOP's halving of Nashville Metropolitan Council: report
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'Fascism, full stop': Progressives in Congress condemn expulsion of Tennessee Democrats ›
'Can’t expel truth': Ousted TN lawmaker Justin Pearson highlights hypocrisy of 'country built on a protest' ›
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RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
Justin Pearson of 'Tennessee Three' Could Be Reinstated ... ›
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Will Justin Pearson, expelled Tennessee lawmaker, regain his seat ... ›
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6-8 all gop prz cand went 3? or sent video msgs
nikki noemi?? said diverse then brutal pan of aud by cnn
https://www.alternet.org/south-dakota-governor-nra-white/
https://www.alternet.org/oscar-winning-edit-nra-audience/
https://www.alternet.org/mike-pence-nra/
booed?
hard to beleive he is still prz
https://www.alternet.org/nra-ceo-threatening-political-careers/
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4 23
expell 2 AA young guns justins, 1 wht woman spared by 1 vote
https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-house-defined-by-partisan-vitriol-pique-scandal-racism-and-olympic-level-pettiness-for-years-beat-reporter-2659757170/
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fla say gay
https://www.alternet.org/usa-now-majority-permitless-carry/
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big natl protests post nashville, he has to spox?
https://www.alternet.org/its-worth-it-charlie-kirk/ for 2a
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rww 4 23
no twt
Levin appeared on Fox & Friends March 31, 2023 to denounce the indictment of Donald Trump (and plug his book).
When news broke Thursday that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict former President Donald Trump, Trump and his supporters were quick to portray him as an innocent victim and to suggest that his prosecution spelled the end of democracy in America.
The charges follow an investigation into a hush money payment made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. With the indictment under seal, the exact charges have not yet been made public, though some news reports suggest Trump faces about 30 charges and that he is expected to be charged with falsifying business records to cover up the payment.
Trump himself displayed his trademark narcissism Thursday, writing in one of many urgent emails, “We are living through the darkest chapter of American history.”
The always-blustery right-wing pundit Mark Levin ranted on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, “We have crossed the Rubicon. This is a tyranny now.”
Right-wing youth leader Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, claimed that the indictment of Trump is a “designed campaign” by the left to provoke right-wing violence “to justify the next phase of their takeover of the country.”
Ali Alexander, a leader of the “Stop the Steal” effort to keep Trump in power after his 2020 loss, wrote on his Telegram account, “TRUMP INDICTMENT refocuses some things. We’re approaching Luciferian-triggered civil war. We must fight Them. May God bless and forgive us where we fall short.”
Far-right broadcaster Pete Santilli—who last week said that if Trump were arrested, the military and law enforcement should round up and execute former President Barack Obama and other members of the “criminal cabal”—reacted to the news by telling his viewers that “these leftist, gun-grabbing Maoists, you will never have a peaceful resolution with. They’re going to come and kill you.:
amid reports that New York law enforcement officials are preparing for possible violence, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “I’m going to New York on Tuesday. We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!”
Although details of the indictment haven’t been made public, Sen. Ted Cruz used his “Verdict” podcast to denounce the indictment as “utter and complete garbage,” describing himself as angry and “heartbroken” over what he called a “devastating” blow to the rule of law. Cruz claimed that the Manhattan investigation was an effort by “radical Democrats” to “steal” the 2024 presidential election.
Cruz said the indictment would boost Trump’s election campaign, a sentiment echoed by other far-right followers of the twice-impeached former president. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody said the indictment had made Trump a “political martyr.”
On “FlashPoint,” a show that appears on evangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel that was a steady source of misinformation about the 2020 election and Jan. 6 insurrection, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake denounced what she called “false, phony charges.” Trump’s supporters, she said, are “tried and true” and will stay with him “all the way.”
Trump’s religious-right backers also rallied around him, with Franklin Graham calling it a “shameful day for America.”
As noted by religion scholar Diana Butler Bass in her latest newsletter, Trump has been using increasingly messianic and apocalyptic language in reference to his legal troubles in an effort to maintain religious-right support. Trump followers who believe he is anointed by God and is being persecuted like Jesus by the legions of Satan is “a theo-political wild card we’ve got to pay attention to,” Bass writes. She points to the biblical story of Jesus’ arrest in which one of his disciples attacked one of the soldiers. While Jesus insisted, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword,” Bass warns, “Do not expect the same from Trump.”
Tags: Charlie Kirk David Brody Donald Trump Franklin Graham Kari Lake Marjorie Taylor Greene Mark Levin Pete Santilli Donald Trump Election 2024 Rule of LawTrump Indictment
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https://www.alternet.org/trump-jim-jordan-insurrection-committee/
badash no twt vid?
This is about one client. Donald Trump': Jim Jordan hammered over 'Insurrection LLC' committee
David Badashand The New Civil Rights Movement March 29, 2023
U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) unleashed massive criticism of Jim Jordan Wednesday afternoon, accusing the House Judiciary Committee Chairman of working solely for Donald Trump.
In his opening remarks of a Judiciary subcommittee hearing Swalwell, the Ranking Member, slammed Jordan for refusing to comply with a legal subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and criticized the subcommittee for holding a hearing – not on gun violence and mass shootings – but on what the California Democrat said was issues to help the ex-president.
Congressman Swalwell blasted Jordan and his “Committee to Obstruct Justice” on a wide range of issues, including obstructing justice, ordering a district attorney to commit a felony, and lying that Attorney General Merrick Garland labeled parents “domestic terrorists.”
“Well, here we are. Another partners’ meeting of Insurrection, LLC,” Swalwell said as he began his remarks. “That’s what this is. This is the newly formed largest law firm in Washington, D.C. Only has one client, maybe a second client that we’re going to learn about today, but that client is former president Donald Trump.”
“Their job,” he said, referring to Jordan’s Judiciary Committee, subcommittees, and his controversial Subcommittee of the Weaponization of the Federal Government, “is to litigate every one of [Trump’s] petty, petty, petty grievances.”
READ MORE: Watch: House Dem Mocks Republicans by Thanking Them for Taking Time Away From ‘Trump’s Memorial Service to David Koresh’
“It’s now 321 days since this subpoena was sent to Jim Jordan, that he did not comply with,” Swalwell said, pointing to a large blown-up copy of the subpoena, with the word “subpoena” enlarged exponentially.
“So it’s comical that we are here today, under Jim Jordan’s leadership, asking people why they don’t want to comply with subpoenas. The guy won’t comply with the one that was sent to him 321 days ago, witness to a crime, the crime that has led to more arrests than any investigation in America,” Swalwell observed, referring to the January 6 prosecutions.
“He’s a witness being asked to do his patriotic duty and respond to a subpoena 321 days later, refuses. Also, since the last hearing of this Committee to Obstruct Justice, Chairman Jordan is now in interfering in an independent criminal prosecution. There’s an investigation in Manhattan, also in Atlanta, also at the Department of Justice, into the former president and Jim Jordan has sent a letter to the independently elected District Attorney Alvin Bragg of Manhattan. He is asking Alvin Bragg to commit a felony.”
“Why is he asking Alvin Bragg to commit a felony? To help Donald Trump. Why is it a felony? Because if Alvin Bragg were to turn over what Jim Jordan is asking of him, Bragg would be violating New York law that says you cannot turn over grand jury proceedings, but that’s what they’re asking them to do. Again, the law doesn’t matter if your client is Donald Trump.”
“The other day Jim Jordan was asked, ‘Well, what do you think of the former president who put out on Truth Social the other day, essentially an another call to action? A January 6-like post when the former president said this posting, Jim Jordan was presented with this post by the former president that calls for ‘death and destruction.’ And Mr. Jordan said that he would ‘need his glasses.’ He was looking the other way. Jim Jordan looking the other way.”
READ MORE: Here’s How Five Republicans in Congress Are Responding to the Mass Shooting of 3 Children and 3 Adults in Nashville (Video)
“Well, we have blown up on the screen and we’ve put it right here and I’ll leave it for Jim Jordan. This is what Donald Trump said, Mr. Jordan,” Swalwell said, reading the e-president’s social media post:
“‘What kind of person can charge another person? In this case it former president of the United States who got more votes than any sitting president in history and leading candidate by far for the Republican Party nomination with the crime when it is known by all that? No crime has been committed and also known that potential death and destruction and such a false charge can be catastrophic for our country. Why and who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA?'”
“Again, I’m gonna leave this up here in probably 200 font. So Mr. Jordan doesn’t need his glasses to read it,” Swalwell added, referring to news that Jordan recently refused to comment on a Trump social media post claiming he first hadn’t read it, then when a reporter showed it to him, Jordan said he couldn’t read it because he didn’t have his glasses.
“The same individual who posted this also posted this photo. There you go, Donald. Trump. Real tough guy holding a baseball bat, next to a picture of that independent prosecutor that Jim Jordan wants to commit a felony, Alvin Bragg.”
“But you won’t hear from this Committee to Obstruct Justice, any condemnation of what Donald Trump posted. They can’t condemn him. They can’t. So in their silence, they condone it. And in these posts from Donald Trump, he incites more and more Americans to commit violence like a woman who was arrested yesterday, near Times Square with a knife seeking to carry out an act of violence in Donald Trump’s name.”
Swalwell blasted Chairman Jordan for repeatedly falsely claiming that Attorney General Merrick Garland had labeled parents speaking at school board meetings “domestic terrorists,” a lie made by many Republicans and conservatives.
READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies
“No parent has a right to threaten a school board volunteer. If a threat is brought to the FBI, it’s their duty to investigate those threats. We’ve also learned from all the document production from DOJ and the FBI in the Department of Education, that there is not one instance where the Department of Justice called any parent or a group of parents, ‘domestic terrorists,’ as has been claimed by Jim Jordan.”
And he criticized House Republicans, who, under Jim Jordan, had posted a tweet in support of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Kanye West.
“It’s also about a tweet that Jim Jordan posted back in the fall. ‘Kanye. Elon. Trump.’ Now after that tweet was posted, Kanye said he’s going to declare ‘DEF CON three on the Jews.’ The tweet stayed up for months. Everyone was like, ‘Hey guys, turns out your hero Kanye West hates the Jews. We all stand with Israel. Please take down the tweet.’ They didn’t take down the tweet. They kept the tweet up. Day after day. Jewish community they’re hurting, they say, ‘Please don’t take, please don’t put this tweet up.’ It stays up.”
He also blasted the GOP for holding hearings with witnesses they invited who are anti-police, despite their motto of “backing the blue.”
“Last week, we had a hearing where you could call anyone in America when you have the majority, the power of a subpoena. We had a hearing about the ATF. These guys brought a witness who had just recently tweeted, ‘fuck cops.’ Cops. That’s what this guy tweeted. Anyone on Earth could have come to that hearing and they brought someone that said, ‘fuck cops.’ Then one of their colleagues, this is what she’s selling on her social media: ‘defund the FBI.’ So we went from backing the blue to backing the coup.”
Swalwell concluded his remarks by slamming the committee for doing nothing to reduce gun violence in the wake of Monday’s school mass shooting.
“So we’ll waste our time today on this exercise on behalf of Donald Trump and perhaps Elon Musk, but everyone on their side is going to have to go home this weekend to their constituents and their constituents are going to ask them one question: Three little babies died this week in a school in Nashville. No other committee in Congress has jurisdiction to do something about that except this committee. So you’re on the Judiciary Committee. Three kids are dead. They’re gonna be buried this week. What did you do about it? Did you show up to the Judiciary Committee and fight for those kids? Or did you show up and fight for Donald Trump? They showed up to the first hearing after Nashville and they’re fighting for Donald Trump.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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https://www.alternet.org/guns-dont-kill-americans-republicans/
yet another tpusa pix
no lnx
Guns don't kill Americans, Republicans do
Thom Hartmann andRaw Story March 28, 2023
Yesterday a 28-year-old graduate of a Christian school shot up the place, killing three 9-year-old students and three adults. This was almost 2 years to the day that Republican Governor Bill Lee signed a wide-ranging gun deregulation bill allowing Tennesseans to carry guns — open or concealed — without a permit or any other government interference.
Republicans are trying to distract America from the easy access Audrey Hale had to weapons of war by discussing Hale’s personal life, but the availability of guns and the Republican embrace of death as a political weapon are the only real issues here.
We’re the only developed country in the world that unconditionally allows civilians to own military-style assault weapons, that allows “open carry,” and that lets gun manufacturers openly buy politicians (thanks, Republicans on the Supreme Court).
As a consequence, we’re also the only country in the world where the leading cause of death for children is being blown apart by bullets.
Today is the 87th day of the year. So far, we’ve had over 130 mass shootings. Yesterday’s was the 33rd school shooting. This is not happening in any other developed country in the world.
The last time there was a school shooting in the United Kingdom, for example, was 26 years ago.
These guns have been put into American’s hands by Republicans. Bill Clinton passed an assault weapons ban in 1994, but Republican President George W. Bush led the charge to refuse to renew it. It died in 2004.
The result is clear from the graphic Hillary Clinton posted here.
There are two simple reasons why Republicans want America drenched in guns and the deaths they bring.
The first is that they’ve been taking piles of money from explicit peddlers of death: the NRA and gun manufacturers. This form of corrupt political bribery was legalized by 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court in 1978 and doubled down on with Citizens United: it’s not just corrupting politics in America, it is killing our children.
The second is that there’s a substantial part of the violent white racist GOP base that is actively arming in preparation for a civil racial war in America, egged on by multiple Republican members of Congress.
These America-hating legislators — these sick, twisted bastards — delight in posing their white families with military assault weapons and posting the pictures on social media, their way of telling Black people and “liberals” what’s coming.
Last weekend in Waco, Donald Trump ran clips on a giant screen of his January 6th mob assaulting and killing people, producing three dead police officers, as he and his followers stood with their hands over their hearts singing a version of the national anthem that was interspersed with quotes from Trump himself.
The leading Republican candidate for president and his followers were literally celebrating the deaths they had caused, while calling for an end to our form of democratic republican government.
If that bloody mass murderer Vladimir Putin wanted to kill a few hundred thousand Americans, for example, he couldn’t have done better. We’ve lost more Americans to guns in just the past three years than Putin has lost on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Which reminds me of the September 17, 2019 article from National Public Radio (NPR):
“The National Rifle Association acted as a ‘foreign asset’ for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation...”
Or the April 11, 2018 piece in Politico that opened with:
“The National Rifle Association reported this week that it received more money from people with Russian ties than it has previously acknowledged, and announced that it was officially done cooperating with a congressional inquiry exploring whether illicit Kremlin-linked funding passed through the NRA and into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign…”
The Republican-controlled congressional committee and the Republican-blocked Federal Elections Commission that learned about this both failed to issue or enforce a subpoena to learn more.
Nothing to see here but thousands of dead children. Republicans will use them as an excuse to ban books or harass drag performers, but they don’t really give a damn if our kids die from bullets.
Setting aside the Putin theory — regardless of how we got over 400 million guns in this country, the majority of them since the Reagan Revolution, earning hundreds of billions for the weapons industry — we are experiencing an orgy of death unparalleled in the rest of the developed world. Brought to us by the GOP.
America has just a bit more than 4 percent of the world’s population, but, with more guns than people in our country, we have more than 40 percent of all the civilian guns in the world.
Specifically, as a Swiss-based research group found, there are “approximately 857 million civilian-held firearms in the world’s 230 countries and territories” and, as ABC News points out, in America there are “over 393 million firearms in civilian possession” as of 2017.
About fifteenth million more have been sold in the US since then: we are the only nation in the world with more guns than people.
For every 100 people in America, there are 120 guns. Among developed nations, next highest on the list is Canada, at 34 per 100 people, and all other developed countries are lower down the list than that: South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, for example, all clock in at fewer than one gun per 100 people.
This is entirely a recent phenomenon. Before the Reagan Revolution, gun ownership numbers in America resembled Canada’s and school shootings had not yet become a thing.
Today, however, America not only leads the world in gun ownership but we also lead the world in gun deaths. As an exhaustive study of gun deaths in the world’s 23 wealthiest countries published in The American Journal of Medicine found:
“US homicide rates were 7.0 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25.2 times higher. For 15- to 24-year-olds, the gun homicide rate in the United States was 49.0 times higher. Firearm-related suicide rates were 8.0 times higher in the United States... Unintentional firearm deaths were 6.2 times higher in the United States. The overall firearm death rate in the United States from all causes was 10.0 times higher.”
Astonishingly, they added, ninety percent of all women murdered by firearms in those 23 countries were killed here in the United States, as well as 91 percent of all children killed by firearms.
Thanks to the Republican Party, fully 82 percent of all the human beings living in the world’s wealthy countries killed by firearms lived in the USA.
Only ten percent of the wealthy world’s firearms deaths occurred in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland combined.
Other countries have gotten their gun violence under control by simply reducing the number of guns in circulation and requiring gun owners to do two of the three things we do across America for car owners: be licensed and register your weapon.
I’d add that we should include mandatory liability insurance, like we do for cars: the insurance companies would then sniff out the “high risk” gun owners and refuse to insure them, thus preventing them from easily and legally owning a gun. (San Jose, CA just put this into law!)
Gallup found last year that Americans are si ck and tired of seeing our children slaughtered by guns just to satisfy fanatics and on-the-take politicians in the GOP: 57 percent of Americans and 85 percent of Democrats want stricter gun laws in America.
Giving American voters a giant middle finger, Republican politicians are moving in the opposite direction, endorsing gun violence and terror: then-Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn said after the Rittenhouse verdict that Republicans should “be armed and dangerous” while Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “[G]un rights are the only thing holding back the Communist Revolution the Democrats are waging.”
Because death-promoting fascists like these in the GOP continue to try to push America toward armed civil war, opposition to gun control appears to be an issue that animates the hard-core white supremacist Republican base who are openly enthusiastic about seeing Democrats and people of color die at the hands of vigilantes.
It used to be that Republicans promoted guns because of the NRA’s money, but the NRA is now a shell of its former self. Today, it appears they’re opposing rational gun control measures because so many of them are openly promoting gun-based rightwing terrorism and the death it brings to America’s streets.
Killer Kyle Rittenhouse, for example, is lionized by the GOP, embraced by the House Sedition Caucus, a popular speaker at Republican political events, and feted on Fox News and rightwing hate radio.
America is caught in a crossfire between gun manufacturers bribing politicians with the blessing of 5 corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and a fascist movement fed by billionaire-owned media machines that has seized control of the GOP.
Mass shooters, rightwing terrorists, and child-killers are celebrating. Meanwhile Republican politicians vow to protect us and our kids from — wait for it — librarians, drag queens, and history teachers.
Every developed country in the world has guns, and most have lots of them. But only America has a crisis of mass slaughter of our children.
Republicans and their sociopathic policies and rhetoric are causing people to use those guns to murder others.
It’s the Republican promotion of violence as an acceptable part of American politics — indisputably on display in Waco last weekend — that has led rightwing terrorists to commit virtually every act of political murder in the past 20 years.
It’s Republican austerity and tax-cut policies that have gutted the middle class, led to an epidemic of homelessness, and destroyed our system for treating mental illness.
And then those same Republican politicians cynically tell formerly middle-class white men that their economic crisis was caused by women, Black people, teachers, immigrants, and “radical” Democrats rather than the morbidly rich and massive corporations who are actually funding the corruption of our government.
They promote the language of dehumanization and victimhood, demonize immigrants and queer people, and encourage antisemitism and racial hate with their Great Replacement Theory, which has made it all the way to Fox “News” and has recently been cited by multiple mass murderers.
Even during the worst pandemic in a century, Republicans chose to politicize a virus, leading the British medical journal The Lancet to conclude that a half-million Americans died unnecessarily, the majority of them followers of conservative media.
All while GOP politicians condone the slaughter of our children with their silence, hypocritical “prayers,” and refusal to do anything about over 400 million guns.
The rest of the world is watching us, boggled. It’s way past time to wake the hell up and do something about the Republican-led slaughter of Americans and our children.
The number to call your members of Congress and demand immediate action is 202-224-3121.
And double-check your voter registration every few months: since 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that Red states could throw you off the voting rolls without even letting you know, GOP governors and secretaries of state have already purged millions.===
https://www.alternet.org/menacing-wickedness-marjorie-taylor-greene/
no lnx twt
on June 22nd, 2021, then-freshman United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) filed House Resolution 3960 to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, alleging that the agency was in cahoots with President Joe Biden to strip American citizens of their right to bear arms.
"The ATF's ongoing, unconstutional [sic] attacks on the Second Amendment must end," Greene's office stated of the Brian A. Terry Memorial Eliminate the ATF Act, which went nowhere because Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. The typo still appears on Greene's website.
Like most right-wing lawmakers, Greene is steadfastly opposed to any form of sensible gun control, even as thousands of Americans are killed by bullets every year. But Monday's mass shooting at the private Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee that claimed the lives of at least six people marked an escalation in Greene's rhetoric and actions aimed at thwarting efforts to save lives.
READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene garners few sympathizers after claiming she was 'attacked' in a restaurant
At around the same time that Greene baselessly blamed Biden for the slaughter, Greene and other members of their state's Capitol Hill delegation were obstructing a routine ATF inspection of a weapons retailer in Smyrna, Georgia.
Footage of the confrontation was posted to Twitter along with a screenshot of Greene boastfully writing that the ATF abandoned its assignment "after we questioned their motives."
In the video, Greene flexed her power.
"We're members of Congress," she said, adding that "I serve on the Oversight Committee."
READ MORE: Watch: Jamie Raskin shreds Marjorie Taylor Greene at hearing for sympathizing with insurrectionists
Greene also complained to the ATF officer that the "government has been weaponized," that "people feel like their gun rights are threatened," and that "gun dealers feel like their businesses are threatened."
Given the day's events, social media users tore into Greene with exasperated disgust.
Jayme Ruimveld: "Is this today? Is she running her mouth about guns while children have been murdered by guns at their preschool? Not a shred of decency. Not an ounce of respect or concern for the grieving families. Absolutely soulless."
Kat: "And they're worried about gun vendors, feeling threatened!"
Judy Miron: "There are 7 more people dead, 3 of them children today in Nashville.. and she complains about ATF inspections!! Time to get rid of her. Vote her out!!"
Michelle: "Marge is nothing but a heartless hateful little troll."
Leon: "Meanwhile children died today at a Christian School, but hey as long as your precious 2nd Amendment that was written for Flintlock rifles is protected right."
Cathy Coleman: "There is something very wrong with MTG and the Republican members of Congress who hover around her & follow her lead. Something beyond dirty politics or unbridled ambition - there is a menacing wickedness and cruelty about them all."
ZoëbethC-MeidasMighty: "Just as another shooter shows up in Tennessee to kill elementary school kids. They got their priorities straight. I bet after lunch it's more bills to ban Drag Shows on a federal level."
Marcus Flowers: "As America grieves over yet another school shooting, this time in Nashville, Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to prevent the ATF from doing their job. Common Sense Gun Legislation is necessary. We must do something to protect our children."
Seth Abramson: "Marjorie Taylor Greene is all about 'good guys with guns' until a violent insurrectionist smashes the window of the Speaker's Lobby inside a closed-to-the-public United States Capitol so a military veteran can leap into the breach and kidnap or kill a sitting member of Congress."
Watch the encounter below or at this link.
READ MORE: 'Performative disgrace': Marjorie Taylor Greene ridiculed for defending Ashli Babbitt while misspelling her name
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Although David Hogg lives in a state that finds itself dominated by Republicans in 2023, the 22-year-old Floridian has become one of the United States' best-known gun control activists. Hogg is a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre that occurred in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day 2018, and he has often used social media to speak out about gun control and the mass shootings that are so common in the United States.
Hogg addressed gun control once again in a Twitter thread posted on February 26, noting what the U.S. Constitution has to say about militias. And it didn't take right-wing Republicans long to become enraged by his comments.
Hogg posted, "You have no right to a gun. You are not a militia. When you're talking about your second amendment rights, you're talking about a state’s right to have what is today the National Guard. The modern interpretation of 2A is a ridiculous fraud pushed for decades by the gun lobby."
READ MORE: Pro-gun GOP Rep compares Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg to insurrectionists
By "2A," Hogg is referring to the Second Amendment, which, he argues, Republicans have been misinterpreting.
"We need to stop using the NRA's talking points and the false interpretation of 2A they have been pushing for decades," Hogg argued. "Their version of 2A is younger than I am…. The future the gun lobby is pushing for is one with absolutely no gun regulation whatsoever where anyone can get a gun. That is the path we are going down right now. They want bad guys to have guns so they can use the rise in gun violence to sell more guns to scared people."
Republican attorney Jenna Ellis, famous for promoting former President Donald Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, was quick to slam Hogg and tweeted, "So the Constitution is a living, breathing, fluid document, except for THIS ONE ISSUE ONLY ALWAYS because it suits your (false) narrative."
Twitter user David Benjamin wrote that Hogg is a "paid shill for the [George] Soros crew."
READ MORE: David Hogg disrupts House gun hearing and accuses GOP lawmakers of 'reiterating points of mass shooters
Far-right talk radio host Lori Mills responded by posting, "Considering my state Government puts criminal rights above victims rights, my 2nd amendment right is and always will be mine. Don't break into my home, don't threaten my family and my gun will leave you alone."
Hogg's thread was mostly attacked by Republicans, but some Libertarians weighed in as well. @LPNational tweeted, "Our rights aren't subject to what you or any tyrant think we need."
READ MORE: Gun control activists pressure POTUS to act on anniversary of Parkland shooting
Read David Hogg’s Twitter thread at this link.
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comm dr an
dem orig?!
Legal experts said Friday that a federal judge's ruling in West Virginia illustrates the danger posed by the U.S. Supreme Court's right wing majority, which ruled this year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that restrictions on firearms must fall within the so-called "historical tradition" of gun laws.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, who was appointed to the Southern District of West Virginia by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, ruled against a federal law prohibiting people from possessing firearms with serial numbers that have been "altered, obliterated, or removed."
"Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons."
Serial numbers have been required for guns since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and are intended to prevent the illegal sale of guns and to allowing law enforcement to trace firearms.
But basing his ruling on the majority Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas in June, Goodwin said Wednesday that requiring serial numbers is not part of the "historical tradition of firearm regulation" and therefore runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
In his majority opinion in Bruen, which overturned New York's state law restricting the concealed carry of firearms in public, Thomas wrote that for a gun control law to stand, the federal, state, or local government "must affirmatively prove that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms."
Goodwin's opinion, said Demand Justice, which advocates for Supreme Court reform, demonstrates the far-reaching impact the Bruen ruling could have on gun laws across the country.
"That radical ruling is impacting measures as basic as a requirement that guns have serial numbers," said the group.
The case heard by Goodwin originated with a traffic stop in Charleston, West Virginia during which police found a gun with the serial number removed. The driver, Randy Price, had also been convicted of a felony.
Price argued in court that he had a constitutional right to have the firearm, while lawyers for the federal government said the law regarding serial numbers was a "commercial regulation" that did not violate the Second Amendment.
On Thursday, Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern wrote that while Goodwin's ruling "might sound bizarre... his analysis closely follows Thomas' test" that requires the government to prove a gun regulation had a historical "analogue" in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, or 1868, when it was imposed throughout the U.S.:
The only remaining question is whether the government could find an analogous regulation from 1791 or 1868 that restricted the possession of guns with an altered serial number. It could not, for a fairly obvious reason: Serial numbers only became common following the mass production of firearms, which took off in the decades after the Civil War.
Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons.
When Bruen was handed down in June, Stern called the ruling "a revolution in Second Amendment law" which would ultimately go "so, so far beyond concealed carry."
Goodwin noted in his opinion on Wednesday that firearms that can't be traced using a serial number "are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable," but said that argument "is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering."
Stern suggested that parts of Goodwin's opinion read "as if the judge is desperate to show readers just how dangerous and radical [the Bruen] ruling is."
According to the Supreme Court, Stern wrote, "all that counts is that serial number laws arose over the last century, so they are too modern to comport with the Second Amendment. Goodwin made this point over and over again; it almost sounded like he was quietly protesting the extreme and dangerous results demanded by the Bruen test."
"His decision thus doubled as a warning," he added. "The Supreme Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime."
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kentucky State Representative Josie Raymond (D-31st District) delivered an impassioned floor speech on Wednesday in opposition to legislation that would nullify federal firearm restrictions across The Bluegrass State.
Assemblyman Josh Bray's (R-71st District) House Bill 153 "would make Kentucky a Second Amendment sanctuary" and "is a duplicate bill filed last year that would essentially prevent a federal ban on firearms — were it to happen — from applying in Kentucky," where "115 out of 120 counties already have Second Amendment sanctuaries in place," Link nky reported on Tuesday.
After the measure was approved by the Republican-dominated House Veterans, Military, and Public Protection Committee, the proposal advanced for debate by the full chamber, at which point Raymond stood up and excoriated her GOP colleagues for prioritizing weapons of mass death over human lives.
READ MORE: 'This is the second mass shooting': MSU and Sandy Hook survivor's video goes viral
"So I think I speak for a lot of people watching when I say, what are y'all doing? Why are we wasting time and resources passing unnecessary, unwise, unconstitutional legislation to pledge allegiance to hunks of metal that are being used to kill our children?" Raymond asked. "Sometimes in public policy, you know that it takes a tragedy to force policy change to force action from elected representatives. Unfortunately, when it comes to gun violence, we know better."
Raymond recalled that "when children were killed at Marshall County High School, this body did not act to keep guns out of the hands of children. Instead, this body said that newspapers could not publish pictures of the mutilated little bodies of our children after they've been shot and killed at school."
Raymond noted that "against the wishes of police, this body passed legislation to allow the carrying of guns – concealed guns – without any permit or training. Practical or merely symbolic, mere posturing, when we pass legislation that salutes guns over the lives of Kentuckians, we're making it known who we really serve."
Concluding her remarks, Raymond exclaimed that "this is lunacy, Mr. Speaker! This is idiocy. And I vote no."
READ MORE: 'You keep bringing up Chicago!' CNN cuts off Republican for dismissing new gun laws following LA mass shooting
Watch below or at this link.
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During a conversation about the mass shooting in Los Angles that took place late Saturday night and claimed at least ten lives, CNN "State of the Union" host Dana Bash called out at GOP lawmaker who attempted to brush off the need for new gun laws by pointing out gun violence in Chicago -- a favorite rightwing talking point.
Sitting down with McCaul to discuss what to expect now that Republicans have majority control of the House, Bash first asked about the latest gun-related bloodshed in California.
"I was a counter-terrorism federal prosecutor and I was chair of Homeland Security," the Texas Republican replied. "Chicago has probably some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, yet the highest murder rate. The way I look at it is we need the intelligence, we need information sharing, we need to connect the dots."
"Every one of these cases, and I guarantee you'll see it in this one as well, the shooter had warning signs along the way," he continued. "We just didn't respond or pick it up. In my judgment we can create a system. I introduced a bill that we can take published information on the internet, have an algorithm to stop the threat before it happens. That is a smart approach rather than violating Second Amendment rights. So, look, I hope we can get that passed -- we're seeing this movie way too many times."
"What about a red flag law? A federal red flag law?" Bash asked.
"In a way what i'm talking about are red flags," McCaul replied before adding, "Chicago, Illinois has red flags --"
"You keep bringing up Chicago, which I understand," the CNN host interjected before adding, "But the guns in Chicago come in from other places because there is a patchwork of laws across the country, there's no federal law."
'Right. Again, we stopped ---," he backtracked. "I saw it when I chaired Homeland, so many terror attacks because we got the threat information in advance and we stopped it. We can use the same formula here domestically, although it's a little different. The Constitution didn't apply overseas, but we can do that here and stop these threats before they happen."
Watch below or at this link:
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A small faction of sheriffs in the state of Illinois is pushing back against the state's ban on assault rifles, an initiative being enforced by Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker's (D) office.
According to NBC Chicago, a legal battle is brewing in the state as some believe the newly passed piece of legislation —House-Bill 5471, also referred to as the Protect Illinois Communities Act— violates Second Amendment rights.
Per the news outlet, a number of law enforcement officials in the state have weighed in with their assessments of the bill offering relatively critical opinions of it.
READ MORE: 'The heck with that': Dick Durbin says Saudi Arabia 'should be out of business' over oil production cuts
McHenry County, Ill. Sheriff Robb Tadelman took to social media with his concerns following the passing of the bill. “Neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been charged solely with non-compliance with this act,” he said.
Other Illinois law enforcement officials in various counties also weighed in with similar concerns, namely Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey, Sheriff Jack Harlan in Boone County, and Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana, according to NBC Chicago.
In fact, Downey released a statement on the sheriff department's Facebook page addressing the new bill. Some Republican lawmakers have also echoed law enforcement officials' concerns.
“We will not comply with this legislation because we don’t have to,” said former Illinois State Rep and Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey “Our Constitution protects us. The sponsors of this bill may have won a temporary victory today, but they will lose because they cannot get around the rights we have guaranteed in our Constitution.”
READ MORE: Why the power grid is an 'attractive target' for domestic terrorists and white supremacists: report
Despite the critical takes on the new law, Pritzker and his office are standing firm in support of it.
“Anybody who doesn’t comply, there are consequences for that,” Pritzker said. “You don’t get to choose which laws you comply with in the state of Illinois. The State Police is responsible for enforcement, as are all law enforcement all across this state. They will, in fact, do their job or they won’t be in their job.”
Per the news outlet, the governor's office also described the pushback as "'political grandstanding at its worst,' and said that sheriffs and departments that refuse to enforce the ban are 'in violation of their oath of office.'"
“The assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois. The General Assembly passed the bill and the governor signed it into law to protect children in schools, worshippers at church and families at parades from the fear of sudden mass murder,” a spokesperson said. “Sheriffs have a constitutional duty to uphold the laws of the state, not pick and choose which laws they support and when.”
Pritzker’s spokesperson also said, “We’re confident that this law will hold up to any future legal challenges."
READ MORE: Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse's Mom receives standing ovation at GOP event in Wisconsin
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eduardo bolso credit drop in crime to less gun control (vs pandemic)
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house Republicans remove metal detectors from the Capitol
Rodric Hurdle-Bradford Raw Story January 03, 2023
According to Axios, one of the first actions of the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives was to remove metal detectors outside of the House chambers.
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an 10 22
no lnx twt
'Macabre': Texas schools send out DNA kits after Greg Abbott signed law following Uvalde massacre
David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement October 17, 2022
Texas school districts have begun distribution of DNA kits to parents after GOP Governor Greg Abbott signed a law mandating they be made available in the wake of the horrific mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers were slaughtered in May.
“The state Legislature passed a law in spring 2021 requiring the Texas Education Agency to give inkless in-home fingerprint and DNA identification cards to each public school system in Texas,” The Houston Chronicle reports. “The kits will be made available at each primary-level campus. The cards are intended to be kept by guardians who can give them to law enforcement in order to potentially help find missing or trafficked children.”
The kits are available to any parent or guardian who requests them. They can be used to identify the bodies of their children in the event of another school mass shooting, or other event where it is difficult to ID a child.
READ MORE: ‘Ghoulish’ Greg Abbott Slammed as a ‘Monster’ for ‘Inhumane’ Response to Deaths of 50 People Locked in Tractor-Trailer
Brandi Smith, an Emmy award-winning anchor and reporter at KHOU responded to the news, saying on social media that a “follower forwarded me the email about the DNA kits he received from Clear Creek ISD last week. He identified himself as retired Army and added these kits were used prior to soldiers deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. Let that sink in.”
Gun violence prevention activist Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, blasted the move.
“Texas Gov Greg Abbott is choosing to send DNA kits to schools that parents can use to identify their children’s bodies AFTER they’ve been murdered rather than pass gun safety laws to proactively protect their lives,” she wrote, urging Texans to vote for Democrat Beto O’Rourke in the gubernatorial race.
Last month Everytown, the grassroots “movement of parents, students, survivors, educators, gun owners & concerned citizens fighting to end gun violence and build safer communities,” posted a chart showing the relationship between strong gun laws and lower gun violence.
READ MORE: ‘Taking Us All for Fools’: Critics Decimate Greg Abbott’s Claims and Defense of His Actions in Wake of School Shooting
“The states with the strongest gun laws—like California—have the lowest gun death rates. That’s not a coincidence,” the group, which includes Moms Demand Action, writes.
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, believed to be mulling a potential 2024 presidential run, also criticized prioritizing DNA test kits over changing gun laws.
“Greg Abbott’s solution to gun violence? Send DNA kits to schools so parents can identify their kids’ bodies AFTER they’ve been shot and killed.”
On its website, Everytown ranks the Lone Star State 34th in the country for “Gun Law Strength,” adds, “Texas has weak gun laws. The state does not require a person to pass a criminal background check before purchasing a firearm from an unlicensed seller. Texas also allows people with carry licenses to carry concealed firearms on college and university campuses. Texas even allows some staff and teachers to carry firearms in K-12 schools.”
“In an average year, 3,647 people die by guns in Texas,” the group notes.
READ MORE: ‘I Apologize for Interrupting Your Press Conference’: Tearful Texas Democrat Urges Greg Abbott to ‘Do Something’ on Guns
Incumbent Governor Abbott is running for re-election against Democrat Beto O’Rourke. FiveThirtyEight reports the Texas Republican is polling about seven points higher than the former U.S. Congressman.
“Some families have found the [DNA test kits] program chilling, considering that police asked parents waiting to find out if their children were slaughtered at Robb Elementary on May 24 to provide DNA samples to help identify the dead,” The Houston Chronicle reports.
“When you put it in the light of Uvalde, it’s one of the most macabre things you could think about,” Bob Sanborn, president of the nonprofit Children at Risk, told The Chronicle.
“Among the countless chilling details to emerge from the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas,” The New York Times reported back in May, “was this: The authorities had asked parents waiting in agony for news about their children to give DNA samples.”
“The request suggests that some of the 19 children who were killed may have been so severely wounded and grouped so closely together that they were difficult to identify, according to experts in medical forensics.”
Confirming the Times’ suggestion, NBC News also reported in May, after the Uvalde mass shooting – the deadliest shooting ever at a Texas public school – that, “Many of the bodies were in bad shape.”
Eulalio Diaz Jr., a justice of the peace forced to act as a medical examiner in Uvalde, “tried to spare the parents as much pain as possible, hoping to positively identify the murdered children through descriptions their parents gave of clothing they wore to school that day, of photos parents showed him.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” NBC added. “The bodies were too shot up. The Texas Rangers ordered DNA swabs of family members.”
Earlier this month Uvalde families joined together, saying, “Greg Abbott has abandoned us.”
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House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) has proposed two pieces of legislation aiming to incorporate more accountability measures for the firearm industry.
According to NBC News, the two bills seek to create penalties for gun manufacturers that sell "weapons of war" to civilian customers. The two measures focus on imposing tax increases and the creation of a criminal tracking system.
The first measure, the Firearm Industry Fairness Act, would "impose a 20% tax on the total revenue earned by manufacturers who produce assault weapons and high-capacity magazines."
READ MORE: New analysis explains why GOP believes the 'ideal' gun bill is no bill at all
The Democratic lawmaker explained that the money generated from the newly-imposed tax would be utilized for "gun violence prevention efforts and to support shooting victims."
The second piece of legislation, which is the Firearm Industry Crime and Trafficking Accountability Act, per the news outlet "would require every company that manufactures guns to create a system that tracks crimes committed with firearms they've sold, using data collected by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives."
"This summer, my Committee heard from those touched by gun violence in this country, including parents who lost their child, a doctor who lost his patients, and the mother of a young boy who lost his father," Maloney said in a statement. "These Americans, along with so many others from Uvalde, Buffalo, and Highland Park, urged Congress to take action to stop gun violence."
She added, "House Democrats have already passed a ban on assault weapons, but as we wait for the Senate to act, we must pursue other crucial reforms."
READ MORE: 'Quit filibustering it!': Angry constituents challenge Chuck Grassley over inaction on gun control
Per the House Oversight Committee, the proposed legislation would "mandate that those manufacturers cease distributing weapons to a retailer when they have reason to believe that the guns sold by that retailer are being trafficked or used for criminal purposes."
The latest follows a letter Maloney penned to executives from a number of gun manufacturers including Daniel Defense, Smith & Wesson Sturm, and Ruger & Co.
She noted that the information obtained from firearm manufaturers “has heightened the committee’s concern that your company is continuing to profit from the sale and marketing of weapons of war to civilians despite the harm these weapons cause."
READ MORE: 'We did nothing': Texas GOP lawmaker criticizes state lawmakers for failure to incorporate stricter gun laws
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see john lott hackademic
94% gun free zone BS --> okafor oversight
More Good Guys with Concealed Guns = More Violent Crime
Analyzing 37 years of data, a Stanford team finds no basis for a theory at the heart of the modern gun-rights movement.
By Alex Yablon Jun 29, 2017
The Trace
In the four decades that the modern, militant gun rights movement has been around, one of its most significant victories occurred not at the ballot box, on a president’s special signing desk, or in the courtroom. Rather, one of the biggest battles pro-gun partisans have ever won took place in the minds of millions of Americans.
Since the late 1970’s, the National Rifle Association and other firearm advocates have successfully fought to make armed self defense increasingly acceptable in everyday life. A wealth of survey data — the most recent of which came via a major Pew poll released last week — shows that Americans have grown more comfortable with the toting of concealed guns in public. Self defense is now the most common reason cited for owning a firearm, leading handguns to become the most popular kind of weapon in the American arsenal. Those attitudes and behaviors mark major shifts: In the mid 1990s, Americans primarily owned guns for recreation, and as recently as 2005, a strong plurality thought only police officers should carry guns in public.
At the heart of this campaign for the hearts, minds, and holsters of America has been an article of faith that the NRA and its allies have preached since at least the 1990s: that people enhance public safety by carrying guns to defend themselves. Economist John Lott first developed this “More Guns, Less Crime” theory in his 1998 book of the same title, and has since popularized it via frequent legislative testimony and op-eds. The NRA has deployed Lott’s work to beat back calls for new curbs on guns and their use. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, when NRA leader Wayne LaPierre made his infamous assertion that the “only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he was tapping into the already well-seeded notion that hidden guns at arm’s reach of their private owners increase public safety.
It’s a powerful, seductive idea, particularly to Americans who favor personal liberty over communitarian ideals. It’s also completely wrong, according to a new analysis of nearly 40 years’ worth of crime data.
“For years, the question has been, is there any public safety benefit to right to carry laws? That is now settled. The answer is no.”
John Donohue, Stanford Law School
In a new working paper published on June 21 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, academics at Stanford Law School ran that data through four different statistical models — including one developed by Lott for More Guns, Less Crime — and came back with an unambiguous conclusion: states that made it easier for their citizens to go armed in public had higher levels of non-fatal violent crime than those states that restricted the right to carry. The exception was the narrower category of murder; there, the researchers determined that any effect on homicide rates by expanded gun-carry policies is statistically insignificant.
While other studies conducted since 1994 have undermined Lott’s thesis, the new paper is the most comprehensive and assertive debunking of the more-guns-less-crime formula.
“For years, the question has been, is there any public safety benefit to right to carry laws? That is now settled,” said paper’s lead author, John Donohue. “The answer is no.”
More guns, more crime
Donohue and his co-authors looked at crime data from 1977 to 2014, both nationally and in 33 states that implemented “Shall Issue” concealed-carry laws during that period. The statutes are the handiwork of the NRA, which has by now successfully lobbied politicians in all but a sliver of state capitols to relax their standards for issuing permits to carry concealed guns. “Shall Issue” states, which Donohue refers to as right to carry (RTC), require that concealed-carry licenses be granted to anyone who meets basic criteria. Unsurprisingly, they accept permit applications at a higher rate than “May Issue” states, where authorities have greater discretion to decide who is fit to go about the world armed.
Since lowering the bar for concealed-carry licenses gradually leads more people to get those licenses (Florida alone has nearly 1.8 million people permitted to carry concealed guns, and Pennsylvania and Texas each have around one million), and because more guns in public is supposed to reduce crimes, then we should expect states to see less crime as “Shall Issue” laws kick in.
The Stanford team found precisely the opposite: “Ten years after the adoption of RTC laws,” they write, “violent crime is estimated to be 13-15 percent higher than it would have been without the RTC law.”
Prior assessments of right-to-carry statutes came earlier in the waves of “Shall Issue” laws that first swept states in the 1980s and mid-1990s. One of those was a well-known 2004 report from the National Research Council that also poked holes in Lott’s conclusion — but could not say definitively which way right to carry tilted crime rates, because there weren’t yet enough years of data to sift. Because the Stanford team was able to look at what was happening in states where expanded carry had been in place for a decade or more, it reached much stronger estimates of the effect of “Shall Issue” laws on crime.
The Stanford team suggested that the increased carrying of guns could have contributed to rising crime through several means. As more law-abiding residents arm themselves, so might the criminals in the same communities — rather than the other way around. Lawful gun-permit holders, the researchers theorize, could contribute to a street-level arms race by bringing more weapons into public, where they are more likely to be lost or stolen, making their way to the black market. The more that people become aware that their environs are filling with guns, their perceptions of society could become colored by fear and anger, thus leading them to more readily become violent.
“I wasn’t surprised to find violent crime went up,” Donohue said. “You’d expect guns to contribute to violent crime.”
Higher crime — no matter where you look
The Stanford findings fly in the face of not just the NRA’s message, but common understandings of crime trends over the last two decades. By national measures, violent crime has fallen dramatically after peaking in the early 1990s, and that drop has largely coincided with the expansion of the freedom to carry concealed guns. Lott and others are eager to point to declining national crime numbers as evidence for their theory, or at least to blunt concerns that more guns in public would lead to widespread bloodshed.
The problem with drawing a connection between the rise of concealed carry and the drop in the national crime rate, as Donohue and his co-authors point out, is that crime has not fallen equally in all parts of the country. Instead, the decline in violent crime has been most pronounced in states that maintained strict control over the right to carry guns, like New York and California. When other states decided to make it easier for residents to pack firearms, they appear to have missed out on reductions in crime of the same magnitude. Yes, in raw terms, crime declined in those right-to-carry states as well — but not nearly as much as it could have.
Examining statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data, the authors estimate that states with stricter concealed-carry laws saw crime fall by 42 percent from 1977 to 2014. That drop is more than four times greater than the 9 percent decrease seen in right-to-carry states.
In conducting their analysis, the Stanford researchers wanted to make sure that it was differences in concealed-gun laws, and not some other factor — diverging economic fortunes or police staffing, for example — that sent crime plunging in some places but not others.
To find out, the team projected what would have happened in right-to-carry states had they not relaxed concealed-carry standards, accounting for differences in demographics, policing, and economic growth.
Here, too, the team was able to run calculations that were not possible in the 90’s and mid-2000’s, when the academics who first subjected Lott’s theory to scrutiny had significantly fewer years’ worth of data to crunch.
The Stanford findings rest on two statistical methods with obscure-sounding technical names: panel data analysis and synthetic controls analysis. Panel data essentially tries to break down complex social phenomena — crime being very much one of those — by studying their smaller, more easily measurable components, like incarceration rates, police staffing levels, poverty, income, and population density.
Synthetic control analysis allows researchers to compare data recorded after the introduction of a change — like a right-to-carry law — with projections based on what might have happened had the change never occurred. The synthetic controls projection is based on demographic data and outcomes in demographically similar places.
Different researchers make different judgments about which factors have the most power to drive crime up or down. Rather than rest their analysis on a single set of variables, the Stanford team ran their 37 years of crime data through four different panels: their favorite, called DAW; one developed by the nonpartisan Brennan Center; the panel John Lott used in “More Guns, Less Crime,” and a fourth favored by a pair of pro-gun researchers named Carlisle Moody and Thomas Marvell.
Projections made with all four panels showed that states with right-to-carry laws would have had even greater decreases in violent crime had those places not loosened their gun laws.
“The panel data gave no hint that anything good was coming from the right to carry,” Donohue said.
Take Texas, for example. Donohue’s projections found that 10 years after the Lone Star State put right to carry into effect, violent crime was more than 16 percent higher than it would have been without that law, as laid out in the graph below The dotted line, labeled “synthetic control unit,” is a projection of what might have happened to Texas’ violent crime rate had it not loosened its concealed-carry statute, based on a composite of demographically similar states.
The only difference between projections using the pro-gun scholars’ preferred variables and the other two panels came when singling out murder. The highest purpose of the armed citizen, in the rationale of the NRA and gun sellers, is to subdue or incapacitate marauding psychopaths before the killers can take innocent lives. But when the Stanford team ran the pro-gun researchers’ formulas, the graphs showed that right-to-carry laws actually propped up homicide rates.
The DAW and Brennan Center panels, on the other hand, showed only that non-fatal violent crime would be lower if states had never opted for the “Shall Issue” route. And they showed that in all 33 states where they ran the simulation, with no exceptions.
Better research, same real-world outcome?
For that question, Donohue relies not on sophisticated math, but his years of experience studying the gun issue. “Many people have such strongly fixed ideas about guns,” he conceded. “It’s hard to influence their thinking.”
Donohue may be understating the challenge that he and other scholars confront. Sociological and anthropological research suggests that Americans’ feelings about firearms and whether to carry them for self defense are driven by elemental notions like identity and masculinity, rather than empirical measures of safety gained or lost.
The NRA has gone to great lengths to foment the idea that the right to carry guns is the bedrock of American citizenship, and the option of lethal self defense is “the first freedom.” Gun companies market firearms to appeal to consumers’ need to see themselves as powerful and, often, hyper-masculine protectors. It’s hard for an academic paper to break through those kinds of beliefs.
But policymakers and judges are a different kind of audience than gun buyers or voters. Donohue hopes his findings make it in front of those influential eyes.
“The Supreme Court is eventually going to have to decide if there’s a right to carry,” he said, speaking the day after the justices declined to hear a challenge to California’s restrictive right-to-carry law. “What will they make of this evidence?”
Alex Yablon was a reporter at The Trace.
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an 7 22
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/ar-15-manufacturer-mass-shootings/
AR-15 manufacturer: Mass shootings are 'evil,' but what about the welfare of guns?
David Edwards and Raw Story July 27, 2022
The CEO of an AR-15 manufacturing company testified on Wednesday that mass shootings are "pure evil" -- but he said that it was the future of assault-style rifles that really "concerned" him.
In his opening remarks to the House Oversight Committee, Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel began by acknowledging that mass shootings like the one at a school in Uvalde, Texas were "evil acts."
"I am concerned, however, that the stated implied purpose of this hearing is to vilify, blame and try to ban over 24 million sporting rifles already in circulation that are lawfully possessed and commonly used by millions of Americans to protect their homes and loved ones," the CEO said, "to safely sport shoot with family and friends and to put food on the table as licensed hunters."
He added: "I believe in God and my faith guides me and my family. Fundamentally, I also believe there is good and evil in our lives and what we saw in Uvalde, Buffalo and Highland Park was pure evil."
Daniel asserted that the assault-style rifles sold today are "substantially the same as those [firearms] manufactured over 100 years ago."
"I believe that our nation's response needs not to focus on the type of gun but the type of persons who would commit mass shootings," he said.
Watch the video below or at this link.
more
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ref
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no lnx
INVESTIGATIONS
Gunmaker’s Super Bowl stunt sheds light on marketing of ‘America’s rifle’
Sales soared in the past decade at Daniel Defense, the maker of the gun used in the Uvalde shooting, as the firm employed aggressive marketing tactics to sell AR-style rifles
By Shawn Boburg and Jon Swaine
July 25, 2022
AR-style rifles manufactured by Daniel Defense, seen in 2017 at its headquarters in Black Creek, Ga. (Lisa Marie Pane/AP)
A rapidly growing manufacturer of AR-15-style rifles tried to run an ad during the Super Bowl in 2014, knowing that the NFL typically does not allow gun commercials during its marquee event.
But Daniel Defense — the maker of the semiautomatic rifle used in the Uvalde school shooting — privately had in place a plan to generate publicity whether the ad aired or not, according to previously unreported court documents that shed light on the gunmaker’s marketing strategies.
...
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lesko misspoke shoot grandkids
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ingram also pot --> psychosis?
strict fr vs
https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/watch-tucker-carlson-finds-a-way-to-blamewomen-and-marijuana-for-the-most-recent-mass-shooting/
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-highland-park/
false flag
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==
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) is facing deep scrutiny after insisting that the United States could see an uptick in mass shootings with arrows if guns are banned. During a recent news interview, CNN's Pamela Brown asked Davidson if he could admit "that mass shooting could not happen" without guns.
The Republican lawmaker dismissed Brown's argument and, instead, focused on a different hypothetical scenario. He pondered the possibility of mass shootings occurring with arrows if guns end up being banned. As the clip of the interview began circulating on Twitter, social media users quickly chimed in to share their criticism of Davidson.
"Yeah, no such thing as an 'assault crossbow,' though," one Twitter user pointed out. "So it kinda takes a lot longer to kill as many people..."
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an 7 22
there was another shooting massacre over the weekend, this one in Highland Park, a picturesque, affluent and majority-white suburb of Chicago, where mass violence of the kind experienced during a Fourth of July parade isn’t supposed to happen on account of Highland Park being picturesque, affluent and majority white.
Mass violence of this kind is supposed to happen in places like Philadelphia, which did experience a shooting during a fireworks display, sending hundreds of spectators fleeing, but that has gotten none of the attention that the Highland Park shooting has gotten on account of Philadelphia, which is majority Black, being where violence is supposed to happen on account of being majority Black.
Evidently, Robert E. Crimo III doesn’t get it.
READ MORE: How SCOTUS wiped away progress in a single term
The 22-year-old, who appears to be white, perched himself atop a building along the holiday parade route with a “high-powered rifle” to shoot into the crowd, killing six and wounding 40. Per the Post: “At least two long bursts of rapid gunfire left five people dead at the scene and sent hundreds of people fleeing in panic, leaving a wake of overturned lawn chairs, coolers and strollers. … One spectator, a father, put his young son in a dumpster for safety as he scrambled to find and shield other family members while bullets rained down.”
I’ll talk more about the shooter after the story has been reported out, although we learned on Tuesday that Crimo had planned the attack for weeks, USA Today reported. The details of his case don’t matter, however, as much as the larger contours they fit in. As I’ve said, all shooting massacres, in one way or another, are a violent reaction to the politics of liberal democracy making it possible to elect the first Black president, who then ceased being subject to the law and became instead the enforcer of it.
That’s impossible for people who see “the law” as the same as white.
So impossible, they feel crazy.
READ MORE: The Supreme Court’s illegitimacy is accelerating
Shooting massacres are the result of “the natural order of things” being turned upside down in a country where “the law” is not the law so much as the law is a white man with a gun. In such an upside-down world, it’s only “natural” for some Americans (ie, usually white men who cannot and will not tolerate “their country” turned upside down) to seek “justice” by “taking the law into their own hands.”
This pattern has held steady since at least 2012, after the Sandy Hook massacre, when the Republicans made a permanent choice. They could do the truly conservative thing – enacting laws that would regulate the distribution of firearms for the purpose of promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty for all. Or they could recognize the obvious – that liberal democracy and the rule of law in the hands of a Black man had become the enemy.
The writer David Frum once famously said that "if conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
That’s close, but more precisely: if the champions of white power become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon white power, nor will they only reject democracy.
[READ MORE: Talk of secession in Texas means political violence is already here. Thanks to SCOTUS, there will be more
They will go to war with it, replacing law and order with anarchy and chaos so that respectable white people doubt democracy, too.
Since 2012, the GOP has built on the structures of white power already in place in police departments around the country. (These structures are why cops can arrest Robert Crimo without incident, but shoot Jayland Walker 60 times, killing him, for no crime at all.)
They radically expanded the number of people with the authority to enforce the law by deputizing every white man willing to wield a gun. They got around the old constraints on law enforcement that were acceptable to respectable white people by resorting to vigilantism.
With easy access to guns, and permission to carry them virtually anywhere, Republicans created conditions for wave after wave of mass death that has for years been tearing apart civil society.
READ MORE: Our freedoms have already been revoked
I don’t think the respectable white people who populate places like Highland Park are champions of white power. If choosing between a liberal Democrat and a fascist Republican, I’m confident they’d make the right choice. But respectable white people, who determine so much of the direction and scope of our national politics, are nonetheless the principal beneficiaries of white power. They are the property owners, the bourgeoisie, the social class elected officials turn to when charting a respectable position on any given issue.
As the principal beneficiaries of white power, respectable white people are more often than not insulated from or immune to the consequences of a political party’s decision to go to war with democracy. (It’s a one-sided war that involves “soft targets” like parades.) They are, that is, all the way up to when they are not.
I think that’s the case with the Highland Park massacre. White-power violence first came for immigrants, then Black Lives Matter, then LGBT-plus people. And now, those who had least expected it. “If this can happen here, I promise it can happen anywhere. This is the last place I would ever imagine something like this happening.”
Will respectable white people understand that the Republicans are responsible for the chaos and anarchy, for the upheaval of the established order? Or will they turn to the Republicans to protect them from the chaos and anarchy that the Republicans created?
READ MORE: Blaming 'the gun lobby' and the NRA for violence is a 'convenient fiction' to avoid offending white people
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Adam Winkler on Thomas's Historical Cherry-Picking on Gun Rights | History News Network
clarence
a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a New York law restricting the ability to carry a gun in public violated the Second Amendment. The majority opinion, from which the three liberal Justices dissented, raises questions about how cities and states can regulate firearms going forward. It also casts doubt on the constitutional viability of the bipartisan gun bill that passed a procedural vote in the Senate a few hours after the decision was announced. (That bill, which came about largely in response to recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, would, if enacted, become the most substantial federal gun-safety law in more than two decades.) To talk about the decision, and what it may mean for future gun-control efforts, I spoke by phone with Adam Winkler, a professor at the U.C.L.A. School of Law and the author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.” During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion cherry-picks history, how states might try to comply with the decision while still regulating firearms, and the meaning of a concurring opinion from Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh.
What’s your biggest takeaway from this decision?
This decision calls into question a wide variety of gun laws, including several key provisions of the Senate gun bill.
What was New York’s law, and what types of gun laws do you think are most at risk?
New York’s gun law restricted concealed-carry permits to those who could show a special need to have a firearm in public, which the Court said is too onerous a restriction given the Second Amendment. And, in terms of what this will call into question, I think the Court’s ruling will lead to laws in a number of other states being struck down, including California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Hawaii, which also have so-called may-issue permitting. Any state that has may-issue permitting will have to rewrite its laws and allow people to carry guns on the street.
Can you describe the differences between may-issue permitting and another kind, which is still allowed, called shall-issue permitting?
May-issue permitting limits concealed-carry permits to people who can show a special individualized need to have a firearm. A general fear of being a victim of crime is not good enough. But if you have had your life threatened, are maybe being stalked, or carry a large amount of cash or jewelry around as part of your job, then you might be eligible for a concealed-carry permit. So a may-issue regime gives the state a lot of discretion over who gets the permit.
A shall-issue-permitting rule is one in which, as the name suggests, the state shall issue a permit to any law-abiding citizen who meets the basic training or educational requirements, and you do not have to show an individualized need
[ see nyer mag]
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the conv
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/american-gun-culture-frontier-mythology/
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/stephen-breyer-gun-control-dissent/
no lnx
Stephen Breyer delivers a scathing and ‘ominous’ dissent in Supreme Court gun control ruling
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer with President Joe Biden in January 2022 (Wikimedia Commons).
Alex Henderson June 23, 2022
On Thursday, June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen — striking down the “proper cause” part of the Sullivan Act of 1911 as unconstitutional. And Justice Stephen Breyer, was especially vehement in his dissent.
The Sullivan Act, passed 111 years ago and named after State Sen. Timothy Sullivan — a Tammany Hall Democrat — has limited licenses for concealed-carry handgun permits to those with specific defense needs. Under the Sullivan Act, a New York State law, anyone applying for a permit to carry a concealed handgun has had to show “proper cause.” And the High Court has ruled that the “proper cause” requirement is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment.
Attorney Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama and often appears on MSNBC, described the warning that opened Breyer’s dissent as “ominous.”
The 83-year-old Breyer, who is retiring from the High Court and will be replaced by President Joe Biden’s nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, later this year, wrote, “In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms.... Since the start of this year (2022), there have been 277 reported mass shootings — an average of more than one per day.... Gun violence has now surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents.”
Breyer continued, “Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence just described by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds. The Court today severely burdens States' efforts to do so. It invokes the Second Amendment to strike down a New York law regulating the public carriage of concealed handguns. In my view, that decision rests upon several serious mistakes.”
All three of the dissenters in the High Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen were appointed by Democratic presidents: Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan. After Jackson — who will be the first African-American woman on the Court — replaces Breyer, it will still have a 6-3 right-wing supermajority. And none of the GOP-appointed justices in that supermajority voted with the Democratic-appointed justices in the New York State ruling.
The majority opinion in the case was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, who was joined by three Donald Trump appointees (Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Neil Gorsuch) as well as two George W. Bush appointees: Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.
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an 6 22
D.C. — The bipartisan Senate group was finally able to agree on the text of a gun safety bill together and a vote was held on Wednesday ahead of the two-week break during the Independence Day holiday.
The bill passed 64 to 34 less than two hours after the final text was published. When asked why so many Republicans voted against the bill if it was bipartisan, Sen. John Cornyn told Raw Story it was because people were miffed they didn't have enough time to see the final text before voting on it.
"Some people felt like they were being crunched," said Cornyn.
Republicans have been negotiating for the past several weeks with Democrats over the top issues, so anyone casually monitoring the discussions would know what was in the legislation. Senators also could have asked colleagues for any specifics.
The bill wasn't what Democrats wanted, leaving out a number of items on their list like increasing the age to buy a gun to 21 or increasing the age to by an automatic weapon to 21 years old.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who has pushed gun safety legislation since the Sandy Hook massacre in his home state asked not to let the "perfect be the enemy of good." While the bill isn't what Democrats want it makes some minor changes that will help in the future.
Cornyn previously called the joint bill a "loss" for President Joe Biden.
One of the top issues linking mass shootings is domestic violence. The existing laws only considered firearms restrictions on people who abused their partners if they were married, lived together or had children together. So, other intimate partners, like anyone who was abused by someone they dated became a loophole. The bill sought to close that.
Cornyn wouldn't say whether he was getting calls from the state about the bill. He was booed over the weekend for his willingness to work on the legislation.
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/uvalde-mom-says-police-harassing/
she rescue dtr
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omg yikes
an 6 22
Sewell Chan and Eric Neugeboren, The Texas Tribune
June 18, 2022
"Texas Republican Convention calls Biden win illegitimate and rebukes Cornyn over gun talks" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
HOUSTON — Meeting at their first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans on Saturday acted on a raft of resolutions and proposed platform changes to move their party even further to the right. They approved measures declaring that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” and rebuking Sen. John Cornyn for taking part in bipartisan gun talks. They also voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and calls for Texas schoolchildren “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child.”
The actions capped a convention that highlighted how adamantly opposed the party’s most active and vocal members are to compromising with Democrats or moderating on social positions, even as the state has grown more diverse and Republicans’ margins in statewide elections have shrunk slightly in recent years.
Votes on the platform were collected at the end of the party's three-day convention in which party activists moved to add multiple items to the official Texas GOP platform. As the convention closed, two separate sets of ballots — one allowing delegates to choose eight of 15 legislative priorities and another allowing delegates to vote on the 275 platform planks — were gathered. Those will now need to be tallied and certified in Austin, but it is rare for a plank to be rejected, according to party spokesperson James Wesolek.
The convention reinforced the extent to which former President Donald J. Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election continue to resound among the party faithful — even though his claims have repeatedly been debunked, including by many of his own former aides, and after a week of televised hearings about the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The denunciation of Cornyn represented a remarkable rebuke to a Republican who has served in the Senate since 2002. The hall at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston filled with boos on Friday as he tried to explain the legislation, which would allow juvenile records to be incorporated into background checks for gun buyers younger than 21 and encourage “red flag” laws that would make it easier to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, along with more funding for school safety and mental health.
Meanwhile, the party platform vote on Saturday by roughly 5,100 convention delegates would argue that those under 21 are “most likely to need to defend themselves” and may need to quickly buy guns “in emergencies such as riots.” It also would say that red flag laws violate the due process rights of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime.
About 9,600 delegates and alternates were eligible to attend; organizers said turnout was a bit more than half that.
The new platform would call for:
Requiring Texas students “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child,” including teaching that life begins at fertilization and requiring students to listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
Amending the Texas Constitution to remove the Legislature’s power “to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
Treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in the 2018 or 2020 party platforms.
Deeming gender identity disorder “a genuine and extremely rare mental health condition,” requiring official documents to adhere to “biological gender,” and allowing civil penalties and monetary compensation to “de-transitioners” who have received gender-affirming surgery, which the platform calls a form of medical malpractice.
Changing the U.S. Constitution to cement the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and repeal the 16th Amendment of 1913, which created the federal income tax.
Ensuring “freedom to travel” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
Declaring “all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right,” a response to COVID-19 mandates by Texas cities that required customers to wear masks and limited business hours.
Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.
Not every far-right proposal was advanced. The party chair, Matt Rinaldi, ruled that a motion to defend the due process rights of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and to “reject the narrative” that the riot was an insurrection was out of order and could not be voted on.
Taken together, the new provisions would represent a shift even further rightward for the Republican Party of Texas, once known as the party of Presidents George Bush and his son George W. Bush. Land Commissioner George P. Bush, a grandson and nephew of the two presidents, was defeated handily in May in his runoff race against Attorney General Ken Paxton, an arch-conservative who sued to challenge the 2020 election outcome and convinced voters that he was the truer Trump loyalist.
Party platforms are mission statements rather than legal doctrines and, in Texas, they have long reflected the opinions of the most activist wings of the parties. Republican elected officials are not bound to adhere to the platform, and party activists at times have expressed frustration that some parts of their platform and legislative priorities have not become law, despite complete Republican control of the state Legislature.
But the platforms are broad indicators of the sentiments of the most active Republican voters — those who dominate party primaries. Republicans have controlled every statewide elected office in Texas since 1999 and both houses of the Legislature since 2003, so the wishes of the party’s populist, pro-Trump base inevitably affect actions taken in Austin.
“The platform is largely symbolic but important as a measure of ideological drift,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “Party platforms are often used as a cudgel in party primaries. A more muscular ideological platform eventually leads to a more conservative legislature as challengers knock off more moderate members.”
The convention was noteworthy for the relatively low profile of top officeholders. Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking a third term in the November election, only appeared at a reception on Thursday on the sidelines of the convention. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who effectively controls the state Senate, addressed the convention, but House Speaker Dade Phelan only spoke at a luncheon, not to the main body of delegates.
Tensions within the party at times got personal. Video posted online showed far-right activists physically accosting U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, calling the conservative Republican “eye-patch McCain” over his criticism of Russia. The group included self-identified Proud Boys and Alex Stein, a social media activist from North Texas. A Navy SEAL veteran, Crenshaw lost his right eye to a bomb in Afghanistan.
“A more aggressive party platform sends a clear message to politicians about where the base is going,” Rottinghaus said. “Donald Trump radicalized the party and accelerated the demands from the base. There simply aren’t limits now on what the base might ask for.”
Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, said the 2022 platform indicated how emboldened hard-right party activists now feel — a far cry from 2020. Significant gains by Texas Democrats in state House elections in 2018 raised the prospect of the Republican Party losing its dominant status in Texas, making it moderate its platform in 2020 to focus on bread-and-butter issues. Texas Republicans did well in the 2020 elections — even though Biden won 46.5% of the Texas vote, the highest proportion for a Democrat since 1976 — and this year, culture-war issues were once again at front and center.
Jones said that Republican redistricting has made incumbents safer and less inclined to appeal to moderates. Moreover, inflation, the risk of a recession, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and growing acrimony over race, gender and sexuality make it seem increasingly likely that Democrats will lose the U.S. House in the November midterm elections.
“As a result, the 2022 GOP feels free to veer to the right to its heart’s content, confident that it won’t come back to haunt the party in November, except perhaps in a half dozen races,” Jones said. “And even the party’s pragmatic center right conservatives lack the ability to argue, as they did successfully in 2020, that an ultra conservative platform could cost the GOP its majority status in the Lone Star State. This year, even the absolute worst case scenario has the GOP winning statewide, increasing its number of U.S. House seats, boosting its Texas Senate majority by a seat, and maintaining the 83 seats it held in the 2021 Texas House.”
Before delegates voted on the platform, party activists delivered fiery speeches attacking Democrats.
“They want to destroy the racial progress we have made by saying that we are a racist nation,” said Robin Armstrong, a Black doctor in Texas City who treated COVID patients with unapproved drug therapies touted by Trump, including hydroxychloroquine. “The Democratic Party are now a party of chaos. They benefit from causing us to question the foundations that this country was built upon. The misery, the crime, the drug abuse, the high gas prices are all by design, so that the Democratic Party can permanently transform society. We Texans cannot and we will not allow this to happen.”
The Republican-dominated Legislature last year passed new voting restrictions that prompted Democratic lawmakers to flee to Washington to break quorum in an ultimately futile protest. However, Republican leaders said repeatedly on Saturday that it was the other side that was a threat to fair elections.
“The Democrats wants three things: Their goals are to steal elections, suppress Republican votes and federalize elections,” said Cindy Siegel, the chairperson of the Harris County GOP and a former mayor of Bellaire.
Immigration continued to be a major theme, with delegates lamenting Biden’s reversal of Trump-era border policies. U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, of Lubbock, described an “unprecedented, unmitigated, self-inflicted disaster that is creating the worst humanitarian and national security threat to the American people in the history of our southern border,” adding, “this is an invasion, folks.”
“President Biden has ceded control of our borders to paramilitary, narco-terrorist cartels,” Arrington told delegates.
The mood of this convention was not hopeful. The themes ran dark, and activists spoke in apocalyptic, even cataclysmic, terms about the state of the country.
“Everything is topsy-turvy. What’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right,” said state Sen. Donna Campbell, an emergency room doctor in New Braunfels, reflecting a state of uncertainty that is shared by Americans of many political backgrounds, even if they don’t agree on the causes. “Our country is on a trajectory to self-destruct, unless we change the direction.”
Campbell and other activists frequently spoke of their Christian faith.
“I believe that in the sovereignty of God, you and I were purposely born into this moment, into this confusing time that we face,“ Campbell said. “We’re meant to be alive, at this time, right now, and here in this state.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/manchin/
strategic use / weaponization of polarization // filibuster minority rule
kos
no lnx twt
Republicans delay everything in order to destroy Democratic agenda — with an assist from Manchin
Joan McCarter and Daily Kos June 19, 2022
Senate Republicans have been playing a transparent game for months now, using their willing tool of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to drag out negotiations on any number of issues to keep him away from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden. To prevent Democrats from moving any significant policies that can help the American people and give Democrats a win.
They’ve done it on voting rights and election reforms. They’ve done it on climate and energy. It’s just one tactic—and a very successful one—Republicans are using to keep the Democratic majority tied up and unable to accomplish anything.
Case in point: additional funding for the federal COVID-19 effort. Manchin’s good friend and frequent negotiating partner Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) all but killed it this week when he alleged that the Biden administration lied about the government’s ability to secure additional vaccines, treatments, and supplies. That’s because the White House recently announced it was taking money from other priorities to pay for the most pressing needs.
“Washington operates on a relationship of trust between the respective parties,” Romney said Thursday,. “I hope that there’s an appreciation that for the administration to say they could not purchase these things, and then after several months, divert some funds and then purchase them is unacceptable, and makes our ability to work together … very much shaken to the core.” The pearls are tightly clutched.
The White House, not surprisingly, has a different interpretation on how discussions have been going. “We’ve tried to meet Republicans on their requests, and they keep moving the goal posts,” one official told the Washington Post. Another, spokesperson Kevin Munoz, went on the record. “Going back to January, we’ve been working with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, on the funding needs for the covid response,” he said in a statement. “We’ve also been crystal clear about the consequences of a lack of funding … including the very real possibility that we would have to reevaluate the planned uses of existing funds.”
There’s one more potential win for the White House—not to mention all the people at risk of catching COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months—Republicans are cynically blocking. It’s nearly as egregious as what they’ve been doing on guns.
All of that puts this in a “we’ll believe when we sit it” mood. “Senate Democrats are preparing for possible summer action on their still-elusive climate, tax reform and prescription drugs bill, grinding behind the scenes on a new version during high-profile gun safety talks.” Because it’s Manchin, once again, that all this is hinging on and Republicans are on the verge of declaring that partisan Democrats have destroyed any hope of gun safety regulation with their unreasonable demands that guns be kept out of the hands of people who have been convicted of violence.
That sets up Manchin to declare that the Democrats have been horrible partisans and he just can’t continue to work with them. He’s used far flimsier excuses before, like the fact that the White House included his name in a statement about Build Back Better. That’s what blew up the whole package last December, supposedly. It likely wouldn’t take anything more for Manchin to do it again.
Republicans are counting on that.
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